#LEGO Modular Builds

[taertime]

LEGO Tudor Corner 10350: Modular Buildings Collection A Brick-by-Brick Breakdown (Set 10350)

G’Day Taeries and Taerrettes! Welcome to another Lego review straight from your mates at TaerTime. Before we dive in, don’t forget to check out the YouTube video just above this intro for all the up-close details and cheeky commentary you’ve come to expect. Now, let’s talk Tudor Corner – Lego Set 10350 – a masterpiece from the Modular Building Collection that’s as classy as it is clever. So, grab…

[avmlsu]

Latest project is the completion of my second LEGO modular building the Teal Townhouse. It’s actually half of one set, the other half is a bookstore (which I may look into getting next). It’s such a pretty set and I have some pieces coming from a Pick A Brick order that I’ll be adding to it soon.

[teatime-tangents-and-toys]

Teenage me in 2016 had the right idea

[bricksxbooks]

I support this product idea on LEGO Ideas, and you should, too!

[po-matoran-workshop]

I keep turning small projects into really big things help

[siphersaysstuff]

BIY Lego Town Hall, in progress

So the Lego "modular" city blocks are a fave theme of mine, and I was looking at the prices for the Town Hall from 2012, and NOPE. NOPE NOPE NOPE. Starting at $500 incomplete and only going up from there, never mind shipping.

I got a lot of spare bits, I'll build my own, thanks. Even if I have to do some Bricklink buys (and I DO and have one already on its way), it'll be way cheaper and more fun since I can do a lot of altering on the way.

The first floor is nearly done. I still need a lot of 1x8 rail-plates to complete the columns and slanted roof parts. A couple key pieces to finish the double-doors, and I'm debating my planter options. The light-gray 1x3 arches are gonna get replaced with dark-gray. Instead of flat gray walls up front, used masonry-bricks, I think they add a bit o' dignity.

Working on the interior. Using micro-builds from other sets, particularly The Office, to make it nicer inside than the rather plain original. Miiiiiiiiiight pull apart the back wall and go all light-gray masonry-brick like with the front. Which I don't have enough of, at least not 1x4 ones. Nothing but 1x2s would be a structural nightmare. Maybe some art on the left wall.

Second floor is less done. I've run out of not-small nougat-colored bricks; the original set uses a dark orange, and I like the more subtle lighter look of the nougat. Also I had (had) a shitload of 1x4 and 1x2 masonry-bricks in that color, which are fine for the front and back walls. The side-walls can be plain cuz they're gonna get mooshed up against some other buildings.

Not got much furniture in there yet, but soon.

Also working on a more elaborate elevator car. The original was basically just a floor, which felt... bad. Gave this one walls and buttons, and an escape hatch. Lacking the Technic piece for the locking mechanism on the back-left corner; once I get that (in the mail now), the design might change depending on how exactly the car sits height-wise at each floor.

The third floor is... whoof. I need a lot of 1x2x2 white windows (in the order), and I have very few nougat bricks in either form left outside of a lot of 1x2s and 1x3s, which is not ideal for big stretches of wall.

The nougat bricks might have to get bulk-ordered. They're surprisingly pricy.

Made some decent progress on the roof and clock tower. Most of it is done and the parts to complete the gray front and skylights are on order, as is the huge clock face dish.

Clock tower interior. Was debating putting a bunch of the random Technic gears I have back there, but had no good idea for how to properly attach them to the wall without them sticking WAY out, so ppppffft. One giant Mario gear.

The original bell tower design was shorter (only two 1x1 cylinders used) plus the bell was affixed to the floor. No thanks. Now the bell hangs, and even better, thanks to the 1x1 round plate/bar, it can even swing from side to side a bit!

I wanted to make a gold bell, but sadly they don't do the 3x3 dish in pearl-gold. Ah well.

So, all told, getting there. I'm sure I'll tweak it more on the way, there's been tons of light alterations I've made all over the place already.

Also, any excuse to sift through the bulk bit bins at a Bricks & Minifigs. Mmmm.

[aquastars]

We built this city 🎶

Currently awaiting the last road plates I need and then it's focusing on getting 3 more modular buildings and doing custom work and it'll be done!

[arandomnomad]

I bought myself a new LEGO, and building it is starting to hurt my back.

[bricksxbooks]

This one is definitely on my wish list!

