SebastianP

Keep in mind that that "small" command bridge is still two thirds of a square tall, and a square in this drawing is 66 meters. Even taking off the masts, you're looking at something like eight to ten decks tall for that bridge tower. The Quiltra Queleual is a ginormous behemoth of a ship and adding human-scale features to it really shows that off.

The problem is we see how people live in the city and it's not "stacked like sardines in efficiency apartments." There's just way too much *space* inside the ship. I mean, just look at the training area where Hikaru did his basic training early on in the show? There's an actual military base with a barracks and everythign. That's got to take up a huge chunk of not just deck space, but volume. Same with the park and amphitheater where the Miss Macross competition takes place. Then there's the roads, and the business district, and the fact that the buildings in the city don't go all the way to the top of the compartments they're in, so there's space above that's effectively wasted. The size of the features we see inside the ship add up, and the tally doesn't really match... Which is why I think that the size of the population and the facilities within the ship are holdovers from before they decided "won't it be cool if the Macross punches something with an ocean-going vessel?" Your math makes my brain hurt, you can't divide the ship into 3 meter decks and claim you can get the same density per square kilometer of deck space as a city full of skyscrapers gets per geographic area. Being very generous, the Macross has an overall population density of around 150,000 per square kilometer of surface footprint, and that's counting the space in between each arm and leg. Without that, we're probably looking at 200k. While there are places in the real world with 150k per square kilometer, looking at the wikipedia articles for them I'm *guessing* that has to do with people having twelve kids and living in shoebox deathtraps with streets so narrow that if a fire ever occurred, the fire engines would have to wait outside the district lines because they won't fit. The first "affluent" area listed on Wikipedia's list of city districts by population density among the ones I checked at least is Yorkville, Manhattan. Where the residents live in 40 story skyscrapers, and have a population density of 60k according to the 2010 census.

Or, "Zentraedi are soldiers, they don't need comforts. I, however, do, and if I have to go anywhere near a battlefield I want to take a piece of home with me and be as comfortable as possible. And even if I'm not there, I want the ship prepared for my arrival at moment's notice". Anyway, a quick illustration of why ship sizes in Macross are bonkers unless they're literally bigger on the inside: The ship model was posted to the Sketchup 3D Warehouse by David M, I've rescaled it to "true scale" so it's 1200 meters long instead of just one. While not perfectly accurate, the proportions are good enough to give the gist of the size. The block-like things are stacks of civilians, each one in a phonebooth sized box (2 x 1 x 1 meters) spaced half a meter apart, with 15,000 civvies in each stack. (10 tall x 15 deep x 99 wide in each stack). So... given how much sheer volume that just the *people* take up... how does a city fit inside of this ship? (The answer is, "super dimension means bigger on the inside", alternatively "sci fi writers have no sense of scale". I get the idea that the official size was arrived at because someone came up with the idea of the Macross Attack being performed with a surface ship to the face, so they needed the ship small enough that the surface ship was not ridiculously huge (it still is, but at least ships in the same general size category are plausible, given Seawise Giant/Knock Nevis was around that length); you can see what's recognizable as the Daedalus in concept art that predate the final shape of the SDF-1 itself. But the the "50 thousand civilians in a city built in the unused spaces" either predate the size change to accommodate the Macross attack, or no one ever did a visualization like this to see how much sheer space that just the bodies of those 50,000 civvies would take up... Edit: Instead of a phonebooth, this is the amount of space 45,000 people each living in a 2 x 4 meter room take up, without paying attention to things like corridors and plumbing. That's around 5 tatami mats, so not the absolute smallest you can go (3 tatami is the smallest I've found), but it's on the small side definitely.

How much control did the "operators" of the Birdman and Yurva Arga really have, though? Sigur Berrentz being a flagship for miclone use I can see, but it also feels like it was built way way late in the war, then hid away. This just makes me think "the most overdone political VIP quarters imaginable", where a protoculture representative *could*, if they even bothered to be present, live like at home and only be bothered once in a while where the Bodolza-equivalent gave their reports and received orders. It doesn't really smack me as something you'd find on a ship where the leader was expected to be on the bridge or in a CIC giving orders, or strapped in a mecha and leading from the front. A 250 km3 park on a military warship could be excused if it's for the crew's R&R, but the Zentreadi don't seem to know what that even is.... Some deep-seated taboo about not destroying planets, maybe? Either that or the "we'll retrieve them when the situation allows" explanation.

