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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    The Macross II: Lovers Again timeline's version of the VF-4 did have funnels. Well, Macross: Eternal Love Song called them funnels... but they were computer controlled like the GN Fangs of Gundam's Anno Domini era rather than being controlled by the thoughts of the pilot. The VF-2SS had bits, as noted previously. The distinction between the two is the same as in Gundam. The VF-4's funnels needed to reconnect to the fighter to recharge while the VF-2SS's bits had built-in generators so they didn't need to dock with the fighter for power. No "e" in Spacy. How else are you going to fight an enemy that will ALWAYS outnumber you thousands if not millions to one? The Spacy had a strategy that worked, that was repeatable, and that kept the loss of life on both sides to a minimum while also kicking open the door to turning their enemies into new allies in the near future.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Honestly, the most terrifying thing in this new trilogy is that Kylo Ren looks a little bit like emo Doomcock.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Well, they have to up spending a little since this comic is ending with a whimper rather than a bang anyway... But I doubt it's all that expensive, given that they're just having him write a little mini-comic. Bingo. Part of it is helped by the fact that manufacturing has become cheap enough for them to do many types of merchandise as on-demand small batch orders instead of having to stock a lot of merchandise at any given time. Things like the two artbooks they've printed in the last 15 years were helped by the fact that there wasn't really much new content, and they had the option of padding the books without mercy. The Udon "Macross Saga" artbook is mostly just a bad reprinting of portions of Macross Perfect Memory with reprinted material from the old website's "Infopedia" warts and all. They padded the The Art of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles artbook like a menstruating firehose by giving over more than half of each 2 page spread to a large, low-resolution screenshot from the "movie" to stretch about 20-30 pages of content to 144 pages and then charge a premium for it even though a fair chunk of that new art had already been printed in the halfhearted Newtype USA article they tried to use to promote the project. Two of their toy licensees (now one, as one has gone out of business) were literally toy bootleggers using the cheapest Chinese factories available to run out knockoff Macross toys and Transformers merchandise.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Probably not, since VFs rely heavily on thrust vectoring for their extreme maneuverability and the VF-24's got a LOT more engine power to play with than the VF-25. Quite the opposite, the close-coupled canard delta is a design feature aimed at mitigating the disadvantages of the delta wing design by stabilizing the airflow over the wing to help improve stability and maneuverability by manipulating the airflow over the main wing. Well, there are limits to what the Χάος Valkyrie Works can do... Χάος Valkyrie Works aren't building new aircraft from scratch, they're taking trial production VF-31A Kairos airframes and modifying them to create the VF-31 Siegfrieds. They can't simply ignore the structural safety limits of the VF-31's design, or they'd create an aircraft that would literally fly itself to pieces. Likewise, cost is an unavoidable limiting factor for a custom VF's development. Χάος's Brisingr globular cluster branch headquartered on Ragna isn't exactly flush with cash, and while 5th Generation VFs are quite expensive already, a lot of the high-performance hardware they need for the upgrade to the Siegfried spec is EXPENSIVE. The ultra-large, ultra-high purity fold quartz they need to make the fold amps and fold wave systems go is EXTREMELY expensive due to its rarity. The advanced energy conversion armor used by the VF-25 is also noted to be very expensive, to the extent that the only part of the VF-25 that actually uses it is the anti-projectile shield and the Armored Pack that makes more liberal use of the material is restricted to squadron leaders and/or ace pilots due to the enormous costs involved. Even the YF-29 is apparently extremely sparing with its use of ASWAG, achieving the same defensive capability across most of the airframe by doubling the thickness of its regular energy conversion armor and then doubling the power supply to that double thickness of armor for 4x the defensive capability... approximately rivaling the Armored Pack's defensive strength. Yeah, the VF-31 was really misleading out of the gate since what we originally got specs for was the Siegfried and that was not a production aircraft. The Kairos and Messiah are on very similar levels, despite the Kairos being developed a decade after the Messiah. Very much so, yes. Macross II: Lovers Again's "parallel world" continuity is rather Gundam-like, which may have something to do with several of its creative staff having come from Gundam projects like Char's Counterattack. The increases in flight performance are more gradual but other technologies advance at a much faster pace... and platforms that became legacy weapons in the main Macross timeline stuck around because they're constantly fighting the same enemy. (The Spacy has a war with rogue Zentradi fleets an average of once a decade, and has gotten so good at it that they're thoroughly used to tabling the Zentradi in round one and taking their sh*t.)
