davee123

As stated above, many sources. A) Test molds. When LEGO is developing a new element, they do test runs (typically in red, if it's a solid-color ABS part) to make sure that the mold behaves as expected. These test parts then can make their way through employees and out to fans through various means. B) Test batches. Internal groups, like set designers, can get parts in non-standard colors for the purposes of making a sample product. I could be wrong, but I don't think these are typically done in standard production facilities. The runs are therefore much smaller, and not as high quality, but again make their way out to fans through employees. C) Internal part runs. Internal departments like LEGOLAND theme parks and model shops can order available parts in non-standard colors (although it's supposedly frowned upon for the model shop). So they'll order (let's say) a bunch of headlight bricks in Dark Tan, and can get a run of these done (maybe 50K or so parts? That's just a wild guess at a number). And again, the leftovers of these parts can make their way out of the parks and shops and into the hands of AFOLs. D) Special events. Some elements (usually unique printings) are made especially for a particular event, like a store opening, a LEGO gathering, or a promotion. Typically, these are standard elements, just with a different print-- they don't often use non-production elements for these, although I believe it's been known to happen. E) Forgery! Pretty rare to see this in my experience, but it happens. As stated, I would expect most fans just aren't interested in bothering to come up with instructions. Personally, it probably takes me twice as long (if not FAR longer) to make instructions as it does to make the MOC. So there's just no incentive to go making instructions for people who might want them, unless you're feeling really generous, or if you want them for some other reason. Some people ARE concerned about plagiarism, but I think they're usually less common. I don't think too many people are denying instructions for that purpose, but it's certainly possible that some are. DaveE

The setups that they show always seem to have 2 or more keys available to the players from the starting square, without going through any locked doors-- although there's nothing from stopping (say) 2 players from taking the 2 available keys, and then progressing through the doors when rolling a "Shield", leaving any remaining players out in the cold! I believe any time you defeat a monster, they're removed from the board and placed on your Hero Pack, regardless of how you defeat them. So, you can't battle the same monster twice, unless they defeated you the first time.... OR if someone resurrects a monster using the Scepter of Summoning, I guess. DaveE

It says: If that rule applied only to people who had keys, it could make it impossible for other players to win who didn't have keys. DaveE

Essentially, if pneumatic tubing is too small to look correct, you might want to try beefing it up with 1x1 round bricks. You can do that by taking a long piece of flex tubing, and putting it through the hollow stud holes of many 1x1 round bricks. The result won't be as smooth and bendy, but it'll have a larger diameter. If you're using pneumatic tubing, and STILL have it not bending well in extremes, you're probably talking about pretty tight turns (loops of 3-or-4 studs in diameter or so. I'd agree with Captain Green Hair-- use something like wire inside to help maintain the bend. Not sure I can think of a 100% LEGO solution if you want both that level of detail and accuracy. DaveE

Yeah, the ways I was thinking of would be: - Pneumatic tubing (it comes in blue) - Use round 1x1 bricks, and pass some flex tubing between them - Use round 2x2 plates (or bricks) and again, use flex tubing between (might be too big) - Use flex tubing! (it comes in blue, but not in terribly long lengths) DaveE

I'm unclear at what scale you mean-- you say "11 studs long", but you don't say what in particular is 11 studs long-- the length of the tube? The overall encompassing dimensions of the tube? Are you looking for the tube to be functional? What diameter are you looking for? Something plausible for minifig scale, or (considering it's only 11 studs) microscale perhaps? I can think of a few microscale possibilities pretty easily-- and some non-functional, quasi-plausible looking minifig-scale solutions. Anything functional that I can think of would be much larger, though. DaveE

I'd probably do a comparison of similarly generic toys like K'Nex, Playmobil, Brio, etc, rather than licensed toys which may be widely varied between countries, and often depend on the associated media (like TV shows, movies, etc). DaveE

What might be a better comparison is the cost of other toys-- foods and other products might be locally sourced and taxed differently, whereas toys would likely be a pretty good comparison. Is LEGO further out of line from other toys locally? DaveE

