Kelsain

If I recall from the TV series, in the Episode where Misa and Global arrive at Alaska; there are some guard vlaks that look like dark green versions of Max's 1A. It might've been black. They're in the background as M&G's VTOL transport descends to the landing pad. Although no logos are visible, just referring to color scheme.

Or, Mounting the gunpod(s) on the ventral wing-root. This would be a stable position, mounted on the waist-fins in battroid, like the Y/VF-21 (also a General Galaxy design), and be within easy reach of the battroid. See attached. Back to the idea of mounting them in the leg and having room for fuel/being fatter on the Fz109... Perhaps the Fz109 has an integrated Fast Pack-like fuel reserve, as it is predominantly a space fighter. This would explain the chunkiness.

Ah, OK, you've seen that too. I was, for clarity to the others, speaking of the Elgerzorene. And I did find the illustration later in the afternoon on Brisco's site. See below, from his Fz-109 page. Now, in M3, does the animation give any indication of where the gun fires from? I've never played any of the macross games myself. Seems to me that if it came from the leggish region, the robocop holster would still apply. I see that the VA and Fz can store more in the leg, but then again, it's canon that Mylene's VF-11 could fit its engines and 6 missiles in it's gams. On that note, I know you've also been customizing the designs to fit your RPG. To wit, I have an alternate suggestion to the wing-mounted pods. On the VF-1, the gunpod is mounted on the arms, which are ventral on the fighter mode. The VF-14's arms are dorsal in the fighter mode, and it has a large expanse of free area there, between the arms. What if the pods were mounted there? Pathetic "I'm at work" sketch attached.

I was looking for that shot of the gunpod deploying from the leg, but still haven't found it. Considering the sheer number of battles these things are in, it could take a while. I'm pretty sure it was on Gigil's fighter. You'd think this would be easier with all the recycled footage, but it might have been a one-shot.

IIRC, it was stored in the leg, like the VF-17, firing forward from underneath in fighter mode. Unlike the 17, it didn't launch out of the leg, but the leg opened, Robocop-style, and then the gunpod was retrieved.

Nope! Just looked, definately a big boom in the background. Shows how good my memory is. So the New Macross in Dynamite is definately new construction. Would it get a new number? or 07-A like in Star Trek?

I have done that before... It'd be interesitng to see if that exact silhouette was used elwhere in the series though, I still suspect animation shortcuts. I'd also like to take another look at the wreckage on the lake - perhaps there are more answers there. I'd have to rewatch the episode, it's been a few months since I saw it - maybe there was a big boom. And with lessons learned from the factory satellite, maybe they could throw one together pretty quickly. On that note, there's really no indication of how much time passes between M7 & D7.

GASP! Maybe the birdman did it!!! Sorry, sorry, couldn't help it. Seriously, though, maybe the antigrav and power systems still worked. Maybe they rigged some of of those handy power tubes from some other ships. Or, if I recall, didn't Gepelnitch fold City7 into the planet's atmosphere? Maybe they docked and then City7 did the work of returning to orbit.

I got the impression that it was severely damaged, but the structure was still salvageable. We see in Dynamite7 that Battle7 is under construction, but the scaffolding appeared to only be on the bow (arms), cannon, and bridge. These are the areas shown getting wasted on Varuta4. There never was a giant explosion that one might expect if it was totally destroyed. Come to think of it, the 'end' of Battle7 was quite reminiscent to the 'end' of the Macross itself... I'm not sure about some fleets having more than 1 New Macross. If the M5 fleet had 3, why call it the Macross 5 fleet? It definately looks like they have a few City class ships, though. It's too distant to really tell, but I figured those were Uragas docked with them. They have a similar silhouette and that would be consistent with what we see in the M7 fleet. What throws it off, of course, is the towers on the docking port. Again, those are on the City block. Then again, there's no way there might be an error in animation, is there?

Ooh, High Res! With those, I might take a stab at Battle5. Might be a nice little distraction, even though I have much more important things I should be doing... PMing! Or you could just post it here, whatever...

I love your site. I'm a big fan of macross lineart, and that's one of the best collections I've ever seen. 2 questions, though: are there any larger pics of Battle13? It looks soooo much cooler than Battle7 - I think its the shoulders that give it a more impressive silhouette. And also, was there ever a pic of Battle5 in attacker mode? Wouldn't be too hard to alter a Battle7 pic, but I think the Zentraedi styling would make for a pretty cool attacker.

I think the head fin has potential, but I have 2 issues with it. 1) the only other head fin we've seen is the Fire Valk, and it seems to go along with the face - flashy without much practical value. 2) those little details on the side seem out of place on the 11, they detract a bit from the total package. It looks really cool though. Nice work.

Ah well, Tokyo Tower got the stomach flu, so we didn't go anywhere or do anything this year. I did make a paper facehugger to wear when I answered the door, at least...

I was thinking of including Tokyo Tower in the costume, but I hadn't thought of making it the whole costume. It IS pretty much in scale with Godzilla.... My wife is Tokyo, and her only stipulation was that she wants lights. We were also considering adding lego people and green army men to be screaming extras.

Yeah, we thought about doing that when we moved here, but we're fairly low-key. This year a friend's hosting a movie-themed party. The wife and I are going as Godzilla and Tokyo. Still working out the Tokyo bit...

One thing, though: if you're going for the TV version of the Macross, shouldn't it have the TV bridge? If I recall, the three-tiered bridge appeared in DYRL and from then on. I thought the TV version had a tighter, fully enclosed bridge at the top of the bubble and then just other stuff below it. Looks absolutely incredible though. I'm always eager to click this thread when I see it near the top of the list, to see if there's been progress. Ah, here it is: (Borrowed from McCain's UN Spacy Database to clarify)

No doubt, I'd forgotten about these. Definately classier than Battle7.

