xenologer

To judge price you really shouldn't be counting pieces, instead count how many studs there are. Baseplates have a Lot of those, hence they cost so much. All those studs sure do make for a lot of possibilities for building stuff, thats what you're really paying for, possibilities.

First criticism, some of your photos are way too high resolution. Second, the windscreen doesn't open. that aside. I like the manta ray shape and the way the slopes work on the wings. Simple is good here.

A Cold Fusion power plant would be funnier. How about a Solar Power Plant? Just imagine all the wonderful metallic grille tiles you'd get in that. And I definetly agree with smaller boxes. I'd actually be inclined to buy More sets if they were smaller. I ride a 'green' bicycle to go shopping, and often times the bigger sets just don't appeal to me because they'd be so hard to carry on my bike.

Agreed, there are better sets that only cost a little bit more. Like the mine mech and grinder. Really they should take a dollar off the price here and it would be perfect. Still, its a good army builder as you get a rock monster and miner. Everytime I see it in the stores I'm tempted to buy just one more... I keep thinking that I'll just take off the rear wheel and handlebars, then mount it onto one of the bigger vehicles as a little saw blade arm accessory.

Its true that with boxed sets part problems are rare, and easily replaced by customer service. But my particular interest in this topic is specifically PaB and Factory. In these cases the bricks have to be hand picked to your order, so human error is a much larger factor. Based on my recent order it would seem that perhaps they are becoming understaffed in this department? Perhaps due to the recent price cuts?

Recently we all went crazy when Pab and Factory prices went through the roof, TLC then noticed and cut it back. But I have to wonder if perhaps they also cut back on some quality control in the process. Just bought my first order since the changeover, 2 Factory models and 1 Pab bag. one of my models had 4 important structural beams replaced with 4 of the wrong part, as well as a plate being black instead of white. the other model had a clip plate missing. and the Pab bag was missing 2 clip plates as well. good thing I have an extensive collection and was able to replace with stuff on hand... Any rate, of 3 items in my order all 3 had problems with bricks missing. Any other observances in a possible quality control cutback to compensate for the price reduction?

Nice one! Ever played an old game called Forsaken (by acclaim), reminds me a lot of that. It was a 3d shooter where you fly around on a hoverbike, lots of fun colorful characters to choose from.

Any StarWars set containining NON-Fleshy Leia in Metal Bikini. 7721 Combat Crawler X2, possibly the pinnacle of Exo Force designs.

I don't recall ever having problems taking joints apart... Try using a technic axle to push the pin out from the backside.

Once I needed one of these for a project I was working on. But didn't have one, so I made one out of technic bricks and rubber bands. Took it apart when I was done.. A friend of mine used a stack of bricks to prop up a laptop, and used a stack of bricks with zip ties (to reinforce) as a bicycle saddlebag holder.

Interesting little set. I made one in few mins in LDD. most of the parts are available. This would seem to indicate it's not exactly a 'Must Have' promo set, its all commonly available bricks.

The Manta is named for its wide wings, which resemble the shape of a manta ray. It is small and manuverable, yet heavily armoured, making it suited for defensive roles. While sparse weapons mounts make it less than useful in a strike role. The low offensive capability does make it available to civilians however, and it is popular among freelancers and pirates(who often innovate ways of carrying deadlier guns). Check out the engine and manuvering thrusters. As this is a very small fighter, there wasn't a good way to make folding landing gear that didn't spoil the underside. Therefore it uses those fixed stub fins as support. Notice there technic holes at the center; due to the new LDD being wierd with prices, these technic bricks are cheaper than normal 1*2 system bricks. Check out the wing angles. This fighter's chassis started out as an experiment with unusual wings. Opening canopy. In theory this ship could also look good using a traditional bubble canopy. The main reason I went this route is that the latest LDD update removed the spacey windscreens. The shape is inspired by Soren's Super Spartan, but the pilot has much more breathing room. Underside showing various landing thrusters. LDD link. I only wish it didn't cost so much...

Very Nice my only suggestion is that the Tire Swing might be better scaled if you used a real lego tire piece.

