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Shaka_Z

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  1. ok... I hate to derail everyone from their collective obsession about the newly christened WTF-1 buuut.... something else popped into my mind concerning the whole issue of ranka being able to quell the riot so seemingly easily. It appears that the zentran reaction to her was much stronger on average than I imagine it would have been to Sheryl's singing. could this be because Ranka is possibly the first blatantly obvious example of a media celebrity of mixed human/zentran/meltran descent? lets face it, Mylene's mixed heritage was not easily observable - hell her father would have passed for zentran more easily (yes, considering his hair). With this in mind, Sheryl, though undeniably gorgeous and extremely talented, is still just a human, so I have a feeling that this particular garrison of zents would have been somewhat more resistant to her charms (had she performed as intended) than those of earlier times were to minmei or mylene, be they fans of hers or not. she would still have gotten the job done however... it would have just required a bit more from her than usual. Ranka on the other hand had a grand slam of advantages in this ep: 1 - can we say uber moe? 2 - also extremely talented 3 - she is new and making a surprise live performance just for them (one soldier actually remarked that he was hoping to make it to her debut or something like that) 4 - from the zents POV, 'yay shes one of US!!! that combination is what led to the mass zent nosebleed. and yes, all is proceeding according to Grace's design ^^
  2. lol.... we are all 'nerds' here. we could probably turn a thread on which frontier girl has the best breasts, butt or legs into an applied physics discussion. come to think of it... that might not be a bad idea
  3. hmm.. makes one wonder. most of the age of consent laws are at least in part inspired by adherence to religious rules. somehow I doubt that more than a *very* few of earth's religions survived SW1 - and the 3 Big Ones of the West/middle east are not on my short list of likely survivors (they would have a near impossible task trying to adapt to the reality of sentient extraterrestrial life on such a large scale).
  4. wow... I just love how the reply with quote function automatically cuts out everybody else's quotes on this board but the person I am replying to... anyway, like I said, the only thrusters operatiing at crazy Isp levels are the main engines - the others would likely be running at much lower values, perhaps as low as 1000 seconds Isp - and would probably operate as puffers at that. besides... remember that the exhaust from these engines is being expanded by the nozzle of the engine to match the ambient pressure as much as practical ( to be fully expanded to ambient pressure in space the nozzle would have to be freekin HUGE). It isn't going to have anything remotely like the coherency of a particle beam, and the charged particles that make up the exhaust are going to be trying to get as far away from each other as fast as possible from the moment the stream leaves the nozzle to finish the job. the exhaust cone would be hazardous to other spacecraft for maybe a hundred yards tops in the case of maneuvering and attitude control thrusters... probably much less. I would be more worried about getting hit by a micrometeorite. BTW, what do you all think of my signature?
  5. unfortunately the relationship between Isp, attainable thrust levels and a vehicle's maximum attainable velocity is not that easily quantified. Isp is both a measure of the effective velocity of the propellant as it leaves the engine nozzle, as well as the absolute temperature of the gas/plasma that it consists of... Mass Flow Rate at a given velocity determines thrust. temperature s the primary limiting factor in how much usable thrust an engine/motor can generate, as it is an indicator of how much energy needs to be generated for a given mass flow at the desired exhaust velocity. also, the very materials the engine is made of are limited in how much energy they can tolerate absorbing from the propellant, thus placing an absolute upper limit on mass flow through the engine for a given Isp level, which places a limt on available thrust. The same rules apply to an ion drive (which is actually a motor, as it requires an external source of power unlike a macross fusion turbine which is an engine that produces both thrust and energy). Ion drives are easily capable of Isp values in excess of 30kiloseconds (using heavy metals like mercury no less!!!), but are limited in thrust by 2 things - the current total lack of low-mass/low volume power generators and the extremely low mass flow rates the motor materials can tolerate... even at the currently acheivable thrust levels the active parts of the motor will gradually erode away over time. Overtech apparently solves both the power and materials issues to such an extent that I don't think that valks really ever need to operate their engines at anything less than maximum design Isp while using onboard propellant. It is when they are in airbreathing mode where they would have to operate at lower values, as atmospheric composition and density could cause unforseen reactions with engine materials if the air was converted to plasma. besides, it isnt as if they are in any danger of running out of propellant when airbreathing. It might be possible actually to determine with some degree of accuracy the Isp of the fighters in Frontier, thanks to the colors of the visible exhaust trails I mentioned earlier. But we would have to know exactly what valks use as propellant when in space.
  6. that all depends on what the age of consent on frontier is...
