How to improve combiners ?

[morg176]

How would you redesign/improve combining transformers, be it either the gimmick or the packaging or the combination design itself?

[Lint]

instead of having them combine into a gigantic humanoid robot, let them combine into other things like a giant battle turtle or something.

[Deonasis]

- No fists, feet, head or chest pieces to plug in. Each limb have 3 modes (alt, bot, limb). I believe Liokaiser is like this.

- Better connecting places, most arms combine at the shoulder joint which is very weak, make the arms or the torso include the whole shoulder.

- And better connectors, not just a plug.

[kup]

How would you redesign/improve combining transformers, be it either the gimmick or the packaging or the combination design itself?

By bringing back robot modes for the gestalt components

[GoktimusPrime]

- No fists, feet, head or chest pieces to plug in. Each limb have 3 modes (alt, bot, limb). I believe Liokaiser is like this.

Except for the head - which is still a detachable accessory, all of Liokaiser's gestalt parts are self-contained. This was a revolutionary concept for G1 (1989). Beast Wars gave us the first gestalts with fully self-contained gestalt parts though (Tripredacus and Magnaboss) and the new-moulded gestalts in Car Robot/RiD (JRX and Buildking) followed suit.

Unfortunately we went kinda backwards in 2004 with the Energon/Superlink Gestalts whose hands and feet were detachable accessories.

[morg176]

i agree with what has been said so far. Gestalts must have a proper hand and some kind of real foot so that they can at stand in a pose.

im not fond of the spring loaded feature of the pcc combiners as transforming the limbs was half the fun, and yes the limbs have to have a robot mode. the dinosaur/ animal mode of grimstomes drones is a halfway thing but still they should be robots too.

[Sharky]

proper hands is a must, not weird 3 pronged claws or bizzar out of proportion mangle looking things.... 4 fingers and a thumb that can hold a weapon

[morg176]

pentadactyl hands are definitely a must! but dont forget there is more to combiners than just 5 robots that join up.

doucons (an awesome idea poorly translated to the toy world)
you could also do two animals that join up into one robot, the combinations are endless, but the components would have to be engineered to each other, not freely modular like in PCC as there are way too many compromises.

ALSO what gimmicks should be kept/re'engineered, which ones work and which fall short (head, target, power master etc)

what would you do if you could do anything in creating a combining/and or /gimmick line for tf, and what size point would it be at, justify your answers!

[Lord_Zed]

Except for the head - which is still a detachable accessory, all of Liokaiser's gestalt parts are self-contained. This was a revolutionary concept for G1 (1989). Beast Wars gave us the first gestalts with fully self-contained gestalt parts though (Tripredacus and Magnaboss) and the new-moulded gestalts in Car Robot/RiD (JRX and Buildking) followed suit.

Unfortunately we went kinda backwards in 2004 with the Energon/Superlink Gestalts whose hands and feet were detachable accessories.

I think detachable parts are ok IF they can be stored somewhere in bot and alt mode, and if they actualy look like something. The Energon accessories might have been ok if they actualy looked like robot feet or fists and not transparent wierd things.

[kup]

I think detachable parts are ok IF they can be stored somewhere in bot and alt mode, and if they actualy look like something. The Energon accessories might have been ok if they actualy looked like robot feet or fists and not transparent wierd things.

Yeah that's what the concept that the Crossfire sets executed, specially the Bruticus one. All 'Combiner kibble' can be used as weapons or upgrades for the individual figures.