Build your own Ulysses Space Probe

Great! Steps 35 to 38 are missing though.

Thank you! I'd been looking forward to this and was one of too many who was left empty handed. This is great!
fyi - Pages 22 and 23 (steps 35-38) are missing, but I'm happy to work it out myself, as well.

Man this is preem for people who want this set.

@SMC said:
"I didn't know display plate is printed, that's nice for those that got it and no so much for those building their own."

Yeah, i managed to get one but it hasnt arrived yet, that sucks tho. Ive had to resort to third party stickers for bricklinked stuff before, and even sticker swapping, but replacing a sticker with a sticker isnt the same to me from a collecting standpoint as replacing a printed piece with a sticker. Bummer, really disappointed with how this whole thing was handled.

If theres thousands more stuck on the impounded boat still or whatever tf happened, say something and i think everyone will relax and just make some memes about it.

Its weird they printed a part for it though, considering its in their generic blank box in a ziplock bag, which as a production shortcut should be the sort of thing that would make it simpler for them to produce more of them as needed... but maybe ironically the nameplate not being a sticker is what prevented that from happening.

Feels weird saying this, but it shouldve been a sticker! lol

I see someone beat me to it, then. Thanks for the effort.
I was really surprised when I saw that the plaque was actually printed. I expected a sticker like the Hubble one.

@Kathleen said:
"Thank you! I'd been looking forward to this and was one of too many who was left empty handed. This is great!
fyi - Pages 22 and 23 (steps 35-38) are missing, but I'm happy to work it out myself, as well."

You can find another pdf upload from here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/mrzffw/6373604_ulysses_space_probe_build/

Thank you for this.

Thank you Brickset!!!

From the official pictures, I never realized how bright the yellow on it is!

I wonder if the printed plaque is on Bricks and Pieces? Well, it can't be checked because the US version of customer service leads to a 503 error and has been like that all day. Is the site getting too overloaded with angry complaints?

This is what the hobby of LEGO and the community of AFOLs is all about!

Thanks just ordered the parts. Now the wait for the parts to arrive.

looks cool

@1265 :
All the yellow bits on the official set had gold foil on them to reflect light and IR radiation away. I believe they used gold instead of something silver (which reflects light more efficiently) because gold doesn’t tarnish and silver turns black. Platinum might have been another option, but gold is a lot cheaper.

So, the Stoneware MOC uses gold and dark-tan parts to get the color more accurate, while the official model probably used yellow because that’s what the model shop team had to work with (if reports of the box style are correct, this would have been designed by the same people who do event builds and used to design the free sets for LEGO Store grand openings). By making the image darker, the yellow looks more like gold than it does in decent lighting.

@BrickTeller said:
"This community response makes me think of a new direction Lego could take for promotions in the future: They should release instructions and parts lists, flood BrickLink with the necessary parts at reasonable prices, and make VIP points redeemable on BrickLink."

Ka-CHING! We have a winner!

@BrickTeller said:
"This community response makes me think of a new direction Lego could take for promotions in the future: They should release instructions and parts lists, flood BrickLink with the necessary parts at reasonable prices, and make VIP points redeemable on BrickLink."

I think this would be a brilliant idea. And it isn’t all that different from the AFOL program that they are doing with Ideas now. I would love to see Lego put Bricklink to better use. It would be very cool to be able to redeem my points for a set on Bricklink and add some additional parts I’m looking for to my order. Definitely better than forcing me to buy a whole set (and an expensive one if I want free shipping) in order to get my rewards.

@TheInfamousBobaFett said:
"Don’t get why people like this"
Because they couldn't have it.... people are funny like that!

"I love it when the community comes together like this!"

I love it when everyone ignores copyright just because it suits them.

Thanks brickset!
Wonder why LEGO made excuses all this time that they cannot print white over black, matt surfaces properly, unless they lied or contracted a third party printing company for this limited run.
Of course this printed part will not be available now at Bricks & Pieces, being licensed and sold out.
But I'm not even sure the ordering of parts is worth the time now that I see how ugly this set looks in white and regular yellow.

It’s an option sure but it’s not really the same is it.

