Lipko

Parts-wise I think the direction is good, it's almost like they are actually listening to AFOLs. Sets-wise, I don't know. I haven't bought sets since years, but from reviews I see some not very good tendencies. Like faulty/non-working out-of-the-box solutions, some dirty solutions (it's like they don't care about part-count optimizing any more and settle at okay-ish solutions, like beam stacking for example). But the quality is still very high, just not as high as it's used to be. Comparing with MOCs, it's pretty hard to judge since I cannot afford to build many NMOCs, and reviews tend to be very biased and "cautious". The one MOC I built and the others I looked deeper into were somewhat disappointing. The building quality (structure, playability, reliability and building experience) is only at the level of TLG set quality in case of only a few MOCs (okay, I'm not very active in the last few years).

Well, I don't fully agree with starting small. Small builds can be tricky, less revarding if it doesn't turn out as good as you hoped, so I'd suggest start with medium scale models. Easier to add functions that would be very-very tricky to include in a small model.

Maybe I misunderstood, but some things you say are not precise. "Clicking" comes from the fact that the material has some flexibility and theoretically perfect meshing is only possible under a cetrain torque/revolution, so the teeth may get in contact suddenly under different conditions. The helical profile is only there for eliminating the clicking (the noise and the vibration), otherwise it's more or less same as a spur gear (it's like palcing infinitely thin spur gears next to each other with an infinitely small accumulating angle difference). The radial and tangential component of the contant force is the same (the force components on the gear plane), so the necerssary radial bracing of the bearing is exatly the same! The same torque can only be transferred with the same forces on the gear plane (if the tooth have the same shape or "angle of action", the line you see on the animation). But with helical gears, you have to brace for axial forces too. To eliminate the extra axial load, double helical gears are often used. But again, from the bearing point of view: helical gears offer no advantage over spur gears apart from no vibration. But maybe I do misuderstood something, as you seem to imply that helical gears are something new, yet pretty much all georboxes use helical gears, only the first and sometimes the reverse gear is spur gear (hence the typical sound when you back the car), but it's due to the fact that those are switched with the gear sliding on the axle, not by cluthes. I guess the reason is their small diameter which couldn't house a clutch/synchron-grear.

Option three: incorporate the gap into the design, like in some recent hypercars.

Me-time at a proper computer is an unobtainable luxury for me.

Hi all, What application would you suggest for Technic design on a phone? I tried Mecabricks but it doesn't have all the newest parts and it's very inconvenient to use. Any suggestions welcome!

All these new parts make chassis building much simpler (less bulky connections make more space for mechanisms), and I like it, since I still have very little time to build.

I can't keep up with all the new structural parts. A new frame again

I'm not so sure about this. Apart from the most common parts (which means cheaper too), a collection can become obsolete pretty fast. And also many parts degrade over time (cracks on bush-like surfaces, pins getting stuck, half beam cross-hole cracks, etc.). I haven't built serious stuff since 3 years (and before that for a year), and there were so many changes since then that I would need serious investment to catch up with the latest state to be able to do MOCing. And quite some time to go through my inventory to sort out degraded parts.

I don't see fixing flawed sets as too educative. It's like learning to cook from following f.cked up recepies. Frustrating and dissappointing for a beginner, frustrating for a pro, and fun for a few crazy guys Not the best analogy, but your's with the Ugears isn't the best either. You don't have to modifiy the assembly, only to tweak stuff. With some Lego sets, you have to modify the assembly, lubricating and tweaking is not enough.

I agree with that. Because the quality of other themes' builds seem to pass Technic. I'm not a Starwars fan, but the AT-AT seems to be on a par with the best MOCs (any easily superior structure-wise). So it can be done. But for Technic, the overall quality is seemigly getting worse (I have to admit, I haven't bought a set since 3 years now, but I always look at reviews and speed-builds of the bigger sets): far-from-optional solutions to functions and structures, weak connections, faults (suspension sitting down, non-working transmission, etc). It's not normal when many of these faults can be fixed by random fans in mere hours, even with the exact same parts. I'm okay with the new parts by the way.

