David Hingtgen

In gun mode there is a short but distinct barrel on the upper section. Balisong was my first impression too, I'd base it off that more than anything. Anyways---the fire eidolon is a much simpler battle than it looks. But it is frustrating simply due to the time limit. I died twice with only needing like 5 more secs. You cannot win by exploting the "unusual" way to charge the gestalt gauge, it takes far too long, you'll simply have to "build up chain attacks" as fast as you possible can. Rav/Rav, with the occasional Rav/Med. But if at all possible, maintain Rav/Rav while using potions---EVERY second counts. You will barely make it if all goes well. The "hidden/unusual" way is . Oh yeah---I was quite close to having the "haste" ability. I think that would have made it MUCH easier. So here is my tip: if at all possible, see if you can get to have "haste" by the time (very mild spoiler) . You will actually have a couple fights (and a boss) after that segment to gain some more CP, but that's a non-spoilery way to denote when you're getting close to that eidolon battle.

Knurling isn't some evil thing to be avoided---every transforming toy ever uses knurled pins. It's how they're designed---smooth areas to allow parts to glide by, knurled areas to grab parts and hold them tight. Some pins can have multiple knurled areas and multiple smooth areas, carefully arranged to allow some parts to move and some to stay put. Somehow, the clearances on some of the parts came out wrong on the V2 hinge parts, and it ended up that the pin rotated WITH the center piece of the hinge, locked to it--the part with the ball joint. That is not how a pinned joint like that is supposed to work--the knurling is there for the express purpose of PREVENTING pin rotation so that the plastic piece moves AROUND the pin independently, not with it. So the fact that the pin does move, means something else is wrong somewhere else in that joint assembly----namely, things are so tight and applying so much force to the pin that the knurling isn't enough to prevent pin rotation. I suspect the new pins are actually like .02mm narrower EVERYWHERE, thus freeing the center piece to rotate independently of the pin, with the pin staying fixed, like it was designed to. (the new hinges do operate properly---but removing the knurling alone wouldn't do that IMHO, it'd actually make it even more prone to pin rotation) It's just a lot easier to switch pins than to re-design or re-tool the hinges. And since the hinges are (now) known to be overly tight, even a smooth pin is now enough to hold itself in place and prevent itself from rotating.

Lately, I've been saving right when I get a new weapon (the 1200pt ones mentioned above), then spending a ton of points to see how it upgrades then reloading---so far none of the new group are superior IMHO---their bonus status effects are minimal, and it'd cost a lot of points just to get them up to where the other weapons are now---and spending the same amount of points would basically double the levels of the current weapons. "Belladonna" MAY be worth it---it does surpass Vanille's standard wand stat-wise and does supplement her abilities---but only minimally---may still be better to just keep going with her current weapon and wait for the NEXT one before switching.

The screw threads for most of the arm bits are finer than average--back them out until they slip in just *perfect*. Not just "good enough for most things" but PERFECT. Be sure you can get a good 3 resistance-free turns using just the tiniest effort, not just 1 or 2 turns with moderate effort.

I think I know what his next member title is...

Umm yeah---this really isn't the place to debate the whole concept of low-production transforming toy prices, as every Yamato/Bandai valk that size for the past 5 years has been right around that.

I have mostly "low str high mag" weapons equipped and upgraded. I mean, Hope is never going to be a commando, so I'm maxing out his magic for his ravager and synergist roles. Same for Vanille--it's about her only option really. Sazh is only "occasionally" a commando, so he too has a magic-centric weapon---and interestingly, his "most magical" weapon is more balanced than other character's equivalent. To me this says I'm on the right track for him. Lightning has the most-upgraded weapon, Gladius, as it's so blatant she's inherently a commando. It's actually a slight annoyance to me, as her original/cut-scene weapon looks so much cooler. But it's simply inferior to the Gladius when she spends 90% of her time doing pure physical damage. IMHO a "balanced" weapon isn't going to do much good in this game, as even with all the paradigm shifting, most characters still fall into primarily physical or primarily magical roles. PS---anyone found a diagram or something that shows how her gunblade unfolds? It's so fast I can't figure it out in-battle, and they rarely show it do it in cutscenes. (plus there's 3 forms, not 2) I know there's plenty of stuff showing how Cloud's Advent Children sword works, there's gotta be something similar for Lightning.