  5. Seto Kaiba
    As far as we know? No. When did a VF-22 appear with Super Packs? It doesn't have any, outside of Master File or that one time Milia stole Sound Boosters designed for a VF-11.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Most FAST Packs are designed to be comparatively simple and inexpensive precisely because they're designed to be purged on the battlefield in combat conditions if they're damaged or if sacrificing them can prevent damage to the much more expensive aircraft. Once the later generations of thermonuclear reaction turbine engine improved fuel efficiency to the point that FAST Packs were no longer strictly necessary for VFs to have reasonable operating times in space maneuvers, FAST Packs switched their focus from augmenting and reducing the burden on internal fuel stores to offsetting the addition of increasingly large amounts of weaponry and armor. Consequently, FAST Packs became more complex and expensive and we started to see packs that could be ejected and reattached in the field, and packs that would bunch magnetically up for easy recovery if ejected like the SPS-25 Super Pack used by the VF-25 in Macross Frontier. The first three generations of VF (e.g. VF-1, VF-4/5000, VF-11/14/17) had cheap, disposable FAST Packs that were little more than rocket boosters and slush tanks with some verniers and the occasional missile launcher slapped on. The 4th Generation designs mostly didn't have FAST Packs because engines had reached the point where they didn't need the large external tanks (e.g. VF-19, VF-22, VF-171). It was the 5th Generation (VF-25, VF-27, YF-29, VF-31) where we started to see these increasingly complex, feature-heavy FAST Packs designed to be easily recovered.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Well, no... by the time we see it in the Macross II: Lovers Again OVA, it's already got ten years as the Spacy's main VF under its belt and the underlying platform it was developed from is pushing twenty. The original VF-2 was introduced in 2072 and its derivative space-optimized variant was introduced in 2081 and first saw combat in 2082. The Siegfried is not a mass production aircraft, it's an aftermarket ace custom that's too expensive for even a megacorporation to build more than a handful of... after massively economizing its upgrades. The production specification VF-31, the VF-31 Kairos, is set to be adopted by the Brisingr Alliance NUNS in 2069 or 2070. Specs-wise, it's difficult to compare the VF-2SS to the VF-31 or any other main continuity VF because the pace of technological advancement is wildly different between the two settings. In terms of raw flight performance, the VF-2SS is only on par with the 3rd Generation VFs of the main Macross continuity. Technologically, there are areas it lags far behind the 4th or 5th Generation VFs of the main continuity and areas where it blew right past them. The Valkyrie II's at the level of engine efficiency comparable to the 4th and 5th Gen VFs where it doesn't really need FAST Packs anymore, and is using them as a convenient way to package a large emount of weaponry. Its actual engine output is low, about on par for thrust-to-weight ratio with the VF-11 at between 6 and 7. It does, however, have VERY powerful generators that wring an enormous amount of energy out of its fuel to the extent that it can casually deploy pure railgun weapons. The main Macross continuity VFs are still at the point where "railguns" are hybrids which employ chemical propellants for initial acceleration and electromagnetic force for additional acceleration to achieve their great stopping power. The Valkyrie II has pure railguns for its regular and heavy gunpods, as well as a large anti-capital ship railgun. The actual quantity of armaments the Valkyrie II carries is only about 1/4 to 1/8th what a 5th Gen Armored VF has though, and is only slightly more than what an old VF-1 Strike Valkyrie would carry. One, possibly two, gunpods, 54 micro-missiles, 6 long-range anti-ship missiles, two beam cannons, and a big anti-capital ship cannon... plus five bits. I'd expect a 5th Gen Armored to wreck the everloving sh*t out of a Valkyrie II with its superior maneuverability and the simple quantity of firepower it can bring to bear. The only way I could see it going differently is if the Valkyrie II got off a shot with its anti-capital ship railgun, which even in the OVA is like using a sledgehammer to shell a peanut when used against a mecha.