skayen

yes. 350 AUD is ~= $350 USD. I am seriously annoyed by that. I placed an order with S@H in USA for delivery to a freight forwarding service--but S@H eventually cancelled my order. Coupled wiht the fact that Lego prohibit Amazon from shipping to Australia is really *&@*# me off. Yes, LEgo isn;'t a charity, but when they're going to that lengths to insulate the australian consumers from the worldwide marketplace, it suggests that the increase in price is NOT just to cover the increased costs of doing business in Australia. Clearly Lego make much more profit (ie. not just revenue) from their price structure. I remain an unhappy camper.

Reply from TLG, in part: Apparently shipping to a freight forwarding company (actually, shipito) is a problem, but if I give a residential address then it's fine---even though I'm still paying wiht an Australian credit card. Honestly, that's a non-answer. If you're happy to accept money from an Australian credit card albeit shipping to a residential address in USA, then it should be no different from doing the same but shipping to a commerical proxy which specialises in redirecting mail---/espcially/ if I write to TLG offering to provide images of my credit card and Australian residential address. I am actually pretty angry about TLGs insistence on keeping the Australian market insular from the rest of the world. If they're incapable of doing business in Australia while keeping costs reasonable, then they should step back and let us import lego ourselves rather than actively stopping us. Stopping us is a tacit acknowledgement that they cannot or do not want to price lego in australia at similar price points as the USA and elsewhere.

A follow up from Amazon (who I also queried about why they refuse to ship most lego ships to me) confirms that Lego is also restricting trade to control market prices. Nice work, lego.

Hi, I am venting annoyance @ Lego Inc. The price of 10227 in Australia is $350 AUD, which is roughly $356 USD. Naturally, I jumped on the 4th of May Star Wars sale to pick up the B-Wing at $99, shipping to a freight forwarder somewhere in USA. Even with the exorbant shipping costs from USA to Australia (approx $80 USD!!), it'd work out to be about 50% off the price here.... ... except Lego saw what I did and has cancelled my order, siting 'privacy concerns': I remain unconvinced and unimpressed. There's a process for dealing with credit card fraud, both legal and through the credit card vendor, and neither of them involve vendors refusing sale. It'd be fine if Lego's price in Australia was commenserate with the price in USA, but it's not. It'd even be tolerable if they accepted their /own/ argument that the cost of doing business in Australia is so high that they can't reduce their margins and then step back and let third parties succeed in delivering products here where Lego fails---but they're now blocking that avenue, too, obsensibly to 'protect consumer privacy', but really to enforce regional pricing. Well done, Lego. Nice way to foster good will among your customers. John

Hi, yes, I was on leave of absence from my project. I haven't given up on it, I was just getting sufficiently annoyed that I had to stop for awhile ;-) I do have some non-lDD modelling s/w but never really got into them, but I think you're right that I should try them out to see if they're better at sorting out the kinds of problems I was having. I'll also post some screenshots of the angle plate arrangements to illustrate why I chose to angle them the way I did, too. cheers, John

heh, thanks, but I haven't completely abandoned it---I just needed to take a break from it for awhile. I had been working on it on/off for several months and I just needed to do something else for a long while. I'll resume it sometime soon :-) cheers John

Hi, well, the current news is that I've broken my model :-/ "But," you think, "that is impossible if it's only virtual!". Sadly, no :P I think most of the problem is that the way I go about building my model is completely not how LDD designers intended, and it's causing... problems. Previously I had my hull plates attached by two anchors (one for either side), but the left hull were removed in the process of adding the undercity engine, and so they ended up just floating in space. When I finally got around to adding in the hinges to support them, LDD kept refusing to snap them into place, presumably because they're out by 10^-3 brick units, or something ridiculous, and LDD just refuses to anchor them and play with the hinges after the fact. So, in order to debug the fitting (ie. find out which part of the model is conflicting with the hull), I had to partially disassemble the hull and add it back in piece at a time. But... another problem with how I attach the plates means that it's tedious/frustrating to find the right angle. See, 10221 (and your model, and presumably others) anchors the plates along the diagonal edge of the ship and attach them to the long right angle edge (ie. not the hypotenuse) of the wedges, Just to be different, and for other aesthetic reasons, I figured it'd be easier to get the centre seam to be nice and straight if the wedge plates were angled so their hypotenuse aligned with the outer edge of the hull, not in the centre. To accommodate this, I need two degrees of freedom (and possibly 3) in my way. And apart from the RHS which somehow LDD seems more happy with, it's nto working all that well. So, it's partially disassembled and lying in a hideous multicoloured broken state :( I am incredibly impressed, Bob De Quatre, with the speed and ease you built your model. =) Mine has taken a lot, lot longer and it's no where near finished =( cheers John

that is true, but I think the key insight is that the axles should be rotated until they form the x as shown /before/ the gears are meshed in place. If the OP's axels don't form an X like in the diagram, then partially dismantle the gearing so you can spin the axles independently, and refit the gearing in that position! hope this helps. good luck! cheers John

