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Chronocidal

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Everything posted by Chronocidal

  1. Chronocidal
    I had no idea this existed, or that anyone had ever actually made a physical Arwing of any sort. Shame they didn't follow the SF64 model though, that's always been my absolute favorite.
  2. Chronocidal
    I think it's too early to tell whether they've actually done that, or it's just a diversion from the actual plot. Recutting scenes to make it look like two characters are having a conversation is something trailers do all the time, while they may be completely unrelated scenes. The dialogue makes it seem like he wants her dead, but he could just as easily be setting up someone to die at her hands. I'm not going to get overly excited, because it does seem like the movie's trying to cover too much ground, but I'll be very interested to see how it plays out.
  3. Chronocidal
    Very likely chaff/flare dispensers. Also, neat about the tail logo. I need to dig out my discs and replay those games at some point, it's been too long.
  4. Chronocidal
    It's a really enlightening bit of documentary. Recutting the plot in TLJ to actually make sense and make literally anyone in the movie on either side look remotely competent would go a long long way toward making the movie more palatable.
  5. Chronocidal
    This seems to be a lot more than an edit though, and more of a re-writing of the entire film using the existing footage, as well as new dialogue. And actually.. you can still accomplish a ton that way. I'd argue the same was done for ANH for its final cut, due to the way that a significant portion of the battle of Yavin was completely re-written, and recut using clips of prior scenes, with off-screen dialogue overlaid to produce relevant scenes. ANH's original screenplay was also pretty mediocre as I recall, and the entire final battle had little to no tension, because there was no running countdown. The computer displays showing the Death Star's firing arc were added in post-production, and Luke's second trench run was the only one we ever saw. Honestly, I'm pretty okay with both the start and ending of TLJ. I'd just like them to get there without turning several of the "heroes" into utterly unlikeable characters whose only skill seems to be dodging a 500 karma pileup. The Resistance (and the entire franchise even) would've been on much better footing if Holdo had shoved Poe out of an airlock for treason.
  6. Chronocidal
    If I remember correctly though, weren't the F-5 and F-20 Area 88 schemes already included in one of the previous games? I feel like they were in AC:Zero, but they might not have had the tail logo.
  7. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    I would be interested too, but I'll defer to anyone who hasn't gotten one yet. I might email NY to see if they'd be willing to resume my original order if they get enough stock, but I'm not getting my hopes up. My main issue with the way they went about it is that they automatically reduced my order, and then converted the second one to store credit, without any confirmation from me first. I expected it, based on what others had said, but they didn't actually give me the option to say no, and wait. I'd expected them to refuse the reduction in the first place.
  8. Chronocidal
    Ok, just the mention of mods makes me think PC is the way to go on this, even without some of the exclusives the other platforms get.
  9. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    Ok, that just pisses me off. I sent them repeated emails asking for updates, and they wouldn't do jack about it until I asked about the possibility of reducing my order.. and then they did it with no confirmation from me. Tempted to email them and say if they're filling 3x orders, I want my second one. Bleh. Probably not worth it at this point. I think in the grand scheme of things, their lousy customer service is far more upsetting than not getting what I ordered, and even getting another one isn't going to make up for the mess in my mind.
  10. Chronocidal
    I'm almost as disappointed that they never explored Sheryl learning to fly as I am that they never gave Mirage a chance to sing. I think both would have been entertaining developments, but I was really hoping they'd use it as an avenue to give Mirage some serious development, both character-wise, and as a pilot. As far as Eva goes though, I thought the entire cockpit environment was sort of a neurologically-linked LCL bathtub? Not that they ever really needed to justify all the fanservice, but that always seemed more likely to me than everything being transmitted through their hairpins.
  11. Chronocidal
    See, I was hoping that it was just a natural wear and tear on the molds issue, not something they screwed up on purpose. Still, should be a relatively simple fix to unscrew what they screwed up. Just file down the pylons and hardpoints until they fit without stressing the wings, and you should be good. If we had any kind of customer support route that was reliable, I'd be emailing them and requesting replacement wings as backups.
  12. Chronocidal
    Mold degradation in the hardpoints and pylons is going to lead to both of those parts getting larger over time. It's inevitable really, they just might need tweaking to fit together safely.
  13. Chronocidal
    Might be more of an ordnance design, but have there been any pod designs that could just be used to mount bunches of ordnance on, like rocket pods and missiles? I'm thinking that pod makes a nice flat alleyway to mount all kinds of weapons between the engines, F-14-style, if you don't use the gunpod.
  14. Chronocidal
    Sounds to me like it would be easier to mod the pylons than the wings? The way this issue seems to come and go, I'm wondering if it's because there's a lack of consistency in both the pylons and the hardpoints. Might not be an issue in many cases, but get that rare combination of an oversized pylon trying to fit around an oversized hardpoint nub, and it might be all the plastic needs to break. As a test, I'd try mounting weapons from older Yamato valks if you have some, and compare the fit.
  15. Chronocidal
    You're thinking just about the airframes themselves though. True that getting them working correctly was no small task, and the B-model was the biggest budget hog there by far. I'm not talking about airframes, and mostly not at all about hardware. The F-35 is insanely software intensive, to a level no other existing aircraft can probably even approach. The airframe itself is pretty much done, but the computer systems that run the aircraft will be in continual development for probably the entire service life of the aircraft, and those are where the lion's share of export work is done. You think it's difficult getting the Air Force, Navy, and Marines to play nicely together? Try developing a platform with all the proper software and hardware interfaces to work with all the localized weapon and systems variants from the UK, Israel, Japan, Singapore, Spain, and all the other nations buying into the aircraft. Every country is going to have requirements that it works nicely alongside something they already own, and some have country-specific weapons systems that no one else uses. You may as well be developing a game console that supports every game for every console in history, as well as every PC- and Mac-exclusive piece of software ever produced. Laying the foundation for a system that can be developed and exported to that many countries, support all of their unique requirements, and remain secure in the cyber-warfare environment of the coming decades? There's a quantum leap in development effort right there. Comparatively speaking, developing the F-22 was a cake walk. Not saying the budget issues in Congress haven't had a hand in things, because they've absolutely complicated things to an extensive level. But there are some very good reasons why the F-35 has been in development for so long, and cost so much.
