LMS Explorer

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The LMS Explorer is a futuristic mobile space station which accommodates the Rock Raiders. Its original mission was to explore uncharted planets. On their way home, however, they were sucked through a wormhole to a neighboring galaxy to another planetary system, including Planet U. Unfortunately, the LMS Explorer did not have enough power to travel back home, so they needed to find a source of power. This power lay in that of the Energy Crystals detected on Planet U. They began mining the planet for these crystals immediately. Once they had plenty of power, they went into warp.

Although this is one of the pivotal vehicles in the franchise, no official LEGO set was ever made for it, which was probably caused by its massive size and the effort to scale it down to an affordable set. According to one fan creation the LMS Explorer is probably 975 studs long, 134 studs wide and 133 studs tall and has a piece count of ~57,000 for the hull alone, whereby this number doesn't include an inner structure or interior.

Description Of The Ship's Appearance

The ship possesses a long narrow body, that looks similar to the ones for ships, that are used for travel and transport of goods on water. On the back of the LMS Explorer is a bulky looking part, that resembles the area used for the reactor and the four engines. Between the middle and posterior third of the body stands the bridge out. On top of the body are several relatively flat constructions, that for example serve for detection purposes. In the front of the ship is a dish and several antennas, that vary in their length and diameter. Another feature are two different section types used for the main body, that look different (one type consists mostly out of bright grey and the other one also out of dark grey and teal) and are being used in an alternating pattern along the ship. The color scheme is based on the Rock Raider's one, which means, that bright grey, dark grey and teal (used for stripes) are the most used colors. Other colors, that are part of the ship, are transparent ones like transparent green, red and clear. The hull consists for the most part out of slopes (primarily 25° and 73°), inverted slopes (mainly 25° and 74°) and plates, that gives the ship an angled shape.

Known Rooms

The several media, in which the LMS Explorer is represented (Videos, Comics and Magazines), only show very few rooms. Based on their size and the amount of outer structures like windows it's very likely, that there are many more rooms, that weren't featured in any media.

Bridge

The most well known room (due to the intro and outro videos of the PC game) of the entire ship, which serves as its command central. It has a main monitor, that can retract from the ceiling, a small platform and several computer systems to control and supervise the ship.

Hangar Bay

It's the second room featured in the Intro, which contains mining equipment and vehicles like a small transporter and the Granite Grinder.

Teleport Area

Next to the Hangar Bay and also featured in the Intro is an area, in which Docs and Jet teleport themselves down to Planet U. It also has a monitor, that can be used to communicate with the bridge.

Reactor Room

This room can be seen in Outro, where the crew put the energy crystals into a device to fuel the reactor again. The users Fushigisaur and Sadie Meowsalot have shown, that this device is very likely an energy crystal chute, which looks like the unused canteen building for the Rock Raiders PC game.

Technology & Equipment

Teleporters

Teleporters devices can teleport any Rock Raider to any a nearby location. The LMS Explorer uses these devices frequently when in orbit around Planet U, teleporting down the necessary Rock Raiders, Buildings, and Vehicles. When something is teleported, a large glowing blue-green cylindrical column appears around it. The column rotates faster and faster and then thins to a light ray that beams back up into space. This ray then expands again into a column and then dissipates, revealing the object teleported.

Warp Drive

In addition to the ship's propulsion system, which is two pairs of blue rectangular rockets, the ship also possesses a powerful Warp Drive. This can warp space-time, allowing them to cover distances at or close to the speed of light. A possible propulsion system would be ion engine drives.

Energy Efficiency

The ship also has the power to convert almost anything into Energy, particularly Energy Crystals.

Elevators

For the vertical travel inside the ship there are at least two confirmed examples for elevators. Those can be seen in the intro: the first one being at the back of the bridge and the second one at the side of the hangar bay. Based on the ship's size it's very likely, that there are more specimens in various places.

Detection, Computers and Navigation

The PC game intro shows the use of said technologies to detect asteroids, to calculate their paths and the analysis of Planet U's geology to find energy crystals. A positioning system, that is capable of finding the ship's current location on galaxy scale is also part of the equipment.

Second Official Version

The graphic novel High Adventure, Deep Underground features a version of the LMS Explorer, that is significantly smaller and different in style from the version featured in the PC and PS1 games. Nevertheless is has the same basic shape with a long narrow body and a bridge, that stands out of it.

Fan Creations

Based on the fact, that no official set exists (with exception of a real life model of the bridge, that was used for render scenes) several people attempted to recreate the ship or tried to build a ship inspired by the LMS Explorer's design to have their own version. It is unknown, how many LMS Explorer MOCs exist worldwide, but at least for the ones, that can be found on the internet, the user Arthuriel created a list back in 2013, that can confirm about 30 different versions. The earliest documented models date back to the year 2006 and the latest ones were built in 2013.

Notable Examples

Being one of the first models, that were published on the internet, Lop Huckawuckie's four MOCs reached views in the four digit range (e.g. mocpages, where 3 of 4 MOCs can be found). Other noteworthy MOCs were made by Arthuriel, who for example designed an almost complete hull of the LMS Explorer in its original scale (=1:1) from 2010 to 2011 and smaller versions afterwards, that look very familiar to the ship.