Looks like something you don't visit when the kids are home.

I love all the details but honestly, I'm not sold on the hull shaping. The official Titanic model showed how well the hull can be approximated with all those angled assemblies, and this makes me see the hulls you build a bit pixelated...

I use this all the time if applicable.

It would be good to see some pictures with lights on (and probably in a dark room)

I'll be honest. I just didn't expect this from you. While I think your mechanical skills are amazing and you're one of the few trial truck legends from before Lego was cool (and one of my inspirators to get into Lego), looks was not your strongest skill. But this model is gorgeous. I'm a little lost for words. Congratulations!

You could be a motorbike designer by profession. This one looks so good. I'd love to see a full, non-Lego version of the model too.

Looks awesome by far, though I'm a bit worried how the bodywork will fit there, the front chassis takes up quite a lot of space.

Maybe the same concept, but the steering wheel could slide sideways in a concept car. Left, mid, right. Steer-by-wire obviously.

Walker robots for heavy terrain. Nanorobots. Flying Lego.

I don't think I'll ever have a Lego room, but I can empathize with the building part. I'm in the middle of a slow but full renovation of our house+garden. I just finished grouting the toilet groud tiles before posting. This is one reason I can't do any Lego nowadays and it is kind of a necessity, because craftsmen in construction industry are ridicuolusly expensive and low quality in Hungary, so besides electric and pipework, I have to do everything. Now my wife and I are designing our hobby+home office corner in the livingroom, I think that will be my workplace + the carpet ot the ground.

You misunderstood. I only brough up that as an example that too many of us act like they must be knowing what they are doing, we just don't have the insight to understand their decisions and make no mistakes. It can be a good example too, of course, that they can change. Rising of clone brands is a game changer, hopefully Lego does know what it's doing.

Sarcastic and a bit tired of working. I like saying BS thins, just for making the bell icon shine. With that said, I would like to see some statistics how we are the "minority". Before Lego was cool (some time before The Lego Movie) I didn't meet anyone who knew a thing about Technic, even if they were somewhat into Lego. There were a few guys who did remember something from their childhoods, guys who pronounced it as Thechnix (facepalm). I was in an exibitions with my models, even Lego AFOL builders didn't really get this Technic thing. I was sampling that wrong? From the majority we became a tiny insignificant minority in just some years? Are we sure? The majority of this forum is by mere change mainly consist of this insignificant majority minority? Is the sunscriber count on the biggest Technic FB pages really represents the market, and not only shows that there are a wast number of people who are throwing out subcriptions like seeds? Or have we analyzing the market? In a world where Lego becomes a kind of investment (not only for a few chosen insider people, there are articles about how good investment Lego is in the biggest online news sites. I know a person who was never ever into Lego buying ALL the Porsche UCS sets he found in the biggest Lego shop. He spent thousands of Euros just for investment). That's why I am not that convinced that the cirrent policy is that good for long-term business in a world of heavy competition, because this FB-stats obsession and Lego-as-investment bubbles might pop one day. So convince me

Without the snarky tone: What @nerdsforprez says ("we should be glad that Lego isn't aiming at us but a much wider audience, so we can have all the parts for our MOCing operations for forever") is only valid in a world with no strong clone brand competitors. We have precedent of Lego copying a clone brand "invention": PLIFTARMs. So we are not in that world.

We are acting like at TLG managers are know-it-alls and they cannot make mistakes so every decision they make is perfectly valid business decisions. We haven't seen any big companies going bankrupt because of bad decisions, Lego never was near bankrupcy. So we, who have been into Lego since 20+ years should shut our mouths up and turn to clone brands if we don't like things, because Lego must be knowing that it's a good long-term business to please only casual and once-in-a-lifetime Lego buyers and to compensate the lack in quality with enourmous branding operations.