No-Brand Hero

It is easier and more profitable to re-use existing molds of valks which is why I suspect the story will be taking place not that long after Frontier.

Easier, yes. More profitable? You have to consider market saturation. If you launch a new show with all the same toys, you lose a sale to anyone who already has that toy and isn't willing to buy it again just for the new character paint scheme. The mass market is all about making sweeping changes to the available merchandise with every new iteration of the franchise.

The result is this hilariously meta scene from the original Transformers Movie where they literally kill off the old toyline.

Heh. That's not the ending that I remember watching.

I was referencing the final fate of the Megaroad and with it Misa, Hikaru, and Minmay. They disappeared into a black hole so we'd stop bugging Kawamori for more stories about them

Good point! Hahaha! I guess I meant that I don't want it to be another installment of the frontier story. New characters (not versions of previous characters), new valks (and enemy valks!), and wicked (initial d meets ace combat ish) dogfighting, please!

New Valks is a given, whether we want them or not. What do you think these shows are for?

thanks! i was wondering about this as well! had to watch the episode again hahaha! i was kinda hoping that ozma was in a custom vf-22 or vf-19 at least...

I'd blame the conservation of CG models for that, though the timeline matches up at least. The VF-171 entered service three years before the destruction of the 117th Research Fleet.

Question about Frontier:

Do we see what Ozma was piloting when he first meets (and saves) Ranka? It's been that long ago that I watched the series, and what I do recall was a very short sequence showing a research vessel being crushed. I don't recall Ozma flying a fighter. But since he was there, I wondered of we saw what he was in, during that brief sequence.

He's flying a VF-171 Nightmare Plus. There's a shot of it firing on a Vajra before it cuts into the cockpit to show Ozma. It's in the flashback sequences at the very start of episode 24

Aren't the FAST boosters also vectored? They could angle them so it's off-axis thrust to counter the rotation. Inefficient, sure, but in my mind the FAST packs were a retrofit anyways, so those limitations are understandable.

They nozzles, at least, are usually drawn pointing slightly upwards, though that thrust difference is pretty crazy.http://macross2.net/m3/sdfmacross/vf-1s-fastpack/schematic-vf1ssuper.gif

One awkward bit about most FAST pack boosters is the line of thrust is so much higher then the center of mass, the fighter would just go spinning tail over nose when the big boosters are fired up. VF-1s in particular. The fighter would have to be flying at a severe nose up angle to get the line of thrust through the center of mass.

They actually work for the original FAST Packs, as the main engines drop down into a bent position in Super-Valkyrie mode, thus creating a configuration where all four thrusters point towards a common center. Later episodes and series tend to go back and forth on how well it's represented, but in their very first appearance, it's pretty clear:

Heck, just showing the main engines unlit sometimes would go a long way towards making me happy(since constant thrust gets you constant acceleration, not constant speed).

I just checked, and the first battle sequence of DYRL actually does have a brief sequence showing the Valkyries flying with engines unlit, moving at speed from previous acceleration, and making attitude adjustments using nothing but vernier thrusters. I was pretty sure this was the case, because I can remember from the first time I saw the movie some twenty-odd years ago thinking "Hey! They're finally flying like spaceships!"

Sorry, the Frontier disappeared into a black hole. No returning characters.

My box was slightly crushed in places, but the toy within was fine so I didn't much care.

I've put it to work guarding the Infinity Gauntlet.

In atmosphere: unlimited (up to the limit that the pilot can endure, that is).

In space: limited. Much longer than the aforementioned 150 seconds and 15 minutes, but no where near as long as when they're in atmosphere.

The only other endurance number that we have is how long the VF-1 can hover: 70 seconds at 13,000 kg x2 thrust, 420 seconds at 11,500 kg x2 thrust. All VFs that came later most likely have greater endurance, but nothing official has been published about it. So, refer to Gubaba's answer for the general endurance guideline.

Yeah, that's more or less what I expected, I just figured that with there actually being stats for their thrust-to-weight ratios and everything, there might actually be loiter-time stats in some side material somewhere

The 70 second hover-time stat, of course, just highlights why they wouldn't want to add that much detail, though, since we clearly see the VF-1 hover more or less indefinitely at times (there's a bunch of them in GERWALK just hovering next to the Macross at the beginning of Burst Point, for instance).

Ah well, just a question that randomly occurred to me last night, and I figured this was the place to ask

Hello. Another longtime lurker. Felt like posting something, so I figured I'd say 'hi' up here. I put my pin on the map and everything. Just another one of my many feats of generic heroism.

As long as the plot requires them to.

That's very Doylist of you

What's the loiter time of the average Valkyrie? We know they use fusion reactors for power, but I don't recall ever seeing or hearing anything about how long they can fly around before refueling. So far as I know, a Valkyrie running out of fuel has never been addressed in any of the series either.

The only reference I see anywhere is on the Macross Wiki page for the VF-25 where it says when loaded with the Armor Pack it can expend its entire propellant load in two minutes of maximum thrust or fifteen minutes of dogfighting...however it's not clear if that means the Valkyrie itself or just the extra chemical rocket engines that are part of the Armor Pack.

In short: How long can a Valkyrie fly around?

We are more likely to have Big West build a VF-1, fly it to HG headquarters to punch Tommy in the face, than have them give up the rights for under

some redic amount like 1B.

I'd support a Kickstarter for that!

And even with this technology - they achieved nothing. They barely got the Macross off the ground, and the thing folded to Pluto leaving Earth defenseless. Oh - wait - there was the Grand Cannon. Fat lot of good that did. And it probably cost half of Earth's population's food and comfort. Then the UN Spacey got Earth nuked because they refused to listen to Misa and Global.

Without the Grand Cannon, the Macross wouldn't have won that last big battle. The Grand Cannon blew a giant hole in the Zentradi defense perimeter which allowed the Macross and Britai's fleet to attack Bodolza's flagship with only what few ships could be quickly moved into said hole standing in their way.

On the flip side - what ultimately stopped the Zendradi wasn't the government (coercion) but market forces (voluntary interaction). Minmey didn't force the Zendradi to like her songs, she didn't compell them to become cultured - she managed to CONVINCE them (move them) with her singing.

Without the government, Minmay wouldn't have had anything to STAND ON while she was exerting those 'market forces'