Bionicle 2016 Sets Discussion

[One Very Agile Cat]

Maybe it couldn't be made clear enough at that scale? Mata Nui's shape is a bit more complicated than the fiarly simple Nuva symbol designs.

Complexity for its own sake is inherently bad design.

I actually don't think that's true at all. It's not inherantly bad, but it's super easy to get wrong.

I actually don't think the limbs are complex at all. Lewa's are actually brilliantly simple. I think Pohatu and Kopaka only have such complex upper arms for the sake of the sideways Vorox armour. Every other character that doesn't use that armour for shoulder pads has normal CCBS limbs. Likewsie even the technic torsos seem to be mostly a result fo the new geared waist not being built into an existing skeleton.

BTW, I'm planning on adding balls where the 3/4 pins on Kopaka's upper arms are, just above the elbow. Then some small white shells to beef up his arms/shoulders and have some proportional continuity between him and his 2015 version.

Edited November 25, 2015 by One Very Agile Cat

[Voxovan]

I really hope that yellow axles won't replace the grey ones... Lego already replaced the black ones with grey, do we need another change? sheesh...

[arc]

I really hope that yellow axles won't replace the grey ones... Lego already replaced the black ones with grey, do we need another change? sheesh...

I've come to accept blue and red pins as a necessary evil, but yellow axles would be pushing it. Hoping they don't take over as well. We've already got a nice system for axles, black for even (beside the 2 length red) and grey for odd.

[Aethersprite]

He wasn't talking about the hilt piece, but rather, the Technic piece it's attached to on the stone shadow trap.

I see, right. Does Umarak's sword hilt use that piece too?

[Shakar]

I actually like light bley axles more than black ones since they look like screws.

Yellow would be pretty bad if it took over, but somehow I wouldn't find it as awful as the red in 2M axles. I even learned to tolerate blue O+ pins since I have very few black ones and CCBS doesn't use them much.

And completely changing subject, Umarak is listed as 28 cm tall, a full 5 cm taller than Tahu, but doesn't that include his antlers? I've seen someone on TTV who built his legs on LDD and compared them to Tahu's and they were the exact same height.

Is his torso any taller than the one the Uniters use? Doesn't seem that way to me.

[GK733]

I actually like light bley axles more than black ones since they look like screws.

Yellow would be pretty bad if it took over, but somehow I wouldn't find it as awful as the red in 2M axles. I even learned to tolerate blue O+ pins since I have very few black ones and CCBS doesn't use them much.

And completely changing subject, Umarak is listed as 28 cm tall, a full 5 cm taller than Tahu, but doesn't that include his antlers? I've seen someone on TTV who built his legs on LDD and compared them to Tahu's and they were the exact same height.

Is his torso any taller than the one the Uniters use? Doesn't seem that way to me.

That someone might be me. Yes, they are the same size and judging from their backshot their torsos are of the same height. Umarak has his torso armor on an external balljoint like Kulta but Tahu and the others have it attached directly to the new torso bone. Besides that and antlers the overall build and height is pretty much the same.

[Ngoc Nguyen]

The amount of Technic pieces is too damn high! (Not a complaint)

Edited November 25, 2015 by nguyengiangoc

[YellowCorvette]

I personally didn't like the round Technic wheel on Onua's left lower leg. I know that it's works to storing the studs, but the Trchnic wheel really sticks out from Onua's lower leg and generally looks odd.

And, is that the 2015 head piece been used to placing Onua's mask? I kinda didn't get why they need to make a new eyestalk piece while the 2015 eyestalk can also been used.

Edited November 25, 2015 by ArmstrongYong

[Logan McOwen]

The old brainstalk wouldn't likely fit underneath the Creature heads.

[TheDesuComplex]

I personally like the technic wheels. It's a pretty smart thing and reminds me of a little ammo pouch. Speaking on that- wasn't that technique (stud in a Technic hole) considered illegal and/or unstable? I don't recall seeing it on official sets until seeing these little ammo wheels and the exhausts on a few new City sets.

On the eyestalks- I'd bet that they snipped off the end (I always referred to it as the stem) to allow space not for the Creature's heads specifically, but to give room for their neck to move around when you move the head, which might help explain why they all use 4M bones for long necks. I am also wondering if the back is where the Creature's heads clip on, as a connection to the mask would be a bit unstable.