The problem seems to be that the Protoculture decided that "shooting things" was something that they could leave to purpose-designed servants, so that they themselves could concentrate on more civilized pursuits like singing and science and developing creepy superweapons. Then the superweapons were possessed, killed off the designers, and co-opted the slave soldiers, which left the singers and non-superweapon scientists to figure out what to do about it... and they went with "sing and science the problem away for now" because that's what they had on hand. Macross Earthling culture doesn't segregate warriors, singers and geniuses, they all do battle together, with the singers protecting the others from mental influence, the geniuses figuring out where to apply the shooting and the warriors applying the shooting. And it's not like people who are multi-talented has to choose one or the other either, as you can be both genius and singer, or genius and warrior, or warrior and singer. Or all three. That's why they're *able* to apply "just shoot it" as a solution to a problem which basically went "yoink" when the Protoculture sent in their purpose-designed warriors.

The new one is up, we got the Quiltra Queleual variants today. Basic green Zentraedi version from the TV show (with added turrets that weren't marked in the animated version); Unified Forces version with all the turrets replaced by their human equivalents and a bridge added on top; and the colony ship version. Two Zentraedi charts to go that I'm aware of - just the Queadol Magdomilla and the Nupetiet Vergnitz left. It will be very interesting to see if the artist has more to show us after that though, because anything beyond the Zentraedi ships will be entirely new to me.

Edit: I suppose I should spoiler this even if the game is 10 years old..

For mainstream fans who haven't read and played *everything*, the VF-9 and VF-14 are non-entities - they each have one appearance in the animation, in the background at New Edwards in PLUS and in a flashback image from Delta. They were in M3, which is a niche side game on a console that went bust; they're in the niche artbooks that only hardcore fans buy; they've got two pages each in Chronicle; and the VF-9E was in Macross: The Ride. But basically, your average anime only fan will go "huh?" if you ask them about either. I'm guessing the author of the book you got either didn't read Chronicle or isn't as invested in Macross as we are. Given the frankly embarassing booboos you showed (which macross is which, exactly?) I'm thinking this is someone who got paid to do this rather than someone who was actually invested... I don't have access to The Ride as I don't read Japanese, but the problem with all this backstory stuff is that the spec sheets tell an entirely different one, where the VF-9 is so horrendously outperformed in raw kinematics (thrust to weight ratio primarily) that I don't see how you'd ever make it catch up. Just to match the VF-171 for thrust to weight it needs a 50% increase in thrust. And that's a *slow* VF. To match a VF-19S, it needs 4 times the original thrust. To match a VF-25, it needs almost eight. To match a YF-29, it needs *twelve* times as much thrust. And even the 50% increase would basically eat a normal design margin. The difference in performance between the VF-4 and a VF-25 is less "F-4 Phantom vs F-22" and more "P-40 vs F-15". I'm still not entirely clear on whether they were originally planning to have Roy in the game or not - his rides are all there, and most of his companions, but not the man himself. Maybe it's because he's not directly associated with a songstress. Anyway, the VF-171 and VB-6 are probably easiest explained by "we made those for the Frontier games so we already had them ready and tossed them in because why not", the VF-19A is IIRC basically the same model as the YF-19 (at least it is in plastic...); the VF-0S, SV-51Alpha and VF-27Alpha are just headswaps of units already on the include list (and the VF-27Alpha is probably also a re-use from the Frontier games). Which means that the Emerald Force VF-19s were the only full VFs made specifically for the game without having a character in mind for flying them. (currently stuck searching for Sierra Stars and Ouroboros Rocks so I can finish up the race track unlocks in the desert. I think I need eight more Sierra Stars...) Back in the 80s, the data books that came out explained *everything* that the mecha designers had come up with. The cars, the phone bots, the vendor bots, the ships, etc, with animation notes to explain how the weapons worked and actual stat blocks. Same thing happened with Macross 7, the ships were described and named and given lots of line art from the animation notes. In the 3D Era? Nothing. We don't even get names for ship classes that aren't obvious updates, and despite 3D models existing we don't even get an official length of the ship or even decent quality pictures of the model... And when we did get official stats, they didn't match the animation...

