xenologer

Thanks! I've uploaded the LDD file now (editing first post). LDD did not consider the flatbed walls to be a real brick connection. Though it does work and has been used in some official sets (see the SP1 pod attachments). So I had to trick it into letting me place those plates there by connecting them to temporary 'scaffolding' bricks which were then deleted afterwards. One thing that I'm dissatisfied with, is that the driver's cab is so cramped as to not allow a steering wheel; there's barely enough space for the control stick I have at the moment. Really a 1*2 printed control panel would be ideal here.

For this rover I took inspiration from older style 4-wide Town vehicles. It could almost fit into a Town, except for the bug-eyed headlights. (maybe a futuristic town) It's using the same body hinge as my Blue Rover, to allow passive steering, smooth rolling on the desktop. Rear axle is on a technic rod to allow a simple pendular suspension as well. Rather than pop the roof off to put the minifig in, it and the windscreen flip forwards on a hinge. Oh, and take a look at the cool construction method used on the flatbed walls.(this would probably be more appreciated in Town forum) Can easily pull out the 1*6 plates and replace with taller ones (2*6,etc) for different cargo needs. Factory Link EDIT: latest version factory link (better than the screenshots) New Version

V-A-1A Made a Town themed airplane in LDD mainly just to see if it could be done well with the limited parts available.

Thanks for the review. I'd seen this on shelves but kept passing it up as a 'kiddie' starter set. The dump truck is definetly the best looking of the models here. Didn't realize it had those doors. Very hard to find, but are they worth 20$ to me.... Ill have to consider this. *looks again at last pic* *doubletake* Oh, you get to have that big pile of bricks leftover in addition to the 3 models at the same time? Now it's almost looking not so bad, I'll have to take up house-building to use up all those blocks and beams tho... Oh but why why did it have to be that minifig with the horrendous grin...Already stuck with 2 of him from those airplane mechanic sets....

The front view explains the title: Special aknowlegement to Mark Sandlin, creator of 3vil / Space Skulls. This ship is a reinterpretation of the fighter from the new Space Skulls set. Basically I wanted one, but didn't feel like waiting for the whole set. So made one myself, with a new wing configuration that was more to my liking. The 'face' is modified from the original (some areas toned down for streamlining). Best view: Engine and attitude jet 'spikes' seen from rear: Downside, it lacks the landing gear/opening jaw of the original, Just couldnt figure how to fit them in without altering the shape much more... But has a very cool wing configuration, I think it looks more menacing especially that front profile. Look really closely at how the wing angles were achieved, Not a well known construction method, but very good to know about. Yes according to calculations it really does fit. Brickshelf

I haven't been much into the Space Faction stuff before, so forgive if I'm a little clueless on the norms, but... Now that ?3vil? and ?PCS? have official Space Skull and Star Justice versions, is it considered 'kosher' to build MOCs in these themes tho I am not the theme's creator? and extending this question even deeper, often times people like to rebuild or remake (with varying degrees of changes) official sets. -example, in new colors schemes, or with new parts selection(rader turn into guns, etc) SS and SJ seem like a gray area for this to me though, since they're Official sets, yet they are also based on someone's MOCs. So the line between 'remaking an official set' and 'plagrism' seems blurry to me. What do you people think of this? And the input of the designers themselves might shed a lot of light too... I ask because... well I thought that the Skull Fighter looked cool, except for the wing configuration; so I made my own. Basically a direct copy of the skull face on the nose, but a new tail section. the concept is pretty much the same. Did I end up stealing? or is this a valid 'rebuild'? (not posting it till i decide if I'd be commiting a faux pas or not)

Hmmh, so perhaps next month LDD will get a version change as part of the new Space theme? And you possibly are able to send them update suggestions? I'd like to mention then: transparent neon green, and transparent yellow bricks are completely indistinguishable as seen in LDD, gets to be a really annoying problem when you mix them up. pneumatic T-connector seems to have a broken connection for the center arm; it will let either the left or right arms connect to a technic + connection, but not this center arm. thanks for forwarding...

I notice a few constructions in here that LDD does not allow normally. Like studs connected to technic holes on the interceptor's small thrusters. Can the designers comment on how you managed to do it? Maybe used a different software for the designing? What will happen in LDD when we try to download the instructions for these once they're available?

