xenologer

Thanks for the suggestion. Tho all my MOCs are meant for purchase, so Ill just go thru em and edit out old bricks. Another Troubleing question for Ambassador? Is this a mistake? a black 1*1*1 cone costs .37cents, while the transblue/yellow/green/etc ones cost .10cents?? I know transparent plastic often costs more, but here the situation seems drastically reversed. This just has to be a mistake in the pricing. (I hope, since I sure do love using those black cones as attitude thrusters) (maybe a conspiracy against me....) Thats strange, when I go to PaB to verify these prices... black doesnt seem to be among the various colored cones at all... Definetly a conspiracy.

Going along with the new LDD brickset update. I've updated my Classic Space Fighter to use the new parts. Now with a nice smooth windshield (tho really I thought the old one was perfectly fine as well, you can get away with flat windscreen in a CS context) Also some better color on various areas. Pilot has an actual control panel now (wait a sec, theres a pilot now too! ) Smoother profile due to those curved bricks. All the old features remain of course. Really I didnt have to change much to update it, since I'd always planned it on being updatable to a bigger windscreen in initial design. LDD Link

Yep just a few mins ago LDD started giving me errors while checking the price on a model I was working on. I restarted it and found it immediatly downloaded the new Bricks for Star Justice and Space Skulls. Cool new parts. I am finding though, that Most of my old MOCs won't upload anymore, since some of the old bricks have been removed from the new pallete. If I carefully search thru them and delete offending bricks, they upload again. But it would have Really Been Nice, if LDD could mark them or autoremove them for me. Its very tedious to figure out just which tiny brick in a model is the 'bad' one... N/m, protip: to figure out which brick is bad, drag-delete half your model and see if the update button activates, ifnot then undo and try drag-deleting the other half, etc. keep deleting by sections till you find the specific brick then undo to put back the good ones. Okay, I played with it for 5mins and see another big problem. The new Sticker Sheets. From talking with the Ambassadors we know that when using a brick that has a sticker pattern, you'll end up recieving a whole sticker sheet with your model. Fine Issue though, based on the way the Check Price is acting, Each and Every stickered piece you add to the model, counts as a whole new Sticker Sheet, even if a single sheet would contain the sticker for both parts at the same time. Ambassador Comment Please? OMG! I just realized they removed the FEMALE minifig head in the update! ...well, at least we get spacemen, ...lonely lonely spaceMen...

Basically when the first Star Justice pics got leaked I wanted that little scout ship, So I made my own based on guesswork. Here I've revisted it, making a few changes, shorter nose (it looked too long to me), etc Ended up in Skull colors, hence this is now a Skull Infiltrator scoutship; built from a captured SJ chassis and used to sneak behind enemy lines undetected. (till they get a close look at least :skull: ) LDD link ver2 EDIT: LDD bricks updated, redid some construction to take advantage. briefly became cheaper, then price back up now that there's a pilot. Wins.

Cool update I've gone and ordered it. Check out the Real Bricks version: I was surprised at just how Heavy it was when assembled. It's very solid, all the bizzare construction in the rear to get the wing angles not only works in reality, its also very strong. One minus with that stuff though, is LDD was very confused when it came to drawing the instructions for this; its a bit of a puzzle to get all that interlocking stuff together in the right order. I'm very happy with the ship. Swoosh. Anyhows, based on my experience with the real version, I did decide to make a few changes, notably strengthening and adding detail to the lower wings. EDIT, updated model to work with new SJ bricks, added a Skull Pilot Heres the latest LDD file.

In a way this is a good thing. We can compare the bricks in PaB (new pallet) versus the ones in LDD (old pallet) and while its obvious that many new bricks will arrive, some of the old ones are going to dissapear. Theres a few that I'll miss, so now before LDD updates is a great time to make 'part pack' LDD models of those dissapearing bricks and order them last minute. Notably, Im going to miss: 2*2 double sloped corner roof brick in White(Rare color for this brick) 1*4*1 SNOT brick with 4 knobs in Blue or White Airplane side windows in White, or in the 4stud long version. (probably the most important one thats dissapearing) Any other suggestions for stuff to grab last minute?

