MacrossJunkie

That's awesome. My opinion of them has just gone up for them listening to customer feedback and attempting to make fixes so soon. At the very least, I'm hoping they will swap out the pvc lasers for something harder and that won't be warped after molding. I don't have much hope for them being able to do something about the neck very quickly, but if they do, it will be a nice surprise.

Actually, the YF-21 does lock down, but not because of anything to do with the hinge (which itself does nothing to stop or slow any movement of the chest). There are blue plastic nubs on the inner side of each intake. When in battroid mode, the bottom half of the chest which is split from the top half can be pushed down so it gets caught behind the nubs effectively locking it in place. It's not very strong, but wouldn't budge if you were just shaking it around vigorously. Unfortunately there's nothing like that for the VF-11 to rely on. Ideally, it would have a similar locking mechanism to sv-51 where a peg like thing can be folded up to lock into a hole or similar to how the crotch piece on the vf-25 dx locks in, but I so far haven't seen any pics that reveal anything like that. Perhaps it might just rely on friction after all or worst case, nothing at all (which I doubt).

I guess if you were feeling a little ambitious, it seems it would be feasible to modify your existing DXs to accomodate the booster as it appears Bandai only made subtractive modifications (made holes) to the existing mold rather than add something to it to allow connecting the booster. From the CG pic, it looks like you would only need to make 4 holes (2 round ones and 2 flatter ones). Not sure what the 5th new hole is for. Of course, you would have to make sure that the holes are lined up properly and of the right size since you wouldn't want them too big or the booster would fall right off.

I /facepalmed on the part where he just placed the gun on the fast pack without really any effort to try to push them in and then complained they wouldn't stay in. I guess he didn't know that you can also attach them without the fast packs as well since they attach the same way with or without. Just kinda weird he caught things like being able to remove the laser on the top but missed stuff like that or being able to lock in the front in battroid mode.

It might not be complex transformation wise as much as probably just requiring a lot of parts externally/internally to be made and be put together. Looking at the destroid line, in addition to economy of scale, you can see how there's an extraordinary number of bits and pieces snapped, glued, screwed together to make up the finished product despite it not even being a transformable design. Even those bracings or whatever those bumps on the front of the legs are called are individual pieces for some reason.

The pre-order has been available for some time. Here's one at Over Drive http://www.over-drive-inc.com/store/produc...roducts_id=1132 Can't seem to find the one on HLJ anymore.

Dang it, I looked it up on the compendium to check and I guess I got mixed up. I was thinking the larger of the two varauta fighters was based on the larger of the the two 14 variants. Apparently that isn't the case as the smaller Az-130 is based off the larger VA-14 while the larger Fz-109 is based on the smaller VF-14. Go figure... Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled programming.

Ah, I plain forgot about the Elgerzorene. You're right, that one is longer, though it's actually based off the VA-14 rather than the VF-14 which is a smaller craft. So I guess the largest would be the VA-14 followed by the VF-22 as far as mass produced UNS variable fighters go, but I'm going off on a tangent now... I've no doubt that the economy of scale factors in a good bit, but it wouldn't seem logical to me to completely throw out the notion that having to make molds for something that requires a great number of individual pieces would be more costly than something that requires fewer parts to make. I've never made molds for models before, but I've read many times that making molds and the corresponding tooling costs for production is expensive... or something like that In fact, it would lead me to consider the two together as a multiplicative effect to the cost (i.e. Not only is it more expensive due to the complexity and number of parts, they don't expect to sell as many and so the high cost is divided among fewer units). And let's not forget that, as mentioned before, the VF-11 comes with fast packs while the 19 didn't (at comparable price ranges)

Mirroring what others have said, I believe the heat shield will be molded in plastic that color. The reason why the heat shield in the close up pics we've seen so far were painted is because those were still the resin prototypes. The insignia on the heat shield might be another matter, but Yamato's tampo printing has proven to be extremely durable so far.

Just paint the room black and get one of those planetarium projectors

You have the lengths for the 21 and 19 switched. The 21/22 is the larger of the two and I believe the longest of all the fighters that the UNS has had produced to date. ... As for why the vf-11 is around the price range of the 19 despite being smaller, one good insight into this may be here at Yamato's GN-U article. Much more so than the amount of plastic used is the number of molds for parts that have to be made. The VF-11 probably has a good number of parts due to complexity with the transformation and gimmicks if the heat shield integration is any indication. The 21 and SV-51 are also very highly complex in engineering and number of parts which is likely why their prices were so high. Also at the same price point, the 11 comes with fast packs while the 19 didn't.

Was it a similar locking mechanism like what the 1/60 YF-21 has in the back of the lower leg?

