Erik Leppen

Apparently, you have more info than we have about how things are supposed to work out. Would you want to elaborate on this? Not necessarily now, but for example, in your review of the set? Or aren't you allowed to tell these kinds of things?

Also the first time we see the outriggers in extended state. They don't look like the real thing, but I think they look fairly convincing and stable. It remains to be seen how strong they are though. The tiny LAs on that huge boom still look off, though.

I was thinking the same thing, so I think it is, yes.

Lego designers hinted at a series in some interview I believe (if I remember correctly), but I'm not sure it's confirmed officially. Lego doesn't say anything definite about future releases/ideas - and rightly so, considering the competition. If there's a new car in 2020 - we'll see in 2020

@Ludo Visser, Zux has already given the best possible short summary in the post directly above yours. There will be a new changeover catch; an orange worm-like piece with a swirly circular ridge that, when rotated, can move the driving ring on a parallel axle next to it (as opposed to the current red changeover catch, that works on driving rings on a perpendular axis). Also, we expect a 20t clutch gear in blue, similar to the red 16t. For more details, either take a few minutes to read the Chiron topic (pages ~52 - 54), or wait for June 1 and be surprised :)

8880 suspension is really bad, because it's way too stiff. It doesn't do its job - it should be partly compressed when standing, because only then can it absorb shocks both ways (bumps in the road, and holes in the road). Just compare to its follow-up, 8448, which as a smooth-as-silk suspension; pushing it very lightly already has visible effect. Not for 8880, which you have to push too hard to see movement. Also, I actually think 1 cm is about realistic on a 1:8 scale car. How much travel do real (super)car suspensions have? Doing a random search until I found a number, gave me https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18550 which speaks about 50 to 100 mm on real cars. If you take the middle, 75mm, then this converts to almost exactly 1 stud in a Technic supercar.

You can't have 8 gears with only 4 states, because every gear is, almost by definition, a separate state. So, what @mahjqa says is true; with one selector you can have only 4 gears. That's why the set has 2 selectors probably. I'd say, don't go too fast. No matter how trhilled I am about the new gearbox pieces, I still think a 3600 part set should be more than just a gearbox on wheels (no matter how beautiful the bodywork) :)

And what other functions it has. Although I don't expect anything beyond steering, suspension, drive + gearbox, and manual doors/hood/bonnet. But this new way of doing gearboxes will be interesting for sure. This was already on my wish list, but now it's in bold. It would be the first time I'd buy 3600 parts at once...

I have needed the same part many times. I say yes. But whether that will help? I believe TLC don't take fan designs for legal reasons, but some of the existing parts have been drawn by @barman years ago, so it's possible. But suggesting a part to TLC isn't going to speed things up.

Take a drawing program and draw a grid over your model where 1 grid cell is 1 x 1 stud. Then, mark important stuff with extra lines. Then, lay these markers out in a Lego Cad program (I use MLCAD), and work around that. For example, As soon as I picked the wheels, I drew a grid over a blueprint to find out the size of the entire thing and some relevant measurements (red lines). I put the wheels and a few lines in MLCAD and I know how much room I have to work with. From there, the actual sizes will be dictated by the room I need for functions, or the sizes of Technic panels, etc.

I think it's perfectly normal that interests move between subjects from time to time. This month most interest goes to this, next month it can be another thing, and so on. I haven't worked on my crane for a month, that's not because I lose interest, but because there are other things taking the time (a particular game, or a podcast I discovered, or a new app, a TV series, or whatever). I found a new music program last month, so last few weeks, more time goes into tinkering with that instead of Lego. I always find the term "dark age" sound so rigorous - not because of the "dark" but because of the "age". That sounds like a lreally long time - what you @Cumulonimbus seem to describe, sounds more like a temporary shift in interest. Which is fine. Interest in Lego will come back. Or maybe, it won't, which would be fine either, if another interest replaces it. As long as there are things you enjoy, whether it be Lego or something else entirely, I wouldn't worry :)

I would love TLC to do a Pagani one day. But I wouldn't be surprised if, after a rear-engine car and a mid-engine car, the third supercar in the series might be a front-engine car.

