xenologer

Neat little set. Ive always liked technic construction vehicles, and a minfig sized System one is nice. I dont really like the special piece they used for the bucket arm though, very hard to find. I'll have to use something else if I ever want to make one of these myself. The hinge is very nice, since its so rare to have vechicles in this size with any for of steering. I agree, this set is not a Bulldozer, I'd class this as a Front End Loader. While the large 'digger' with treads is an Excavator. and the tiny impulse set 'digger' is... probably not too accurate to anything, but would be appropriate as a mini Bulldozer I guess.... Since its not able to lift that bucket too far like a loader would...

Suppose hundreds of years after the fall of the M-Tron faction, someone pulls the chassis of a wrecked Particle Ionizer out of a space junkyard and rebuilds it? What might he end up with? Note, 3 engines instead of the original 2(one on top) Rear area where the crane and box were, converted into a small cargo hold. I'll admit, the colors are a bit... well hard to say if they're good or bad, but they feel perhaps a bit 'off'. Its not a Rainbow Warrior, but maybe there's 1 too many colors..? Basically I went through my old bricks, but not finding enough parts to fully restore a Particle Ionizer, I decided to got with the story above... make a 'salvaged' ship with the same shape but changes to colors and details...

... Actually, now that you point that out. The ones with holes are Clone Troopers, not Storm Troopers. I call em all the same thing tho... I guess they give a blank head underneath em all regardless because its cheaper than a printed face....

I actually dislike Exo Force Faces possibly more than the hair. The green hair at least can be used as a cabbage in a grocery. Prob is their faces are so... ugly and big compared to everyone else in town. They just don't match. For the same reason... I dont like the flesh tones, just don't look right alongside all the much more varied (in terms of available prints) yellows... Hmmh ah I know, Stormtrooper helmets. I hate em cause they have open eyeholes, which means to make the visors look black, we are forced to have faceless black stormtrooper heads. This is just dumb... oughta have the black eye section be on the helmet itself, so when you pull the helmet off theres a nice printed face underneath. Plus I don't actually like SW, so while I can dissasemble their uniforms to make astronauts... the heads still stick out like a sore thumb, just can't re-use em...

Wow! Thats.. a lot of stickers. Yeah, ... TLC needs to upgrade LDD to handle sticker sheets better. Only add a new sheet when the last one is empty instead of one per brick... Same goes for FlowerHead clusters on the sprue.

SkyOtic: at the top of your 'Brick Pallete' window in LDD are a few buttons. The 2nd one to the right that has a picture of a Lego box on it lets you 'Filter Bricks by Boxes'. Clicking on that lets you tell LDD to limit itself to only certain bricks, the first option is called 'Factory' and will stick to only ones you can buy.

Thanks for looking. The main reason one radar dish is red is because when I was building, one wing/thruster was black and the other white due to a parts shortage. (I have very few of those antenna/wing things) So going with the mismatched colors, I did the same with the dishes. I've gone and made a LDD version It's a bit different, but I think you get the same idea. One nice change is on this one, all of the thrusters can swivel now. Not just the wingtip ones... LDD link

Just a little space scooter. Meant to fit in right alongside the official ones of the time. Sometimes it's fun to try and build in classic style.

I really try not to pay attention to the official story and pretense, since its just silly. They're focusing on 6characters instead of a bigger picture cause its gives the kids some characters to identify with. If ya really want to think about it... I'd say that the 'evil robots' probably aren't so simplistic. Carefully reading of the background mentions they were all originally mining robots and laborers; and that at some point a single robot (mecha1) became intelligent and decided to win his freedom (they describe this as a malfunction in the human storyline's point of view). They kinda glossed over this sort of stuff in favor of the small scale character development tho... And your point earlier... of why the Robots don't simply attack all at once... well going with the idea that they're not just 'evil robots' I'd suspect they don't actually care to wipe the humans out, only to keep them from being too much a bother when they intrude. Most of the robots off-screen are probably going about doing normal robot life things other than war... Think of the MOCS... ?robot market street, robot movie theater, robot fire station? etc...

Nothing wrong with having the building be small, just have a long connecting tube that reaches to the edge of the 48*48 region, leave the rest of the space as... moonrover parking gotta have moonrovers Well I've been having the same sorta issue myself lately, since I normally make vehicles, and havent ever tried a building; having a tough time figuring out walls that look interesting...

I suppose I'll mention that the following two pieces have fairly consistent quality control issues: About half of the time it seems the top and bottom halves of their moulds are misaligned, which causes their rod cross section to end up sort of rough and eliptical, instead of rounded. This causes issues with actually clipping things onto them. I'll also voice a concern regarding this piece: It seems that in recent sets, non-transparent cones especially have been replaced with a new mould. Where now the cone is slightly less tapered to give a 'stopper' groove at the base of the stud. What worries me about this is, the new part seems to be Much Much more expensive if LDD is any indication (37cents each instead of about 10cents). EDIT, no they fixed it, thanks TLC On a personal note, the new grooved/fat cone causes problems with one of my 'design cliche's: the space thruster nozzle:

I think I saw this at a Lego Shop and glanced at it then decided it wasn't telling me anything new. I'm guessing if you already know the spacing for technic beams, and how to calculate 'almost' right triangles for brick stress, you probably don't need it.