I think it has more to do with those designs being from the 2020s and we haven't seen anything from that era since M3... where those two fighters were introduced in their canon forms in the first place. In universe the VF-9 is 46 years old (introduced in 2021), and the VF-14 is 37 (introduced in 2030) - they're ancient, and unlike the VF-1 which has a cult following both in and out of universe for being "the fighter that won Space War 1" the VF-9 and VF-14 don't have anything going for them that'd make people keep updating them for four decades. The one place where we could have gotten the VF-4, VF-9, VF-5000 and VF-14 in "modern" Macross was Macross 30, where having more variety of VFs would have fit the existing game and smoothened over the bump between the VF-1 and VF-11, but really all of the VFs that were in the game were flown on screen by either the guest characters in their respective anime, or by the game's original cast, with the exception of the VF-0S (which is just a simple variant), the VB-6 (which Ranka rides to battle at least once, even if she doesn't fly it), and maybe the crank-winged VF-19s (and I'm not sure Gamlin or Milia doesn't fly those at one point in 7). The only ones that are *missing*, as in "flown by a character appearing in the game, in a tv-series or movie" are the VF-17, the VF-11MAXL, and VF-19P, I think. (I'm actually playing the game right now and working on filling out the tech tree. I need more engine parts, and the time trials suck rocks.) What *really* gets short shrift are the various nifty background designs someone must have designed and paid attention to, but which are never named or given any information about. Like every capital ship type introduced since Macross 7 that wasn't some form of Macross-class, including the ones from the games. In addition to Dulfim, Deneb, and the "stealth cruiser" from Frontier, there's another two or three classes introduced in Delta that we know absolutely nothing about other than "they're sold by Epsilon and appear related to the Dulfim and Deneb types", and then there's the smaller stuff, like this thing: (Source: Macross Frontier, Episode 5 - this is the messenger that alerts Frontier that Galaxy is under attack and needs help. It looks fighter sized, with that fold booster on top and what looks like a canopy, but the two second sequence where it folds out and rotates around its axis is the only place where it ever appears AFAIK...)

The VF-1D did have a full tandem cockpit and a fat spine, and did have fins that folded... but I think the problem is that the tail can't fold down enough to accept the super parts while still looking decent unless you don't fold the fins. I can imagine this being caught when someone was playing around with kitbashing the 80s Takatoku toys to verify that the configurations designed for the movie worked, and then not being able o make the super parts look good on a twin seater unless the fins were unfolded. Notably, the spines are not the same on the VF-1D and VT-1, because entire sprue where the forward fuselage and top of the center fuselage is a different one in each kit (the VT-1/VE-1 kit also contains the wings, and does *not* contain a new bottom for the center fuselage. The scans at 1999.co.uk aren't good enough quality to figure out what the differences actually are on the parts though, except for the extra antenna blisters on the wingtips for the VT-1/VE-1. Basically, all the largest parts of the two kits are different. except the halves of the lower legs. (Edit: and on the Hasegawa kits, don't think you can put the VF-1 super parts on the VE-1/VT-1 anyway because the connectors are oriented differently as it *still* doesn't fold down the same amount. I'd have to check the actual kits which I don't own at present to verify though).