Shhh!

Not shown, but I assumed that Roy dropped his gunpod, either in the fight with DD or b/c it was empty. The one on the refueling plane was a new gunpod, fresh from the carrier.

I kind of figured that the refueling VF-0 would convert to Gerwalk after it was full, then be ready to catch the gunpod - or perhaps the gunpod would be extended on a cable to be grabbed. Obviously, things didn't go so smoothly for Roy.

Funny typo on Linkfilter, thought this was the only place where people might snicker.

Perhaps the term I should have used was "utilitarian" instead of blocky or clunky. The designs of the VF-1, 0, 11, & YF-19 all have a look that put function mostly before form. Obviously, a mecha designer must make his stuff look cool, but all the individual parts made sense. The engine intakes/hips look more like the former than the latter. We can see where external surfaces part to reveal internal components. The YF-21 leans more to the curvy look of M7, but that is usually attributed to it's Q-Rau heritage. I'm not trying to say that I think all mecha should be "beefed out powerhouses." The gracefulness is part of what I love about the stock VF-11, but so is it's utilitarian nature. The single camera eye, the naked back of the shoulders, even the shield with it's stored ammo. At the same time, the battroid is lithe, and the fighter has such grace to it. The 11C fast pasks, like the original VF-1's, aren't pretty by any means - they're angular, ugly missile pods with giant rockets on them - and I like it that way! I'm quite aware that the destroids, for all their slab-sided uber-tankiness, are just slower cannon fodder for zentradi guns. I think that the Cheyenne in M0 was the best one, b/c of the mobility allowed by the variable legs, but it also sacrificed armor for that. We learned one year later, that this wouldn't matter at all. Below, I've attached a couple of quickly done comparisons of the battroids of the 19 and 11, to illustrate what I'm getting at. The red lines connect areas that are angular and look like interesting components of a transforming vehicle vs ones that are obviously derived from those structures, but less effective visually. I also have always dug the F-16XL with it's arrowhead delta-wing, and I'd like to see a non-Sound Force VF-11XL. The other reason I'm not a big fan of the MAXL, as I've stated in other threads, is that I LOVE the VF-11. Edit: There we go, must have missed one.

You mean the Spiritia absorption gunpod. Because they got that idea after the folks returned from Operation Stargazer with a ship and some fighters. I'd totally forgotten about that when I wrote it! I remember thinking "I haven't seen that before - just picked it up, huh..." Perhaps if they had BUILT a gun using what they'd figured out from the Spiritia zapper on the Panzerzorene. 'Course, that still thwacks my statement on the nose. Do you at least see what I'm getting at? There's *usually* a process to the advancement of technology. Or at least some backstory is implied or hinted at. It did seem to work better in the original SDF, but at least the Sound Energy did have a long progression. I think Chiba was actually retreading the PC achievements in Spiritia tech, myself. I guess the thing that bugged me there was that it took 10 or so episodes to flesh out the Sound Energy theory before Chiba put it to practical combat use with the amplifier vests. I expected a few episodes of just those, but bang - next episode - they've got the fully functional Boosters and the ability to use them effectively. I would have preferred a more gradual transition.

Nor was I necessarily saying it was. I was just speculating that the difference in controls might have accounted for some of Basara's piloting. Heck, maybe it was less a matter of the controls being better, but just *diffferent*. Perhpas his movement were less predictable to targeting computers and the minds of most pilots b/c he was steering with a big sitck. When you get down to the reality, I think it's over the top too. What we did get, at least was an explanation for the advanced technology in such a near-timeline setting. While overtechnology was simply dropped in our laps, the benefits were not instant, nor were they just backstory. The continuing understanding of OTEC drives forward and interacts with the plot of the shows, in a way that's more interesting than "We looked at the enemy's new fighter and made this brand new super-weapon from it" - Alright, that's what happened with the sound boosters, but usually it's a bit deeper. Better example, the barrier system. They theorized it would be possible after the fold engines disappeared, but only got it to work so well as the PPB, then much later as the sketchy OmniDB. That approach is more interesting and more grounded than we see in a lot of other anime, TV, or movies. If you consider the engineering patents Victoria's Secret has pending on it's cutting edge bra technology, simply to support C and D cups, think of the suspension technology needed for the Meltrandi! Who live an active, rigorous lifestyle. Now that's overtechnology!

You've got to be kidding. Maybe you were thinking of Votoms or Srungle. The only "realistic, clunky military" mecha in Macross are the Destroids. The VF-1 Valkyries were always graceful and lithe. Rather feminine in fact, and certainly far from clunky. 425615[/snapback] Yes, the clunky part was in reference to the destroids. They're big & slab-sided like an M1. Most of the time I'm writing from work, half a sentence here & there, so my thoughts get a little condensed - sorry. On the valkyries though, there's usually a very sensible-looking combination of sleek aerodynamics and blocky bits (intakes, arms, etc). I'm in no way an aeronautical engineer, but the appearance gives them a credible link to real world aircraft. In Mac7, particularly with Mylene's VF-11, all those were sacrificed for appearance. I personally think they also pushed the VF-19 a little too far from the YF-19 by getting rid of all the angles. I'm also not a big fan of the "thruster ring" cuffs on the legs - I like the look of the individual verniers better. As Zinjo points out, this is a very civil and interesting M7 thread. Cheers to all.