LEGO Creator:

Bookshop

Set: 10270

2020

Pieces: 2504

[jovial-thunder]

Lancer on a physical tabletop with Lego minis!

We finally did the thing! I roped my siblings into playtesting a game of Lancer using Legos and a physical tabletop. The sitrep was to destroy five buildings, marked in red, because the Karrakins were using the installation to track their mobile hidden base (our home campaign is a blatant ripoff of Deserts of Kharak).

Things that need improvement:

better way to measure tiles. We were doing 4cm/space and had to do a lot of multiplication. Going to try wood dowels with tiles marked + get some kind of grid underlay.

similarly, we need aoe templates

I used too much terrain, it got messy

should get status rings/tokens to mark lock-on, etc

Things that worked well:

it was sick as hell to be able to physically destroy Lego terrain and mechs as they fell

we used physical dice? For lancer?? And it turns out clicky clack math rocks continue to be inherently great.

witchdice works well on mobile devices for character sheets so not every PC had to have a full laptop

different height-terrain was fun, though it made movement costs tricky to calculate

I'm excited to keep trying out different setups. All the terrain and stuff I've collected is pretty modular (lego makes that easy) so it'll be fun to see how wide a range of map types is possible.

[avmlsu]

Used some of my snow days this week and finished my latest Lego project which is the 2025 modular building Tudor Corner. It has a pub/restaurant and haberdashers shop on the first floor, a clockmakers shop on the second floor and an apartment on the third floor.

It’s for some really cute details inside and I love that the style of architecture is different from a lot of the previous modular buildings.

[honourablejester]

Daggerheart

Okay, so Daggerheart is the new hotness? And I was curious, so I bought the pdf version, both to look at character creation and also the campaign frames, because I enjoy character building and also worldbuilding. And …

Firstly? I’m vibing. This system is so modular, so mix-and-match, so ‘grab the bits you want and have fun’. In terms of character creation, it feels very … lego-esque? You get handed a pile of bricks and you pick your favourites to build a creature out of them. I’m definitely vibing over here.

Secondly. I know Age of Umbra is the campaign frame everyone’s talking about, because it’s Matt’s own one, and the Critical Role campaign is happening (sidenote, watched the session zero, it looks a LOT of fun). And Age of Umbra looks good! I would absolutely play it! But personally?

Colossus of the Drylands is up in my belltower ringing the entire carillon at once over here.

It’s a high fantasy wild west campaign where in the middle of a gold essentia rush, as massive industrialised forces are busy trying to mine out the local landscape, an ancient and imprisoned and extremely pissed off elder god beneath the earth has woken up and has started raising titanic colossi to regain his missing pieces. Because back when the new gods overthrew the old, they hurled their defeated foes down to earth and locked them away, taking pieces of them to weaken them, but the blood from their wounds seeped into the earth and started growing outwards towards those missing pieces, so that untold ages later, they’ve finally gotten close enough to start trying to get them back.

Said blood, by the way, is the ‘essentia’ that’s the target of our industrial gold rush, because essentia is also crystalised magic, the only reason mortals have magic, and the power source for a quite significant number of modern inventions.

So, basically, you’ve got Shadow of the Colossus meets Bravestarr meets Deadlands meets the western of your choice (Magnificent Seven, anyone?).

Again, clanks (aka magic robots) are an ancestry option here. You’ve got frog people, dragon people, tortoise people, mushroom people, as well as your standard orcs, dwarves, elves, goblins, etc. Which. In a fantasy western campaign.

I can have a tortoise desert drifter. I can have a dwarven gunsmith. I can have dried-out, lasso-wielding, horse-riding fucking cowboy frog. And I want one.

But. There are immediately like seventeen characters I could make for a Drylands Colossus campaign. But. One tiny detail. It’s specifically noted that in this setting, clanks are powered by essentia. So if you want to play a clank character, you’ve got to a) think of the practical concerns like how to get a steady supply of it, but also b) deal with the philosophical concerns that you’re powered by the crystalised blood of the pissed off elder god currently throwing monsters across your whole country.

