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SebastianP

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Everything posted by SebastianP

  1. SebastianP
    Are we out of the spoiler protected period yet? Anyway - with the Aether and Hemera being externally identical, I'm guessing both ships have the same internals as well, so yes the Aether should contain another Macross Cannon. Also, based on the Aether not even trying to shoot at the Sigur Valens, I'm guessing that either the charge time is prohibitive without the Elysion's main reactors to power it, or the ship basically can't fire the gun on its own. Guns akimbo? Maybe in space. On the surface, Elysion used the other hand to steady the Hemera, and I don't think it was just for the sake of a cool pose. More likely, we might see the Elysion fire both guns simultaneously in ship mode - possibly after ramming the Sigur Valens? It's gotta do a Macross Attack at some point, it won't be Macross without it.
  2. SebastianP
    Do they actually? I don't remember seeing any Japanese material that actually gave an English rank, and in Japanese the ranks are all the same. The translations tend to confuse the issue (the official subs for Macross mixes army and navy style ranks, we have lieutenant commanders and admirals on one hand, and majors and generals on the other), and people keep getting referred to by their job titles rather than their ranks (like Max being "kansho" on in Macross 7, or Roy and Hikaru being "taicho" in the original.)
  3. SebastianP
  4. SebastianP
    This incessant complaining about the combat being fighter vs fighter all the time is getting annoying. The reason we're not getting anything else is because unless you need to take or hold ground, Battroid and Gerwalk are pretty much useless in the atmosphere. The Aerial knights stay airborne because they don't have any ground objectives that they can't hit-and-run; and Chaos fights them in the air because they can't make them come down to fight them on the ground, and they can't just leave them up there because then they can pulverize whatever they want from up high. In space, or in an enclosed area (like inside a colony), it's a different story. Mode changes in an atmosphere will kill your mobility, mode changes in space will give you options. In a domed city, you can't take advantage of fighter mode's extra speed or altitude performance anyway, and fighting street to street makes sense because you *can't* take off and nuke them from above. Now, if the Aerial knights ever had something they seriously needed to take and hold on the ground, as opposed to just needing destroy something or to distract the defenders, we'd probably see them use Gerwalk for more than just landing or a hand-break, and battroid for more than proclamations. And that would cause Delta and company to have to follow suit. Or, if Delta did an op where they were assaulting, as opposed to destroying, a ground objective, we might see the knights use battroid and gerwalk. But for the types of ops we see, fighter mode is pretty much the most useful thing to use, so that's what gets used. (Also note that in the one space battle we do see properly, everyone uses Gerwalk mostly. On both sides.)
  5. SebastianP
  6. SebastianP
    Thank you kindly,
  7. SebastianP
    The non-spoiler review: That. Was. CRAZY Awesome. And whoever the troll was that voted negative on this needs to hand in his Macross Fanclub card.
  8. SebastianP
    Without looking at the videos yet (have something else running), it does look like it might be significantly easier to get the VF-31 to hold together in fighter mode.
  9. SebastianP
    In case anyone missed it, this was posted in the 1/72 thread, but is kind of relevant here: (from Figure King magazine) Looks like Mirage's VF in August, and Messer's in October. No word on VF-31As or Sv-262Ba though.
  10. SebastianP

    Bandai DX VF-31

    SebastianP replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    Don't think we'll be getting any armored packs personally, because they'd screw with the hinges for the modular weapons container, and the wing packs would need to be entirely different between the Siegfried and Kairos versions. Basically, if there is any kind of armored pack, it won't cover the back of the fighter mode very well, and it will most likely be for the Kairos only. This whole DX toy business makes it difficult to figure out what kind of movements we'll see among the pilots in Delta Squad - Mirage was promoted to Delta 2, does that mean she'll be put in the VF-31F? Or will she remain in her VF-31C with a new number painted on it, which will annoy anyone who buys the toy that has the "wrong" number on it? Or will Hayate mangle his VF-31 so badly he needs a new one, and end up in the VF-31F instead of Mirage? If so, will the numbers be shuffled around (again upsetting anyone who wants different numbers on their toys)? Or is everyone going to remain flying the same aircraft they are right now with no changes, with a new pilot eventually getting the VF-31F? My personal epileptic tree is that the next person who'll fly the Shinigami is going to be Roid - we've never seen him fly, and Keith refers to him as having clipped his wings, but nothing says he *can't* fly - it may just be his position at court prevents him from doing so. And sooner or later he'll need to have it out with Keith anyway, because Keith is being a massive dick and Roid, for all that he's been an integral part of the war on the side of the Windermereans so far, has always been the *reasonable* one who's been keeping the rest in line.