I don’t think we should be making excuses for the multi million dollar company when they should be the ones bending over backwards to please their fans and rectify their mistakes.

I’ve never understood the unquestioning adulation some have towards TLG. It’s bizarre to say the least.

What a saga?! Whilst I can appreciate the frustration of fans for not being able to get an official model, I don`t even think that its that good a model! Sometimes its just the exclusivity that drives all of this. I think MOC-builders are doing a better job.

@aleydita said:
""I love it when the community comes together like this!"

I love it when everyone ignores copyright just because it suits them."

I trust that Huw got permission in some way, after all he mentioned their username.

@ThatLegoDude said:
" @aleydita said:
""I love it when the community comes together like this!"

I love it when everyone ignores copyright just because it suits them."

I trust that Huw got permission in some way, after all he mentioned their username."

Guess Aleydita refers to Lego’s copyright...

For me, good job all, even if i don’t care much about the set.

@ThatLegoDude said:
" @aleydita said:
""I love it when the community comes together like this!"

I love it when everyone ignores copyright just because it suits them."

I trust that Huw got permission in some way, after all he mentioned their username."

The copyright belongs to Lego, not whoever scanned them.

I’ve just bought the set off an eBay seller. As I was wasting money I thought I’d buy the retired Ideas Mars Curiosity Rover too. Could’ve bought two Star Wars UCS sets instead :-D

If this were a widely available retail set, no one would want this. It's a bland inaccurate model of an obscure satellite - I simply fail to see the appeal of this.

@bricksintheattic said:
" @aleydita said:
""I love it when the community comes together like this!"

I love it when everyone ignores copyright just because it suits them."

So who is losing out here? LEGO's spectacular fail means they won't be making any more money from this underproduced set. Only parasitic scalper scumbags will. If anything sharing instructions will drive a lot of business to Bricks & Pieces."

It's not for Brickset to decide when copyright can or cannot be ignored.

I like this model and I prefer it to some of the MoCs of the same spacecraft. Any Lego model inevitably involves compromises.
I looked at the possibility of doing this model with alternate colours, but the parts don't exist for this construction other than in yellow (Dark Orange would have been a good compromise for the gold colours). While others have gone for overall scale and colour accuracy, I feel they've compromised on some of the other aspects that this does well (for example the cylindrical shape of the rocket booster unit).
And as a commercial set, this has very good parts optimisation, a few aspects I would change myself anyway.

I compared the two XML files, they are sorted differently and the first one has extra entries for empty "remarks" but otherwise the two files appear to be identical. I guess that's good right.

@aleydita:
There are a lot of copyrights involved here, but I don’t see any that have been violated. The original model is licensed, so no violation. The alternate model is an original work of art, so no violation. The instructions for the alternate model are disseminated free of charge, so no violation. And if The LEGO Company took issue with anyone posting scans of instructions like these, Huw would have heard about it years ago. If they know about it but don’t object, there’s no violation*. Peeron used to have an agreement with TLC where they could post instructions for every set, without feet of legal action, provided they waited an agreed number of years from the date of release. When TLC started hosting their own instructions, that kinda shut down the need for Peeron to do so anymore. TRU and LEGO Store build events have always seemed to be exempt, with many sites posting photos of the instructions immediately after the event concluded, and nobody has been asked to take them down.

And it’s possible for multiple entities to own copyright on a single photo. The easy and obvious example is if you showed a photo of Batman beating up Ironman, who owns the copyright? Warner Bros, or Disney? They actually share the copyright with whoever took the photograph. WB and Disney share copyright on the content, and the photographer owns the actual photo. It’s also possible for nobody to own copyright on a photo. There was a lawsuit filed by a guy who set up a trail camera with a button that triggered the shutter. A monkey sat in front of the camera and pushed the button. He posted the image, which got republished all over the internet and in some print media, all without compensation. The courts ruled that he had no legal claim over the photo because he didn’t press the button, set it up on an automated timer, or hook it up to a motion sensor. No, he left a button that required active participation by the subject. The subject was a monkey, and animals can’t hold copyright, so nobody legally owns the photo.