I think it will be exclusive the same way dark blue was exclusive to the 41999 crawler, Tumbler tyres exclusive to the 76023 Tumbler or Porsche tyres exclusive to the Porsche. That is, they might just as well pop up in a regular set a few years down the road. (And from a marketing standpoint, this is only sensible. They have the molds. It'd be a waste if they would be standing there doing nothing.)

Have there been any people here who have seen the car in real? From them, I wonder, have they only seen it, or have they also had the option to check it out more closely? As in, seen someone operate it and tell about the functions, for example? Are there people who know anything about its functions? I don't have to know about the functions (that will come in June), I just would like to be assured that the positivity comes from more than just the bodywork.

That's the shadow from the panel.

That would be a great theme! (In fact, I have suggested it a while back too). I think many people will instantly get some ideas to start out with. The only thing I would change is, instead of using part count, use measurements. So I'd suggest to simplify the rule to "rebuild a set in a different scale". You could provide number limits, such as: at least 20% smaller or 20% bigger, but actually I don't think that's needed. Everyone understand what it means to rebuild something in a different the scale, and everyone knows that it's not "make it 2 studs shorter". :) The "shrink-ray or expando-ray" as @Bublehead calls it, would be a great and fun way to present the contest :) That way, contestants don't have to count the parts, without taking away from the spirit of the contest.

@Saberwing40k You can't have a "fully closed" model with no gaps, the same way you can't fill a circle with squares. There will always be gaps. The question the designer has to answer is, how large are the gaps you accept? Different people answer that question differently.

I may be the only one here, but I really don't get the point of this topic, as comparing a bunch of (mostly) guys being thrilled about plastic toy bricks in a corner of the internet with one of the worst things happened to mankind (world war) is not my type of humor. But with saying this, I will probably be berated for moaning about trivialities on the interwebs. I may be complaining about the complaining right now, but at least the color vomit topic is actually about our shared hobby. This here topic just seems to want to throw fuel on the fire (as most of the topics it seems to refer to, have already calmed down a bit). Sorry, I fail to see the fun in that. (Though I'm sure someone will laugh about my post. Well, whatever floats your boat.) Also, not sure what introvertedness has to do with anything.

To add to this (you should read the whole post): remember that there are many more types of parts than ever before. All those new cool pieces, such as pins with pinholes, 3L axle pins, new connectors, 1L "bush with round hole" etc. really expand our building options and has made MOCs endlessly more complex and intricate. But to make all this added complexity workable for the target audience (children), they (the children, I mean) will have to be compensated somehow. Hence, the color coding, to help them out. Similar parts are different colors. Perfectly understandable. So it's either more colors, or fewer different types of parts. And I take 2018's Technic parts assortment over 1998's any day :) What I have some issues with is what TLC seems to consider "similar". I completely understand if a set that has gray bushes, has its "bush-with-round-hole" in another color. And I'm also fine with blue pins and yellow/red axles. But I feel this is only needed for small parts. Large parts are usually quite obviously different (I would say), except situations like 13L vs. 15L beams, so color-coding large pieces (such as 5x9 bent beams) isn't needed from a ease-of-build standpoint. (It may be for ease-of-packaging or budgettary reasons though.) I think AFOLs in general seem to readily understand this, and have plenty of tolerance for this fact, but what I think 42080 shows is that there is a limit and many of us have about the same tolerance level, and if a set goes over that level, everyone falls over it at once. Apparently, 42080 is a bit too much of a good thing, color-coding-wise. As a result, 42080 is, as a Dutch saying goes, "the bitten dog" (meaning, the subject that gets all the flak, even though it hasn't done anything particularly wrong).

What this shows is that different people understand the word "color vomit" differently. I see at least 3 definitions (so far), that all mean something different and shouldn't be confused: "ugly" color schemes - using green, white and lime on 42080 for example the fact that many basic parts are color coded with bright primary colors, such as blue pins, red axles and yellow bushes color coding of specific parts in specific sets, such as orange 2L beams and blue 2x0.5 beams in a red set, or the dark gray 5x9 beams in 42080's boom Personally, of those three, the only one I have problems with is that last one. I don't care for the other two. I know 3L pins are blue, and this is the only color available for them. I don't mind. But why use orange 2L beams in a red model where black beams are perfectly available as well. Those weirdo-colored little bits is what makes the color scheme look messy, not the fact they mixed lime, white, green and black (to be honest, I really like the lime-white-green-black combo and I'm really glad to see those colors used).