LEGO used to have a mosaic kit which used 5 different shades of grayscale. In BrickLink names, they were: White Very Light Gray Light Gray Dark Gray Black Those are the pre-color-change grays, however. The light grays got replaced with: Very Light Bluish Gray (1x1's not available) (AKA "Light Stone Grey") Light Bluish Gray (AKA "Medium Stone Grey") Dark Bluish Gray (AKA "Dark Stone Grey") The rough RGB values for those are on the Peeron "official LEGO color chart"... DaveE

Yeah, obviously ambiguous from the rules-- the Barbarian "must" move 1 square after defeating a monster, but the knight seemingly can move "up to 2", which, strictly speaking, would include moving 0 squares. And of course you've got the rule about moving "forward" when landing on another hero, despite the fact that "forward" might put you through a locked door OR might force you "backwards". Similarly, suppose the following scenario: 1 2 3 4 5 +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | |Lockd| | | | |Druid|Door | Bat | | | | | | | | | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ If the Druid rolls a Shield, he has the opportunity to move through the locked door, rather than moving "up to 4" in another direction. But he can't land on square #3, because there's a monster there. So... does he land on square #4 instead (I would think so)? But then he must immediately fight the monster-- so, supposing he loses the ensuing combat, does he "retreat" to square #5, or is he forced backwards through the locked door? Or, say, the following situation: 1 2 3 4 5 +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | |Lockd| |Lockd| | |Druid|Door |Thief|Door | | |w/key| | | | | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ If the Druid rolls a 1, he can use his key and go through the first locked door. But he can't land on the Thief-- so... does he automatically go through the second locked door and land on square #5? What if he *didn't* have a key, but instead had rolled a Shield? My own take is that the rules are intentionally vague so that kids can read them quickly and start playing right away without having to worry about funky exceptions like this. Also, given the intended flexibility of the rules, my guess is that there ISN'T an official take on what the rules are in any of those situations. Personally, we played it such that you could move any number (including 0) up to whatever you rolled. And although that allows you to "camp" outside of a door, thus blocking other players from doing the same, I would probably rule that any player adjacent to a second player that's adjacent to a door has the same opportunity to roll a Shield and pass through the door. Not sure if rules like that make a big difference in terms of how the AI's would work in a best-case scenario. But they certainly might. I had been more-or-less assuming that the best strategy was simply to charge ahead as quickly as possible, but it's possible that depending on your character class, health level, and other factors, that perhaps it's best to hang back and try to encourage your opponents to do the dirty work of fighting monsters and unlocking doors. DaveE

Yeah, that's definitely an interesting twist that I hadn't really thought to test-- as well as who goes first, and how to react with other players playing. I would guess offhand that it's best to stand back and let the other players do the fighting for you (except for the final boss). That way, you can be the first to *pass* their location (since they have to stop after combat), and you also get to get an extra square of movement if you land on top of them. Hmm... I can't imagine logically what reason the Wizard would have to win over the Knight, but if that's clearly the trend, there's probably a good reason lurking in there somewhere. What sort of AI is your Wizard using, out of curiosity? DaveE

I ran a sort of "generic" simulation-- essentially a straight pathway (so there's no locked doors, etc) with an average distribution of monsters of different strengths, roughly 8800 squares long, and saw how many moves it took for each character class to reach the end on average. I ran 20 simulations for each class, and I got averages of: 1) Knight: 6159.40 2) Barbarian: 6502.55 3) Wizard: 3-squares: 6504.60 4) Wizard: 4-squares: 6526.25 5) Wizard: 2-squares: 6580.55 6) Ranger: 3-squares: 6729.7 7) Ranger: 4-squares: 6731.4 8) Thief: 6755.25 9) Ranger: 2-squares: 6755.5 10) Ranger: 5-squares: 6758.55 11) Druid: 1-or-less: 6765.10 12) Druid: 2-or-less: 6832.45 13) Druid: 3-or-less: 7026.15 Each of those where there's multiples, that's different AI's that I tried. It's not comprehensive, but the idea was basically that the "3-square" wizard (or ranger), when rolling a Shield, would opt to attack an enemy *IF* there was one within 3 squares, but not if there was one 4 squares away. The Druid would opt to heal (when rolling a Shield) if they had N-or-less health. So, in my simulations, the Knight was far-and-away the best, and the Barbarian and Wizard were pretty close, with the Wizard just slightly behind. Could be that the Wizard is better with some different AI, but I'm not sure. The Ranger was similar-- not sure what the best AI is. The Thief is pretty much (as you stated) ineffectual winning-wise when it's a straight race-to-the-end. It's only more useful in terms of the tie-breaking gold that you win, or POSSIBLY the speed at which you can acquire OTHER powers by buying weapons. Druids, for whatever reason, seem like they're just not helpful. They reduce the chance that you're "defeated" (which can matter in a game where monsters are playing and they can win by defeating heroes), but otherwise essentially just heal you the same way that you'd heal after being defeated anyway. Of course, there's tons of other AI's that you can take into account, like your current health, the strength of the monster you're planning on fighting next, how far away they are, etc. There might be some better approaches that make each class improved, but I haven't really played with them... DaveE