Like. How do you deal with that? Reconcile that. Because …

This campaign setting is in the middle of being mined out. It’s gold rush, baby! But for essentia. All the forces of industry have arrived in the mesas to tear the magic out of the ground, render it down, and ship it out to the rest of the world to power a new age. And in the middle of that an ancient god who hates everybody and wants to tear down the whole world and start again has woken up and started throwing skyscraper-sized monsters around. But it’s pissed off because it’s been mutilated and imprisoned and its blood, its literal blood, is what mortals have been mining to make their new world. (Well. That and vengeance on the new gods, obviously. But they’re not down here having to deal with it currently).

Now. Is it also probably evil? Possibly. Is it apocalyptic? Definitely. But there’s also …

I mean. There’s a tension there. And as a clank that’s a tension that you physically embody. You are a physical manifestation of the exploitation of the land around you, the land currently vengefully rising to wipe the slate clean. You bleed gods to live, not just to be powerful. But, possibly crucially, not entirely by your own choice. You were built. You were made this way. So … what are you going to do about it?

A clank druid. A clank renewal druid. In a Colossus of the Drylands campaign.

I’m vibing. Most definitely. I am seeing possibilities over here. Heh.

[bricksxbooks]

This is such a unique mix of colors to use on building exteriors, but it works really well here.

I support this product idea on LEGO Ideas, and you should, too!

[whirligig-girl]

At time of writing, Kerbal Space Program 1 is on sale for $10 on Steam.

If you have wanted to buy KSP and have never gotten around to it, now would be a good time.

Despite the failure and cancellation of KSP2, KSP1 is still a really great game. I bought it for 18 dollars in 2012, and it remains one of my favorite games of all time and perhaps the most cost effective game purchase I've ever made.

KSP1's development is completely finished, but the modding scene is still going strong.

The DLCs are also available for half price. Here's my thoughts on them:

Making History: adds historical-themed rocket parts in new size categories, and a mission editor that allows you to design mission plans and share them for other players to fly. I do not recommend this one, because the rocket parts have been done better by free mods, and because no one ever ended up using the mission editor since those missions are walled off in their own scenarios and can't be integrated into a normal game.

Breaking Ground: adds sparse rocks and other ground scatters to the surface of planets to be explored by rovers. Much more interestingly, adds robotic parts which can totally change the kinds of vehicles and crafts you can build. I do recommend this, because the addition of robotic parts adds so much to the game.

But the real goodies are in unofficial mods. Here's my absolute must-haves:

Restock: The rocket parts in the stock game are a mix of different styles by different amateur artists who have worked on the game over the years, lacking an overall cohesive style. Restock reskins (but otherwise does not modify) all of the stock parts using new models and textures that bring a cohesive visual identity to KSP that it has sorely missed. The models are higher fidelity in most cases, but they have been made efficiently so that the game will actually run and load faster and smoother with Restock than without it. (Github)

Restock Plus adds a few other parts in the same style to round out some missing parts, and if you do not have Making History, it will add its own versions of those parts for free (and with better game balance, in my opinion). (Github)

Scatterer: Replaces the archaic stock atmosphere rendering from 2011 with an accurate simulation of rayleigh scattering, vastly improving the look of planets both in space and on the surface. (Github)

KSP Community Fixes: Bug fixes and quality of life tweaks, especially useful in light of KSP's development being discontinued. (Github)

Some tips (below the cut)

KSP allows you to build rockets almost lego style out of modular parts. The game does include a few tutorials which I do recommend you try (imperfect though they are), but here's a few other helpful tips:

there are two ways to attach parts: node attach (connecting parts via those green and black spheres that appear when you're holding a part) and surface attach (connecting parts where your mouse is). If a part can be surface attached, it will always prioritize that over node attach. So if you're trying to put together a rocket tank and the tank keeps trying to attach to the other tank wrong, you have to change your camera angle so that the nodes can come together without your mouse going over the part. The alternative is to hold the ALT key, which will force the part to attach only to a node.

The C key and the X key control angle snap and symmetry mode. There's also buttons for these on the lower left of the u.i. Symmetry is a must for building rockets.

There's three main types of engines: Liquid Fuel rocket engines, which require separate fuel tank parts burning Liquid Fuel and Oxidizer, Solid Rocket Boosters, which contain their own fuel and can not use fuel tanks or be throttled, and Jet Engines, which burn liquid fuel and atmospheric oxygen from air intakes, at a high efficiency.

