LEGO Sci-Fi Ongoing - Rumors, Speculation, and Discussion

[danth]

Anyone know what this is?

https://www.jb-spielwaren.de/en/space-minifigures-series-26-as-a-whole-box-with-special/a-648662223/

I'm guessing custom printed figure with real Lego pieces?

High res pics of the 2025 Galactic Spaceship have leaked on reddit.

[Black Falcon]

5 hours ago, danth said:

Anyone know what this is?

https://www.jb-spielwaren.de/en/space-minifigures-series-26-as-a-whole-box-with-special/a-648662223/

I'm guessing custom printed figure with real Lego pieces?

Yes

[Lyichir]

Not a space set, but the new Friends airport set does introduce 1x2x5 bricks in trans yellow, which could be useful for people MOCing Classic Space or Blacktron 1: https://brickset.com/sets/42656-1/Heartlake-City-Airport-and-Airplane

[Classic_Spaceman]

On 12/3/2024 at 12:27 PM, Lyichir said:

Not a space set, but the new Friends airport set does introduce 1x2x5 bricks in trans yellow, which could be useful for people MOCing Classic Space or Blacktron 1: https://brickset.com/sets/42656-1/Heartlake-City-Airport-and-Airplane

I wonder if this will show up in the Renegade remake. 🤔
 

[astroboy75]

Is the Renegade really happening january 1st ? Strange we haven't seen anything. 

[GeoBrick]

2 hours ago, astroboy75 said:

Is the Renegade really happening january 1st ? Strange we haven't seen anything. 

I'm not surprised 

LEGO keeps the best for last. 

[danth]

10 hours ago, astroboy75 said:

Is the Renegade really happening january 1st ? Strange we haven't seen anything. 

I know right? I can't wait to see it.

[Klaus-Dieter]

On 12/6/2024 at 9:16 AM, astroboy75 said:

Is the Renegade really happening january 1st ? Strange we haven't seen anything. 

This year's (bad) Winter Village set was revealed firstly about one week before its release. So I fear that Lego will hold this trend with future exclusive (especially unlicensed) sets, too. So I guess the reveal of the Renegade will be around Christmas and sadly not much earlier.

Edited December 8, 2024 by Klaus-Dieter

[Classic_Spaceman]

13 hours ago, Klaus-Dieter said:

So I guess the reveal of the Renegade will be around Christmas and sadly not much earlier.

Maybe right after Christmas? Unless we see it early next week (Dec. 9/10), they will have waited too long for the reveal to be able to generate Christmas preorders, IMO. 
 

[Lyichir]

2 hours ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

Maybe right after Christmas? Unless we see it early next week (Dec. 9/10), they will have waited too long for the reveal to be able to generate Christmas preorders, IMO. 
 

Do we even know if it would have preorders? I think those are still a fairly rare thing for Lego, mostly limited to things like high-demand licensed sets. Also, the Lego preorders we've seen tend to start multiple months in advance, since the main advantage of preorders on Lego's end is for the company to gauge early demand and adjust production accordingly—something they couldn't really do effectively for a release less than a month away.

Lego set production is a much less streamlined and rapid process than, say, video game preorders (where producing additional game discs or cards according to demand is not that much of a logistical challenge), so Lego's foray into preorders has been comparatively more restrained.

[Classic_Spaceman]

26 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

Do we even know if it would have preorders? I think those are still a fairly rare thing for Lego, mostly limited to things like high-demand licensed sets. Also, the Lego preorders we've seen tend to start multiple months in advance, since the main advantage of preorders on Lego's end is for the company to gauge early demand and adjust production accordingly—something they couldn't really do effectively for a release less than a month away.

I was thinking of it as a way to get last-minute Christmas gifts ("Oh, my AFOL always loved Blacktron - I'm getting them that for Christmas!!"). 
 

[Artanis I]

Retailers want people to buy old stock already on the shelf for Christmas, they don't want people to be instead pre-ordering things that come out next year. TLG would get serious complaints if they were advertising and even allowing pre-orders for future 2025 releases.

[TeddytheSpoon]

14 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Do we even know if it would have preorders? I think those are still a fairly rare thing for Lego, mostly limited to things like high-demand licensed sets. Also, the Lego preorders we've seen tend to start multiple months in advance, since the main advantage of preorders on Lego's end is for the company to gauge early demand and adjust production accordingly—something they couldn't really do effectively for a release less than a month away.

Lego set production is a much less streamlined and rapid process than, say, video game preorders (where producing additional game discs or cards according to demand is not that much of a logistical challenge), so Lego's foray into preorders has been comparatively more restrained.

I dunno, it seems like something they're doing a lot more frequently of late, including for smaller sets (although admittedly I only really notice the licensed ones). The 2025 Jurassic World, Star Wars and some Technic sets are up for pre-order now, for instance, and most of them only got officially revealed in the last week or so.

[Lyichir]

HUGE pictures of the new City spaceship on this site: https://www.2ttoys.nl/de-gb/products/lego-60446-modulair-galactic-spaceship-verken-de-kosmos-met-lego-city

[Classic_Spaceman]

16 hours ago, Lyichir said:

HUGE pictures of the new City spaceship on this site: https://www.2ttoys.nl/de-gb/products/lego-60446-modulair-galactic-spaceship-verken-de-kosmos-met-lego-city

Nice!! Still no shots of the section behind the cockpit, though; also, the pod seems oddly empty. 
 

[Lyichir]

Just now, Classic_Spaceman said:

Nice!! Still no shots of the section behind the cockpit, though; also, the pod seems oddly empty. 
 

