GabrielV

Somehow it feels wrong to see a Han that isn't a steroid abuser on that style card.

Maybe in some ways. But in terms of the film, the VF-2s do some things that only the cutting edge Ghosts can do in the 2040 timeframe, and stuff that isn't done by human piloted variables until we see Brera and his cyber modified self with mindlink controlled fighter.

Seto, you'll have to explain what you mean by SMG's books being "bare bones compared to Palladium's." As for SMG's game, it is very different from the Palladium version. Palladium is an 80s era D&D hack which had already grown haphazardrly by the mid-80s and then got Robotech shoehorned into it. It follows the predominant simulationist mindset of 80s gaming. It is definitely of the wargaming slant, with a lot of focus on the mecha and military operations and organization. SMG's A6 system is a modern style narrative dicepool system. The Robotech iteration is an extensive rewrite and modification of the company's SuperAge game to gear it up to simulate Robotech. That said, it is not the most clearly and intuitively written RPG book ever committed to print. But the soul of the game is in drama and narration. It's about the melodrama of the show. Palladium is focused on the "real world simulation" idea of cataloguing each narrow field of knowledge a character knows, and then leverating those percentile ratings and bonuses to perform specific actions in game. A character knows "Pilot Veritech" or "Read Sensory Equipment" or "Weapon Proficiency Auto Rifle" and makes skill checks or attack rolls based on those definitions. SMG's A6 is more about your approach to a problem. A character's fields of expertise are broadly defined by their archetype rather than a specific narrow definition of known fields. Instead of having six specific skills about piloting a veritech, they simply have the Veritech Pilot archetype and as long as they operate within that archetype they are performing as a skilled actor. Skills are not specific fields of expertise but are approaches to doing things. They're things like Angelic Grace (doing things stylishly and gracefully) or Flash Move (doing things quickly and instinctually). The idea is that you describe HOW your character does something to determine your dice pool to roll. In terms of combat, A6 is definitely more than a bit grey. I've found it starts snapping into focus better when you start running some sample combats rather than reading the book. Even then, it's a bit loosey-goosey. I'd say the nearest equivalent would be Tunnels & Trolls combat, but it's a very imperfect comparison. The point is the combat system is not necessarily about the blow by blow of combat like Palladium's is. It's about providing a structure to narrate combat. And then there's the Battlefield Press Savage Worlds version of Robotech. That version is just meant to sit on a shelf so you can say you have a Savage Worlds version of Robotech. I haven't seen the Revised version yet, so maybe they do some work on it. Anyway, I'm excited about the upcoming SMG Southern Cross/New Generation book. I've been waiting for it for a while. It looks like I've still got about a year to wait, but it's good to finally see something concrete about it.

Originally, when I intended to get a VF-25, I had wanted either the Armored pack or the Super pack, in that order of preference. I loved the brutish heavily armed look the Armored pack gave the fighter in the animation. I also loved the general aesthetic of the Super pack enhanced fighter. Then I finally got my Renewal VF-25 (an Alto version). I handled it in it's un-armor-adorned form. I swooshed it around. I really grew to appreciate it in it's "nude" state, so much so that I reconsidered my interest in the enhancement packs. Nope, you're not alone. While I'd still like to get one or both of those armor packs, I no longer see them as must haves. In fact, I'm more than happy with my unarmored VF-25. In fact, I have a hard time imagining that it would be fun to handle with all that extra stuff on it.

I was literally just telling someone this weekend about this anime, how it was a personal favorite, one of the earliest non-kiddified anime I ever saw, and was bemoaning the fact that there was effectively no chance in hell it would ever get released on blu ray. My pledge is in. Now if Animeigo could ever get to do a Blu Ray set of the Oh My Goddess OAV. Did they ever do a Blu Ray AD Police and/or Bubblegum Crash set to go witht he Crisis set?

Still kind of wish we had got an answer to what that ship was that Ishtar was having the vision of. It's the thing that kicks off the whole OAV. It's important enough to prominently feature in the opener. It's the thing Ishtar searches for the entire OAV and mistakes the SDF-1 for somehow. Ingues knew of something at least called the same thing, and at least momentarily entertained the idea that the SDF-1 was it, but I don't think he ever truly thought the SDF-1 was related to it at all barring the moment of fear while the main cannon was firing at his ship.

