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I do not have any Technic kits. I'm not even a LEGO user. However I am interested to know the following:

In a typical Technic kit, how many of the parts are standard Technic pieces and how many parts are unique to a given kit at the time of its release?

P.S. I am not sure whether Technic "pieces" are still called "bricks".

In response to comments

It appears there is no general rule for this, therefore I will ask about a specific kit, namely 42100:

Building the Largest LEGO Technic Excavator! - Liebherr R 9800 https://youtu.be/KPHkrSZ7SSk

The kit is built live (speeded up) on the video so I believe the parts will be visible and identifiable to an expert.

I don't want a precise mathematical description, just an approximate proportion or count that can identified in this kit.

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    I can imagine two kinds of answers to this question: 1) There is nothing like "a typical Technic kit", as all are unique, with variations between size, functionality and age - which is probably not what you want, or 2) a proper statistical calculation of most, if not all sets - i.e. analyzing their part lists, calculating for each set the percentage of its parts that are unique to that single set, then taking the average across all sets. This sounds more like what you could want, but as such a calculation would undoubtedly take long, please confirm if this is indeed your goal.
    – zovits
    Commented Sep 3, 2020 at 11:00
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    Yes, not that interesting question unless you clarify. What do you consider a typical Technic set, what is a standard Technic piece, etc... Unique parts to a Technic set (i.e. the box says Technic) are nearly non-existing. Except stuff like tipper buckets and helicopter rotor blades, all elements are present in multiple sets...
    – Michael Verschaeve
    Commented Sep 3, 2020 at 11:58
  • Thanks I have added to my question. I hope this clarifies. I have amended to say, "unique to a kit at the time of its release". I assume that later models may reuse some of the newly introduced parts.
    – chasly - supports Monica
    Commented Sep 3, 2020 at 12:13

2 Answers 2

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For the 42100 specifically:

https://www.newelementary.com/2019/12/lego-technic-review-42100-liebherr-r.html

Since links are discouraged as them being ephemeral, here's the two most relevant pictures:

New parts:

New parts

Existing parts in new color:

New colors

In the first picture, the bucket is exclusive to the set, the other parts have been re-used in a couple of smaller sets.

In the second picture, except top left and bottom right, these parts are also very new in other sets, they were introduced in the 2020 Spike Prime educational set (a set with programmable components, similar to Mindstorms)

I would say this number of new parts is fairly typical of all flagship Technic sets.

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Converting my comment to a full answer.

So how many of the entire 42100 set are Technic elements?

First thing first a definition of "Technic element". While TLG is quite good at distinguishing what's Technic set and what not, it is not the same with actual elements. And the best element catalog we have is found on Bricklink, which is based on community effort. Conveniently we have number of Technic categories within catalog. Some may argue that elements found in Hero Factory or Bionicle sets can also be considered Technic we'll stick to just elements found in, strictly, Technic categories.

I did some simple math checking inventory of 42100 set and and found it contains 3548 Technic elements, which makes it 86.4% of the set.

PS. Yes "bricks" is used to Technic elements as well. Although AFOLs would, most likely, refer to specific elements using their name/category/type, like beams, connectors, pins, panels etc.

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