Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[Seto Kaiba]

On 3/3/2024 at 5:35 AM, JB0 said:

In fairness, the Battle-class detaches from the Island-class for, ummm, battle.

I can think of reasons this would be a good idea, were it not depicted as so easy to travel between ships(like you can literally drive a car from one to the other).

That it does... though as seen in Macross Frontier, it doesn't necessarily have to separate in order to lay down the law with its Macross Cannon.

I've often wondered why they didn't put the government facilities in the docking umbilical. Seems like a waste of space to keep the civilian command center in the military one so far separated structurally.

[TG Remix]

Thinking about the Varauta ships and how before we saw them in 7 proper they were all UN ships. It got me to wonder if their anti-ship high-angle beam guns was something that was always in the original design or something the Protodevlin added for their modifications. As far as I know, nothing else in the franchise has those types of angling beams, although I remember someone saying the Marduk ships in Macross II had them as well.

[Seto Kaiba]

5 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

Thinking about the Varauta ships and how before we saw them in 7 proper they were all UN ships. It got me to wonder if their anti-ship high-angle beam guns was something that was always in the original design or something the Protodevlin added for their modifications. As far as I know, nothing else in the franchise has those types of angling beams, although I remember someone saying the Marduk ships in Macross II had them as well.

Hard to say... as we've never seen those ships in their original form.

IIRC, the first time we see beam weapons like that is in Macross: Do You Remember Love?.  There are a few shots in the original series - esp. in Burst Point - where it looks like the Zentradi might be using the same technology but it's hard to tell as they could just be missile trails but it seems to be more of a Meltrandi thing.  The Mardook had the same tech in Macross II: Lovers Again though it's only properly visible in the final scenes of the OVA when the Mardook fleet turns on Ingues's mobile fortress.  The Meltrandi Chlore branch fleet in Macross 7's unaired episode Fleet of the Strongest Women has a few ships that are shown using the same kind of beam gun too.

I'd have to check, as my recollection of the scene is not perfect, but I think the Macross Galaxy fleet escorts used beam weapons of the same type in the second Macross Frontier movie when they were shown bombarding a Vajra hive.

It's likely something of a "premium" feature, since it requires not just the elements to fire the beam but also to project a spatial distortion to twist the path of the beam, so it's not surprising it's an uncommon feature on Human ships that generally prioritize cost-effectiveness for mass production and stealth.

[snakerbot]

Do we know what the story is with the VF-171's built-in guns? The VF-17 precursor had six or eight, two beside the cockpit, two in the arms, and the rest on the monitor turret, although the exact models of those is not specified anywhere I can see. The 171 and 171EX have two REB-22 or AMG-30 and two AAB-7B or AAB-9A but I can't see anything saying which of those are where on the airframe. The CG model shows exit ports on both ends of the arms and the guns beside the cockpit are depicted firing something in the show. Looking for similar weapons on other VFs I see:

• AAB-7(.5) on the YF-21's monitor turret
• REB-22 in the YF-21's arms
• REB-20G or REB-23 in the YF-19's wing roots
• REB-23 in the VF-19P's wing roots
• REB-30G on the YF-19 and VF-19P's monitor turrets

The YF-21 having the AAB-7(.5) on the monitor turret makes me think the AAB-7Bs or AAB-9As are on the 171's monitor turret.

Given that the REB-22 in the YF-21 have twin exit ports, it makes sense to assume those are the ones in the 171's arms, but on the movie 171 and the 171EX those are replaced with projectile guns, and I'm not sure projectile guns with twin exit ports make all that much sense.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, snakerbot said:

Do we know what the story is with the VF-171's built-in guns? The VF-17 precursor had six or eight, two beside the cockpit, two in the arms, and the rest on the monitor turret, although the exact models of those is not specified anywhere I can see. The 171 and 171EX have two REB-22 or AMG-30 and two AAB-7B or AAB-9A but I can't see anything saying which of those are where on the airframe.

The REB-22 beam guns and AMG-30 machine guns are for the gun mounts on either side of the cockpit.