  16. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    Bandai cutting their reservation limits isn't hard to believe, and would go well with the generic "We had our order reduced by Bandai" excuse people have gotten. Unfortunately, it sounds so generic that it's tough to swallow, and it's not like Bandai's ever going to explain themselves, so even if this ultimately is on Bandai's shoulders, the distributors are going to take the flak for it. I'm sure Bandai has all of their releases and production batches worked out ahead of time, but it's still screwy to see them say "Oops, we offered too many pre-orders, so we're cancelling a bunch of them," especially with what should (in theory) be a made-to-order product that they had exact order numbers for six months in advance. I suppose by this point, it should be an accepted fact that Bandai loves turning away people waving money in their face, but it never gets easier to understand.
  17. Chronocidal
    I think it really goes far beyond just the sequestration issues. The program's been a 50 million specification pileup since inception due to all the parties involved, and all of their differing requirements. I consider it a small miracle that they were ever able to produce something for all three services that shares as many common components as it does, let alone the handful of other countries that all want custom hardware and software configurations. Just because the individual countries are buying their own fleets doesn't mean the cost of making the platform flexible enough to handle all those configurations wasn't passed on to the US. The countries buying their planes later reap the benefits of all that front-end work being done early in the program.
  18. Chronocidal
    This is starting to verge on George Lucas-ish revisionism. "It's not accurate, but I like the new version better." So.... what you're saying is, "Screw the people who wanted what they saw on the screen." I feel like if we were talking about paintings, or art, or something, this wouldn't be such a big deal. But.. your target audience contains a not-insignificant percentage of aircraft collectors. These are the types of people who will rake collectibles manufacturers over the coals for misplacing a panel line. But eh. Honestly, the changes to the colors and paint schemes don't bother me half so much as the attitude or lack of effort behind them. If you're going to make a collectible, stick to the source material, and give people what they expect, not some 15-years-later alteration because the designer changed his mind. "I don't like stovepipe hats anymore, so I'm changing Lincoln's hat to a Stetson." Frankly speaking, they need to stop asking Kawamori to okay things, and just use their freakin' eyes.
  19. Chronocidal
    Heh... that patch would explain a few things about why we've suddenly had film crews hanging around the airfield..
  20. Chronocidal
    Thank you for reminding me that this exists, I was actually just trying to remember where I'd heard that insane French horn riff from Megaman the other day. Now I have something to listen to through the end of my workday.
  21. Chronocidal
    Granted, you might be able to temper that data with information on the relative difficulty of maintaining each of the engines. Russian aircraft have a history of being built very rugged, and easy to maintain. I don't know if that's still the case, or if it applies to their engines, but in days gone by, you could probably overhaul a MiG-21 in your garage.
  22. Chronocidal
    On the flipside of that issue, why do you think the F-35 has been such a budget debacle? The extra work involved in producing so many export versions of the F-35 upped both the development cost and complexity by several orders of magnitude, and continues to be a major expense to this day, as every major upgrade has to be customized and filtered down to all the individual countries who operate it. Keep in mind, in this day of cyber-enabled everything, the concept of national security goes far beyond just the platform level.
  23. Chronocidal
    Ok, that already sounds several orders of magnitude less stupid, just from having Ackbar actually get a line. The music is also probably one of the best remixes of that particular theme I've heard in a long time, and something all of the movies need more of, and even worked in some cues to Duel of the Fates, which makes me wonder if it was used in ROTS trailers. I'll be interested to see where they go with it, but this is exactly what I was hoping people would do with TLJ: use the footage to piece together something that doesn't suck.
  24. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    The entire concept of that just feels like the worst kind of excuse though. "Sorry, we couldn't manufacture things to our own high standards, so we're cancelling your order?" WTF kind of business practice is that? Maybe this is a case where we got screwed by 3rd-party re-sellers requiring payment up-front, but it seems to me they would be wise to honor the orders they received, not give an excuse to random people that their orders didn't meet spec, and wouldn't be delivered.
  25. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    To me, this just seems like another case of Bandai not understanding the Macross fanbase, so they just apply standard operating procedure for their Gundam series to Macross, and assume no one will want the boring cannon fodder units. Except, clearly, that doesn't work. Unlike Gundam, Macross's designs have what I would consider a real-world counterpart, and the fanbase crosses streams with real-world aircraft enthusiasts, who would gobble up the CF models specifically because they look more realistic. On top of that, Macross has a tendency toward making really attractive CF designs. Whether that's because people want army builders, or just want extras to customize with real-world squadron markings is up for grabs. The really baffling and, in my mind, inexcusable part about the 31A situation though.. they should have known this would happen. There were multiple signs that the 31A was a hot seller in all forms, and Bandai ignored them. Just go try and find a Hasegawa kit, or Tomy-Tech kit of the 31A, and see how successful you are. They had an instant hit on their hands, and they screwed the pooch. I mean come on Bandai... What's the point of making an item a made-to-order webshop exclusive if you don't even plan to honor all the orders you receive??
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