Yeah, I'm curious about that as well. Maybe it has space to store the small mining robot and EVA pack or something? I'm not expecting anything too exciting but the fact that there is space there means it's gotta be used for something.

The pod seems to mainly have storage for the astronauts' helmets from the looks of it. Incidentally, this seems to be the first one of these space sets to include alternate hairpieces for the astronauts, which is appreciated.

[Classic_Spaceman]

24 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

Yeah, I'm curious about that as well. Maybe it has space to store the small mining robot and EVA pack or something? I'm not expecting anything too exciting but the fact that there is space there means it's gotta be used for something.

There seems to be enough space for the robot and EVA pack in the pod, though. Also, while this may just be a structural thing, the cockpit is separated from the area behind it by a transparent panel, so maybe there is some kind of reactor or engine build there; I am leaning away from just a couple of chairs for the crew, as there is no reason to separate that from the cockpit. 

32 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

Incidentally, this seems to be the first one of these space sets to include alternate hairpieces for the astronauts, which is appreciated.

Agreed! I am not sure why hairpieces were not included in some of the 2024 sets (the base, science lab, and space station specifically), as it made for some awkward scenes of the crew eating and sleeping with their helmets on! The 2022 City space sets included hairpieces, so their exclusion from the 2024 wave was quite odd. 
 

[icm]

With these new pictures we can clearly see that in overall length this is just as long as any pre-1999 Space flagship. In particular, the body of the spaceship has just as much usable interior volume as the 6984 Galactic Mediator from 1994. The modularity of leaving the ground base behind and flying off with the rest of the ship is executed better than probably any other spaceship except the 6980 Galaxy Commander and maybe the 6985 Cosmic Fleet Voyager. I'm glad to see that the CMF spacewalking backpack is being used in other themes now; I hope it gets used for years to come in all sorts of Space and Space-adjacent applications. However, the use of stubby little wings to aid the modularity means the whole ship seriously lacks the sense of volume and presence that the 6984 has, with its big delta wings. That set had an inflation-adjusted RRP of $130, and this one is rumored to be lower, but I'm still worried it'll be too high. That website lists it at $86 and I was hoping for $80; meanwhile, Brick Fanatics says it's 80 GBP which is $100 USD. So I'll still have to wait for a sale on this one. Regarding the area behind the cockpit, if it's never shown open on any of the official photos that must mean it doesn't open. I bet the set designers built it hollow because they wanted to have another cargo hold or minifig cabin there, but they weren't able to make the integrated spaceship sufficiently rigid without the support of a rigid roof across that section. So they closed it up for rigidity's sake and left it hollow to keep the weight down and to let kids put stuff there anyway if they want to.

[Lyichir]

29 minutes ago, icm said:

Regarding the area behind the cockpit, if it's never shown open on any of the official photos that must mean it doesn't open. I bet the set designers built it hollow because they wanted to have another cargo hold or minifig cabin there, but they weren't able to make the integrated spaceship sufficiently rigid without the support of a rigid roof across that section. So they closed it up for rigidity's sake and left it hollow to keep the weight down and to let kids put stuff there anyway if they want to.

Nah, the area behind the cockpit can definitely open. A close look at the edge that the large 8x6 roof piece attaches to reveals a combination of 1x4 plates with two studs and ingot pieces instead of regular bricks and plates—these parts combined are an easy way to make a removable section (since the reduced studs create a looser connection and the ingots even provide a handy "lip" to separate it from). It's sort of similar to the roof connection in the small rover set from this year.

It's not uncommon for there to be features of sets that don't get included in alt pictures, especially when a lot of the back of the box (where these sorts of pics normally go) is taken up highlighting a feature like this set's modularity.

[icm]

Good point, the ingot pieces do seem to indicate that area should open. But if it does, why aren't there any lifestyle pictures with it open? Maybe there's no room to show off that feature on the back of the box, but the lifestyle photos don't go on the back of the box anyway.

[icm]

60446 was just added to Lego.com for $80!

[Lyichir]

Nice! $80 is not too bad overall for a set that size (price per piece could be better but of course City theme tends to be pricy). I look forward to getting this, and maybe even to eventually buying extra jumpsuit torsos from it on Bricks & Pieces.

EDIT: On another note, continuing to speculate about what the extra space behind the cockpit is used for it occurred to me that the two meteorites included in the set would fill the 8x4 space there pretty well. Not guaranteed that's what it's used for, but it's a possibility.

Edited December 11, 2024 by Lyichir

[Classic_Spaceman]

4 hours ago, Lyichir said:

EDIT: On another note, continuing to speculate about what the extra space behind the cockpit is used for it occurred to me that the two meteorites included in the set would fill the 8x4 space there pretty well. Not guaranteed that's what it's used for, but it's a possibility.

I was thinking that it could be for the two included airlock covers; they seem to be able to fit into that space, and the meteors are more of a terrain side-build than something that is intended to be stored in the main model. 
 

[Stereo]

51 minutes ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

I was thinking that it could be for the two included airlock covers; 

I was curious about whether it came with extras in the first pictures, cause none of the stills have them, but the 3d spin does show 2 extras when it's all assembled into a single ship.  I don't think they actually fit, unless their underside has a way for the Technic pins to nest into each other - they're 4 plates + 1 stud thick, so 2 of them with the pins in the space between them would be 11 plates thick and not fit in a 4 stud wide hold.

Edited December 11, 2024 by Stereo

[GeoBrick]

I feel there is a bit of a flaw in the habitat section though. The top cover is round. The wall windows and supports above them are rounded. But LEGO uses those straight-angled bricks for the first layer.