Pretty much-- I'd qualify that with the fact that some Design ID/Color ID combination CAN be represented by more than one Element ID (AKA "Part Number"). So (for instance) 4612985 and 4613928 are two different Element ID's that both refer to the SAME Design ID and Color ID. The history goes something like this: 1) LDraw discovered the Design ID's of elements in the 1990's and decided to use them as Part Numbers. The LEGO company didn't communicate with the fans at the time, so the LDraw numbering scheme became "standard" among fans. Some parts didn't have known Design ID's, so LDraw invented them. I don't have a good example, but something like the "Ponytail" element, which got called "x104". 2) Peeron created an inventory system, and attempted to use LDraw numbers, so that the two systems would always line up. Of course, the admins at Peeron weren't the same folks that maintained LDraw (but there was a close relation), so some parts didn't line up correctly between the two systems, but were MOSTLY complete. 3) BrickLink created an inventory system, based on Peeron and LDraw's numbers. Again, the admins at BrickLink didn't really check with Peeron or LDraw when they needed to add a new part (they were on a much faster pace, since there were sales involved). So again, most numbers matched, but over the years, BrickLink's numbers have diverged a lot from Peeron and LDraw. 4) LEGO started to reveal their internal numbering systems, mostly with the Part Numbers/Element ID's being listed in instruction manuals (and sometimes Design ID's and Part Numbers being shown in their online tools). So there's been some action on the part of BrickLink (and to a lesser extent Peeron and LDraw) to retro-fit their systems to allow the cross-reference, and correct any non-matching numbers. Anyway, the way things stand, there's 4 different systems that SHOULD match, but don't: - LDraw Part ID's - Peeron Part ID's - BrickLink Part ID's - LEGO Design ID's And then there's also 4 different color systems that... sorta... line up: - LDraw Color ID's - Peeron Color ID's - BrickLink Color ID's - LEGO Color ID's Those are tricky, though, because in LDraw, let's say, things have a Color ID like "Black". But LEGO actually keeps track of that more particularly, with both a Color and a Material (like "rubber", or "ABS plastic", or "Polycarbonate"). And then there's the Part Numbers, where (fortunately), the other systems do NOT invent-- only LEGO mandates them. Crossref of color data exists (see the Peeron Color Chart), and the crossref from LEGO Part Numbers to Design ID's is ~sorta~ available via BrickLink (where known). But what I'm hoping for is a crossref for the Design ID numbers between the systems. DaveE

Is anyone out there aware of any cross-reference between element ID's in Peeron and BrickLink? For example, in BrickLink, you've got part ID "4342", which is the french bread loaf. But in Peeron, it's "x395". I've got a very short list (a few dozen) that I've compiled of these, but I was wondering if anyone has anything more comprehensive? While I'm at it, is there any cross-reference done between LEGO Design ID's and BrickLink and/or Peeron IDs? In the example above, I assume that "4342" *matches* the LEGO Design ID (both BL and Peeron always intended for that to be the case, whenever possible). But then we've got elements like the camel from Prince Of Persia, where the BrickLink ID is "camel", and the Peeron ID is "x2001", neither of which are the Design ID (which I don't know). DaveE

That's not too bad, but I'd think all characters would elect to roll that die when not engaged in combat-- Its average distance is further, and increases the chance that you'll roll a special (and most characters' specials are long-range) Doesn't that mean there's no chance to lose a combat? I'd think you'd want at least one of them to be a 2/skull so that there's a chance of failure. For the record, the Barbarian is actually the 2nd best character statistically-- Only the Knight is slightly more likely to win! DaveE