The AAB-7B/AAB-9A beam cannons are on the monitor turret (head) as coaxial guns.

The official writeups note that the original VF-17's forearm-mounted beam guns are not present in the economized VF-171.

[Seto Kaiba]

While I was idly poking at Variable Fighter Master File, I spotted one interesting bit of apparent foreshadowing.

The VF-25 Master File was released in 2011, but there's a part of it that seems to foreshadow the New UN Forces big scandal from 2016's Macross Delta.  The book has a brief part that talks about the MDE weapons that were developed to fight the Vajra in 2059.  Towards the end of that section, there is a brief aside about the legal status of dimension bombs and how their use in internal conflicts between New UN Government member states is expressly prohibited by interstellar law.  These weapons are so taboo that the few units that possess one are not allowed to publicly disclose that they have them.

I just found that interesting, since that's a detail that originated in Master File but seemly became a major plot point in the next Macross series made after the book was written.  It puts an interesting wrinkle on the events of Macross Delta that the Brisingr Alliance New UN Forces, since a major part of the backstory there was that the Brisingr Alliance NUNS used a dimensional weapon in a botched attempt to destroy the Sigur Berrentzs.  If just using a dimension eater in an internal conflict like the 2060 Windermere War constituted a war crime, the New UN Spacy must've known a lot more about the capabilities of the Sigur Berrentzs than they were letting on and were willing to face war crime charges in their attempt to protect the galaxy from the Delta Wave System.  It also explains why they were able to so effectively isolate Windermere IV after the conflict.  If they were able to make the charge that Windermere used the bomb stick, they'd be ostracized for using a heinous banned weapon of mass destruction even though the only victims of it were their own people.  

(Of course, it begs the question of whether the NUNS's second attempt to use dimensional warheads against Windermere IV was also illegal... they had seceded from the New UN Gov't seven years prior, so as a hostile external force was that prohibition still in place?)

[cheemingwan1234]

So, how does  the VF-2SS and VF-2JA from Macross II compare to the canon VFs from Delta?

Edited April 9 by cheemingwan1234

[sketchley]

10 hours ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

So, how does  the VF-2SS and VF-2JA from Macross II compare to the canon VFs from Delta?

They don't.

Long story short, the canon VFs in Plus and Frontier were outperforming the Macross II Valkyries in all aspects (speed, manoeuvrability, firepower, etc., etc., etc.)  If anything, the Macross II Valkyries arguably fit in (capability-wise) somewhere between the VF-11/VF-14, and the VF-17.

[Seto Kaiba]

10 hours ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

So, how does  the VF-2SS and VF-2JA from Macross II compare to the canon VFs from Delta?

Macross II: Lovers Again isn't non-canonical, it (and at least its two prequels) are an official "parallel world" (alternate universe) timeline since 1994.

That said, the technological development of the Macross II "parallel world" timeline is rather different to what was later defined in Macross Plus and later titles.  The pace of new model development is more consistent across the whole timeline, and therefore slower than the early portions of the ongoing Macross timeline.  There's also more emphasis on Humanity reverse-engineering and applying lessons learned from the study of Zentran and Meltran overtechnology.

The Valkyrie II series VFs - the VF-XX, VF-2, VF-2SS, and VF-2JA - were developed in the Macross II timeline's late 2050s and 2060s based on new overtechnology captured from an unnamed Zentradi Main Fleet that attacked the emigrant ship Million Star and then the Sol system in 2054.  All of the Valkyrie II series VFs apply lessons learned from the study of Zentradi battle suits.  The refinements adopted into the next-gen VFs included substantial improvements to armor and structural materials, to actuators, and to the thermonuclear reactors and generators that provide thrust and power.  These improvements were first tested on the VF-XX Zentradi Valkyrie in 2060.  They were then adopted by the VF-2 series that entered production in 2072 and further improvements were made for the VF-2SS in 2082 and the VF-2JA in 2086.