Relating to your observation. The last week or so on the LDD Factory gallery there's been a message about updated brick pallete for LDD. Well today the message changed from 'coming soon' to 'updated' but when I go into LDD, I'm not seeing any updated bricks yet. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? I thought LDD autoupdates itself.... Or maybe they're behind schedule with this stuff?

Went thru my bins and made one out of real bricks. (some color substitutions made) Also, here's the Factory Link should Descent fans want to buy this very cool model. Final coloration:

Wow in the protype pics I kept thinking this thing looked lame; a boat on treads with saw blades? But this is definetly something I want now. lots of great plant and animal parts. And looks like plenty of wheels with those treads; its just begging to be made into a propor tank.

Thanks for the suggestion. 4*4 isnt in LDD, though I can do this: The new plates also forced a color adjustment, which reduces the problem of white tipped tails. So thats a plus. Theres also some other issues, like the location of intakes, wing attachment point, area in front of engines. But I might just go with this as yet another variation of the various Pyro series ships.

Found the cool intro video for Descent2 on youtube here has a buncha good views of the ship. Hmmh, video makes it painfully obvious that there are issues with my wing and body proportions. Well, I guess having a different model designation is a good excuse... And, I take it back, after building a 'rainbow warrior' mock up using parts from my bins, its not as weak as I expected. I'll probably add a few minor changes later based on this tho. Thanks for looking.

This is based on the Pyro GX from the videogame Descent. Known issues.... The tips of tails are white, which doesnt match rest of scheme. Wing angle is too shallow. rear is a little too wide also too weak (2studs holding on each wing...) But its a nice little model, and looks instantly familar, I guess. You remember playing that game right? Someone go make some of the evil Robots in the same scale now... we can have a battle. EDIT: Factory Link Final coloration:

Of the new 2008 EF sets, I picked up this one first. Mainly because of 15$USD sets it had the most pieces(nearly as many as the 20$ Storm Lasher). Also it came with 3 drones (4 if the spider counts), which is great for army building. (where else can you get the brown iron drones at this price nowadays?) The big annoyance with this set though, is the legs. They're long and spindly, and not too posable, which makes the main mech itself kinda boring. So I modded mine to do something about this. Deeplinked images: front rear view, good detail of legs By default each leg has a click joint at the hip, and a ball joint on the ankle, but the knee is just a solid technic angle connector(very ugly). So I asked the question, if you had to choose would you rather have knees or ankles? Ball joints on the feet are nice for keeping them level, but don't affect the overall pose much, so I moved those ball joints to the knees. Simple matter of swapping the position of the joints and technic connectors; no extra parts needed. This puts articulation where it can do some good for overall posability, also puts the bulkier parts higher up on the leg so it looks less flimsy. Now its flexible enough to balance on 3 legs as if actually running. Good human-stomping pose? I really do think this set is underrated, you should consider getting one.

Pretty much forever if it's a design I'm happy with. Sometimes I'll need parts to build something new, in which case I'll first try to get the part off an official model. Otherwise I'll try to borrow it off one of my MOCs, but rather than dissasemble the whole thing I'll try to mod a substitute for the removed part. I suppose I might totally dissasemble a MOC, but I'd generally want to build a 'spirtual succesor' to the design first.

V-LV-10B Made a neat pair of Go Karts, based on old 4-wide race cars. Just because your Town is full of 6+wide ones, doesnt meant you cant fit the small ones in on a little amusement park racetrack... I think they look pretty good and have a decent price. Factory Link

Strange, I dont see it, just the left door, and its .15$USD we talking about the same part? they list as: Element Id: 4288209 Design Id: 3822

Nice too bad LDD doesnt seem to have been informed yet tho. I see classic Town car doors, except... only for one side? (the left one) see the 'Wall Elements' section. Darn... cant make a car without both doors.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've gone and smoothed out the tail. Turns out this was a cheaper construction, so I also added navigation lights without affecting the cost much. Factory Link Considering the cost of the recent official AirMail airplane (and the relative lack of such planes for Town recently) I'd say this one's competitively priced. You might consider ordering one.

another new feature: Now added a door to the flatbed. flips down to load cargo. Also notice the combo of both smooth tile with studs on the floor. may look a little strange with them along one edge like that, but I did it this way since it should allow more versatility in what kind of cargo you load. (some boxes work best free floating, others you might want to attach) Newest LDD file link So on one hand, now its broken the 10$USD price point, but then again there's plenty of features for such a small model.