  7. exhaust gases from jet and rocket engines are weaponized... jetwash has been known to cause windshear like effects on aircraft that follow too close behind for instance. in this case it the exhaust from such an engine would look more like a plasma torch, and would tend to dissipate into the ambient space environment rather quickly - gas atoms excited to the plasma state really dont like to be in close proximity to others. granted, it would remain as a dangerous jet of plasma for a short distance, but so long as allies dont follow too closely behind that shouldnt be a problem - the exhaust would not behave at all like a particle beam, and I think that frontier has depicted this fairly well so far - the exhaust trails dissipate pretty quickly, within a few hundred yards or so, and following pilots dont cross that trail while it's visible if they can help it (once it cools to the point that it isnt visible, it is safe to cross). attitude control thrusters would likely operate at much lower Isp levels and temperatures. come to think of it, it is highly likely that valk fusion turbines are able to vary their Isp in a manner similar to NASA's VASIMIR drive - when you see the visible plasma trail, the engine is running HOT. also, in an atmosphere, where reaction mass is effectively unlimited, they would most certainly reduce power output and use more propellant mass, so the exhaust would look more 'normal' under those conditions. Oh yeah... remember that animation aside, we have pretty much established that there is no way that a valk could carry enough propellant to maneuver the way they do unless the engines have very high values of Isp.
  8. hmmm... I dont think even overtech wings can pull that feat off. reaching orbital altitude is one thing (and is in reality fairly easy)- establishinga stable orbit or escape trajectory is another thing entirely. Burt Rutan's spaceship one can do the former... it cannot do the latter. <sigh> if only we knew with some accuracy what the Isp of the VF-1's engines is, we could calculate its maximum delta v and this would be a done deal. every other necessary specification is well known or can be reasonably esitimated.
  9. I gotta put my vote in for sheryl too... like i said in another thread she reminds me of an ex I lost due to my own immaturity 15 years ago, and I still beat myself up for it to this day. honestly, the personality resemblance is uncanny.
  10. sorry... thought I made it clear that the VF-1 was able to reach space on it's own. I seriously doubt that it could reach escape velocity however without completely exhausting its' on board propellant - hence the need for boosters. as for how long it would take, I cant imagine that it would take more than 20 minutes to reach orbit assuming a constant 1g burn, which is well within even the VF-1's capabilities... takeoff from a runway, go vertical until you have to switch over from airbreathing to onboard propellant (that way you should be able to keep within the VF-1's atmospheric speed limits during the initial climb to suborbital altitude) and do a traditional ballistic arc from there. the main limitation is the amount of onboard propellant the VF carries. with all the stuff a valk needs to be combat capable, there just isnt much space for propellant. Over the years the average thrust of successive generations of fusion turbines hasn't gone up all that much, averaging anywhere between 30 thousand and 50 thousand lbs of thrust. it seems that most of the development work was in pushing the Isp envelope, which makes sense - after all the holy grail is to develop the valk into a true starfighter type combatant. all thats needed now is a built in fold booster.
  11. so, it is safe to assume that the engines weren't the only thing that wasn't ready for prime time as of Zero, and the VF-0 had to make all sorts of compromises because of that. Perhaps the VF-0 should be seen more as a forced-into-production pre-prototype (prototype of the VF-X-1)... that would make the VF-1 its' grandchild - talk about a rapid development cycle! Oh... rad shielding would be necessary - even aneutronic fusion reactions (ie reactions that produce electrically charged particles directly) like deuterium-he3 produce some hard radiation via uncontrolled side reactions. the amount of such undesired radiation depends on the ability to 'tune' the reaction.
  12. I have to agree with this... if the super and armored packs use the same thrusters, it is likely that ozma's armored valk can indeed reach the same velocity as the super/alto. it would however take forever and a day in comparision to get to that speed, and use substantially more propellant to do so. granted, if macross fusion turbines have the specific impulse performance I suspect, even a factor of 10 difference in fuel requirements wouldn't add up to much relative to the full mass of the fighter (I am presuming that the turbines of the frontier era have at least 35kiloseconds of Isp when using hydrogen as propellant). for the uninitiated, Isp (specific impulse) is a measure of the effective exhaust velocity an engine imparts to the propellant it uses. its a principal term of the classic rocket equation, which defines how much propellant mass a vehicle has to expel to reach a desired velocity. higher numbers are better - for example the space shuttle main engines have an Isp of roughly 440 seconds, while the Solid boosters run about 300 seconds (dont ask me what that makes the average Isp - its more math than I want to do right now). total mass of propellant required to accelerate the shuttle to orbital velocity = roughly 11.5x the shuttle's dry mass including any non-propellant cargo or passengers. with an Isp value of 1100 seconds, a vehicle would only need to expel a mass of propellant equal to its' own. before the YF-19 and 21, fusion turbine Isp was just not high enough to allow a valk to carry enough propellant to reach orbital/escape velocity and maintain combat capability. It should be noted however that all valks since the VF-1 have been able to reach space without the use of booster packs - they just havent been able to do so *and* either 1) reach orbital/escape velocity and/or 2)do anything much other than dock at a station or land on a ship once they get there. this puts even the first gen engines on the VF-1 series at an Isp of at least 2500-3000 seconds of Isp.