I don't even think you'd have to do that. There's plenty of space where you could have a voiceover deliver the applicable adjustments. And there's almost certainly some kind of starship clip in Frontier or Delta somewhere that could be repurposed for that connecting to the main timeline part. I like this idea, but I have to admit that I find it humorous the prospect of Robotech style modifications to the original Macross sequel in order to actually link it to the story of the rest of the Macross franchise. Oh, earlier it was mentioned the structures on Earth in Macross II looked like colony vessels. I recall seeing an image somewhere (maybe the This is Animation Special) where it shows that the various "buildings"are repurposed Zentran starship shells. I think there are a few places where this stands out in the show as well.

I tried to watch that video. Then I started skipping through it. If they ever say anything relevant, I don't have the patience to sit through it. Otherwise, jvmacross just said what I had been thinking. I was under the impression that Harmony Gold would have no involvement with anything outside of SDFM and DYRL. Yeah, it says they'll be involved in future Macross distribution, but that could just be future distribution of SDFM and DYRL, not anything else.

So, is his view that all of what we've seen of Macross is just dramatized events? Do we need to subliminally put "dramatic re-enactment" on all scenes of everything? I never posted about it, but I was watching the conclusion of Delta again recently. It was at that scene where Freyja is falling through the air after Walkure manages to get Mikumo to break free of the mind control. There's a shot where she sort of rotates around, and there's fighter planes doing their thing behind her and explosions and stuff, and then Hayate pulls up like he's pulling a car up to a curb. Then the scene just transitions to her and Hayate standing in the cockpit. It very much came across as the kind of scene you'd see in an 80s movie with an actor standing in front of a green screen or rear projection. It wasn't taking advantage of animation at all. It was very much framed like an actor in front of some SFX. And I started wondering, was this just an awkward framing choice because of how difficult it would be to add verisimilitude to Freyja's action and motion in this scene along with needing Hayate to pick her up without spending a lot of animation time and money on it? Or was this a conscious choice to frame it like this as a tell that Macross Delta wasn't a "real" event but instead was just a film?

They'll probably do exactly like with the Macross book. There will be SC and NG cover variants, and possibly a limited version. I wonder if they'll do a screen with SC or NG art?

I finally got a newsletter mentioning it again last night.

After the first Savage Worlds Robotech: Macross book, I don't have any real hopes for the further books Battlefield Press does or the revised edition of the Macross book. I feel the Battlefield Press Savage World book was very half assed in terms of content. It was basically just a book you put on your shelf to say you have a Savage Worlds Robotech book, not something to actually play or even be playable. I think the SMG version is vastly better, and is a valiant attempt at a Robotech RPG. I remember the announcement years ago that Southern Cross and New Generation would be combined into a single book. But there haven't been any new Robotech projects mentioned in the SMG newsletter for some time, and even mention of Robotech material has been relegated solely to promoting the existing products. The plans shared by the company seem to have them lined out solid with different projects for the next two years. Do you have a link to anything recent where SMG was saying that the SC/NG book was still coming?

Back to the number of crew/troops on a Zentraedi ship, I'm reminded of a video I saw a while back on YouTube which was examining the population density of the Enterprise D in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Galaxy class has about 1,000 people on board, but it's also a pretty big ship. Most of the time, the hallways are sparsely populated or empty in the series. And at least by that video maker's presentation, this would be expected, because the number of people on board simply isn't any kind of considerable population for a ship that size. I've never thought much about the population density on a Zentraedi ship. But what little I recall seeing inside of one in the original TV show, DYRL, and Macross II seems to show mostly empty hallways. It's not exactly bustling with bodies. It's kind of similar to those sparse Enterprise D hallways. Even in DYRL and Macross II, there didn't seem to be much activity going on except in areas where groups of troops with the specific job of apprehending the heroes had gathered. Sylvie flies down a lot of empty hallways on that Marduuk flagship. I think the RPG provided some kind of throwaway explanation that Zentraedi line troops were kept in their mecha, and their mecha kept in stasis in large hangars. We see something similar to this in Macross II where the Zentran pilots are cybernetically linked to their Pods and are kept dormant in their mecha all lined up in hangar areas. I think the RPG deckplans proposed hangar areas like this for the original ships, just with Pods and stuff packed in like sardines all held in stasis until time for battle.

I think I found where it comes from. https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Macross-Frontier-–-30-Anniversary-Household-pachislot/dp/B00J6U93BM Macross Frontier – IT 'S Song, Galaxy in a Yank at. (30 Anniversary panel) [Household | Used pachislot 実機 Coin No Machine Set] Household Used Slots In the image on that Amazon listing you can barely make out that it has the same type of HUD as in the original images.