On the only picture I have seen, I think it looks much better than the Porsche; I really like what I see (but I'm just not so much of a Porsche fan). Also, the duo-blue combo seems to work really nicely. Curious about the interior color - doesn't look like tan from this picture, but hard to tell. Probably still tan, but the picture seems discolored a bit. Also, I hope the front is medium azure, instead of dark azure. That would work really nicely with dark blue. Curious what functions it will have, besides the expected engine, steering and suspension. Porsche introduced a novel gear switching mechanism, I hope this one presents a unicum as well.

Same as 8460 B model. That didn't look weird either, and it worked like a charm. I'd rather have a hand pumped model that's 20 euro cheaper, and the motor set be available for who like to motorize it (customizability and combinability - isn't that the idea of Technic?), than another battery box and medium motor for another 20 euro that I don't need.

The problem with color vomit is not that a model is green with lime with a white boom and a black hood. I'm fine with multicolor models and I think most people are fine with multicolor models. I often like them better than monocolor models, even though monocolor models like the Porsche are better suppliers of good sets of parts in a single color. They seem to be the best way to fill the parts matrix of a given color. We saw that with white on the 42025 cargo plane. The problem with color vomit is that in a model that is green with lime with a white boom and a black hood, this nitbit is blue, that nitbit is orange, this piece is brown, that piece is dark orange, all bushpins are red, pneumatics are yellow and blue, and so on and so on. It detracts from the coherence and looks like the model has smallpox. Pneumatic cylinders should have been gray like LA's, or another neutral color (e.g. dark-gray), with pumps being black. The other problem, indeed, is part supply. The forest harvester is green with lime with a white boom and a black hood, but what do you actually get in white? As far as I can see, 6 beams, 4 technic bricks and a few plates and slopes. And what do you get in lime? 8 panels. That's it (as far as we can see). I say, if you can't do it well, don't do it. If you can't do lime well, either fix the parts matrix in lime, or pick another color (green-white would have been fine, or green-yellow (although that may have got them into licencing trouble), or green-blue, or whatever.) Why can't we get in lime what the first responder gives us in red? A full-colored model, not a black/gray chassis with 8 panels slapped on. And this has nothing to do with ease-of-build. Part availability, maybe, but this shows that the designers have as much trouble creating decent lime models as we have, so why don't they go and do something about that. Forget 5 types of blue, or dark purple or bright green (says me, who absolutely loves all those funky colors!). Get the parts range for the basic colors filled. The set of yellow panels should be complete by now (indeed). The set of yellow angle connectors should be complete. The axle joiner or the 3L "+oo" crossblock should exist in all primary colors, but both are missing in both white and blue. And if you introduce a new color, such as bright green, make sure its parts matrix is decently filled so designers can use it on more than 1 set. (I stocked quite a few bright -reen parts, but because of the lack of variety, I can hardly do anything with them. A monocolor bright-green model is out of the question.) And all this, while, on the meantime, a Star Wars speederbike introduces tens of brown Technic pieces, and now introduces a brown 5x7 frame. Technic had to wait 10 years for a black 5x7 frame. That's as if they think color isn't important in Technic. Shortly, we'll see how designers coped with all the colors of the 42080, afterall we expect a decent B-model, right? Long story short, I think that all problems with color part availability are because Lego designers don't seem to intend their models to be part suppliers for people wanting to build their own stuff. They seem to design models merely to be built-as-prescribed, and played with as models. But that's not what Technic is for!

I actually really like it. I get a Ford GT feel with the front-view picture, not sure why. Well done, on to the next :D It's good you feel proud, because I think you learned things. You can start your next project knowing things you didn't know when you started this :)

What's interesting is the rather small wheel arch, from the few piecescwe see so far. Seems like a good sign, I hope I'm right.