  11. SebastianP
    Like this:
  12. SebastianP

    Bandai DX VF-31

    SebastianP replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    I don't see what people think is so wrong with those super packs - they're basically the same general style of packs that were used on the VF-11 and VF-19, they'e just mounted further outboard to avoid getting in the way of the multipurpose pod. Hard to see where else they'd be mounted, really.
  13. SebastianP
    We'll probably know within a couple of days, as the kits are available in Japan now and the speedbuilders will be posting their reviews soon. Edit: Pictures of the decals from Hobby Search at least still make it look like the decals aren't solid colors, but you can't tell how thick they are or anything like that.
  14. SebastianP
    That sounds really strange. Here, I pay 25% VAT on anything I haven't managed to finagle a checked "gift" box on the label, payable on delivery (I.e. I go to the supermarket to pick my thing up, pay the VAT at the counter, and get my box.). HLJ notoriously does not check the "gift" box, so their stuff always costs 25% more than what they say; but many of the smaller hobby shops that sell through amazon always check the gift box. It's just getting kind of difficult to figure out which of the hobby shops are really offering free shipping through amazon, because some of them will say free shipping when you start the order, and then when it's time for the final check if you really want to place the order - literally the final screen - they'll hit you with a huge "shipping and handling" charge. Then you just have to back all the way back out again and try a different store. At least with HLJ, you pay what they say up front you'll pay - to them, at least. I just wish it was easier to spot that kind of stuff ahead of time.
  15. SebastianP
    I assume it relates to how the Battle Galaxy is missing in the movies. Basically, I think that Galaxy spied a Vajra nest, tried to take them over using their tech, but it wasn't ready and the Vajra tore them a new one and went looking for their fleet. So the conspiracy packed themselves into the refugee ships, and ran to Frontier, where they planned to execute a hostile takeover to get a second shot. In the TV series, I'm thinking the plot was kind of similar, except the Battle Galaxy lived to fight another day and Frontier wasn't exactly taken over. I am kind of wondering how Leon Mishima got so important in the scheme of things. He's a lieutenant, Captain Perry should have ground him under his boot heel...
  16. SebastianP
    What makes you think any of Walkure are wearing actual clothes at all?
  17. SebastianP
    Going by the panel lines on the VF-27 model kit, there may be one hardpoint under each wing, just inboard of the engines, where there are two small circular panels in a straight line parallel to the centerline. It's nowhere near as obvious as on the VF-31, but if there are any hardpoints at all, that's where they'd be. The YF-29 looks like it too has one hardpoint under each wing - in this case, the evidence is two narrow rectangular panels arranged in a line just inboard of the fixed portion of the wing, on the 1/100 Bandai kit (and on the DX toy, I just noticed). These are not obscured by the super parts, though the leg packs stick out enough to make clearance problematic for long stores. The YF-30 of course only has one official item made of it, and that's the DX toy which has functional hardpoint connectors for two hardpoints under each wing. And of course it's obvious where the hardpoints are on anything that's gotten a Hasegawa kit of it, because they're awesome like that.
  18. SebastianP
    I already had those, and they're basically too small for what I need or not from the right angle. /m/ provided though, everything except a shot from below and behind. Is that a star drive on the bottom of the ship, right in front of the hand, or is it a hangar aperture? The gunship doesn't appear to have something similar. Thanks, but that's basically the image I'm trying to verify the accuracy of. And all the pics found so far suggests it's bogus, because the forward hangar bay isn't even *that* big, and the aft one doesn't exist.