Not to nitpick, but I don't think the dates are quite accurate. The first minifigs with pupils in the eyes appeared in 1996, and appeared here and there up until 2003 when nearly EVERY minifig had pupils in their eyes. Nearly EVERY head until 1995 could have started as a classic smiley, and then had extra printing added to it (except for a few with red lips or glasses). The iconic look of the torsos (all imperfections and minor details glossed over) is trickier to pinpoint a beginning and end of, I think. I might name 1996 as the starting point, with the first appearance of actual imperfections printed in the implied "cloth" of the minifigs in the Wild West lineup. Hard to say when the last of the "iconic" torsos vanished, but certainly by 2001-2003 or so, nearly all the torsos produced have been more realistic. BTW, a nice place to get a feel for the shift is BrickLink's advanced search. Just look at (for example) minifig heads in a given year (the year being the year they were released-- they may be produced for more years afterwards) DaveE

FWIW, I think it used to be a LOT more pronounced. Back in, say, 1999-2002 or so, castle fans were inspired to effectively illustrate very serious attempts at story-writing with LEGO images. Probably the best known being Anthony Sava's Ikros (mostly because it was actually completed, and had a large scope). At the time, I found myself wanting to do the same thing (I think there's a general tendency towards this in young-adults-- by which I mean teenage up through the early 20's). However, I quickly learned that building and photographing a detailed MOC is ludicrously difficult. Hence, illustrating a full story is even harder, because you have to create each and every scene, no matter how inconsequential (if you don't, you frequently bore your audience). Effectively, if you want to do something well, it takes a LOT of effort. Most people aren't willing to take that effort. So if they want to tell a story, they'll often skimp on photography, level of MOC detail, good HTML formatting, or ... something. Often many of them. And meanwhile, the people who primarily want to make a high-quality MOC aren't terribly inclined to spend much time writing a great story. They'll often try to tell the story within the images of the MOC, "caught in the act" of whatever story is playing out. Also, there are some builders and some story tellers who are simply not skilled at both. You might be a fantastic MOC builder, but not a very good writer-- so you may be less inclined to show an A+ MOC alongside a C- story. Or, visa versa, of course. In the end, I agree it'd be great to have both, but I think it's unlikely that we'll see it happen much. I'd encourage you to be happy with the positive things in the existing MOCs and stories. DaveE

Because not every element made of PC plastic when attached to any other element made of PC plastic is so tight that it's unusable? But certain combinations are more likely to be a problem, in particular where there's full contact on all sides of a circle, like a 1x1 round with a hollow stud placed over an antenna. I would guess that the arm-to-body, arm-to-hand, body-to-head, and hip-to-leg connections are the ones that would be problematic if made with PC plastic in minifigs. DaveE

Someone I know has this minifig in clear: And I've seen another in... I think trans-neon-green-- but they're prototype molds made by LEGO. Nothing that's actually been for sale. I think some of the issue is that (according to Jamie Berard), the transparent bricks are made from polycarbonate plastic (PC) rather than ABS. And that's fine most of the time, when you've got opaque ABS and transparent PC, it works just fine. ... But when PC and PC parts get next to each other, they bond VERY TIGHTLY. So tightly that in some cases, they may break. Hence, if they make minifigs out of PC plastic, the joints may not work very well. They may bind up, break, or be very brittle. But that's just a guess on my part-- I haven't actually heard that from anyone regarding minifigs per se-- just regarding other construction limitations regarding PC elements. DaveE