I hate to throw a monkeywrench into this. But I was looking at some videos on YouTube of the Pachinko machine(s) and didn't see anything that looked like that HUD element. The only thing I can suggest if it hasn't been thought of is the big Macross Frontier dual movie pack with the english subtitles ("Shooting Star Pack"?) came with a bonus disc. IIRC, the bonus disc was a huge install on a PS3 and was more or less just a picture and text library of random stuffs. Maybe they came from that? No reason for that to have the HUD element with Level 80 and the earrings and the hearts, though. There was no game element to that disc.

The first edition did not. The only difference in the core variants were the number of head lasers and the D being a two seater. They all had 250 MDC. The Super VF got more MDC. Robotech 1e treated that as a different fighter variant rather than purely as a regular fighter plus armor packs. Any Super VF variant had 300 MDC. There MAY have been a Rifter (Palladium Books's house magazine) article at some point with stats for "Skull One" where they gave it more MDC than the regular fighters, but I don't recall for sure. I also don't know what they did with the 2e RPG. I have a copy for completeness, but other that superficially accurizing the info, they made all the numbers far worse. The 2e version of the game plays even less like like it should than the original. The Savage Worlds and Strange Machine Games variants also treat all VF-1 variants as having the same armor. So, I think it's purely a videogame thing.

No, I can't say that I have. Which RPG edition is Time of War? Is it the 3e of Mechwarrior or something else? I have the latest Battletech RPG. It's called Mechwarrior Destiny. It's pretty neat. I don't think I'd want to do Macross on it. I guess if you wanted to do a 08th MS Team style of game featuring only Destroids then that could be interesting. And if it really got down to it you could hack it to do things like the Valkyries, but it would take a little effort to homebrew some stats up.

Coming back to revisit this. I still haven't gotten around to running the SMG version of Robotech. I've been distracted. I am on the Strange Machine Games newsletter, and sadly there hasn't been any news of any follow-up to the Robotech RPG. It seems they've lined themselves out with other projects for the next two years. It's sad, because I definitely would have liked to see their take on New Generation. I guess at least the existing book has the Alpha in it and that can be used to extrapolate outwards a bit. I also noticed that Battlefield Press has announced not only a Revised version of their Savage Worlds Robotech book, but have also announced two other books: Into the Void which seems to be a Expeditionary Force sourcebook, and Return to Earth which the title would seem to indicate a New Generation sourcebook (but the description on Miniature Market seems to just be the same as the Macross book). Hopefully Battlefield Press will do some polishing and make the book useful for gaming rather than the original version's status of just something you get so you can say you have a Savage Worlds adaptation of Robotech on your shelf.

Sadly, I know nothing about The Mecha Hack. I've heard of it, but that's about it. Could you explain some of the basics?

I'm not a fan of Dana or any of the Southern Cross stuff. But that does look pretty sweet. Just giving the armor that chrome finish adds exponentially, IMO.

Cool. Maybe BBTS will get it sometime before the Pioneer mission is supposed to depart for the Fantoma system.

There's a topic over in the models forum I started where some people are sharing pictures of painted models. I don't recall if any are shown on hex bases. The earth mecha (barring the Monster) are all default provided with 32mm-ish bases. They'll work fine on Battletech hex maps. Or, if you want to shave off pegs on the feet of the models and mount them on Battletech hex bases, I'm sure that will work too. The Valkyries, Tomahawk, Defender, Spartan, and Phalanx will all fit in quite nicely with Battletech. The Battle Pod bases are a bit too big for a Battletech hex, and they models themselves are definitely out of scale for Battletech Ost-mecha equivalents. The Glaug is on a WAY too big base for Battletech and in terms of scale would possibly be large even for a Marauder II assault mech.

My Legioss came in at BBTS and is now in my Pile of Loot ready for shipping. Yay! But it's going to be a while before I get it. I just shipped my POL earlier this week.

ACK! I didn't mean to hurl anyone into the financial abyss. I ordered at least one of everything too. I only skipped on the Recon Pod pack and the Valkyrie Orbital Booster pack. I might change my mind and get a Recon Pod pack, because even though I don't care about the recon pod, the Palladium model is absolutely terrible. Easily the worst model in the entire pack, Maybe Kids Logic will do Gnerls and Glaug Eldares.

::cries:: I ordered me some new paints. I'm actually inspired to paint my new toys. But mine will just end up looking like they're slathered with paint, not painted. I don't know how you folks do it. I can't even get that neat a paint job on a full sized model, much less something an inch and a half tall.