The orange is a little high contrast to the old grey. Maybe scatter a few other orange details, perhaps trans-orange instead of trans-blue elements? to help even things out. Also I'm thinking, maybe one of those control screens could be relocated to the cockpit on top. And my preference would be to have both arms on the front of the vehicle, so its more of a 'worker mecha' instead of a old style construction vehicle.

Amazing! I even see a few Pippin Reed heads in there! And is that an Exploriens spaceman head in the back? Both Lego Stores to north and south of me have had Nothing but red Ferrari minifig parts in the build-your-own for months now!

The Large gear at the rear and the small one immediatly in front of it are meshing, which means they have opposite rotation directions. But both are also touching the chain, this will lock it up and prevent it from rolling....

Hmmmh, how about a concert with The Village People, you could have a cop, a fireman, a construction worker, sailor.... oh wait thats what we've been getting for Years lol I wouldn't mind seeing Minifig Scale Racers come back, but that would probably be a conflict with the current Racer's theme... Really though I'd feel a lot better paying 5$ for a 4-wide minifig racer than a Tiny Turbo, least itd have a minifig right? Ah! what about, Air Race? we haven't had any good small airplanes in a while, and this wouldn't conflict the the TT stuff. a few 10$USD propeller planes? a few sneaky features like the bad guy's plane can drop a net or grapplilng hook? This also potentially has similar opportunities as Space Port theme, but doesn't conflict so much with MM.

Not sure of how banks work in your country for 16yr olds, but is there any reason why you can't just open your own bank account where You control the pin number and all? Must be some way of recieving your job paycheck directly where you maintain control over it...ask the boss to give it direct instead of electronic deposits? Once you have it that way... well I guess paypal might still be an issue, but having control over the money at least lets you buy some stuff from ebay using money orders, right? just drop by the post office to get that done... lots of hoops to jump through but its something I guess Heck, or you could spy on your mom (keylogger?) and get your PIN number, then Change it....

Huh, did they not think of putting a technic axle down the center of the rocket? Come to think of it, when were technic axles invented.... Its a neat little set, makes me think I oughta make some similar kinda layout in LDD, very elegant for playability.

Thanks for pics. The Hawk, it seems to me, lacks a cockpit, theres not even a seat to keep the pilot from falling off. Perhaps it they'd redesigned it to be a backpack jetpack sort of unit using similar pieces, it'd at least make some sense? Based on the other MM impluses, Can we assume this goes for 3.5$USD? at that price it seems to me, that the Astro Fighter at 5$USD was already a superior impluse set. Guess I'd buy one on clearance, for the minifig.

Heh I thought this was going to be a Indiana Jones Holy Grail MOC from the title Tough call I'm sure many people will talk about wanting some rare Classic set. But I don't actually value sets for their rare collector value, as I always open em up and Build Stuff. I suppose I'd like to have Explorien Starship 6982, since it comes with good parts, and a clear head android. Hydronauts Search Sub 6180, for the green windscreens and control panels. and some random Paradisa set? for the Female minifigs?

Im either: A green baseplate or a really really old heli

Been wondering about this. Is that connection intentional? or is it just a coincidence that they happen to fit? Has this ever been used in an official design?

Okay, lets clear this up a bit, maybe some people will learn something.... So you bought a set from Ebay, and felt cheated that it was an old set with a bunch of missing bricks. So you had TLC replace them for you. Maybe you felt that this was OK to do since hey, you had just bought a new set and paid good money for it, you were 'victimized'. But it was Not TLC that cheated you, it was the ebay seller who sold you an old set with missing bricks. You should have taken up the problem via that person directly through ebay's feedback system. Frankly you should know better when buying from ebay, that some sellers aren't the most honest. Its your own responsibility to be smart when buying from there, and to resolve any problems yourself. Not have TLC pick up the bill. ohwell, sorry for being harsh... nothing personal, but hey maybe some people will have a better perspective from this

Thanks, That probably describes the function for SnapTrax. But eleswhere (online sample chapter of some spybotics hint book) they mention that the gripper on Technojaw (and on ShadowStrike) actually opens up when driving forward, then closes on its own when you stop moving. My big questions is, How they managed to do that. I suspect some kind of ratchet/clutch mechanism where the drive motors force the claws open but then slip so you can continue driving once fully open. But inventory shows no clutch gear pieces so its something else. Perhaps some very carefully balanced friction system? Whatever it is, its something clever.... I really want to know. EDIT Well, looking very intently at this guy's brickshelf photo; I'm going on the assumption: The drive wheels are mounted on a little pivoting armature, when being driven they cause this armature to pivot due to the momentum of the robot's body being 'left behind' by the accelerating wheels. This then gets transferred via the link arms to make the front gripper claws pull open. when not in motion gravity drops everything back into position I could be wrong, but thats the only thing that makes sense...

Hello Spybotics are a bit old and outdated but I am curious about a few points since it sounds like they may have used some interesting construction tricks. my understanding is, each one has two motors. Thus they attach left/right wheels onto each one to get skid steering. However, it would seem they also have special features like? grabbing claws for example? Take Technojaw 3809 for example, it has a gripper on the nose. So the question is, if there are only 2 motors, and they are being used by the drive train. Then what does that leave for activating the gripper claw? you can see in the picture, theres some kind of link arm connecting the nose with the claw to some hidden stuff near the wheels and motors. Someone did something clever, I'm really curious exactly how that works... Peeron and Lego Cache dont list instructions.... thanks