  19. SebastianP
    I meant "Native" as in "sufficiently large amounts of research expertise available locally". They may be branch offices of bigger corporations, but they still answer to the local government, if nothing else than because their employees are all citizens and should have at least some patriotism. As for the string pulling, I was thinking of Leon Mishima here - in the TV series he was in cahoots with Galaxy and had the president assassinated, though what his end game plan was once is a bit of a mystery to me; in the movies he convinces President Glass to co-opt Galaxy's plan to control the Vajra once they suss it out and have the upper hand, rather than using their tech to kill the Vajra off clean or getting out of their territory. That sounds a lot like nefarious and megalomaniacal string pulling to me. Oh, and the rivals with opposing core ethics thing is also easy to explain - Frontier is built as a sustainable eco-system and prohibits transhumanism like cybernetic implants; Galaxy is apparently one giant industrial cityscape with homeless undocumented children living in the slums and no green spaces, and implants are basically mandatory unless Grace Godunowa has a use for you that requires you don't have them. There's your opposing core ethics. And look how quick the Frontier government was to use the "it's probably a trap set by Galaxy, so we're ignoring it!" card in the movies - if that's not evidence of rivalry, what is? And Frontier was IIRC actually looking to settle somewhere, or at least they ended up having to. Galaxy might have been content to stay in space though, but they were attempting to gain control of the Vajra so they couldn't have Frontier in their patch. Or at least that's how I interpreted things. As for me calling the Prophecy a minimally changed Evolution - what line art we have of the Evolution really suggests that the main outward difference between the two were the Prophecy's swing wings. The internals may be different, but the VF-25 has the same nose section, the same intakes, the same exhaust nozzles, the same dorsal panel lines for the parts that move around while transforming... compare that to the VF-27, which is radically different in overall styling, doesn't have the same feet, panel lines or intakes, and it really does look like the VF-25 is a result of someone going "This plane is almost good enough as is, let's just fix the bits that are obviously wrong and see what we get?" at the YF-24, just like how they did basically the same thing to turn the YF-21 into the VF-22. The VF-27 on the other hand adds the virtual cockpit, the beam gun, has different engines and exhausts, has none of the same panel lines... the only thing that's visibly the same on the two is the basic transformation. And that's before you go into the added engines on the wings and the like. The YF-29 is also a lot more different from the YF-24 than the VF-25 is - again it has different wings and two more engines, but it also has all the extra armament (the dorsal beam guns, the built-in micro-missiles, etc.) and the Fold wave system. It's still more obviously a further developed YF-24 than the VF-27 is though.
  20. SebastianP
    That, and developing and deploying a modern fighter all on your own dime is *expensive*. Frontier and Galaxy could do it because they have native tech companies able to handle the job; and the reasons they actually did it (aside from keeping those tech companies happy) were because they were 1) moving into Vajra space and were worried; 1) rivals with opposing core ethics both looking for a planet to settle on in the same general neighborhood; and 3) both were having their strings pulled by (or were under the outright control of) megalomaniacs who thought they could use the Vajra to assert control over the rest of humanity, and they needed superior force of arms to make sure it was them who got there first. During Macross The Ride, both Frontier and Galaxy were trying to bluff the other with the state of their advanced VF programs (Frontier entered the YF-25 Prophecy which was basically a minimal-change YF-24 Evolution, while they were already working on the YF-29 that they were going to use if it came to a *real* fight; Galaxy entered the YF-27-5 Shaher Femail while they were already working on modifying the production VF-27 spec based off of stolen YF-29 specs... and of course both sides were quitely working on their own QF-4000 variants). Also, Aisha Blanchett must have been hard at work on the YF-30 for some time as well, though apparently the YF-30 ended up being something akin to the YF-24 Evolution: A "public" prototype which anyone was free to develop further, given that the VF-31 is not credited to either Shinsei or LAI, but Surya Aerospace. Unless of course Aisha left SMS and started Surya after the events of Macross 30... (MFW Mikumo is another Protoculture survivor found in stasis on Ouroboros and Lady M turns out to be Mina Forte...)
  21. SebastianP
    I wouldn't read too much into the "rail gun" name myself, given that they don't *look* like rail guns. It might be that the gun is called that because it's on rails. Also, gunpod ammunition capacities are another of those "this has to be tardis-tech" items from the official specifications, given how absolutely huge the guns themselves and the rounds for them are. The real world SUU-23/A gun pod held an M61A1 gun and 1,200 rounds. The GPU-5/A held a stripped-down 4-barrel 30 mm gatling and 353 rounds, and was still noticeably bigger. (I need to get my hands on the Hasegawa 1/72 gunpod set, so I can compare them to the VF gunpods...) And a magazine for 1,200 rounds of 30 mm ammunition is famously the size of a VW beetle...