Well, you don't really swap any parts on the old 1/60 vf-1's, but I don't know if many people would call those perfect transformation. And you could leave the hands for the DX's on without swapping, they just look funky with the karate chop hand pose. Still, others have shown you can leave some of the other fix posed hands in while in fighter mode. Anyway, I'll stop here before I derail this thread into a full blown PT discussion.

I just thought of something. Since you have to detach the shield and put it on the other side of the arm yourself when going from fighter to gerwalk/battroid and vice versa, can it still technically be called perfect transformation even though the shield is part of the fighter? You could let slide the gunpod since it's not necessary for the transformation. You can even get away with not counting taking off the intake covers on this and previous VFs since it's not really needed for transformation and they are closed anyway in space, it's more of a gimmick. It only occurred to me that this would be the first time I would actually have to take something off and put it somewhere else to complete a transformation. Not that I really care for something minor like this. Not like taking the legs off like the old 1/60s. Just something more of a "oh, hmmm" moment.

Here's one (8th post down): Link

I think the ground crew that comes with the destroids goes very well with the Macross Zero stuff in addition to the destroids themselves. A better argument could be made about the phalanx coming with space suited guys since it was not developed until after the SDF-1 had gone into space and they found that some destroids for ship defense were needed. Even though the Daed and Prometheus were refit for use in space, I'm not sure if they ever made them pressurized. Perhaps certain areas were compartmentalized to keep in air, but as a whole they were just not designed with space operations in mind. Keeping out water is one thing, keeping in air is another matter entirely. I think Yamato should sell sets of 1/60 scale ground crews separately for people who want to make dioramas and such. They could have different ones for planetary and space. I don't think it would be a big stretch for them as they've shown ground crews with vehicles in their displays at various shows like Wonderfest before. Granted, they probably didn't make those, but they wouldn't be hard to make and they could use it themselves when displaying new products.

I like the finer detail of the 1/48s and I plan on keeping all of the ones I have. I'm also all VF-1'd out and prefer having a more diverse collection of Macross mecha. I plan on eventually getting one of the 1/60 VF-1s just to have one to be displayed along side my other 1/60 scale Macross stuff. I haven't really decided what to settle on. I was thinking either a Max TV 1J or one of the two-seaters, but that would be as far as my purchases go for the v2 1/60's. I'm saving up for all the other stuff that's coming down the pipe.

Geez, at nearly triple the price you might be able to get Yamato's 1/2000 Macross. Hmmm, a dirty 1/48 valk or the Macross... tough choice... not

Actually, it really was called the Macross Quarter and not just Macross. The class of ship is not known, but judging from things said by some of the characters in the show, it is likely the first of its line. It has the Macross name because of it being a vessel with transformation capabilities, but Quarter is part of its official name as well.

Ugh, I really hope not. I think most people, including me, would not be putting the full armor on them and having all those holes kind of ruins the look even further. They ought to take a few pages out of Yamato's book on adding accessories by attaching them in inconspicuous places (difficult to see the clips for YF-21 fast packs), using holes that were already in the design (booster attachment to backpack of 1/48 VF-1 or YF-19 shoulder armor), using magnets (leg armor on YF-19 or VF-0), design to automatically hide the hole (spring loaded cover for the hole that the back of VF-1 leg armor plugs into) or having things to plug the holes when you are not displaying with accessories on (plug piece for booster rockets on SV-51 wings or the plugs for the holes that attach the fold booster on the YF-21).

These are the only SOCs I've got and likely the only ones I will have in the foreseeable future. All my toy money is tied up in Macross But I still love these things. I only wish they had made the mass production EVAs with the wings to complete the set. I looked at the Rebuild versions and while I thought the removable armor was neat, I don't think I like the look of the new ones as much.

With the clip on missiles and speakers and having to do a retooled release of the DX with extra holes to accommodate the new armor pack, I kind of get the feeling that Bandai didn't really plan ahead when they designed the DXs.

The cockpits seem fine in size, as they seem pretty much in proportion with the rest of the plane. It's just that the pilots are sometimes too big or wide.

I say let him do this to get the crazy ideas out of his system before he works on the next Macross project, like he did with Aquarion. Otherwise we'll see custom valkyries in sneakers and doing slam dunk attacks against some sort of protoculture sports team that was deemed too dangerous to be allowed loose in the galaxy and were sealed away for many millennia until a UN expedition accidentally frees them.

Hopefully it should continue to rise. I read an article on cnn or somewhere that mentioned how the US dollar's strength is improving due to people starting to see it as comparatively stable vs other currencies. It mentioned that since the US was the first to fall, it would be among the first to recover. In comparison, Japan will likely recover much later.