splattergnome

I really enjoy seeing the "MOCs from one set" theme, and I am really surprised that you managed make even a dinosaur out of this set. Your MOCs are great and inspirational to everybody who has only a limited amount of sets and show off your creativity. I hope you make some more MOC galleries from any future sets you may get.

I think I may have just enough space in my garage to park one of those.

What current sets have purple pieces in them? And does this also effect other shades, such as pink, dark pink, violet, magenta, and the like?

The little button to the Classic Pirate site on the front page is broke and has to be fixed.

Not only that, but there will be ways to have your NXT and NXT 2.0 communicate (via Bluetooth), which allows you much more complex creations - and if you don't want that, you can always just use the opportunity to make two robots at the same time. No matter what you choose, getting both sets would be worth it based solely on the parts and pieces you get the with the sets. You can never have enough parts for your robots. I personally would like to see increased memory in NXT - but otherwise, I am more than happy enough with what we have now. However, I would really really love to see expansion sets like we saw with the RIS. Even if they were just "updated clones" of the previous series, they would be a great addition and really expand the possibilities for beginning-to-intermediate builders.

I would really like to see LEGO revive its short-lived Inventor series. It was the perfect combination between Creator/Designer and Technic, it contained interesting models and a good number of old-style classic Technic pieces in interesting colors. I could imagine a new Inventor range copying the old one, with four increasingly bigger (and more expensive) sets with gears, wind-ups, and motors, as well as a wide variety of parts in a certain color range and a huge book of model instructions and ideas. I love them - they were fun to play with, and were perfect part packs. If Inventor returned, I would buy multiples of each. Another theme I would like to see revived would be Designer. As much as Creator is taking over some of its territory, I really miss big boxes of multicolored parts with an interesting theme and huge instruction books, rather than the current "3-in-1" trend. I also miss the more creative sets such as the submarine set or the many many animal-based ones (dragons! wild beasts! dinosaurs!). There are simply too many cars and helicopter and buildings nowadays for my taste, bring back the monsters, robots, and animals, please! Designer is what brought be back to LEGO after all these years. A return of Classic Space-inspired sets is something everybody wants, so it is not worth mentioning anymore.

I have recently reentered the fun world of LEGO after almost fifteen years, and I am still very inexperienced compared to everybody else here, but I decided to do a little fun experiment. I downloaded the LDD and attempt to remake the Classic Space set 442 Space Shuttle using only pieces available on LEGO Factory. The classic original I noticed instantly that many pieces are not available, so I decided to go for a modern reimagination rather than a direct recreation, and in the process decided to go for the Blacktron I style black-with-red-highlights color scheme - this is before Blacktron shifted over to yellow transparencies in their famous later spaceship designs. I also tried to make it an impulse set, which means I also added a minifigure and accessary, just like the original. Here we have the Blacktron Shuttle II, which surprisingly does not have any visible thrusters at all, which means they are probably hidden within the big wings, together with the fuel (or fuel cells, as may be). I would assume that this would be a basic transport ship for ultra-low G environments, like small moons or asteroids - however, not for no zero-G transportation. It uses a standard Classic computer system terminal, which causes many more modern-minded cosmonauts a bit of stress since it is not particularly user-friendly. It fits one standard cosmonaut with a nice snotted restarea behind him for his heavy oxygen tank - which he has to wear, unless he likes imploding. To my sources, there were only two hundred Blacktron Shuttles made before the organization stopped copying earlier Classic and Futuron designs and going with their innovative ways - which is not surprising, considering how flimsy and very niche-oriented this one is. Alas, this poor guy managed to buy a twenty year used surplus Blacktron shuttle from a Space Police impound auction but had not yet been able to get ahold of one of the venerated and highly desired Blacktron uniforms, which are much more of a collector item. But he does try at least to wear black - however, he could only find one of the colony-standard yellow oxygen tanks to wear. Right now is thinking of replacing all of the red highlights with yellow so it fits his current clothing. The object next to him is particularly interesting, though. Unlike the shuttle, this is a real collector's item. An experimental Blacktron particle accelerator gun, it is immensely bulky yet packs a powerful punch. The half-ring is an actual tiny particle accelerator which creates highly charged radiation which is dispersed to the front through the gun. Earlier prototypes of this weapon were a complete magnetic ring which allowed particles to charge up several rotations before being shot, but the design was much too heavy, and after several untimely deaths due to "technical malfunctions", quickly forgotten. This one allows two sets of particles to be charged at a time for a double blast, or through alternating quarter-ring sections. In the end, this gun was quickly banned during the Space Police Humane Weapons Accord - supposedly for PR and political reasons, but actually for purely budget reasons, since more conventional projectile weapons were much easier to maintain - and cheaper, too. It is just a very simply basic first attempt at LDD (which isn't very easy to use if you want to build stuff -beneath- other pieces), but I think it turned out reasonably enough, and gave me an interesting insight in the hidden history of Lego Space. EDIT: Apparently this set would cost $5.59 on Factory, or just $3.52 without the guy or his exotic weapon.

