Chronocidal
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DX Chogokin VF-27ß Lucifer Mass Production and Grace Custom
Chronocidal replied to IXTL's topic in Toys
For what it's worth, you're not missing much with the super parts. The 27 itself is slightly improved, but they fell back to the old-fashioned DX version 1 quarter-assed implementation of the packs. No solid mounting position for the legs (I think you literally have to drop the thighs half of a ratcheted increment to sit them correctly), no locking mechanism to keep things in place. You just attach things, and then bludgeon the valk back into fighter mode, hoping everything sticks together. -
M&Ms are definitely an improvement over the video game schemes, but I'm not feeling the Focker... just.. it looks awkward. All of them are kind of odd looking though. Jumbled messes of stripes that don't line up, and panels that don't really fit, especially on the tops of the wings, sides of the fuselage, and tips of the tails. The VF-1 style stripes don't flow well on the VF-4's design, because there are just too many things in the way that interrupt the striping. Also, the multi-colored missiles look like a mess. Meh. I ordered three of the FB2012 scheme, and I might get the M&Ms if they ever happen, but I'll wait to bomb that bridge until I come to it. Not going to complain about things until Bandai gives more than a vicious tease.
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Okay, yep, I think those are my favorite too. Love the shape of them in fighter mode, and they blend really well with the chest shape. I'll probably be ordering one of these kits in the next couple months.. maybe as a Christmas present to build in the new year.
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If only the issue was that simple. Anything going into the US market would wind up getting claimed as infringement on HG's copyright, and they'd either demand a chunk of the profits, or block the import outright. Any company in Japan caught negotiating with HG in the US could have their license to produce Macross merchandise in Japan pulled by Big West. At least, that's what I've come to understand would roughly happen. Some companies have skirted that in a coupe of ways, but generally speaking, doing business with HG seems like a great way for Big West to cancel your contract in the primary market.
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I think the only way to not leave any marks on contact points is if you leave valks on the landing gear*. Contact with any surface for long enough will leave some kind of mark, either on the valk, or the place it's sitting. * Technically even the gear will be marked if you leave them in one place long enough, but wear and tear on rubber wheels is easy to hide by retracting the gear. I've never been overly concerned with laying my valks on hard and flat surfaces for extended periods, as long as things like fins and probes aren't getting stressed.. It's the padded soft ones that give me pause, because of the potential for the material to break down, and leave a smear of molten rubbery mess on your valk, your furniture, or both. Honestly, I've given a decent amount of thought to finding obscure places to drill mounting points in some of my valks, so I can just set them onto a metal post, and not worry about them getting visibly damaged.
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There's just no consistency there. I asked them if it was possible to reduce my order and refund the other, and they did it within minutes, but there was no discussion about an actual refund, they just immediately sent it to store credit, and didn't even bother to ask me whether that was acceptable. I dunno. I would have liked to have both, but in hindsight I'd rather have different markings on the second one anyway.
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Welp, got confirmations from HLJ, CDJ, and AmiAmi... so I'm off to bed. Going to pray HLJ gets their site together, because that was nonsense. Also, still nothing from NY.. looks like my discount code lives to see another release. I'll probably save it for something I can only get there.
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Ok.. HLJ's site is all kinds of frakked up.. now it let me place an order at "Order Stop"... I'm so confused.
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AmiAmi actually worked fine for me, somehow. I sent HLJ feedback saying "Sorry, your site sucks, you just lost my business for anything that's in-demand, because it's too slow to beat the purchase bots in Japan."
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I'm sending HLJ a very strongly worded flaming sack of poop, to match their steaming pile of a site redesign. Fortunately got one at CDJ. HLJ just wrote themselves off as a potential source for these.
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Hmm... the big question.. do I claim my VF-31A cancellation discount, and grab two freebies from NY tonight? Will probably still grab one from CDJ and HLJ if I can, just to be safe though.
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After the nonsense with the 31A, I've stopped placing orders at single shops.. I'm hoping I can navigate my usual sites to grab two of them.
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Have to say, those little clear stands you have are the perfect display posture for the VF-19s. I'll have to see about grabbing a few once I get some Detolfs to fill.