There's also the ion engine, which uses electricity for power and xenon gas as a propellant for extremely high efficiency and extremely low thrust, the nuclear thermal rocket, which uses an onboard nuclear reactor to heat up liquid fuel propellant for high efficiency and low thrust, and monopropellant RCS, which are steering thrusters that use monopropellant tanks shared between all stages. There's also a single 'normal' engine that burns monopropellant, the Puff.

At a first approximation the game uses real orbital mechanics. To get to space, you just have to go straight up above 70 kilometers. To stay in space, you must enter orbit, which means your sideways velocity has to be somewhere around 2500 meters per second so as you fall you curve around the planet. The M key brings up the map mode, showing you your trajectory. It'll also show you if your orbit intersects the planet, and you can mouse over Ap (your apoapsis, the farthest distance in your orbit) or Pe (your periapsis, the closest approach in your orbit) to see if they are above 70 kilometers.

At first approximation the game uses real rocket science. The more fuel you add, the more fuel you're wasting to carry that fuel. Staging (detaching tanks and engines when they're no longer needed) using decouplers is a must. Parachutes are also a must if you want to preserve the lives of your Kerbals, but remember. This game is realistic. Parachutes will not work on airless bodies like the Mun, and they may not be enough on their own on martian planets like Duna which have only thin atmospheres.

Career mode is kinda... not very well made? I would start with Science Mode. The tech tree will kind of ease you into building with limited parts. But you can always jump right into sandbox mode.

Rocket parts come in a few diameters sizes: 0.625m, 1.25m, 1.875m, 2.5m, 3.75m, and 5m. In addition, there are 1.25m (mk1), diamond-shaped 1.25x2.5 (mk2), and roughly 3.75m (mk3) spaceplane parts. The aerodynamics and structure works out best when same diameter parts are connected together. There are adapter parts to facilitate this, as well as fairings (procedurally shaped aerodynamic casings) and engine plates if you need to get around this.

Turn on Advanced Tweakables in the settings. This will allow you to right click on parts and select "rigid attachment", and to use "autostrut", both of which are necessary for making rockets behave. (you could try and use strut parts, but that can bloat your part count and often times it isnt clear how to even attach a strut in the direction you need) This is one of my least favorite parts of KSP, as this is pretty tedious for a large rocket, but it's necessary to keep it from flopping around. For some reason KSP's developers thought that floppy rockets (even when they should be perfectly rigid), would be more fun. The idea comes from the early days of the game, when the conventional wisdom was "if it moves and it shouldn't, add struts; if it doesn't move and it should, add more boosters." The game has gotten a lot more complicated now, and that design philosophy should have been left in 2012. There's also a mod, Kerbal Joint Reinforcement, that will provide this functionality without needing autostrut and rigid attachment per part.

On efficient launches, you're going to end up looking like you're burning up. This is a limitation of the 1/10th scale planets in KSP, and how that plays with the 7/8ths scale atmospheres. During a real launch as well as an efficient KSP launch, you'll end up travelling at 1500-2000 m/s in the upper atmosphere, but in the real world that's only a fraction of orbital velocity. In KSP, that is near orbital velocity, and so the game is balanced to assume you're in reentry conditions. If you have fairings to protect sensitive parts of your ship, you should be fine.

KSP's small scale makes Apollo's Lunar Orbit Rendezvous approach inefficient for the Mun and Minmus. It's actually cheaper to just directly land on the surface. This can be fixed by installing a rescale mod such as Sigma Dimensions, and setting it to 2.5 rescale and resize, and 1.6 rotation period scale. This makes delta-v 1.6 times larger than stock KSP, resulting in more realistic proportioned rockets. The game honestly isn't any harder in this state, it just needs somewhat bigger rockets. All that aside, the "Apollo style" orbital rendezvous approach works great for all other planets, since interplanetary transfer requires more fuel as do most planetary landings. This approach has two spacecrafts launch either together or separately that travel to the destination planet docked together. The lander then separates, lands, and eventually launches again, but only back into orbit, where the orbiter picks up the crew and they launch back home.