*A perfect example of the extremes in how copyright can be handled is Star Trek vs Star Wars. A couple decades ago, Paramount issued C&D orders to all Trek fan sites, forcing every one to shut down operations, after which they started up their own with a paid subscription to get in. George Lucas found out people were making fan-fic videos in his Star Wars universe, and arranged for some of them to be formally published (I remember buying a magazine to get the DVD of Troops that was attached to the cover), and I think he might have set up a free hosting service. But if you tried to sell anything based on Star Wars without a proper licensing agreement, he’d drop the hammer on you, as one guy found out after advertising that he was selling “custom Jedi robes”.

@R0Sch:
They’ve never claimed they couldn’t print white on black. They’re even doing it for Sylvester from Looney Tunes. The issue is they can’t get it to print as nicely as black on white. Darker prints are more saturated with pigment that blocks the base color from reading through the print. Light prints have less pigment, and tend to be printed on stronger base colors that read through print more easily. To get a clean, bright white on black, you have to double print the white so it will overpower the base color. Then, because the edges are probably not perfectly aligned, you have to overprint the edges with the base color. That’s three print steps to achieve a single color print. If we heard correctly a few years ago that their printing machines are running at max capacity, you’re basically talking about buying another printing machine and setting up an entire line just to increase print capacity so they can dedicate some of it to tripling the cost of certain print operations. If they did that, something has to pay for all that added expense. Two decades ago when they had to set up another molding machine and production line, they reportedly paid for it by raising the price of Bionicle pod sets by $1. There really isn’t any current dir

Thank you!

For the record, that Lego "reply" about this issue mentioned on various articles is 100% scripted copy and paste.

I have the exact reply from well prior to this regarding a different issue. A customer service agent wasn't actually responding with sympathy.

Lego does this on purpose and WILL continue to do so.

I’ve got free instructions up on my Instagram site redesigned myself with the light bright orange color and looked for the cheapest parts on BrickLink. Cheers!
https://www.instagram.com/kk_bricks/

I love to see folks helping each other to build the set they didn’t get to purchase. But this does nothing to help those of us that didn’t get one but like to keep their sets in the box to be cherished forever. I guess I’ll have to track one down and buy it second hand cause lego can’t even tell me if they’ll ever have more or not...

Unfortunately, I didn't get any Ulysses either.
I also got AGB errors at 10am and then the set was out of stock.

I am wondering why so many sets are for sale on eBay.

I also own, for example:
"Roman Chariot",
"The United Trinity" and
"Yoda's Lightsaber".

But these have never appeared so often on eBay.

So what is different now?

The sets mentioned above were a GWP and you had to buy a set on the first day at full price. Usually only real fans or collectors do that and they want to build or keep the set.

This time, anyone could get the set for a few VIP points and this was probably with the intention of selling it again.

That's probably why so many real fans went away empty-handed...

@Huw said:
"We do not usually host instructions but in this case I have made an exception believing that doing so aligns with LEGO's fair play policy, in the same way that displaying images of sets does.

https://www.lego.com/en-gb/legal/notices-and-policies/fair-play/

"The LEGO Group owns the copyrights to its building instructions, publications and to the photographs used in our catalogs and on our packages. Copying, scanning and distributing these materials on the Internet would be an infringement of our copyrights. Nevertheless, at the present time the LEGO Group does not object to scanning of limited extracts of these materials in unaltered form for non-commercial purposes of exchange of information or good faith commentary."

One could argue about the meaning of 'limited extracts' in this instance I suppose and should LEGO's lawyers ask me to remove them I will do so."

You know as well as I do that providing a complete scan of a instructions booklet does not fall within the limited use provided for by the text you copy.

People seem to think that so long as you're not making a shilling when you rip someone's copyright off, that the copyright holder (a) won't care, or (b) can't do anything about it. You're all wrong.

@Arpie said:
" @RonnyN said:
" @GarethMoore said:
"That’s the first time I’ve ever seen “Mos” as an abbreviation for “months”! On that basis “hours” should have “Hos”..."

That's actually quite common"

I've worked in engineering and programming internationally and never come across it. Its not any sort of standard nomenclature I know of and after the odd mishap like Climate Orbiter standard nomenclature is pretty much drilled into any technical job now."