The 10221 was $770 AUD in Australia, though I think its price has come down somewhat since then. That's 480 Euros, or ~770 USD. In.Sane. I imported my copy from USA at some ungodly insane shipping cost (but 12.5% off at Amazon:D). The Imperial Shuttle goes for ~$450 AUD, too. Seriously, Lego... I'd buy more stuff if I didn't have to keep paying insane costs to ship a mostly empty box from Europe/America to me (and have it STILL work out to be cheaper than buying it locally). Although 10221 has a number of issues, at least it's not set in stone :-) You can buy it for the base and modify it until you're happy with it! cheers John Hi, that's cool, but what about the 10221's city do you prefer? Things I don't like about the city include the mixture of dark/light grey bricks and that the structure behind the buildings is largely lost. I reckon the SSD has very clear trenches between buildings, e.g. and doesn't really have a lot of "upwards facing" greebles, like the plethora of clips that the 10221 uses to add detail, which is largely why I kept the tops of my buildings flat. If you could tell me what you like about the 10221 over my model, it'd help me re-evaluate what I've done, so I appreciate your feedback! cheers, John

yep, I see that you are using the same wheel hubs that I was considering, before I opted for the sleek aerodynamic goodness of turbines :-) The engine assembly on the model /is/ properly cylndrical (albeit with a varying radius); all the 'detail' is saved for the support around it. In related news, I would recommend cylinders rather than cones for the smaller engine :-) heh ;-)

heh, well, in my model the big engine uses 60208 for the end and 41531 for the body, and the small engine uses 30360. The LGR 10221 uses 30360 for the big engine and 2x2 cylinder pieces for the small engine. I upgraded my engines because I want my Executer to travel faster (which also explains why I will assemble it in red, too;-), but mainly because my version is wider. You should check out how your arrangment sits in its gap in the hull. While you can get away with almost anything with the other engines that 'hang off' the engine bay, the forward engines have to fit in the gap, but also fill it out. The bottom plates on my hull underwent many, many adjustments until I was happy with the arrangement :-) Edit: I noticed that your engines aren't all the same, which is interesting. I use two types depending on size (ie. the forward layout is ABA, the middle layout is BA and the rear layout is BBB). I think your more detailed look is kinda cool btw, but mine are just cylinders ;-) Edit2: depending on how much you care, but check how you stagger your engines. I think your forward engines should move outwards a little more. The middle engines overlap the inner front engine, and strictly speaking (although I don't do this myself), the rear engines are wider spaced than the front and middle, but I can see you've got that under control. Just more things to consider :-) Edit3: and here is a shot of my engine arrangement. It looks crazy because my SSD is in for servicing, and I colour things to make my life easier. (I am currently rebuilding the top missing plate.) Also, this is my new tail version 3! Slightly thinner, slightly shorter! Now with no added sugar! cheers John

I am sure it's "approved" by Lucas Inc, and by definition it becomes canon once it's approved. But the same people who give their seal of approval to any number of starwars related inventions are also the ones who approved midichlorians, obiwan meeting anakin when he was a boy (yet, is "already a great pilot"), c3po being built by anakin, &c... So, if they'll approve that, then they approve all manner of sillyness. Three winged Tie Fighters? <rubberstamp> An Elcipse-classed SSD that is designed to ram ships? (Because that's... sensible...?!) <rubberstamp> Yoda: "the last of the jedi you will be." random other writers in books: "hey, wait a second... oh, and btw, jedi powers are from a parasite...". :) &c. It's a pity, but polluting the universe pretty much ruins a lot of things for me by association. But I guess I'm just weird like that IMHO, Star Wars jumped the shark coincidentally after ROTJ and before all these other crazy Super Star Destroyer classed ships were invented :) But each to their own, and if people enjoy expanded universe, then good luck to them. =)

y-e-s... but then it seems like anyone can invent something sci-fi, pay the license fee to Lucas, and suddenly it becomes acceptable to badge it as StarWars and pay the StarWars tax. It's how Lego is justifying the high prices for things like the Sith infiltrator mumble. I am sure it's possible for me to write a StarWars novel which features the Death Star 3 as a huge grey cube of death, pay the required license fee to Lucas Inc, and then somestage later Lego will release a 20x20 stud cube of grey blocks for the low-low price of $99.95 USD (higher in Australia, of course). The fact it's become such a cash-cow cheapens it somewhat for me; or, perhaps, I think the mess that's been done to the prequel has ruined the magic of the OT. For me, at least. I did read some of the books, but they sufficiently annoyed me so I stopped. For example, Luke has an apprentice in one of his books and he says to him, "you can go into this cave. Look, it's full of the Dark Side and you can choose to take your weapons if you want, but it's up to you!" and the guy thinks "well, i better take them just in case.. better be safe than sorry!" and it came across as really poorly written. Luke takes his weapons on Dagobah because he's /afraid/; it's his FEAR that he takes with him into the cave, not his weapons, that matters. The weapons are just a clue to us, the audience, and it was really clumsily played in the book where the writer is able to tell us what characters are feeling. To my mind, it falls under the umbrella of out-sourcing the mythology just to rebadge some sci-fi ideas into a marketing ploy. Anyway, that's beside the point :) /Some/ of the ships in the PT and expanded universe do look cool, but most of them do not. IMO, of course. cheers John

