SebastianP

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

So, a couple of thoughts struck me - suddenly, without warning, I ought to file a police report - while I was playing around with MiniValk (Michael Ryan)'s excellent printable 3D models. The first one was that "hey, don't the side pods on the Megaroad-01 look a bit like the lower half is some kind of ARMD docked side-on to a pylon, sort of like how the Tomcat's wing glove pylons worked, except backwards?" You have the painted flight deck facing outward, you have something that looks more like a pair of humongous engines than anything else, and you even have what looks like the front end of a ship at the back end. The second was that "Hmm, whatever ship that is would be even more asymmetrical than your average ARMD, and would necessitate a left and a right hand configuration for sure, just like the DYRL Macross. The third was that "hey, the SDF-2 Megalord's line art actually *doesn't* have handed versions of the ARMD, they're actually identical in the artwork. And then I almost landed in a rabbit-hole trying to figure out whether there was any evidence on MMM that the ARMDs installed on the DYRL Macross were indeed left-and-right handed in the first place... (it turns out that they are, but only one of the pieces of line art on MMM actually *shows* this - the "SDF-1 Macross attack mode line art". *Every other piece* of DYRL line art only shows the bottoms of the ARMDs, or only the port side. Even the "SDF-1 Macross schematics" actually only shows the port side as the front/back view is split. Anyway, the DYRL ARMDs, and the possible Megaroad ARMDs, are the only ships I can come up with off hand that are "handed" like that, unless you want to be silly and count the integral pieces of the New Macross class as separate ships. Even the Aether and Hemera were identical (their islands are on the same side relative to the deck on both ships in both the TV show and on my tiny Macross Elysion Mechacolle model). And while I'm logged in and actually able to post at all (that was a bit of a mess to figure out, thanks Shawn for helping me with that), I may as well ask - does anyone know what color scheme to pain the ASS-1 in? I'm almost thinking green with yellow blobs in the trenches, but that's Zentraedi colors. What colors did the Supervision Army use?

Anyone want to take a stab at translating the text that goes with the VF picture?

Isn't a lot of the recent canon story credited to Ukyo Kodachi these days? (And as an old, old Ranma fan, that name still makes me snicker when I have to write it). Ukyo Kodachi was IIRC credited with both Frontier and The Ride, and IIRC Mac30 too? Don't remember if they were responsible for Delta though, though I do know Delta ran into extensive executive meddling. The one major thing that really would disappear with Kawamori are the VFs, he's the only one who's ever really been able to do those and make them look *good* in all three forms.

As I just noted in the other thread: 1 - Larger delta wing with a spike (potentially enough to allow the mounting of VF-25 Super boosters?) 2 - Larger canard with a dogtooth 3 - Canopy has been redone, the new one lacks the separate windshield that was on the first generation VF-31s 4 - The sensor crystal things are repositioned, and there's now three on each side and one in the middle, for a total of seven 5 - The mission pod is different, with a longer stinger that protrudes aft of the engine nozzles (seen in the top and bottom view line art) 6 - The arm guns are much bigger, the new ones protrude past the leading edge of the wings 7 - The revised boosters don't just have winglets, they also lack the mounting bracket that was required to mount it overwing the way the originals did. They also either have slots or stripes on the light grey bits on each side. 8 - Forgot this one earlier - both Delta 03 and Delta 06 have a single head laser, Chuck's old machine had two. Delta 6, as far as I can tell, is identical to (new) Delta 3 aside from the paint job.

I noticed that there's actually a lot that's different on the new Delta 03 and Delta 06 compared to older versions: 1 - The delta wing is bigger than the Kairos, and has a spike that someone pointed out might allow it to use VF-25 Super Parts. 2 - The canards are bigger and has a dog tooth. This was mentioned by someone else earlier, but it's on the list of changes. 3 - The canopy is different. The old one was a two-piece with a separate windscreen over the instrument panel, the new one is one with what looks like a different profile. 4 - The nose sensor cluster is different - the new one has three sensor crystals on each side plus one in the middle for seven total, and they're much closer to the canopy. 5 - The arm-mounted guns are bigger, by quite a bit. In the line art, the muzzles protrude past the leading edge of the wing - they decidedly don't on the original VF-31 models. 6 - Aside from the elimination of the mounting bracket on the boosters, they also have fins, and either slots or stripes on the light grey sections on the sides. 7 - The new mission pod is longer and has some sort of stinger. It also looked really strange in the few screengrabs from the trailer. Random observation - if the boosters attach using the same system as the Lilldrakens, that has some interesting implications - namely, that you might be able to mount VF-31 super boosters under the wings of for example the VF-171 or the VF-30.

I think the issue with the Macross 7 stuff is that the hero units were very cartoony compared to anything else in the franchise, and the mass production machines not all that well loved. We've got a decent kit of the VF-11 (both B and C versions) and the VF-22, and IIRC you can make a convincing Fire Valkyrie out of the YF-19/VF-19A kit with some custom painting, so what's really left is Mylene's VF-11, the VF-17, the crank-wing VF-19 models (E/F IIRC?) and the Varauta fighters, which are pretty weird looking. It annoys me though that there's still no 1/72 VF-171, given that it was featured in both Frontier and Delta, and all three movies for those shows. It's the CF unit to end all CF units; and plain VFs have been shown to be amazingly popular as model kits (which is why more keep getting made); so why hasn't Hasegawa made one?

Nice model so far, @Xigfrid. I don't think I'd ever want to attempt to make any of the Macross ships in 3D myself, mostly because of the scaling issues with the official stats compared to the feats seen on screen, since a lot of the ships simply don't have anywhere near the volume needed for the scenes as animated to make sense.... unless "Super Dimension Technology" means "we can make it bigger on the inside like a TARDIS!" and has since the beginning... (Relevant examples being how Macross City's main street, which looks longer than the actual ship's official length, fits into just the leg sections; how the Stargazer managed to squeeze in anything *else* on top of the 37 VFs it's seen launching, such as "engines" or "crew quarters"; where the "Queadluun-Rhea standing room" hangars are on the Macross Quarter's ARMD-L; the weird issue where we can visually scale the Aether to be at least 850-900 meters long based on the known size of the VF-31, but the whole Macross Elysium is shorter than that offically; and of course "where did they fit a *Monster* on the Asuka II?") It almost has me convinced that whoever makes the specs up for the chronicle are out to troll everyone.

Honestly? Learn to love the glue and the paint. Bandai's various press-fit model kit lines are kind of limited - the model kit department's focus has always been and always will be Gundam, with Macross being a side project they devote some attention to every few years and then leave alone in between. There's not a single model kit line where you can build a complete collection of variants like you can with the DX toys, because there's no plastic VF-25A kit (at least not from Bandai), nor is there a VF-31A or VF-31E kit. And forget seeing anything not from the original series/DYRL, Frontier, or Delta, Bandai don't seem at all interested. Not for models at least. (Toys are a different story.) Hasegawa are glue-and-paint models, but the glue is nothing to be afraid of. I'm more scared of painting myself, because there's so much prepwork that has to be done right first before you can even start if you want a nice result. They also have a substantial number of kits from all over the continuity, and there's only a handful of subjects they *haven't* made yet, or that you can't make by swapping parts around between models. And they'll probably get around to those eventually, since the model kit line is never quite dormant. The other brands, I don't know enough about to really comment on, except that I know Wave has filled in some of the blanks in the Hasegawa lineup (like the VF-4), and it's apparently a nice, if expensive, kit.