Here you go:
"The proper MLA abbreviation for the word months is mos."

See here: https://thewordcounter.com/abbreviation-for-months/:~:text=The%20proper%20MLA%20abbreviation%20for%20the%20word%20months%20is%20mos.&text=The%20longest%20month%20of%20the,Check%20back%20next%20mo.

You learn something new every day!

@Arlti:
They did a GWP of Batman/Wonder Woman/Superman? I guess I missed that...

Anyways, the Yoda Lightsaber absolutely did end up all over eBay, but there weren’t that many made so the feeding frenzy didn’t last long. Things were different for the Roman Chariot. Not only did it not really fit with the Colosseum (the same could be said for Yoda’s Lightsaber vs the Cantina, but at least that’s clearly part of the same theme), but it was available for months after launch. By the numbers, it sounds like they made a lot more of the chariots than they had Colosseums to pair them with early on, as the latter went out of stock multiple times without running out of the GWP, even after the promo period was over. Right now, they are all over eBay, but priced around $50, they haven’t drawn much attention...or ire. There’s not a ton of demand for them as a true standalone set, where Ulysses is designed to actually fit in the payload bay of Discovery so a lot more people feel like they need Ulysses to make Discovery complete.

@Arlti said:
"Unfortunately, I didn't get any Ulysses either.
I also got AGB errors at 10am and then the set was out of stock.

I am wondering why so many sets are for sale on eBay.

I also own, for example:
"Roman Chariot",
"The United Trinity" and
"Yoda's Lightsaber".

But these have never appeared so often on eBay.

So what is different now?

The sets mentioned above were a GWP and you had to buy a set on the first day at full price. Usually only real fans or collectors do that and they want to build or keep the set.

This time, anyone could get the set for a few VIP points and this was probably with the intention of selling it again.

That's probably why so many real fans went away empty-handed..."

Very good point. If you have enough points but aren’t interested in this set, all you have to do is spend the points, buy a $3 keychain, and pay shipping (or a set you want that gives free shipping). Then get it and make $100 profit on eBay that will help pay for sets you really care about. When you think about it, the scalpers in this case do buy a lot of Lego, so if they are simply doing this so they can buy more sets they care about, I really can’t blame them.

However, with this in mind, it creates a serious problem with releasing sets for points instead of GWP. You would never buy the Cantina to scalp Yoda’s lightsaber, you would lose hundreds. So you had to want the Cantina in the first place. And perhaps by scalping Yoda’s lightsaber it helped you pay for the Cantina.

Has anyone received the official set and opened it (rather than putting it straight on eBay).

I was quite surprised to find that, inside the sealed box, the bricks were in a zip lock bag rather than a sealed bag. I was thinking that these sets were maybe assembled by home workers, rather than at the factory, which would probably account for the delays and shortages.

@BrickTeller said:
"This community response makes me think of a new direction Lego could take for promotions in the future: They should release instructions and parts lists, flood BrickLink with the necessary parts at reasonable prices, and make VIP points redeemable on BrickLink."

It would take about 30 seconds for BL sellers to scream about being undercut, I simply cannot see that going well at all

Unsurprisingly, "sets" are available on Ebay without box or plaque, instructions to be emailed after purchase - a snip at £40

@sjr60:
These generic yellow-boxed sets, where the instructions double as the box art, are almost certainly assembled in/by the model shop. It's going to be a more labor-intensive process, with a more limited part selection, than if it was a regular retail set.

@PurpleDave said:
" @sjr60:
These generic yellow-boxed sets, where the instructions double as the box art, are almost certainly assembled in/by the model shop. It's going to be a more labor-intensive process, with a more limited part selection, than if it was a regular retail set."
No. All previous generic yellow box sets I've received have contained bricks in a factory heat sealed bag. This is the 1st set I've ever received with the bricks in a zip-lock bag.

Thank you very much to the people who shared the instructions and graphics with the rest of the community here! I'm happy to know I'll be able to collect the pieces at my leisure and make my own probe to add to my Shuttle set.