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Did you mean VF-25S or VF-2SS? Remember, the VF-31 Siegfrieds are all one-of-a-kind ace custom aircraft that were specially modified to improve their performance with technology from the YF-29 and YF-30. Their performance isn't reflective of the capabilities of the production-intent VF-31A/B Kairos the Brisingr Alliance NUNS is set to adopt in 2069-2070. I'd expect the VF-31 Custom Siegfrieds are probably more maneuverable than the stock VF-25, thanks to the greater maximum instantaneous thrust from their derated FF-3001/FC2 engines attached to comparable thrust vectoring nozzles and thrust reverser collars. They're specially tuned for low-altitude maneuverability because they're designed to be flying a close air support role to protect Walkure. By the same token, I'd expect the stock VF-25 to be more maneuverable than the stock VF-31 because of the compromises inherent in adopting a close-coupled canard delta wing vs. the VF-25's variable-sweep wing. Well... the Siegfried's Armored Pack definitely carries a greater quantity of munitions, but I'm not sure that numbers necessarily covers quality in this instance. To compare: The Siegfried w/ Armored Pack is about 4,500kg lighter than the Messiah w/ Armored Pack (47.5t vs 52t). The Siegfried w/ Armored Pack is carrying 500kg more fuel than the Messiah w/ Armored Pack (15.5t vs 15t). The Siegfried w/ Armored Pack has 1G more of acceleration at a full load than the Messiah w/ Armored Pack (12.5G+ vs 11.5G+). The Siegfried w/ Armored Pack has 410kN less booster thrust than the Messiah w/ Armored Pack (2,530kN vs 2,940kN). The Siegfried w/ Armored Pack has 100kN more total thrust than the Messiah w/ Armored Pack (6,280kN vs 6,180kN) due to its greater main engine thrust (1,875kNx2 vs 1,620kNx2). The Siegfried w/ Armored Pack has a marginally higher (1.3627) thrust to weight ratio than the Messiah w/ Armored Pack (13.4812 vs 12.1185). The Siegfried's Armored Pack adds 484 micro-missiles, a pair of 40mm beam cannons, a pair of 35mm rotary cannons, and a 105mm twin beam cannon turret. The Messiah's Armored Pack adds 244 micro-missiles, 30 anti-armor rockets, 4 22mm beam machineguns, and 2 57mm beam cannons with optional autonomous fire capability, The Messiah's Armored Pack, however, is noted to be composed of the ASWAG Advanced Energy Conversion Armor that offers battleship-grade defensive capability, whereas there is no special notation made about the armor of the Siegfried's Armored Pack... which suggests (in conjunction with ASWAG's noted HIGH price tag) that the APS-31 is probably made of conventional energy converting armor or composite armor and thus offers less defensive strength. Without the greater thrust of the Siegfried custom's non-stock engines, the difference in acceleration performance all but disappears (it shrinks to a 0.3752 advantage to the VF-31) and the key difference appears to be simply that the APS-31 goes all-in on close-range firepower where the APS-25 offers a better balance of offensive and defensive capability. I'd also note the APS-31 seems to prevent the Siegfried from using gunpods while it's equipped, while the APS-25 doesn't prevent the Messiah from equipping a gunpod on top of the other armaments.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    Oh, that's fairly easy to explain... because it's the same explanation that's behind everything else Robotech does. Put simply, Robotech manages to continue limping along where any sensible brand would've packed it in and gone home because they and their licensees will cut any and every corner that can be cut in order to keep development and production costs low enough to turn a profit from the couple thousand fans who still open their wallets for the franchise. They don't care if it negatively impacts quality, because the remaining Robotech fans are so desperate to validate their faith in the brand that they'll buy most anything. Titan Comics picked up Robotech because the license was dirt cheap, and kept costs down on the production of the comic by tracing everything that could be traced to avoid having to draw things themselves while half-assing the writing. This is why the comic's characters have so many unnatural-looking poses and facial expressions. The reason so many of the Titan comic's action panels look like poorly-composited Photoshop collages of Macross lineart is because that's exactly what they usually are. Even if Diamond overships to inflate their sales numbers for the comic, Titan still turns a modest profit on the comic because of all the corners they cut making it. The same aggressive corner-cutting prevails in every part of the Robotech franchise. Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles was made on the cheap by using the cheapest animators HG was able to find (the interns at DR Movie), the cheapest orchestra money could rent, and all the new design work was done in-house by Tommy himself on his pittance of a salary. The one and only place they couldn't cut corners was the voice actor budget, since the returning voice actors are all SAG members now they had to pay guild rates... so a huge chunk of its tiny budget went to that. Their current crop of toy and game licensees are all itty-bitty indie outfits, two of whom were literal toy bootleggers, who are producing limited edition merch in tiny production runs (in some cases as small as 200 pieces) or using the cheapest materials possible (e.g. miniatures for board games being printed cardstock instead of plastic) due to low demand while hiding behind "limited edition" to justify a premium price tag.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Didn't they basically do that twelve years ago as part of the "special edition" Shadow Chronicles DVD?
  11. Seto Kaiba
    For added entertainment value, this is the first actual candid piece of news about the film project in its twelve year history... and it's one of the directors approached about the film very bluntly stating that a live action movie just isn't realistic because the brand's too obscure.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    No, it's dead... these clowns couldn't get their own fans to cough up $500k to resuscitate a property they allegedly love, and even Harmony Gold itself balked at the idea of spending $1 million on continuing Shadow Chronicles. Nobody's going to throw $100+ million at Robotech.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Either that or the publisher's made such a pig's ear of the layout and print quality that they keep rejecting proof prints of the book.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    I got fully caught up with Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks? last night, and I'm pretty unimpressed with it as a show. They did tone the fanservice down a bit for an episode or two, but it's back in full force shortly thereafter thanks to Medhi's overly competitive mom. The recurring plot device that the moms (or at least Mamako) have new powers as the plot demands every time it's convenient makes the story as a whole rather dull, since Masato never really gets a chance to grow or do anything himself. He's just slowly succumbing to being smothered by his increasingly creepy-clingy mom. King Oedipus, call your agent.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Definitely looking forward to Luigi's Mansion 3. I never played the original, but I enjoyed the hell out of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon on the 3DS.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Really, unless Season 4 is a long one a gecko ending is probably a good thing. That way we won't have to watch the people who've been the protagonists thus far start putting on the reich, and having Eren try to out-Hitler the setting's Nazi equivalent.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    GAGraphic: "Master File books are always two months late" Mikimoto: "Hold my sake."
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Quite a ways, from the sound of it... if Season 3 is set to end with them discovering the sea. Unfortunately, when they finally start to properly build on the revelations from the basement that's where the story becomes a seething morass of human ugliness and everything that might've once been heroic about the characters is lost.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    But has it... I've found much of the recent stuff in the manga objectionable, as heavily nationalistic as it's become. It's quite a turn for the protagonists to essentially suddenly become Nazis.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    As someone who's not been following the anime, how far did that season actually advance the story?