The KSP solar system is not a 1:1 copy of our system. Moho is a lot like Mercury, Eve is like Venus but purple and much more massive, Kerbin is like Earth, Mun is like the Moon but about three times closer, Minmus is a small moon orbiting far from Kerbin, Duna is like Mars, but instead of small asteroid moons, it has an almost planet sized moon which is almost a binary companion. Jool is a gas giant that orbits where Jupiter should, but it's undersized, and orbited by three huge planet sized moons, including the ocean world Laythe, the ice planet Vall, and the airless Kerbin-mass rocky planet Tylo. In addition, two small minor moons. There's also a big Ceres analogue called Dres and Eeloo, a cracked, icy world in a 2:3 resonance with Jool, just how Pluto is in a 2:3 resonance with Neptune. There are mods that add more planets to the stock system, as well as mods that replace the stock system entirely. There's even Real Solar System (which is designed to be played with Realism Overhaul, a modpack that's almost a different game entirely)

[tgmsunmontue]

getting to know mutuals!

Tagged by @halestrom on main, but posting here because if people follow me on main they usually already know most of this... 🤣 (And editing to add @nimuetheseawitch and @ghostlykiss who have also since tagged me. I'm not ignoring them, promise!)

what's the origin of your blog title? Sunday - Monday - Tuesday, SunMonTue - it was a three-day period where I was meant to be working on an assignment however instead found fanfic and spent three days reading. Then I needed a username so I could create an account and subscribe and it's been me username/handle for nearly 20 years. Hence sunmontuewrites (main), and JanineSMT and sunmontue on AO3 etc etc...

otp(s) + shipname(s): Jake/Bradley, Hangster. Derek/Stiles, Sterek. Eric/Jack, Zimbits. Dave/Kurt, Kurtofsky. (Only doing fandoms I've written in... I'm generally pretty happy to read most things).

favourite colour: Purple. All shades.

song stuck in your head: Currently an acoustic cover of Simply the Best by John Adams. It's a little bit haunting.

weirdest habit/trait: I honestly have no idea?

hobbies: writing, baking, patchwork, Lego, card making... I also enjoy walking and travelling. And taking photos. And drawing. I also used to do scrapbooking and journalling.

if you work, what's your profession? I don't have a profession as such as a calling. I am the bossy/scary admin person that everyone is a little bit scared of... But I get shit done and people think I'm great at my job. (I studied science and work in engineering and my dad was a maths academic so... that provides some context I hope?)

if you could have any job you wish, what would it be? I legitimately love my job, the amount of variety is crazy, and the team I'm in is amazing, as are the students and 90% of the academics. HOWEVER I cannot wait to retire and write fulltime... still a little while away though. (Much closer for me than most of you though!)

something you're good at: I'd like to think I'm decent at most of my hobbies, I know I'm good at my job... I have KICK ASS hand writing if I do say so myself. I always get compliments on it.

something you hate: Bigots and people who are ignorant by choice. I am scared about becoming intolerant or close minded as I get older.

something you collect: Lego? I collect the Botanicals, Winter Village and also the modular buildings.

something you forget: Oof. I forget SO MUCH now (and I'm blaming the Covid x5 and perimenopause brainfog). I am very good at writing things down so I do not forget. I still sometimes forget.

what's your love language: Feeding people. If people are sad, lonely, happy, I want to make food for them.

favourite movie/show: Top Gun Maverick. I know. You're all shocked.

favourite food: Chinese. So much variety and depth of flavour I could eat nothing but Chinese food for the rest of my life and be happy.

favourite animal: Cats. At one point we had five. It was GLORIOUS.

what were you like as a child: BUSY.

favourite subject at school: Geography.

least favourite subject: Hmm. None. Yes. I was one of those annoying kids.

what's your best character trait? I try to assume people aren't trying to be dicks. Like I ask myself "could they be having a bad day?" before I let their behaviour impact mine negatively, or ruin my day. (I have to TRY really hard at this some days).

what's your worst character trait? I over think things. Also I can come across as snobbish or cold/uncaring. (But I'm just quiet and introverted in person and several of my friends have said they thought I was stand offish before they got to know me).

if you could change any detail of your life right now, what would it be? I would love to have my mum be alive.

if you could travel in time, who would you like to meet? Oof. Kate Sheppard probably. Although she'd likely be devasted with the current events going on in the USA.

If you do this please tag me, mutuals or not. I always like getting to know people. 🌻🌻🌻

[justanothergaymess]

I am rarely keeping up with Lego news and I stopped being interested in Ninjago as a kid around season 4, so when I first saw the images of the new Ninjago City modular building and saw the Harumi figure for a brief moment I lived in a better alternate universe where Lloyd transitioned while I wasn't looking at canon