The 1/72 battroids are actually a little taller than most Master Grades, though skinnier. I have a small collection of "standard size" Master Grades (Exia, 00R, 007, 00Q) and two slightly larger ones (Sinanju and Unicorn), and I believe the VF-25S in 1/72 is taller than any of them. (at 14.5 meters full scale, they should be 20 cm tall in 1/72, most Gundams are 18-19 with only a few of the larger ones going past 20 cm. My problem with the 1/72 macross kits is that the VF-25 transformation joints in the shoulders are ridiculously fragile, so both my VF-25S kits have loose arms (Super version's arm has come off completely due to a broken ABS ring, unfixable so the kit is stuck in fighter mode, and I really should glue it together at some point so the landing gear don't keep falling out every time I lift it; the Armored's shoulder has serious signs of fatigue and maybe cracking but it's still holding together and I'm not moving it again until the arm falls off. My VF-25F Tornado version has been transformed all of twice, and is back in fighter mode and will stay that way forever.) The VF-31J looks to hold up better, but there's something binding in the "fold the body so the head pops up" part of the transformation so I've never gotten it past Gerwalk. The worst issue with *those* though is that Bandai gave up after doing the C, F, J and S, and never made a VF-31E. Poor Chuck and Reina. If pricing wasn't ridiculous (and shipping plus taxes and handling fees even worse!) I'd see about getting the RVF-25, mainly for the Ghosts, because those are cool. Though that set too has a bit of a problem - I think the only time I've seen Luca's RVF-25 without its super parts attached was in the Labyrinth of Time short, because he's always in space in the show and movies, and never joins the fighting inside the colony or the outings planetside... but his unit doesn't come with Super parts, and the sold-separately ones that you could sticker up in his colors were discontinued fairly quickly and are unobtanium. Hmm. I could just loot the super bits from the VF-25S I have that's falling apart though.

If you check the book covers (also posted on the Pixiv way back when the books were released), there's at least one other refit zentraedi ship show that will be probably be on a later sheet: The colony version of the Quiltra Queleual LST, which has *two* sets of Megaroad-01 windows on top. I figure there's at least three more Macross sheets coming - still need the Quiltra Queleual, Queadol Magdomilla, and the Nupetiet Vergnitz sheets. Kind of wondering why the artist chose to put UN Spacy and UN logos on the conversions when the original ships (and the original UN spacy ships from the anime) don't have them, but I suppose it's so you can tell them apart at a glance so there are no mistakes made.

It's not a gun destroyer attached, just the front half of one, for some reason. Probably an after-construction addition done after Space War 1, The artist's note says that the one with the gun was based on his original impressions of the ship from seeing it in the animation - apparently he thought it had the big gun, so he drew one with the big gun. Does not make an awful lot of sense to me (I'm sort of thinking that a more reasonable "add a big gun" mod to the Thuverl Salan design would be to continue the center trench aft of the "fold engine" bulge, so the ship splits in half like the Nupetiet Vergnitz, as that's what *I* thought it looked like until I double checked the line art.) The backstory for the others is pretty solid - thousands of under-construction hulls available in then factory satellites, so the Unified Government took them and made something useful out of them by either finishing their construction with human-designed weapons, or turning them into colony ships. The artist notes that the engines seem to be concentrated to either side anyway, and the center section is surprisingly large (I looks like the artist straight up used the same glass section he'd drawn for Megaroad-01, just minus the T-shaped section and the side domes).

I honestly don't get why people are so strange about this movie...

It wouldn't be the first time that the footage directly contradicts the documentation. Of the fold operations where we see it from "within" so to speak, we have: SDFM: SDF-1's fold to Pluto - took a few seconds, but it's like the second shortest fold trip shown. SDFM: Britai's flagship folding to wherever Bodolza was - this took long enough for Misa and Hikaru to comment on how far they must be going because of how long they were in fold space. IIRC they were in fold space for *hours*? MAC+: The YF-19 folding from Eden to Earth - took at least several minutes. MAC7: I don't remember if we're shown any onboards during the fold ops in the show, it's been so long since I watched it. MACF: All the Folds appear to take at least some time, except for when someone is tagging along with the Vajra folding as they appear to be teleporting. There's even a scene during the long range fold with an updated version of the superimposed image effect applied when Canaria is talking about them being in fold space during the long range fold after they blast the Vajra with Battle Frontier's main gun. MACD: We're repeatedly shown folding takes some time, as ships enter fold space.... then there's a scene either elsewhere or on board... and then they exit fold space. Except the super fold gates generated by the Brisingr Cluster portal network used by Windermere and the 2nd movie people.