Seeing as how in Exo Force, the Robots are... well robots, and all the battle machines are also robots; why should machines on the Robot side need a separate pilot? Just make their mechas smart. So instead of a cockpit, this mecha has a head; the face is sort of a combo of the macro-drone faces used in the Gate Assault tank, and the Shadow Crawler. I had fun with the new bricks on LDD, have a look, he's got working flick fire missles! The ball joints should allow some good poses. And there's a friction pin to allow torso twist. The arm cannons and armour plates are based on the Sentry model; think of him as a Sentry Commander. Much smarter than an Iron Drone, he'd probably lead a platoon of the old style Sentries and make tactical decisions but would still be outranked by the Devastators. -Sentry Commanders on their own are only marginally more powerful than standard Sentries; their main threat is the fact that they can coordinate the actions of large groups of otherwise weak robots, effectively increasing their intelligence. A bit pricey, but I think I'll buy at least 1 for my EF army.

Sorry if this is thread ressurection, If this should be a new thread MOD please fix. A few weeks after feeling so much great relief that the insane prices have been retracted... Does anyone else also still feel that things cost too much? I mean even before the insanity I felt prices were a little high, but the possibility of choice picking bricks for your special creation made up for it, sometimes. And even though boxed sets were cheaper, if it was only a few specific parts you'd have wanted per boxed set, then paying more for just those via PaB was a fair tradeoff. But now, I'm just not sure its worth it. Sure, prices are back down from the 1 week insanity, but they are not back as they used to be. If in the past I thought the price was just on the edge of being worthwhile, then now they're a bit less than worthwhile. I used to be OK with building myself a remake of a Classic Space impuse set that once cost 3$, and buying it off LDD for 5$. But today it would have to be 7 or 8$... suddenly not as appealing... How is everyone else feeling? Now that the shock and relief of the price change is over with, and you've had some time to just look at the current prices for what they're worth? Buying anything lately?

Try compressed air. I find that blowing pushes dust away much better than suction picks it up.

I don't think moisture affects plastic in the least, so you shouldn't worry about holding your breath. In fact I do the opposite of you, I wash my bricks in water when they get dusty. Yup, I keep them out of direct sunlight, and I wash them when they're dirty, thats all.

If I had a MOC that fell apart so easily as you describe. It would NOT be my favorite. I take pride in a MOCs strength just as much as I do how good it looks. What good is a spaceship that can't be swoosed? or a car that can be vroomvroomed? My mind doesn't even go near glue, instead my first thought is, 'I need to redesign this MOC so it is strong on its own'.

Funny I like it.

Have to keep in mind that a child hasn't fully developed the same sense of morals an AFOL would have. Praise even if not deserved would feel good for a kid. With that in mind, as a AFOL myself I probably wouldn't feel any more than a mild sense of bemusement were one of my photos be copied into a silly kid's section creation folder.

I think that the appearance of the set available early is clear evidence that time travel is indeed possible, and that the authorities do not want us to know the truth!

Where did you buy this? I thought they weren't supposed to come out till August.

My first poll here. Hopefully It's an appropriate one and not spammy. My most recent MOC has been driving me crazy. I'm stuck on what to do about landing gear and how to make them fit well on such a small ship. But maybe I'm pushing myself too hard. So I'm taking this poll to get an idea of the status quo, perhaps I'm beating myself up over nothing. So the question is, what sort of landing gear (if any) do you most often build in your spaceship MOCs? This pertains to small swooshable spacecraft; not SHIPs which are a different matter. Thanks for the inputs. P.S. Here's a teaser of the spacecraft thats been driving me crazy. As you can see, its small, with a very narrow body that makes hiding landing gear inside near impossible. And it has large flat wing surfaces that just don't want to be interrupted with bulky attachments...

Don't take my word on this... but if you really don't like those lines, try taking a very tiny jeweler's screwdriver and press it along the white marks to lightly compress the plastic there. My theory is that white marks are stretched plastic, and compression relieves the stretch marks. At least, I've done this on some of my 1*2 grill tiles to get rid of the ugly white dot they sometimes have on one end.

Thanks for taking the time to make the cool videos. Neat looking set, I perfer dune buggies over quad bikes in general, tho this rear wheel steering one is very odd. I have to wonder why they did it that way. Can we get a size reference picture of a minifig standing next to those giant tires? From what I can tell those are huge wheels, possibly not too easy to use in a minifig scale moc.