  21. Seto Kaiba
    After War Gundam X is something of an acquired taste, but I remember finding it rather enjoyable. Cyborg 009: the Cyborg Soldier was a pretty good show too. I think I watched the dub of that one many a year ago on cable in college.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Still soldiering on through Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?, and it does actually get a little better... but just a little. The whole story arc with Wise's mom kind of takes this story from being The Alleged Satire to being kind of quietly unsettling. The game already felt a little odd as a premise, since the goal seems less like improving parent-child relations and more like squashing any sign of independence or rebellion out of the kids who enter it. Masato's not wanting to be constantly smothered by his overly clingy mother (who acts more like his girlfriend) is treated like a bad thing. It crossed the line into really eyebrow-raising stuff with Wise's story arc though. It's less a story of a mother trying to repair relations with her estranged daughter and more a clear-cut case of a parent who lost custody of her child in a divorce abducting said child (very much against her will) and going on the run, then abandoning said child at earliest opportunity to troll for dick in a consequence-free environment. It's a shame that Wise never really landed a good hit on her, as it would have been fodder for an excellent BEGONE THOT meme. Mamako's incessant, girlfriend-like clinginess WRT her son is unhealthy enough, but holy cr*p are the other mothers in the game toxic as f*ck.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Seems a safe bet they're counting on Raphtalia's popularity with the kind of people who say "waifu" unironically to keep the show afloat. She was basically the breakout star of the TV anime, thanks to the show's more even focus on the supporting cast. The light novel put a lot of effort into trying to make Rishia Ivyred (the girl Itsuki kicks out of his party under false pretenses) into the Designated Best Girl via massive amounts of pity before finally giving up. Unless they tweak the story a bit, Raphtalia's kind of out of focus for the next couple story arcs because she's become Naofumi's hyper-competent sidekick and it's Rishia getting all his attention because she's depressed to the point of attempting suicide over Itsuki kicking her out (kinda glad season one toned that the f*ck down, TBH.) and then the spirit tortoise girl who steals all the attention by being vague as hell.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    They must be connected to those new Stormtroopers with the bright red armor... Oh wait... not that one... Honestly, I think there's more to fear from the Slav Trooper up there than the Sith Trooper.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    This is from Macross Frontier: the Wings of Goodbye, about twenty-five minutes in. This was a joint offensive on the part of the Macross Frontier fleet's NUNS and SMS... a preemptive attack on a Vajra hive that was close enough to potentially threaten the Macross Frontier fleet. The advance reconnaissance suggested that the Vajra had destroyed a Boddole Zer-class mobile fortress and made their nest in the wreckage approximately 50 years before being encountered by the Frontier fleet. Much like how the first big battle in Macross Frontier (Ep.7) occurred concurrently with Sheryl's live concert and the fold songs from Sheryl reached the battlefield via her earring, Ranka's fold songs similarly reach the battlefield and disorient the Vajra during this offensive (from her live concert where she performs Rainbow Colored Bear and Love is a Dogfight). This battle was pretty much the point where Alto started to understand that the Vajra were Not So Different, witnessing the soldiers catching and trying to save their injured comrades while he was fighting inside the Bishop-class Vajra hive ship. Alto gets badly injured in the battle as well, so he and Sheryl have a moment after he's medevac'd and returned to the fleet. (Shortly after his wounds are treated, the Macross Frontier NUNS and Frontier Government move against the Galaxy fleet's conspirators with Special Forces troops using weapons designed for anti-cyborg combat and arrest Sheryl for espionage at the same time. That's... quite an assumption, to say the least. Macross: Do You Remember Love? designs were essentially supplanting the TV series ones before Harmony Gold ever became a thorn in Big West's side. Kawamori and co. just seem to like the Do You Remember Love? designs better, with Macross II: Lovers Again, Macross Plus, and Macross 7 all opting to use DYRL? designs over TV ones years before HG began to interfere with Macross licensing. (IIRC, Macross II was essentially the only time a SDF Macross Zentradi mothership ever shows up outside the original series. The design was reused for the spacedock for the Macross Cannon-class gunships.)
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