Exactly, some of the ships are really weird, others are much more well thought out. I haven't checked his art for other franchises (he's done a bunch of stuff for Yamato, Legend of Galactic Heroes, and straight up WW2 ship variants), Anyway, it looks like the artist uploads one new colored comparison image on his Pixiv every week (the last four were uploaded on the 1st, 8th, 15th and 22nd of October), with a new one due on Saturday. All of the last twelve pictures have been from Macross, before that he was posting Yamato stuff. The Macross comparisons posted so far are: Ocean-going ship variants (Daedalus, Prometheus, two Prometheus variants, and Asuka II) Oberth-class variants (Normal type, gunship type, gunship type with fold engine, Zentraedi type, carrier type, and Northampton test type) ARMD variants (TV version, DYRK version; late model version with an Uraga island) The SDF-1 with separate carriers and ARMDs to scale SDF-2 variants (Original warship design, colony version, and another warship version) SDF-1 variants (Mass production version, Zentraedi version, gunship version, and New Macross prototype version) Northampton variants (2030 version, Zentraedi version, Zentraedi recon version, carrier version, 2060 version, recon version) Stealth Cruiser variants (Base version, AA version, Macross Cannon version, Zentraedi version, electronic warfare version) Space carrier variants (Uraga, Guantanamo, Saratoga II from VF-X2, Daedalus II from SDF Macross 2036, and a super ARMD Guantanamo/Uraga hybrid) New Macross class variants (Battle 7, Battle Frontier, and a battleship version with shoulder mounted Quantum Reaction cannons) Zentraedi Picket ship variants (Normal type, electronic warfare type, a UN Spacy version, and the Prometheus for scale) Zentraedi Gun Destroyer variants (Normal type, cruise type, UN Spacy type, and 2060s UN Spacy type) Presumably the next couple of uploads are also going to be Zentraedi ships, because I know the artist made multiple variants of the Quiltra Queleual for starters, and probably the other ships too.

Yeah, I like the lore, it's really deep, once you actually get to translating it, and I love the fact that variants of these designs *exist* - I'm just not satisfied with the tech specs and drawings given for those variants, especially the Frontier-and-later ones, as I'm an obsessive turret counter. (And, I'm trying to make a Northampton in 3D, which hasn't proven to be the world's easiest chore...) Also, I'm not entirely sold on some of the specific variants given - like, yeah, I get using the cruiser platform for stuff like Electronic Warfare or Air defense versions, and Zentraedi versions of standard ships, no matter how silly the cosmetic mods look, are official canon, by way of the Macross 5 fleet. No objections to any of those. Sticking a Heavy Quantum Reaction Cannon on a cruiser though? Or shoulder-mounting a pair of them on a New Macross-class battle carrier? Or the madness that was the "Next Generation Experimental Type" Macross, or the Zentraedi-type Macross...