I have to second that. I buy pretty much any "female mecha" figure that exists in any form, and I passed on ROTF Arcee without a 2nd thought. It's just a mess of a figure.

My 10000th post. F-22 wallpaper: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mulesafpilot/tags/f22/

Scale is scale. The VF-25 is simply a much larger craft than the VF-1 in "real life". They are to the same scale, but are very different sizes. If you want a VF-1 that is the same SIZE as a DX VF-25, you will need to get a different scale---like 1/48--which'd then be out-of-scale with every other valk. The VF-1 is just plain a lot smaller than other valks, it SHOULDN'T match the others in size. It'd be like if a Mylene or Ranka figure was the same height as Roy or Basara--they should be different sizes, or they'll look "off".

Many people (including me) loosened those screws for that exact reason.

Finally found a spoiler-free guide to it, and it turns out weapon upgrading is simpler than I thought: Organic components increase the bonus multiplier, mechanical ones take it away. I had thought that only certain components increased or decreased it and was trying different combos and trying to remember what worked (I never wrote anything down)---it's just that you need a certain number of exp points from a component for its effect to become apparent---and for the "weak" ones you may need to use quite a few to reach that threshold. I can "afford" to upgrade more often now, as now there's more options to get the bonus. (it's an utter waste to use high-level components without a bonus multiplier) In short---use any and all organic ones to get your multiplier up, then use mechanical ones for as many points as you can.

Seriously, someone here who knows Japanese needs to email Bandai and make sure they know that Grace's VF-27 should have "102" printed on the tailfins and the legs. Or ask if it will etc. The 1/72 kit includes those markings, but we all know Bandai's various divisions seem to have no contact with each other... I'll be very disappointed if Grace's is "blank" or just includes stickers. 102 is the only screen-seen number for a green VF-27, and with ret-conning the non-commander type of head, it's the only possible number for one that looks like Grace's. It'd just suck if they left it blank for "customization" of a cannon-fodder one---is there anybody who'd really want/care for a different number? Tampo-printed numbers look 100x better. And they're easy to remove if you really wanted to customize it, whereas it's impossible to print then on yourself. Also---that latest pic has the bit of paint that Brera's was missing on the hip-gun panel. (but no numbers on the tailfins---that causes me worry that they seem to have done their paintjob "tweaks" already yet not added proper numbers) ::edit:: Wait, the earlier blatantly-shopped pics had the missing paint added on too. Hmmmn.

Saw the huge display at Target and took a quick peek. I would like a non-spoilery answer to this question if possible: Comparing them side by side (3.75in versions), the only difference I could see between Mk IV and VI is the chest. Is that correct, or are the toys inaccurate?

http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?...st&p=825899

Ditto. But also---wow, last word of the episode. That's really all that matters.

If they wanted a fast grappler, they should have brought in Alex from SF3. Don't make new characters when well-liked previously-established ones exist in the same role.

Yes, much CP, but I hate wyverns. Only killed one, ignored the rest. Sheer matter of pride, as it killed me the first 2 times until I realized that it always casts deprotect on my party. Their CP isn't worth the time it takes to kill them. Flandragoras are MUCH better for CP/time. I am embarrassed that I was killed by mud frogs once. When they start calling in reinforcements... Storywise---I think I've finally got enough backstory to start understanding/caring about the characters. But it sure took a while---too long IMHO. Vanille is still annoying though, and her "super-obvious from the beginning" secret still hasn't been officially revealed, just keeps hinting at it.

1.5 hours? Better be cheap.