  22. SebastianP
    It's nothing special...for a variable fighter, which is in itself a special category of its own. Kind of like how an F-40 is nothing special... for a supercar. You can teach someone to drive in the family's old beater, because it's docile and won't kill you instantly if you make a noob mistake. Teaching someone to drive an open-wheel race car is a somewhat different matter, and requires specialized training aids- such as purpose-built training car or an older, not as fast open-wheel race car that will kill you slightly less instantly for a noob mistake. (The "lesser formulas" for open wheeled racing are all basically a progression of increasingly advanced trainers for the real deal, which is Formula One.) Similarly, you teach the basics of flight in a docile plane because it won't kill you when you make a mistake. You teach flying a fighter in something a bit more temperamental, like an older fighter or a purpose-built trainer. But just like how "trainer race cars" are still race cars enough that there are actual leagues for them, fighter trainers are still fighters enough that most of them are still expected to sortie at least as ground attack aircraft in case of a war. No one will ever mistake a fighter trainer for a people-mover or trash hauler. The VF-1 is an aircraft that people still dream of flying in the Macross universe, despite it being nearly sixty years old; for the same reasons why people still dream of flying the F4U Corsair, or the Spitfire, or the P-51 Mustang, despite them being more than 70 years old in our world. They were the best, they won a war, and they'll still fly rings around anything you're likely to be able to afford new.
  23. SebastianP
    I thought that was explicitly stated somewhere? At least I've been assuming as much for a couple of years at this point, as it was mentioned in the very first description I ever read of the YF-27-5. Though it's been so long I don't even remember where I saw the description... Anyway, given that both the YF-29 and VF-25 Tornado pack also have large-scale beam guns and extra engines, I've been assuming it was pretty much the same deal there, it's just that the power generation of the YF-29 was more efficient so they could make do with two extra engines rather than the four of the Tornado pack. It wasn't until the FF-3001's on the YF-30 (and now the VF-31) that the main engines had enough power generation to feed a beam gun pod on their own.
  24. SebastianP
    No, given that the VF-1 even de-tuned is still supersonic and then some, it's not a "beater car". It's plenty fast enough to get you into all sorts of trouble, it's just not so fast that you can't get *out* of trouble before it ends up being terminal. You're not going to run into problems like going supersonic on the ground or burning up your aircraft due to air resistance, but you still have to tackle the dangers of transsonic flight etc. "Mom's old beater" would be a subsonic jet trainer of the sort we use today, or even a propeller plane. The kind of things you use to teach pilots the very basics, like "this is how you take off from a runway", and "this is how you *land* on a runway". I don't think they'd use even de-tuned VF-1s for that, because they're not designed to go slow enough for an absolute noob to get the hang of things. No, the VF-1 is a vintage GT race spec car from the 1960s or so. Like a Ferrari 250 GTO - the hottest thing on wheels back in the day, still pretty damned fast compared to anything that isn't explicitly a sports car, but completely outclassed by its modern equivalents, but popular enough that people are still building replicas.
  25. SebastianP
    It's not just cost. Compare VFs to cars. The VF-1 is like a rally car. It's rugged, it's durable, it's reasonably fast, and if you flip it over you'll probably survive. A high-end VF is like a Ferrari or McLaren - four times the engine power, and half a ton of electronics just to keep the car going where you want it, and even *that*s not enough if you drive stupidly. And if you manage to crash it despite the safety measures, chances are not only is your car totalled, but so are you. If you stick a noob driver in a McLaren F1, he'll most likely break the speed limit before he figures out which way he's going, and then break his gearbox because he forgot to shift up from first, or he'll smash into something at high speed because he didn't brake in time. The equivalent noob mistakes in a YF-19 would be going supersonic on the runway and collapsing the landing gear; or getting off the runway, accelerating too fast, and reaching orbital velocity in the lower atmosphere, at which point the aircraft burns up from the friction. A VF-25 or VF-31 would be more like a McLaren P1 - you wouldn't break the gearbox, because it's a semi-automatic; you might still smash into something because the car doesn't steer for you. Likewise, you probably wouldn't go supersonic on the runway because intelligent throttle governors, and rather than going too fast in the lower atmosphere, you risk going to space unintentionally. Or into the ground, the plane can't keep you from being suicidal.
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