Nice find! I found the Pixiv profile using google (search for their name, find Danbooru; Danbooru has a link to the Pixiv page.) Well, regardless of whether the designs themselves were printed previously, the versions on Pixiv are in color, which is something that was reserved for just the back and front cover of the printed versions. The main negative is that the tech specs are not on the Pixiv versions, but I found those kind of suspect in the book anyway. Also, one thing to keep very much in mind - the drawings are fan interpretations, and for some of them they're not that accurate. For example, the turret layout shown for the 2059 version of the Northampton is fictious (the actual thing has AA guns only on top around the bridge tower, as opposed to spread out all over the ship); and the numbers are weird. That said, the fact that they're made using standardized components, on a grid with scaling aids, means I don't particularly need written tech specs to find out most of the things I want... The scale of this drawing is one square = 40 meters, for reference. I'll be using Google Lens to translate these: The first one is an "Initial Mass Production Type" Super Dimension Fortress, named "Takeshi Hayase", in other words, it's named for Misa's dad. Looks-wise, it's a mostly accurate TV-version SDF-1, except with the DYRL paint scheme and a pair of ARMD-IIs. Armament is almost entirely identical to the TV Macross, with a mix of big twins and tiny triple turrets. Interestingly, the bridge centered, rather than split like on the original Macross TV version. 1 x Macross Cannon 4 x TV-style rail guns 8 x Twin heavy beam turrets (possibly 10 if there are any on the front of the legs) 13 x small triple turrets (possibly 15 if there are any on the front of the legs) 1 medium triple launcher The second one is a "Zentraedi Type" Super Dimension Fortress, named "Britai Kridanik". It looks like someone mated a pair of Zentraedi ships to the front end of a Macross, and stuck a *bunch* of Zentraedi heavy beam turrets on there - I count 25 of the things, plus 41 tiny little defensive emplacements. I'm sure there's a visual guide to these things in one of the books, like there was for modern weapons in the Battleships of the Galaxy Vol 2 book. I also count a length of 49 squares, so 1960 meters overall. 1 x Macross Cannon 4 x TV-style heavy rail guns 25 x Zentraedi beam turrets 41 x small point defense turrets The third one is a "Gunship Type" Super Dimension Fortress, named "Ikshima". Visually, it looks like a mashup of different Miyatake concept for the SDF-1 and SDF-2, I remember seeing the permanently open booms in Miyatake's Design Works book. It's really heavily armed, what with the fourteen large twin beam turrets, and 29 tiny point defense systems. Of note, it does not have any ARMDs docked to it. Overall length is 1720 meters, which is bigger than the original SDF-2 design. 1 Macross Cannon (possibly heavier than normal type) 4 x SDF-2 style heavy rail guns 14 large heavy twin beam turrets 29 point defense launchers The fourth one is a "Next Generation Experimental Type" Super Dimension Fortress. And wow, this is a weird one, with the center section of a Macross-class, but the front and back of a New Macross class mated to it, and a pair of Uraga-class carriers as arms. This thing is nuts! The drawing shows one of the problems with this artist's version of the New Macross class - the legs are even width as opposed to wider at the back. I make it 53 squares long, so 2120 meters, for the biggest Macross version to date... 1 x New Macross Cannon (conjecture, but I see the bayonette-like bow of the gunship) 4 x SDF-2 style heavy rail guns 10 x large heavy twin beam turrets 11 x point defense launchers I'm looking through some of the other ship designs right now. It looks like he hasn't posted all of the Macross stuff yet - I know I've seen more variant Zentraedi ships, like a Quiltra Queleual converted to a colony ship, and some Thuverl Salan variants....

I've seen him recent-ish in the facebook group, but the facebook thingy and I don't mix for technical reasons (it keeps eating anything I try to post as a separate post, but it's fine with posting images as comments... Mostly just wondering how best to go about offering information from things like straight up turret counting. And I think part of the reason there's been a dearth of official specs this time is because some of the last releases were obviously wrong. 😛