The main metric most fans look at for comparing VFs is usually engine power or thrust-to-weight ratio.  In those terms, the VF-2SS and VF-2JA are about comparable to the main (ongoing) Macross timeline's 3rd Generation VFs like the VF-11.  The VF-2SS is said to have approximately 3x the engine power and generator output of the VF-1, which given the operational mass puts their thrust-to-weight ratio between 6.43 and 8.67, or a bit more than the VF-11 to a bit less than the VF-17D respectively.

Mind you, thrust-to-weight ratios approaching 10 are more or less the limit to what a Human pilot can actually take unassisted.  Gamlin was shown to struggle a bit to draw out the full potential of his VF-17D/S, which is 9 or 10 depending on model, and the 4th Gen VF-19 and VF-22 are noted to have had very few eligible pilots because they were beyond even 10.  The 5th Gen VFs are over 30, which gives them incredible acceleration and maneuverability performance that they can only achieve because they have a means to cheat those excessive g-forces away using inertia capacitors.

The two areas where the Macross II VFs are seemingly more advanced than their main timeline counterparts are in the adoption of AI wingmen and railguns.  From a late 2030's update to the VF-4, Macross II VFs were using funnels and bits (yes, like Gundam, but computer controlled) as autonomous wingmen to protect and improve the firepower of VFs.  The VF-2SS notably deploys with five bit wingmen that provide fire support and defense.  They also make extensive use of railguns for gunpods and larger cannons.  In the main timeline, railguns are still a relatively new feature for VFs as of the 5th Gen and the ones we've seen aren't true railguns so much as railgun-assisted conventional cannons which employ both a chemical propellant and a linear accelerator.

[JB0]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Gamlin was shown to struggle a bit to draw out the full potential of his VF-17D/S, which is 9 or 10 depending on model,

In fairness, Gamlin was also shown struggling to draw out the full potential of Millia's VF-1, which he got destroyed. Never forget!

[azrael]

14 hours ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

So, how does  the VF-2SS and VF-2JA from Macross II compare to the canon VFs from Delta?

Keep in mind, we have no specs except for weapon loadouts (and bare minimum at that) and maybe, dimensions on the Macross II VFs. 0. Nada. Zilch. We can't really compare because there is literally nothing to compare to on paper.

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, azrael said:

Keep in mind, we have no specs except for weapon loadouts (and bare minimum at that) and maybe, dimensions on the Macross II VFs. 0. Nada. Zilch. We can't really compare because there is literally nothing to compare to on paper.

We have a bit more than that... we have things like normal operating mass, main engine thrust, number of verniers, and some statements about generator output.

But yeah, there's not a ton of fodder for like-for-like comparison.

[pengbuzz]

8 hours ago, JB0 said:

In fairness, Gamlin was also shown struggling to draw out the full potential of Millia's VF-1, which he got destroyed. Never forget!

It would be funny if in the next Macross series, they had a one shot of her and she's still upset all these years after Gamlin wrecked her VF-1!

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, JB0 said:

In fairness, Gamlin was also shown struggling to draw out the full potential of Millia's VF-1, which he got destroyed. Never forget!

True... though, if anything, that's a Reality Ensues moment.

Gamlin was trained on the VF-11C Thunderbolt and VF-17D/S Nightmare.  Both of those VFs are at least two generations newer than the VF-1 Valkyrie and have considerably higher performance.  He hopped into a VF he'd never trained on, and discovered it had about 1/5th of the performance he was used to.  Like someone whose daily driver is a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat who finds himself driving a Toyota Prius while on holiday.

 

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

It would be funny if in the next Macross series, they had a one shot of her and she's still upset all these years after Gamlin wrecked her VF-1!

You KNOW she's never gonna let that go.

If Gamlin and Mylene ended up married, you KNOW she'd blackmail Gamlin with that every chance she gets.

[cheemingwan1234]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

True... though, if anything, that's a Reality Ensues moment.

Gamlin was trained on the VF-11C Thunderbolt and VF-17D/S Nightmare.  Both of those VFs are at least two generations newer than the VF-1 Valkyrie and have considerably higher performance.  He hopped into a VF he'd never trained on, and discovered it had about 1/5th of the performance he was used to.  Like someone whose daily driver is a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat who finds himself driving a Toyota Prius while on holiday.