in the expanded universe, yes... but I am somewhat cynical about the Lucas-selling-out-licenses-so-random-people-can-inevent-stuff :P "you want to write a book abotu starwars? certainly, my licensing fee is $x and you can make whatever random stupidness you desire!" =) But, then, I dislike stuff from the prequel trilogy too...

heh heh, you have to be quick ;-) At least we said essentially the same thing about the tail, though ;-) cheers, John

Bonjour! heh, it is entertaining to see another SSD fan :-) I wish you luck in your construction! Some thoughts on angles/sizes, for your consideration as you're planning your SSD - you've noticed that the city expands at a slower rate to the wings and have implemented that with plate-offsets . I also tried that and was experimenting with using the rail pieces to get quick-and-dirty half-plate offsets. - with polite respect, I think your tail starts too close to the wing tips. If you look at the top-view of the SSD, compare the point of intersection with the tailing edge of the body and the city line, and where the tail begins. Perhaps you could consider making your tail slightly thinner---but this will also shorten your tail somewhat, and there's still an ongoing debate with Aeroza and Morstesv about the correct length - I think the angle that joins the tail and the wings should be 45o! However, these suggestions may not be tractable on a narrow-body SSD. I use the 2x4 wedge plates for a wider body, and so what I think looks good on mine may not work with the 3x13 plates! May the Force be with you and your MOC, and keep us posted on your progress! cheers John

Hello, Heh, thanks , but yours has the advantage that it actually exists In Real Life. Mine is still struggling with that because I haven't really nailed the internal hinging that holds the hull together properly. (It's partly there, but working with that in LDD where you can modify only one hinge at a time is earth-shatteringly painful.) You say that your model is chubby, but it really doesn't look it. Your side may well be steeper than you may like, but it still looks great. Your new ISD looks cool, and I also like DFOL's solution, too. cheers John

Hello, heh, I was showing someone the test renders at Uni and he was... well, I think he politely made the suggestion that I had OCD :-) Actually, continually modifying the model is certainly holding me up (that and fighting with LDD...), but I figured that I've come this far, I may as well at least see what it looks like: otherwise doubt will plague me =) I too came out of Lego hibernation around about the time of the 10221, (I actually bought several technic sets and the Shuttle prior, but missed out on a number of UCS sets that I would have liked to had...) and I think the Executor is one of my favourite ships: I like it more than the ISD, I think :-) To be honest, the issue with the width only became apparent to me when I looked into models of the Executer for researching my MOC---but the flat bottom and short tail were glaringly obvious to me =/ The advantage of the 10221, though, is that it has a removable bridge to store all the minifigs that it comes with. Sadly, my MOC doesn't have that feature oh? what's wrong with my top side? That it's too smooth? yes, I agree ;-) at least I can know that I'm wrong, rather than continually second guessing myself that sequence sounds pretty close to ideal, really. It's game-over if the focal length changes, but it's ok if the ship isn't in view for the entire sequence. If you (or someone) could rip that sequence and make it available, I could try camera tracking and reconstructing as much of it as I can---at the very least it'd be a set of 3D points, but I think I can come up with something more than that---and then we can render the extracted "true" 3D model in whatever orthographic views we need ;-) cheers, John

Hi, heh, I loved that game. Nice MOC! cheers John

Hi your model is incredible. For a moment, I didn't thnk it was lego at all, really... cheers John

Hello! I really like your model. I am impressed with the number of functions that you've managed to pack into a very neat, well constructed design. Nice work! cheers John

Hi, that is incredible. It is a nice model in both 'bot and car mode, and the fact it transforms without resorting to breaking bricks/reassembling (<cough> Kre-o <cough>) is very impressive. Nice work. cheers John

Guten Tag! I really like your MOC; it's quirky and charming. Two questions for you, though: firstly, how do you support the model so it doesn't topple over? It looks like it's balancing on a 1x1 block...!! And, secondly, if this is your /second/ steampunk MOC, then where is your first? :-) Edit: perhaps you could take a photograph of your lighthouse from a slightly different angle. I think you have some fire in the middle of the structure which is being hidden by one of the beams. If you angled the camera around slightly so you could see the fire, I think it'd really frame your creation in the best possible light (so to speak=)! cheers, John