Is Mr. March still around on the forums somewhere? I heard something about him working on a Macross Delta update for M3, but that was months ago and the site has yet to be updated. And I have some possible corrections to add for the existing articles. Old business first 0. Battle Frontier Armament: 12 x twin guided anti-ship heavy beam cannon turrets (two at the front, two on the back, and two on the crest of each shoulder piece). 4 x triple guided anti-ship heavy beam cannon turrets (two on each side flanking the bridge). None of the four turrets you can see on the shoulder armor are the ones on the crest of it, those are out of frame here. Also, look closely under the edge of the shoulder piece, there's two very long thin barrel-like protrusions sticking out. I'm not going to categorically declare that these are weapons, but their mounting locations look similar to the hidden rail guns on Battle 7. Northampton-class, carrier type (SMS Gefion from Macross 30) 2 x twin 72 mm beam cannon turrets (dorsal, one forward, one aft) 2 x twin 58 mm beam cannon turrets (ventral, one forward, one aft) 18 x twin 20 mm beam CIWS (dorsal, 9 on either side of the bridge tower) 4 x anti-ship missile tubes (forward, two on either side of the hull) 2 x flight decks with catapults Now, for new business, specifically from the new movie: The Aether-style ARMDs 4 x twin guided beam cannon turrets (two on each thruster pod, one dorsal and one ventral). The top ones appear to be mounted so that they tilt on their side when the pod tucks in for docking, not sure how that works. These are smaller than any of the ones on the main ship. Each ship has a macross cannon, but it's doubtful they have enough power to fire it without being docked to the main ship. (One of the Macross-class in Zettai Live fires left handed after having previously fired right handed). Elysion-type Macross-class. At least twelve of these muster at Alfheim for transit to Windermere according to the tactical maps, and while only eight are visible in later tactical maps, I have *nine* firing during the big mass fire event. 12 x super-heavy Macross cannon-type turrets (two on each knee, two on each shoulder, and four on the chest in attacker mode; two on the centerline and three flanking on each side dorsally, plus two on each outside beam in cruiser mode) 13 x twin heavy anti-ship beam cannon turrets (four on each upright boom, plus two in front and one in the back of the crotch facing downwards in attacker mode; eight aft and three amidships centerline (one ventral) in cruiser mode. Numerous smaller turrets (several, confirmed six per side around the "mini flight deck" on the side of each leg on Gigasion) Gigasion traded two of the heaviest turrets (the rear/lower one from each knee) for its wings, as they attach there in cruiser mode. Gigasion is also absolutely covered in spaced armor panels, as are the bottoms of its carrier arms. Gigasion's left carrier seems to be numbered CV/C-100 Elysion was present for the final battle, there's a member of the class with the right coloration and most notably a deck number that looks like they read CV/C-109. Stealth Cruiser I have a partial top view showing five small and two slightly larger twin beam turrets similar to the ones on the Northampton 2059 version flanking the bridge tower on either side. Still chasing a better view of the cluster of turrets on the stern. VF-31AX Armored 22 missiles in each chest compartment (x2) =44 15 missiles in each shoulder compartment (x2) =30 34 missiles in outeboard leg launcher (x4) = 136 14 missiles in large pod launcher (x4) = 56 12 missiles in small pod launcher (x6) = 72 16 missiles in inboard leg launchers (x4) = 64 402 missiles total visible on the shooting model. Some pods may have multiple layers - in fact the leg launchers definitely do since they look full again when they're jettisoned after already being fired once. Uraga-class carrier Four Cheyenne destroids can be seen standing on the side of the hull below the edge of the raised flight deck during Hayate's charge toward Astrea. There are also a pair of CIWS turrets in this area. Another pair of Cheyennes are standing on the side of the hull at the stern. All of these are literally one or two frames a piece, this is a fast shot. I forgot to save a lot of these frames, but they're in there and I'll find them again...

Yeah, the big problem with the line art is that it's not internally consistent - not as bad as something like the Asuka II line art from Zero, where from drawing to drawing they can't decide how many Cheyenne tubs there are. And then there's M3, which adds more features that aren't there in the line art, like whichever opening Max and Milia launch out of during the opening animation. I showed my chopped off version of the "ship" to the artist who made the model, and he went "wow, that looks convincing enough to try making a proper stand alone version". He's got a bit of a full plate already though.

It looks like they weren't able to get the motors to pull everything into its proper place at the extreme ends of the transformation - whether it's lack of leverage or just being scared of breaking something I don't know. It sort of goes from 90% ship to 90% robot...

Thanks a bunch for alerting me to these, I'd seen the renders, but I didn't know until I saw this that he'd made them available for free! After looking around a bit further, it looks like he's planning on releasing Battle 5 (the Zentraedi-style version) and Macross 13 (the "evil" version from VF-X2) as well, possibly in time for halloween (according to his Facebook). I'm just hoping that when he's done with the SDFs he has some time over for their escorts.... These are the MiniValk models, painted up in a 3D software suite because 3D prints are expensive and real life does not come with glowy paints or a ctrl-z button. Also, it lets me paint two models for the time invested in just one, as I can make palette swaps really easily. It's kind of amazing what just swapping to the more modern Frontier-ish color palette does to make the two very 80s or 90s hero unit-looking ships turn into credible warships, even without a single addition to the models.

Flight deck on the top of the side pod, looks like? Also, there's a glow coming out of all three openings at the front of the pod. I really have to wonder what that's about, given that they're facing forward. Anyway, I tried chopping the "upper half" off of the side pod to see what it'd look like as a ship. Models of the Megalord (background, and the ARMD from it is the far ship in the lineup) and Megaroad-01 part are by MiniValks (Michael Ryan); the TV-style ARMD is by Astrofossil. All of them can be found through Thingiverse and are CC-BY-NC 4.0. https://i.imgur.com/vlKKU1K.png