 

You KNOW she's never gonna let that go.

If Gamlin and Mylene ended up married, you KNOW she'd blackmail Gamlin with that every chance she gets.

Make this a cross with Delta so that Mirage can join in.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

Make this a cross with Delta so that Mirage can join in.

🤯

[cheemingwan1234]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

True... though, if anything, that's a Reality Ensues moment.

Gamlin was trained on the VF-11C Thunderbolt and VF-17D/S Nightmare.  Both of those VFs are at least two generations newer than the VF-1 Valkyrie and have considerably higher performance.  He hopped into a VF he'd never trained on, and discovered it had about 1/5th of the performance he was used to.  Like someone whose daily driver is a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat who finds himself driving a Toyota Prius while on holiday.

 

You KNOW she's never gonna let that go.

If Gamlin and Mylene ended up married, you KNOW she'd blackmail Gamlin with that every chance she gets.

Onto a more serious note. Why did Gamlin struggle with Mila's VF-1? I thought he should have training on it given that VF-1s are still used as trainers even in the era of Delta.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

Onto a more serious note. Why did Gamlin struggle with Mila's VF-1? I thought he should have training on it given that VF-1s are still used as trainers even in the era of Delta.

Honestly, it's incredibly weird that the VF-1 is still being used as a training aircraft in the Macross Delta series.

By 2067, the VF-1 is a 59-year-old platform and it's three to four generations behind the current model VFs that the military and PMCs are using. That should make it effectively useless as a training aircraft for combat pilots because its performance and technology are so far behind what the aircraft they would be flying in combat have. Xaos may have been using them for Hayate's training specifically because he was an unqualified pilot with minimal experience and crashing one of those is a heck of a lot cheaper than if he crashed a VF-31. It's probably not standard practice to use those for training.

In 2059, the VF-1 is used as a training aircraft... but only in civilian flight schools like the Macross Frontier fleet's Mihoshi Academy where students are getting their basic pilot's licenses. SMS trains pilots directly on the aircraft they're going to be flying, and the New UN Spacy probably does the same assuming there are training versions of the VF-171.

When we see Gamlin training in Macross 7 PLUS, The aircraft he's shown training on is a VF-11C Super Thunderbolt... the aircraft that was the standard military fighter used in the 37th fleet. Then once he joined the special forces, he moved to a VF-17D Nightmare. Odds are he never touched a VF-1 prior to borrowing Milia's.

[cheemingwan1234]

44 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Honestly, it's incredibly weird that the VF-1 is still being used as a training aircraft in the Macross Delta series.

By 2067, the VF-1 is a 59-year-old platform and it's three to four generations behind the current model VFs that the military and PMCs are using. That should make it effectively useless as a training aircraft for combat pilots because its performance and technology are so far behind what the aircraft they would be flying in combat have. Xaos may have been using them for Hayate's training specifically because he was an unqualified pilot with minimal experience and crashing one of those is a heck of a lot cheaper than if he crashed a VF-31. It's probably not standard practice to use those for training.

In 2059, the VF-1 is used as a training aircraft... but only in civilian flight schools like the Macross Frontier fleet's Mihoshi Academy where students are getting their basic pilot's licenses. SMS trains pilots directly on the aircraft they're going to be flying, and the New UN Spacy probably does the same assuming there are training versions of the VF-171.

When we see Gamlin training in Macross 7 PLUS, The aircraft he's shown training on is a VF-11C Super Thunderbolt... the aircraft that was the standard military fighter used in the 37th fleet. Then once he joined the special forces, he moved to a VF-17D Nightmare. Odds are he never touched a VF-1 prior to borrowing Milia's.

Ah, I see. So he never touched a VF-1 before.

 

Speaking of which. So, are the VF-171s in Delta basically VF-171EXs without the VF-19 engines and EX-Gear?