I'll toss my hat into the ring, too. Thank you for having these contests and raffles - I like the way this website really cares about its community.

Imagine that you were going to be dropped on a desert island with only $50 of LEGO bricks - and you could only choose from that which are currently available on S@H. You will never have any other LEGO bricks or sets than what you choose now. You can safely ignore sales tax and shipping and handling - or food, for that matter. Will you choose a licensed set? Maybe a bunch of Creator pods for pieces? A bulk bucket for the pieces? Or would you rather choose none at all than have to be forced to choose? Something with more play value, or more flexibility, or more specialized? And -why- would you choose what you choose? As an additional challenge, try only $20 (or of course your local equivalent!)

Thank you for your kind greetings. :) I have looked at the Creator and Designer sets, and I have to say - I am a bit worried about them. Not because I think I won't like them, of course, but because the example models of many of them look quite nice - too nice to not want to build and keep and not break apart again. :-P While I think LEGO would enjoy this, that doesn't help my quest to build new things much. Ggylman - I looked over your suggestions, and Gear Grinders and Vladek's Castle look very interesting. The given models not so much, but as I mentioned above, this is a plus, but the actual pieces - in shapes and colors look extremely nice and useful. It is surprising how many new pieces and colors LEGO has created in the past few years. I think I will try getting one or two Creator / Designers sets to start this out with as suggested - the advantage being that they have lots of pieces in a given color or two. Thank you! :-)

Actually... http://guide.lugnet.com/set/4174 http://guide.lugnet.com/set/4023 http://guide.lugnet.com/set/4118 ... and so on.... (and those aren't even counting tubs) ;-) splatty

Hello, I am currently trying to recapture some of my childhood again and am rediscovering the fun of building with certain bricks. :-) However, I only have a few small sets (x-pods were my entry drug, so to say), and I am interesting in building greater things again. Thus - I need a certain "base sortiment" of LEGOs to actually build things with. Right now, I have no particular idea in mind, I am more interested in getting a nice sortiment of various pieces in different colors and see what I can build from those. So, I was wondering what sets and tubs are a good source of inexpensive bricks of a nice variety (that is - I don't just want blue, red, and white 2x4 bricks - althought those are useful, too!). What sets and tubs are the best bet to get a small collection started? Which ones should I avoid? I am not interested in current theme sets, since I am more interested in general purpose bricks, connectors, and the like than premade parts and accessories as found in the main themes. And the recommendations have to still be readily available... I am trying to buy -toys-, and not collectibles at this point. I appreciate any comments and suggestions. :) splatty

When it originally came out, I wasn't interested in it, because I was more of a Spacefan as a child, but I think that LEGO's Paradisa concept was going in the right direction. Yes, it had a lot of palm trees and pink building blocks, horses and water sports machines, but on the other hand it was all about -civilians-, such as caf