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Aircraft Super Thread Mk.VII
Chronocidal replied to David Hingtgen's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
It can only carry that much if it abandons any semblance of stealth though. Internal weapons carriage is much less than that. It will have to prove itself in the field, no doubt, but I don't think the F-35 platform has received quite as much flak as the development process itself. The plane's hardware and software are at such a level of complexity that they will be under constant development for probably the next two or three decades. Throwing out new requirements for upgrades and new capabilities is not something that can be taken lightly. -
Aircraft Super Thread Mk.VII
Chronocidal replied to David Hingtgen's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
Given how many F-35Cs the Navy is actually purchasing, I'm pretty sure that's already where they're headed. The F-35 is getting there, but it's not what the Navy really wants. Funny actually, as the C-model has the largest payload capacity, and longest range of the entire F-35 fleet. One of the big things that keeps the F-15s going at this point is the utter simplicity of the design, compared with the F-14. Swing wings are an amazingly versatile feature, but they also add exponential levels of complexity to the airframe, and all the man-hours of maintenance that go along with all those extra moving parts. I do wish the services would recover some semblance of balance between multi-role and single-role fighters though. If there's one thing that both the F-14 and F-15 proved, it's that the design aspects that make an effective interceptor or fleet defense fighter also translate very well to carrying a truckload of ordnance a really long way. I don't know how practical it is, but in my mind, it seems beneficial to design aircraft for those roles, and just let other roles deal with the fallout performance. Obviously, lay the groundwork in the hardware and software for those roles.. but don't let development get hung up on making sure it can do everything. -
The tier system in War Thunder can only go so far, and only keeps matches balanced in the sense of not having F-86s and such flying around against Sopwith Camels. The upgrade grind in that game is a pay2win paradise, and why I barely play it. Doesn't help that progression is only through PVP, either. All I want for that game is a "buy everything for singleplayer" option, so I can just fly around in whatever plane for my own amusement, because the sim is beautiful. If AC7's upgrade tree requires PVP to progress at a reasonable pace, I might give it a pass entirely out of disgust, but given how well the fuel system in Infinity worked out, I hope they would know better by now.
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I don't think it'll be single-player only, just because of how multiplayer-focused the last few games were in terms of content. I'd love it if it were though, because the entire concept of an upgrade tree destroys my interest in multiplayer games. If I'm going to be playing multiplayer matches, I want to join on an even footing, not have to grind my face into losing battles for weeks before my plane is "good enough."
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Entirely fair, I think it's really a combination of the two, honestly. Kind of a death spiral where some devs got lazy developing engaging gameplay, then players got lazy and wanted a shortcut for the bad gameplay, and it repeats until we're at our current situation. It's not universal, and some games have never sunk to those sorts of levels. In my experience, that situation goes hand in hand with a focus on multiplayer, which is pretty much where AC fell off the wagon I think. I care about multiplayer like I want a hole in the head, and the continued shift toward multiplayer mechanics has been nothing but detrimental to single-player content in my view.
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STAR WARS Merchandise Episode - 2
Chronocidal replied to Black Valkyrie's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
Woooo! Grats, and enjoy building! Have to admit, much as I liked getting the SDCC version, I missed having actual box art. -
STAR WARS Merchandise Episode - 2
Chronocidal replied to Black Valkyrie's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
Oh, yeah, the scale is non-existent. I just meant an early review had said that the baseplates were scaled down for the kit. That definitely ain't no "two meter" exhaust port. The double-panel wall height does look about right though. I might need to pick up a couple more sets sometime down the road. I do wish there was a way to get actual in-scale turbolaser towers though, That still looks less than half as big as it should be compared to the ship. -
Sadly, we're past that point where developers are going to ignore the potential income from cash shop boosters. People don't want to spend the grind time necessary to unlock things manually, and they're going to keep exploiting that source of income as long as it works. The only way it will stop is for people to stop shelling out money to skip the annoying parts of games, and prove that players are fed up with cash shops. But sadly, that would take an overwhelming consensus to pull off. One of my professors in the past had a policy. They would curve their exams to the maximum score received, no matter how few questions that involved. So, in theory, if you could successfully convince the entire class to only answer one question, everyone would score 100%. But then you run the risk of having that one guy who decides to answer two questions.. and everyone but him would fail with a 50%. Suffice to say, no one ever tried it. Good luck convincing every single person who buys a game not to purchase the cash shortcuts.