[Gendo Koun]

6 hours ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

Speaking of which. So, are the VF-171s in Delta basically VF-171EXs without the VF-19 engines and EX-Gear?

They are standard issue VF-171s given the circumstances that Brisingr cluster is at the edge of Milky Way and Local UN gov't developed their own 5th gen Valk to get some gold bar from other nearby member states. Changing whole fleet of oldie 171 to EX standard is costly while they are just for maintaining peace and keep out the local threats

[Seto Kaiba]

8 hours ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

Ah, I see. So he never touched a VF-1 before.

That is likely the case, yeah.

 

8 hours ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

Speaking of which. So, are the VF-171s in Delta basically VF-171EXs without the VF-19 engines and EX-Gear?

Official publications for Macross Delta spare almost no thought for the VF-171s used by the Brisingr Alliance New UN Forces.

The CG model used in the animation is the same one used for the basic (Block II) VF-171 Nightmare Plus that was the New UN Spacy's standard fighter in Macross Frontier, with the only changes being a new texture applied to the model that replaces the original blue colors with khaki and some minor changes to the exterior markings.

Bandai's Mecha Colle model kit for the Macross Delta VF-171 identifies it as "general aircraft, frontier space specification" in Japanese and "standard model - rim world model" in English.

The Macross Delta VF-171s are definitely not the EX model or a derivative of same as they lack the signature bubble canopy, downward-tilted nose, and EX-Gear of that special model.  Based on the reuse of the CG model and its description as a "frontier space specification" of the standard model, it can be reasonably concluded that they're a locally-produced version of the same standard Block II VF-171 that was the main VF of the New UN Forces at the end of the 2050s in Macross Frontier.

[JB0]

20 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

True... though, if anything, that's a Reality Ensues moment.

Gamlin was trained on the VF-11C Thunderbolt and VF-17D/S Nightmare.  Both of those VFs are at least two generations newer than the VF-1 Valkyrie and have considerably higher performance.  He hopped into a VF he'd never trained on, and discovered it had about 1/5th of the performance he was used to.  Like someone whose daily driver is a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat who finds himself driving a Toyota Prius while on holiday.

Oh, yeah, it is EXACTLY what anyone should've expected to happen.

It really makes you wonder why he commandeered Millia's VF-1 in the first place. I'll assume he just didn't realize it was roughly analagous to training on a Tomcat and then trying to fly a Mustang.

[Seto Kaiba]

23 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Oh, yeah, it is EXACTLY what anyone should've expected to happen.

It really makes you wonder why he commandeered Millia's VF-1 in the first place. I'll assume he just didn't realize it was roughly analagous to training on a Tomcat and then trying to fly a Mustang.

Macross Chronicle Episode sheet for Macross 7 Ep18 "Falling Little Devil" offers the viewpoint that Gamlin took Milia's VF-1J into combat for two main reasons:

1. To protect Mylene, who had led him to the hangar where it was stored because she was intending to do literally that same thing herself and he wasn't about to let her put herself in danger.
2. To soothe his own battered ego, as he was feeling thoroughly depressed and useless after he and Cpt. Kinryu were shot down in the previous episode and his wingman and friend Physica was shot down and killed in the episode before that.

It is fun that said Episode sheet has a section devoted to calling Gamlin unlucky and noting that going out to fight in a Valkyrie without a pilot suit was a stupidly risky move and that he could easily have died.

[cheemingwan1234]

Regarding the YF-19/VF-19A's micro missile bays, are they drop in modules? The DX Chogokin and Arcadia toys together with a few scenes in Plus has the legs be used as a bay for a single missile.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

Regarding the YF-19/VF-19A's micro missile bays, are they drop in modules? The DX Chogokin and Arcadia toys together with a few scenes in Plus has the legs be used as a bay for a single missile.

It was a modular pallet system.

The bays were designed to accept a standardized weapon pallet that could be loaded with different configurations of weaponry like reaction weaponry, long-ranged missiles, medium ranged missiles, or micro-missiles.

The YF-21/VF-22's internal bays are the same.