Old Space Mothership

[Lasse D]

My exams are finally over, and after consulting jipay about where it's best to post this (thanks for that), I will present one of the oldest creations of mine that is still intact. I'm not completely sure about its age, so I had to guess by the release dates of the sets that are used. I can now see that it has to be from 2000 or later because of the dark gray cones.

On to the model. It is a small mothership in style of the Exploriens space theme. It is actually a second generation model. The first generation model had only the two completely black fighters. This model has 6 smaller vessels

There are four armed single personal transports, a remote controlled scout and an exploration vehicle

A laboratory and a control room

...and a small utility room in the rear

One of the transports is docked from below

Here is how it looked after standing in the attic for about five years

I washed it... and put it out in the rain for the pictures (it's getting late early, so I couldn't wait long before it wa too dark)

The full gallery at brickshelf:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=226597

Back in the time before all the years of scavaging I had three competing space themes, and there was even a home base for this mothership, but the remains are almost unrecognizable now.

I wanted to share this creation with you before it will be destroyed as well. There are some ideas for a replacement, but I don't know have any time schedule for it. I know black is a bad color for pictures and the ship was made with playability in mind, but I please don't hold the critique back - I will use it for my future space creations ;-)

[xenologer]

I like it!

The robot scout docks off on one side and makes the ship look kinda uneven when its there, maybe relocate it.

Aside from that... maybe if the crew quarters/ rooms were re-organized so they were connected to each other and the main cockpit.

Hmmh, the overall shape, without the fighters, is almost like a U shape, maybe if you enhanced that shape to hollow out the center more as a repair bay or generic docking port separate from the 'permament' docks for each fighter. That would make it feel like more of a support ship/carrier.

[Asuka]

Very nice and ingenious! *y*

I like all those small vehicles and the color scheme is beautiful. Good work!

[Lasse D]

I like all the suggestions xenologer. The robot scout and exploration vehicle are both late add-ons and were not thought about when I made the ship. This is not ideal, and the whole creation was pretty much an incremental build. The first generation of the ship was actually with the crew quarters and everything together, and I think it was meant to be possible to walk inside of this ship, but the final product didn't leave enough space for that.

Although the ideas are good, I don't think I can save the ship by just changing most of it - I have to build a new one from scratch. It must be highly modular like some of the early LEGO space themes, but at the same time have a much more coherent and compact design with a basic overall shape.

It will probably take quite some time before it's finished. I have taken some pictures of the remain from the other creations from back then just for fun:

There was a white theme with ground vehicles only. They could all be combined to a single vehicle like the mothership

The third theme was mostly like Ice Planet 2000. It had a first generation mothership which could land on this vehicle

The theme with the big mothership did also have a ground vehicle which wa basically a big gun with wheels

... and a home base

The entrance to the base was guarded and hidden