[Ngoc Nguyen]

I am also wondering if the back is where the Creature's heads clip on, as a connection to the mask would be a bit unstable.

You can see the picture. A Toa connects with a Creature through two pins on Toa's back and two holes on Creature's chest.

[Shakar]

That someone might be me. Yes, they are the same size and judging from their backshot their torsos are of the same height. Umarak has his torso armor on an external balljoint like Kulta but Tahu and the others have it attached directly to the new torso bone. Besides that and antlers the overall build and height is pretty much the same.

Nice work. Yeah, I assumed as much. I wonder if there's a way to make the torso a bit taller- the torso itself, so no neck lengthening tricks.

I think I'm going to make his legs a bit longer, and shorten Tahu because Mata Nui Tahu stop towering above your Toa brothers and sisters (yeah, I know, leader and all. But I still don't like it).

Looks like the 2016 Mask of Earth has side openings for horns to attach, like the 2015 version, the MoCR and the villain masks.

Will the Beasts steal the Toa Masks and temporarily wear them like the Skeletons did this year? I hope for something different this time, a recoloured variant of the Beast heads/masks for example (hopefully not gold though, lol).

If they really steal the Masks again, though, they definitely can't follow the "gold fading to trans colour" style again, for obvious reasons.

Also, I noticed that Gali and Lewa have black hips, it's quite obvious since they don't match their silver torso shell. I think that's precisely why they recoloured it, to set the torso and the hips apart and make them not seem like one big blob of silver. Wise.

Again, maybe the Beasts are going to reuse those black hips, provided they don't have another type of torso build.

[Bbrink1996]

The new brainstalk/eye piece looks like it can allow other parts to clip on to it. I'm betting underneath the creature's heads there is something that allows them to clip on to the brainstalk and have it's head connected to the Toa as well.

[One Very Agile Cat]

I think it's just shorter for clearance like Logan McOwen said.

[Ngoc Nguyen]

Kopaka, Onua, and Umarak all have the wheel disks to carry another 6 bullets.

[DraikNova]

I hope the Beasts, if they have masks, have their own. Rather than recoloring them in gold, I'd suggest making the "main" type of Beast mask use the main color of the beast with black accents, while the powered-up versions are black with either the main color or the translucent version of it as the accent.

[MakutaDreadscythe]

It probably allows for more potent light-piping too, that's something that frustrated me from 2015 personally, though mask design also plays a big part (cough, Tahu 15's cold dead stare).

[Aanchir]

I personally like the technic wheels. It's a pretty smart thing and reminds me of a little ammo pouch. Speaking on that- wasn't that technique (stud in a Technic hole) considered illegal and/or unstable? I don't recall seeing it on official sets until seeing these little ammo wheels and the exhausts on a few new City sets.

A single stud in a Technic hole is definitely legal. Attaching a part with multiple studs (say, a 1x3 plate) to multiple Technic holes on the same part is considered illegal because it is a very tight connection and thus much harder to separate.

[Kalhiki]

So... Is the new waist piece the closest thing we've gotten to a male-male bone? Just occurred to me that it has two ball joints and seems to be the same length as a regular 5m bone.

Can't really attach armor to it very well, but I can see it being useful for things other than a waist.

[GK733]

Looking at their backshots, the pin connecting to the upper torso doesn't seem like a regular sized pin. Makes me worry the connection could be like the studshooter.

[Logan McOwen]

I doubt that.

[GK733]

It's either this or molded in.

The latter would be really unfortunate.

Edited November 26, 2015 by GK733

[Voxovan]

I doubt that.

Same here, it looks like a normal regular gray pin-axle piece for me, so the connection should be fairly secure.

Edited November 26, 2015 by Voxovan

[Dr_Chronos]

It's possible it might be a ratcheted connection like that of the EXO-Force limbs, but I would personally like it to be a regular pin connection.

[Shakar]

I think it is a regular pin connection, while the ratcheted patterns are on the inner circle (or however you call them, sorry I suck at describing this stuff in Italian, so imagine how it is in English : S) of the hip piece and the upper gear+torso(+neck?) modified bone.

So between the gears, the ratchets and the pin, the friction should be more than enough, avoiding the floppy waist syndrome that hit 2003 Ter Makuta.

Edited November 26, 2015 by Shakar