SebastianP

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.

The pattern is basically the other way around - if the model kit doesn't come out first, it doesn't come out period. As far as I can tell, not a single one of the DX toys has been released before the model kit of the same subject. Also, unlike the DX toy line, where releases are always on the one to two per year schedule, the model kit lineup tends to release with much shorter intervals so long as Bandai remain interested. As soon as they stop announcing new kits, the line is pretty much dead until there's new animated material to make kits from.

Are you sure your numbers are correct here? I don't have the book myself, but the picture from the pages you're appearing to refer to is labeled "SYF-31-4~7, 2067", implying that the breakdown is: SYF-31-4 = SYF-31S = VF-31S (Arad) SYF-31-5 = SYF-31F = VF-31F (Messer) SYF-31-6 = SYF-31E = VF-31E (Chuck) SYF-31-7 = SYF-31C = VF-31C (Mirage) With the next page going on with: SYF-31-8 = SYF-31J = VF-31J (Hayate) SYF-31-9 = SYF-31J = VF-31J #2 (Hayate) There's also a color plate showing SYF-31-7 in a low visibility scheme with Delta 04 markings, and SYF-31-3 is shown wearing NUNS colors and is stated in the color plate to be based at New Edwards on Eden. Weirdly, the SYF-31-4 drawing has different outer wings than the VF-31S drawing, and both have single-laser heads. I get the idea that according to the book, VF-31S refers to *all* production forward-swept, FF-3001/FC2-engined versions, and VF-31A to all the delta-winged, FF-3001A versions. Edit: Weird crap is going on here, because I just now noticed that it appears the description for the SYF-31-4 says it was converted into the SYF-31E... I'd pretty much call that a correction of an obvious oversight personally, as the lack of outer wing hardpoints on the VF-31A made little sense to me in the first place. Basically every other VF except the VF-22 and VF-27 (which were exceptional in all sorts of other ways as well) have had multiple hardpoints under each wing, and not having them made the VF-31A the worst strike platform in ages.

Very nice execution! I kind of wish the VE-11 had a ventral sensor fin like the VE-1, RVF-25 and RVF-171 though, it just looks a little top heavy without one, but that's not a fault of yours.

I've built three of the VF-25 kits, and one VF-31. First of all, general issues with all the kits: 1. The stickers suck. If you don't get them on exactly where you want them and you have to peel them off and try again, they're not going to stay put. 2. The water slide decals suck *worse*. They're thick, hard and fragile, and they're dithered rather than solid color. Invest in a bottle of Mr Mark Softner, you will need it. 3. The landing gear sucks. The legs are too thick, the wheels are too small, they're molded very simplistically and they're molded in *dark gray*, rather than the white they're supposed to be in. They're just generally ugly. 4. No matter whether you're using the stickers or the decals, you need to apply a fair amount of them during assembly, so choose first, before starting construction. For the VF-25 kits in particular: 1. The shoulder construction is really really fragile, and will most likely be the first thing to break unfixably, as the worst pieces are ABS and can't be glued back together once they break. Transforming the kit too many times *will* cause some of the ABS parts to wear out, as it involves rotating a styrene peg in a thin ABS cuff for 180 degrees every time you transform the kit. Stick to a mode, and if it's on where the arms are out, stick to a pose. 2. The fully collapsed leg is strong enough to hold up on its own in fighter mode. But only the plain VF-25 uses the fully collapsed thigh, the others bend the leg down and then back up again which causes the joint to not support the leg's weight. Not a big deal on the Tornado or Armored, as they have tabs for the legs, but the Super VF-25 lacks the tabs. The only way of displaying the Super VF-25 in fighter mode is on its landing gear. 3. Both the Armored and Tornado packs are really solid in any mode, but *heavy*. Especially the Armored. Don't expect them to do well in Gerwalk, where none of the joints in the entire kit are completely locked, and thus not subject to gravity-induced movement. For the VF-31: 1. None of the parts so far look anywhere near as fragile as the VF-25 bits, and the parts lock together really really well in fighter mode, however... 2. I have as yet been unable to fully transform my VF-31, and I'm unwilling to push it further due to getting stress marks on one of the big ABS pieces in the core of the fighter. Also, bits pop off really easily during transformation - not just wings and fins, but the chest plate is also often not there due to going on vacation to visit the Carpet Monster.

It was mentioned in an interview that Kawamori made the canards on the Kairos one size bigger to correct for the center of lift being further back on the non-FSW version. It's somewhere on Sketchley's site IIRC.

I can't find my intuos pen, what's it saying about the VF-31A?

They never made a -25A, and they basically would only have needed to mold a VF-25G in tan instead of blue and ship it with a gatling gunpod to deliver one of those. Oh, and a new decal sheet. As I think I've said before in the thread, a superficial conversion of the VF-31J to a VF-31A involves seven pieces of polystyrene (upper and lower outer wing halves and canards x 2, plus a helmeted pilot figure) unless there's something going on with the head in which case you'd need a few more parts. A completely accurate VF-31A with missiles instead of multidrones? That would require replacing the core ABS parts of the lower leg. Also, based on parts breakdown, every VF-31 kit will have the parts to make an FSW version, as the upper and lower wing panels aren't molded in a section of runner that can be dummied out easily.

Most of the VFs have this problem actually, due to the lack of horizontal tails. I think only the delta- and forward swept winged VFs - and not even all of them - have enough control surface area to pitch up from a runway take-off, especially not with the landing gear placement on most of them being so far back.

Just show me where there's standing room for battroids or Queadlunns on that ship?