Hmmh, so it'll be a while before I can stock up on windshields. Hopefully we'll see a surge of good LDD MOCs then... Question: Are these prepacked Factory sets cheaper than say, If I were to buy the bricks directly from LDD/PaB? How much more effecient of a price point? Considering if its worthwhile simply using LDD to but partial sets if not interested in the entire packages... Or if I'm feeling like just getting it now... And heres a thought! in LDD today theres a Female minifig head, how can it be that theres Not a token female StarJustice member?(from the looks of it, two of the guys are clones as is...) Skull-shaped Spaceship

The other day I was Very Bored and decided upon seeing pics of this impule on brickshelf to see if I could build one using parts I already had. (IE, had to do Something with the useless extra Jellies that came with my MM sets) So I can conclude that, I don't have any reason to buy this unless its on discount; I already have just as useful parts lying around my bins. It is kinda cute and swooshable though, and when you fold the guns up it almost looks like it could be the head of a larger ship.(escape pod? scout?)

Neat, these new pics definetly changed my opinion of the new sets... The claw tank remix is defintly one I must have. Nice treads, neat gear mechanism to make the saws turn. Good windshield. The little rover that comes with it is really cute looking too. And this has to be the only one of the alien ships to look good; just put a normal cockpit on it and it'd be passable in general Space. The alien fighter with human robot I'm now feeling is less must-have; fighter just looks bad, and to get the cute robo I'll probably just make my own using the windshield bubble from last years otherwise useless Trike set. Big human ship.... not sure about, for some reason the shape is reminding me of those SW dropships. And I'm not seeing myself needing all its parts just yet... Really tho... why didn't they just give the Bioni-umh-Alien commanders EF drone arms in green? seems they made his arms and legs the same brick cause they didnt feel willing to make a new mould.. so wouldnt reusing the EF work just as well?

After seeing the recent M-Tron review thread, I was tempted to built myself a 1487 Unamed Rover, which I'd never owned before. Cool little radar rover, with the hinged body making vroom vroom turns fun, but had issues. Namely, when pushing it around you do it by the tallest point usually, the sensor bar on the back; but this tends to make the hinged front flip around and turn with a mind of its own. After much adjustments (including the color scheme), I ended up with this little rover. Sensor bar on the front half, so its easy to hold onto and drive around your desk now. Could also say it's inspired in part by this real life rover. I'm really happy with it anyway, feels simple and elegant to me... Buy Link

Once again I've remade this set (there was an ?ugly? green remake a long time ago). It's actually shorter than the official set, due to LDD parts availability I had to redo the steering hinges; and my solution happens to take up less horizontal space. Detail of new hinges: See the technic pin between the plates? Probably stronger than the original as well. The steering arms are 1.5 studs long versus the origional 2studs length. In theory this means it has a tighter turn radius. (tho I havent owned the original to compare) Buy Me! Relive Classic Space

Well, as bad a concept aliensvshumans is for a theme... I really do like this set. The human rover has nice parts for reuse, especially those oldschool space wheels. And despite those wobbly wings, I really like the alien ship. goes from a flying saucer-ish shape to a spread winged almost raven shape, very ominous and cool looking. Now that 'alien commander' is terrible... if I don't buy bionicle minifigs already, why would I be interested in that thing? Kinda wish they'd take the Drones from the retiring ExoForce theme and do them in green, they'd make nice alien robot things...

Neat I more or less started out with this theme. And the ground vehicles with cool steering mechanisms have kinda stuck with me since. I hadn't realized it till you photographed them all sitting together, but each Spaceship seems to have a Ground vehicle of nearly equivalent size. I wonder when the magnets fad dissapeared... Wouldnt it be neat to see them come back? What if magnets were combined with the new Power Functions stuff? an electromagnet that can turn on and off? That kinda added playability might be just the thing to refresh magnets...

Cool What country was your Lego Store in? I dont see it online yet, and LDD Factory hasnt updated its brick pallet either.... ohwell Cant wait to get those parts for my MOCs.

How about a Female Brickster/thief?

OMG! Its a Female minifig! It a set thats less than 100$! And is the doctor, not the patient. Maybe TLC is learning?