Interesting you should mention since on the USA side of the lego site, they're on sale for half price. Also got mine at Walmart for half off. (tho this is probably a coincidence...)

improvements.... very well I think the biggest issue is that they do not have many details. I guess being hovercars, its okay to not have any wings or tailfins, but there still ought to be some visible (and cool looking) form of lift like an engine, or glowy thrusters on the bottom. The cones sticking out the tail look a bit small and I didnt even notice them at first; consider making a bigger tail engine that defines a major portion of the ships rear shape, as opposed to a little nub thats just sticking out. more on detail... the fronts of these vehicles are all basically a square with rounded corners, the blue one is slightly better in that it has headlights, but the shapes are still very plain. Perhaps if the middle of those boxes had an open engine intake grill? Also theres a change in height from the top of the nose to the bottom of the pilots windshield in the red and black ones, this makes them feel even less aerodynamic and emphasises the obvious boxy shape of the noses, which isnt that great. Try to smooth out the transition from nose to cockpit a bit; either with slopes or by putting them on the same level. another point... the sides of these hovercars are made of many many 1*1*1 bricks, these tiny bricks are both making the structure weak (since they can only stack with no side interlocking) as well as making the models extremely expensive. Consider replaceing groups of tiny bricks with beams and larger stronger bricks. Or even slopes for intersting shapes. summary: increase the detail of nose while reducing its bulkiness increase the size of the tail and engine areas -propulsion is a defining feature of flying vehicles use more variety of bricks in the structure for both strenght and cost Well, I hope the suggestions are productive... thats basically how I'd approach designing things.

New version Decided to make a new version. Now has a roof that flips up (kinda like a good number of the CS ships do) to let the pilot in. You could also fit a very small amound of cargo into the area behind his seat. To fit hinges in, the side windows had to be reduced, and the top attitude jets moved forwards 1 stud. It looks about the same to me tho. About the only thing that really bugs me, is that those attitude jets flip up with the roof panel itself; seems to me they oughta be mounted on a solid section of hull, not the hatch...

anime: Princess Tutu, Utena manga: xxxHolic, Chibi Vampire (Karin) and you probly havent heard of any of those...

Sure have fun. Thats the point of LDD models, so other people can have them too. Well I've also got the suspicion that TLC looks at the models people upload to get ideas for new themes, what the market wants, etc. Hence... Im always trying to share good Space stuff. EDIT: I suddenly had a great realization: I can level out the flatbed to gain even more cargo space, by attaching those bar pieces Under the platform instead of on top of it. The big plate holds the sides in rather than those separate panel tiles in the old one. Check it out Version2 EDIT: and now that we know the basic concept... we can make things look pretty cool too

lol this reminds me of the recent debate where scientists had to decide 'what constitutes a planet?' Good question tho. Im not much a SW collector, but some other questionable examples are, the Drones from ExoForce, the Mars Mission Jelly Aliens, and the LoM Aliens. The EF Drones I pretty much treat as minifigs, same level of characterization, sorta. On the other hand their arms are often used as parts elsewhere; which I wouldn't tolerate for the more traditional human minifigs. (then again, normal minifig heads are often used as other parts, so I guess this doesnt count much). Jelly Aliens, ... no way, they are just 2 pieces with no arms. LoM aliens, I don't have any but don't really consider them to be minifigs, I guess the main distinction between them and the Drones is their legs are a 1piece stand more than actual legs. By the same logic, I guess I dont consider BattleDroids to be minifigs either; they're just more robot arm parts.... I guess thats my working defenition them: A minifig has movable arms, and 2 Separately movable legs. Battle Droid, Bionicle Minifig, LoM, Jellies, that legless villian in the Agent prototype pics, are not minifigs. EF Drones are. Pluto is not a planet.