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STAR WARS Merchandise Episode - 2
Chronocidal replied to Black Valkyrie's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
Digging this thread out for an update. So, I took a chance, and it payed off majorly. Remember how I'd been wishing Bandai would just release a pack of Death Star panels? Well, they pretty much did. https://www.amazon.com/Bandai-Hobby-Plastic-ModelDeath-Attack/dp/B07BNJGHPT/ref=pd_ybh_a_6?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=C1PSF4K740YWY4SFRC4W I had read a review of this kit some time ago, and someone mentioned that they weren't the same panels as the other kits, and were scaled down for the 1/144 ship collection. I'm very happy to report that this review was incorrect. The box is literally just a pile of the stand base sprues from the other kits, including all of the pedestals, adapters, and extra bits. From top left to bottom right: A-Wing and Tie Interceptor stand sprues, with one turbolaser tower, one small bag containing four corner brackets to make 90-degree bends to make a trench and two mounting blocks for smaller ships, one bag of two Y-Wing stand sprues, and two bags that each contain a full X-Wing stand base and exhaust port, plus one each of the bases from the Tie Fighter and Tie Advanced kits. Grand total of twelve panels, plus the turbolaser tower. Off to the edge of the picture is the bag with the included 1/144 X-Wing. The kit only appears to have included stickers, but you do get markings and painting instructions for Luke, Wedge, and Biggs, which is nice to see, and could easily be used as a guide for painting the larger kits as well (minus the decals, which they don't seem interested in producing in 1/72 ). There's a clear stand included that can either be used on a separate base (included), or one of the two adapter blocks that can be mounted in the usual pedestal mounts on all of the baseplates. There are just enough baseplates to make the example configuration on the box, plus have one leftover exhaust port. The real benefit here though is that you also get a ton of spare stand pedestals, which can be used on the Red Leader and B-Wing kits, since they came with different stands. What I'm really happy about personally is that the kit also included one of the Tie-specific stand adapters that plugs into the hexagonal exhaust port, rather than underneath the ball. Those adapters were developed after the regular Tie Fighter, and only included with the Interceptor kit, and I think they just give a better mounting position for the Ties. I ordered a pair of these kits, both for spare bases and to make an actual expanded trench display. Between these two, and the Red Leader X-Wing kit, I'll have 3 of the X-Wings to mount, and enough panels to build a dual-walled trench.
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Would be nice for variety of display purposes, but at the same time, I think extra ordnance kills the clean lines of the VF-4. And I know overtechnology is supposed to make all kinds of structural limits nearly non-existent, but those wings never looked beefy enough to carry anything bigger than a few of the smaller missile clusters. That's actually a weird conundrum I find with a lot of valk weapons loadouts though. They're just close enough to real aircraft that, even though you know in your mind the plane is perfectly capable of carrying ridiculous amounts of weaponry, something just doesn't look right about it. On the other hand, I'd love to see some more detailed pics of the underlying fighter at the top of the page, the one with the big pontoon-looking pods attached. It looks like a canard-less VF-4, with an enlarged main wing and no lower strakes.
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New Macross TV Series in 20xx (sometime this decade)
Chronocidal replied to Tochiro's topic in Movies and TV Series
I will say that while I still keep Frontier's soundtracks on hand to listen to frequently, I've never felt the need to go search for anything from Delta for my playlists. There's some good stuff in there, but the music feels a lot more generic, and not as well keyed into the events on-screen. If anything, I think Frontier's soundtrack had just as many memorable instrumental pieces as it did vocals, and I can't honestly say I remember any such tracks during Delta. Still love the valk designs, and that probably won't change, but I'm really just curious to see where the franchise goes now. The fact that Delta's idols are still overshadowed by Sheryl and Ranka merchandise speaks volumes to how mediocre the characters were. (There's also the thing that it's probably a lot easier to sell people on pairs of figures, rather than groups of five of them.) If anything, they need a second Delta series to give Walkure even half the depth Sheryl and Ranka have had for almost a decade at this point. -
I seriously can't imagine the hands being sold as a separate set. All of the dual HMR sets have had both TV and DYRL style hands included from the start. Of course.. they also actually included weapons with those too. Every recent release has already had a lot of fixed pose hands included, so it seems really odd that they'd leave them out of the normal release entirely? Unless they're planning to include TV hands with the TV packs, and DYRL with the Strike packs. Sadly, I'm not at all expecting them to bother with separate TV and DYRL weapons packs, so we'll probably have to paint the red-tipped RMSs ourselves.