Hello, since my last post, I came to the conclusion that Aeroeza and Mortesv were correct that the tail of my SSD was too long, so I bit the bullet and I set about correcting it. The overall length has been reduced by 7 studs, and the rear engine moved forward by two studs. I took some quick and dirty side shots in LDD to compare against the draft model and it was quite a bit better (or "closer", I think:-) to the draft from Aeroeza. The result, replete with weird colours and sans top-plating, can be seen next to the Korbanth model here: again, I've rescaled the image so the distance from the tip to the widest part of the wings is the same. Unfortunately, I don't like the new model. To my mind, it looks ~ok~ in the top image there, but from other views I think the new tail looks too unwieldy---even inelegant. I think part of the problem is that the angle from the wings to the tip of the tail is too steep on my model, and it's really a problem with the /aspect ratio/ of the tail than the overall length. At least, that's part of the reason, I think. The tail on Pellaeon's outstanding model is closer to what I think it should be. The leading outer edges of the tail are almost parallel to the ship's spine, giving the tail a long, sleek (and menacing!) appearance. I've used the 3x13 wedge plates along the outer edge, but the gradient is too steep and, accordingly, the tail is quite wide by the time it's reached the wings of the ship. Clipping the tail means the aspect ratio (the ratio of the width of the tail to its length) isn't as elongated, which I think breaks the overall appearance. I considered three techniques to fix this. The first was to change the angle from the wing tip to the tail to make it more orthogonal to the ship's spine, which would lengthen the tail slightly without changing the overall length of the ship---but I didn't like the look of this, and, I think the more swept angle in the current version is more accurate. (You can see the effect of a steeper wing-to-tail angle on Aryo Gono's MOC here). I also considered making the plating along the tail thinner by shifting the outer wedges towards the spine by a couple of studs. Unfortunately, this gave the tail a somewhat anemic look because I couldn't change the interior edge that connects the hull to the city without resorting to series of stepped flat plates. I also briefly considered using hinges to swing in the tail at whatever angle I thouht was appropriate, but that would either have obvious gaps in the top plating (like some SSD MOCs) which I could tile over, but not completely (because the joining studs would be at an angle, too...) Anio also separated the plates between the tail and his body. (later: actually, I'm reconsidering moving the outer tail edge towards the spine. I'll come up wiht a version that this the tail by one/two studs and shortens the length by a little and see what happens.) I think, ultimately, it is a battle between many different aspects of building with lego: while some /lengths/ may be accurate, the /angles/ they form might not, and the effect may well appear worse than a balance between errors in both angles and length. In this case, it is many subtle problems with my implementation: the ship is possibly a little too wide, the tail a little too thick, and so on, that I think that, on balance, the tail needs to be longer. But, you're right, Aeroza: there's a lot of doubt, and confusion when I compare many many different instances of SSD resin models like the Korbanth, above, and others---all of which have a clear view of the entire length of the model and appear to have longer tails. In the end, I decided that I preferred the overall look of the longer tail, but I figured it was worthwhile experimenting with the look of the shorter tail just in case it was all kinds of awesome ;-) I've tried to pull better 3D information out of the photographs of the real model. The irony is that I actually work in computer vision (essentially, quicker and dirtier photogrammetry!) and extract 3D from images, but with a lot more constraints about focal length and right angles and so on ;) To this end, I've tried triangulating feature points on the photographs to get a point cloud, but automated methods don't work on this image sequence. I ~could~ resort to manual tracking, and did try that for two views of the top hull, but it drove me to tears---the guy who took those photographs wasn't all that concerned with keeping corresponding points in view across different images ;-D You mentioned somehting about a render from ILM on the StarWars BluRay, and I can see that Mortesv has posted a picture. Can you tell me more about this sequence? Is it, by any chance, an animation of the SSD moving about---perhaps on a turn-table or something? Because if it is, then perhaps you could try ripping the video of that sequence and using a camera tracker to generate a 3D point cloud. I have access to Boujou, too (and others...), but you could also try PhotoSynth and PhotoTourism/Bundler and PMVS to make 3D models from nicely conditioned sequences... Unfortunately, I don't have the BluRay because I am sufficiently annoyed by the persistent meddling with the original movies =/ Also, thanks for your kind gesture to donate bricks, hah :-) I do plan on building the model when I /finally/ finish working on it (and making 3D instructions (*)), and plan on hitting up Bricklink for the pieces. I already own 10221 which I plan to cannabalise to feed my MOC, so I shouldn't need too many more pieces, I hope ;D The only problem is getting lots of desperate shops to economically ship to Australia. (*) which leads me to another question which I'll need to post sometime shortly. Namely: WTH do you do that, given that the automated instructions out of LDD leave a lot to be desired... cheers John