IIRC level 3 weap for Lightning, lvl 2 for Hope. And utterly maxed abilities. Level 2 accessories (STR+ and MAG+ respectively). And hey--I didn't know its weakness either for the time I absolutely wailed on it and didn't know what I was doing. But when I *did* know exactly what to do, it took longer! Trust me, if it goes fire-fire-fire-fire it's going to be a long fight. If it goes water-thunder-ice-water it'll be quick. I know that if I fought it again several times, sometimes it'd be down in 2 mins, and other times take well over 5. The fact that you didn't notice the weakness changing may be because it went water-water-water-water or lit-lit-lit-lit etc. Which would be the "best possible" sequence for killing it quickly. I've seen it remain the same element for pretty much the entire fight.

Nied--despite me spending more time on airliner forums than anywhere else on the net, I have never heard it called that. (though of course, 762 pilots seem uncommon--I don't know any---mainly because the 763 is so much more common)

Boss of chapter 5 (another part oft-complained about in the forums) I'm going to say is "randomly difficult". It'll basically be either very long and drawn out or easy. I totally kicked his ass in like 2 mins the second time due to "random element changes in my favor", but he just BARELY killed my 2nd member at the end and that made it impossible to take off that last 2%. Literally another round would have taken him out for a grand total of like 2 mins. Took several more attempts to beat it, even though I had it 100% figured out---it just kept screwing with me on the element-shift. 3rd and 4th times---died, experimented a bit, etc. 5th time---worked, but took 5 mins. Still considered 5 stars/quick, but took twice as long as when you're lucky. Basically---if it switches to lightning or water weakness, Lightning can kick his ass. But if he decides to do ice-weakness like 4 times in a row, you're kinda screwed for a while, as there's no way to do ice at all with Lightning at that point. And "blizzard" alone from your helper is not going to get the job done. At best you can hope to just maintain the stagger bar at it's present level and wait for another shift to start building it up more. Also, a lightning-summon (spoiler-free term) is not really that useful or effective even when it's lightning-weak. I'd suggest ignoring the opportunity and continue focusing on building the bar to stagger it. (since a summon will reset the bar) It takes tremendous damage when staggered, but it takes forever to build the bar---but that's the only way really. (seems to be the theme of the game lately--"must stagger") Note---if it's under say 1/3 HP a lightning-summon would probably be worth it, assuming the stagger bar is high enough that the summoning would fill the bar and you can kill it with the summon. And of course, if it's staggered when water or lightning weak, Lightning can REALLY kick it's ass---like 100K HP off for the duration. But again---only if you're lucky. You'll have to do this 2 or 3 times if the elements are "wrong" for you when it occurs. In short---if you get lucky and get water/lightning weakness often enough you'll take it down in 2 mins. If it does "bad for you" element switching, should take 5-6 mins+, or even be basically impossible.

I'm not talking hangaring the plane but simply finding space to park, turn around, etc. THAT becomes an issue with something as big as an A330. Heck, even taxiing is an issue---the A330 has a wingspan great enough that it's in the "restricted" or "forbidden" or "not on parallel/adjacent" category for many a taxiway etc--any taxiway that used to be marked "no 747s" is now "no 747s or A330/A340" as the big Airbuses have more span than the basic 747 even. Surely you recall the folding wingtips option for the 777, which has an almost identical span as the A330, to reduce the span to that of a DC-10? True, no one went for it, but Boeing built a prototype and offered it, so it was at least somewhat of an issue for the airlines. PS---the 762 is one of the best-looking airliners ever. I like the A330/340 look, but they're not the original 767 design. (I find the 763 and 764 quite inferior to the 762)

wolfx--I'm curious--tell me exactly what you did for a typical "two pulsework soldiers" fight with only Vanille and Sazh that you didn't find it hard/annoying/long. There's a lot of people on the FAQ boards etc that had the exact same experience I did with that section.

FF13 discussion has been moved to the separate thread wolfx started (was easier to move these posts there than vice-versa). PS---I keep thinking it's faux French...