I guess I'm not overly concerned? I seem to recall that back in the late 1930's, there were a bunch of people playing around with plastic and rubber toys (it was a new material for manufacturing at the time), and there were several designs similar to LEGO. And Kiddicraft bricks weren't really produced for sale until after the war, when the materials started to become available (1947 I think?). My understanding of the story is that when LEGO purchased their injection molding machine in 1947, they also received samples of OTHER toys that were being made using the same technology, as inspiration and proof-of-concept. However, Kiddicraft bricks weren't patented in Denmark, so LEGO (being primarily, if not solely, a Danish company at the time), made their own molds that were very similar, and sold them, starting in 1949. By 1958, LEGO came up with their own system (actually, several systems) that were better than the Kiddicraft system, and patented those in several markets. The only question legally is whether or not LEGO actually sold its automatic-binding-brick product somewhere where the Kiddicraft patent was still valid between 1949-1958. Offhand, I don't recall when LEGO expanded sales to England, and I'm not sure if Kiddicraft was patented elsewhere. LEGO purchased the residual rights sometime later, but I'm not really even sure if it needed to. From 1958 onward, I think LEGO was sufficiently different from Kiddicraft to hold its own in court-- except for perhaps the same thing that LEGO still tries to sue MegaBloks for, which is basically similarity to their "trademark" of a 2x4 brick. Other than that... so what? That's basically the way that human inspiration works. Someone comes up with an idea, and other people get inspired by it, and try to improve on it. LEGO did the best job with the "plastic construction toy" idea, and have built up a huge business based on it. Good for them. Mega Bloks, Loc-Blocks, Kre-O, Best Lock, K'Nex blocks, etc have all had similar products, and that's fine too. DaveE

I'm not terribly interested in the business model-- that depends on how many orders they're getting, how much staff they have, whether or not they have to order more supplies, etc. Mostly, I'm interested in the process itself. Now, that part's interesting-- it means there's a good chance that they can't just print using the file you provide them-- that it needs some tweaking or something to convert it into a format they can use. Maybe something like the path that the plastic injector uses to fill plastic or something? Anyway, that means there's probably some human element in there to analyze the quality of the output, and some manual tweaking of a data file for printing. But the other thing I'm curious about is how long it actually takes to print a single element-- say, minifig gun sized. 3 minutes? 45 minutes? I have no idea. DaveE

Does anyone know the cost model for 3D printing? I assume the cost would be based on the amount of plastic used and the time it actually takes to print the element. So, small elements would likely be more worthwhile. Is that about on par, or is there something else missing? Anyone have any idea how long it takes to produce, say, a minifig-sized gun or something, using 3D printing? DaveE

Hmm. I think you may be posting in the wrong forum, then! DaveE

Yeah, that's similar to what I was thinking if it's a vending machine-- if they're in pre-packed baggies, it makes the machine's job easier. I was thinking the reverse, though-- retracting the axle so that the first one falls off (same difference, really). I might even suggest interspersing 1xN technic beams (or otherwise) in between baggies during packing in order to guarantee that only 1 gets dropped at a time (otherwise, friction with the axle might cause them to bunch up and drop multiples). Yeah, I would agree, although I'd place the cost even higher, depending of course on what you've already got handy. If you've already got 100,000 spare bricks lying around, plus enough technic parts to manage it, you could do it for relatively cheap. But you'd be using up a LOT of elements. ... Except, it sounds like he's NOT actually looking to make a vending machine. He's looking to do an automatic parts-picker for BrickLink sellers. So on the plus side, it doesn't have to accept money or have an overly intuitive interface. And it doesn't need protective sidewalls or a "clear" front for prospective buyers. However, the scope becomes pretty outlandish at that point. It goes from maybe 50-100 different elements to something like 1000+ elements. Many of the big BrickLink stores have something like 2000+ different parts. At that point, something constructed vertically out of LEGO becomes nightmarish cost-wise. I think you'd be better off to build it out of 2"x4"s and plywood and have a few LEGO mechanisms rather than build it entirely out of LEGO bricks. The upshot would be that you could (in theory) pretty easily hook it into a BrickLink order system, if controlled via an external machine (laptop, desktop, or otherwise). With those interfaces, you could automatically sign into BrickLink, look up the order number, and parse out the necessary element list and quantity. Then, translate the part number/color combos to locations/bin numbers/whatever, and send that list to the NXT(s) needed to control the picking system. So-- that part's pretty feasible. Anyway, good luck! Sounds like it would be a monster of a project! DaveE

You mean dispensing an entire Ziploc bag with a single element inside it? Like, a baggie with a single 1x4 tile in it or something? Is the idea to make a LEGO vending machine that you could set up at an event, and let people purchase from? DaveE