  13. I have every confidence that if the original macross were to be remade using today's techniques, the primary differences between the VF-0 and VF-1 would be the legs, as the 0's legs house conventional turbines, while the VF-1's house fusion turbines (among other things, such a change would require a different internal structure, smaller propellant tanks, the addition of rad shielding etc). a few small exterior cosmetic differences other than that, just as all production models are slightly different from their prototypes. The biggest changes would likely be to the cockpit and control interface, as the manufacturer would be getting feedback from as many of the prototype pilots and mechanics as possible - one of the benefits of being forced into an early limited production run. remember that back when macross was made, they just couldn't afford to flesh out details like that and keep to a production schedule and budget.
  14. argh... thats my bad... I should have said ultimate pilots machine. editing that post now
  15. I love them all, but if I have to pick a top 4... 4th goes to the sv-51. - it was easily more than a match for the vf-0 - hell it was designed primarily to kill other variable fighters and whatever else it came across... just look at it's tactical versatility! those things enabled their pilots to employ tactics that no valk has used *ever* to my knowledge. The main reason that it is in 4th place for me is that there is no way to know how it would have fared had the 0 had its fusion turbines instead of the old school jets. 3rd place goes to the VF-0/1 - I really dont consider the 0 and 1 as being unique designs... more like the 0 was the prototype for the 1, pushed into service early due to the appearance of the sv-51 on the battlefield, and hampered somewhat by the lack of the 1st gen fusion turbines. 2nd place is reserved for the VF-25. 'aint nothin like the latest version of the old skool. and the winner is... the YF-19/ VF-19A. I don't care one whit for any of its' other production variants or one offs like the kai. this: is the ultimate pilot's machine. (sorry I used the pen- prefix before... must have heard the word used in the wrong way somewhere - probably some news channel or something)
  16. man... have you seen some of the expressions that girl can put on her face??? she can be freakishly scary when she wants to be - and when she throws pots and pans... well I hope you either have been taking lessons from Neo, or have brera's 'enhancements'.
  17. most likely a clone of him... kamjin that is. unless that scene of him and laplamiz vaporizing wasn't absolute proof of death - after all (using a reference to BSG here - consider this my donning of an anti-flame suit lol), starbuck *died* by imploding viper deep in the atmosphere of a gas giant last season. she came back. in a brand spanking new viper no less. and I need to say that at this time I am in love with sheryl. she reminds me a great deal of an ex-girlfriend that I am *still* kicking myself over losing (thru my own immaturity at the time... damn college hormones) 15 years ago. and if we are gonna count 'pilot gives potential girlfriend joyride' moments: Ranka 1 (the rescue in ep 2) Sheryl 2 (the first concert 'accident' and the save at the end of the panty chase)
  18. Hi everybody... long time lurker, first time poster here. I just HAD to say something about the survival of kamjin. I think that so long as *enough* of the individual survives to provide genetic material, Zentran cloning tech can get the job done. If the individual's brain survives (more the better) the new clone could potentially receive a fair portion of the original's memory and personality, even though the clone wouldn't necessarily be consciously aware of that fact. all that is required that the chemical layers that make up the original memory are still coherent enough to be read. Ive come to the conclusion that Zentran (mi)cloning tech works alot like the jump cloning tech in EVE online - basically a clone is created, and the original donor is destroyed, during which time the entire 'data' contents of the brain are transmitted to the clone in such a way that the transition is effectively instantaneous - it would have to be. the principal differences are that zentran cloning is apparently limited in range to the clone chamber itself and that there can only ever be ONE copy/version of the individual in existence at a time (possibly due to issues with quantum entanglement or something similar), whereas in EVE the consciousness of the individual can be transferred over effectively any distance, and there can be a number of copies in existence simultaneously (although only one can be 'awake' at a time... all the sleepers are stored in cans ^^). granted I am comparing tech from a game to tech from an anime here, but it makes sense.
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