Thanks for those Instructions. Now I just have to wait for the actual parts to show up in LDD for my to buy... nice windshields and slopes for future MOCs. The Star Justice car looks great. But I'm wondering about the steering.(if any) I see now that there's a swivel plate on the rear wheels axel. The question is... how do you control it?theres no HOG wheel or anything...

Image edited to increase contrast. the 1.17 estimate on the right Does include the 4*4 plate they're attached to. Mounting this plate can be done either with a snot brick of some sort, or given the structure of the skull, I'd probably just leave it free floating but interlocked by the surrounding bone structure.

I see... but those red 1*2 plates are ... like .12$USD each according to LDD, pretty *wacko* expensive (probably due to the trans plastic) Could you not have have saved a little by doing something like this? according to LDD, the one on the left is 2.17, the right is 1.17 Thus freeing up the piece count budget to put detail elsewhere...

Thanks for the pics. Definetly some nice design in there, very pretty. I'm definetly going to get some usage of those new windscreen pieces in LDD when they come out... I hope TLC stocks up on them... dont want to see shortages of certain parts. The Star Justice ground vehicle is pretty, nice cockpit design. And I love that the wheels are using rocker arm suspensions. But It's also kinda obvious that the body is fixed, no articulation in the middle; hence no steering mechanism. Really woulda loved to see a brick built steering mechanism ( Remember SpyTrak? CelestialForager?) either of those classic chassis could probably be modified to have similar cargo capacity... Not sure what to make of those Skulls. They seem more like... art pieces than swooshable playable ships to me...

This may be a little odd coming from a mainly Space guy, but: "Farmer's Harvest" The farmer rides his tractor to market. Has a trailer with an apple and 'cabbage'(exo hair). Cost 5.49$USD(note, Factory lists as 31 bricks, since the Farmer himself is 4 parts) Originally I was trying to make one of those little oldschool classic red tractors (6608), but when I hit the parts limit I found that I had to make the wheels equal sized(uneven wheels means you take up an extra plate to level the body). With 4 equal wheels, it seemed more like a modern tractor hence the blue color and modern sloped nose. Being an LDD set.. the parts selection is not that new, mainly I'd buy it for the crate, apple, and blue slope. as semi-rare parts. For the most part tho it plays off nostalgia value and the fact that we just dont have any farmers in our towns of cops and firemen lately...

Well once I bought a MISB AquaRaiders Aquadozer, to find that the two chain pieces it uses had a damaged mould. The ends of the chain with the studs, were like 1.5 plates tall somehow. And the TLC Service department couldnt do anything for me since it was so old. (and I'll bet chains are pretty expensive) And once a supposedly new MasterBuilders Mars Mission, to find it had no seals or anything to indicate being new (or maybe for this odd series bricks dont come in the usual sealed plastic baggies?) there was a missing 1*2grille... Nothing bad enough to complain about though. My philosophy anyway, is that I'm not going to ever buy a 400$ MISB set just to put it on my display shelf in mint condition. I open and play with everything. Most my purchases are really for some now-rare part I wanted, not the MISB-ness of the set itself(thos this is prefferable since the bricks wont be scratched or worn). So I kinda avoid all this high tension stuff, its a toy right? Have fun.

Packaging overhead aside. I think another reason cost goes up is the digital brick pallate making it so easy to go way overboard and put too many bricks into a MOC. If you look at official designs, they often utilize hollow spaces, large bricks, technic beams, etc to give their models volume in few bricks, with the smaller expensive detail bricks only where they count. Most of the expensive LDD MOCs people make, dont seem to prioritize this kind of construction. Anyway, I've been messing with LDD for a while and am Tolerant of the increased price. I'll often take the time to optimize my models to get them as cheap as possible while maintaining the design I wanted. you notice useful things: like a 1*3plate is the same prices as a 1*2plate, a 2*3inverted slope is Cheaper?? than a 2*2inverted, a 5.5stud standard rod is Much cheaper than a 4stud lightsaber blade, etc I'll place a few bricks then check the price, then try replacing them with a different set of bricks to make the same shape, seeing which combo is cheaper Once you get into that mindset it doesn't seem that bad.