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Chronocidal

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Everything posted by Chronocidal

  1. Chronocidal
    You don't see that fiddly-ness on the VF-1 because it was designed to be in that scale. With the VF-0s though, every detail is pointing to them being re-scaled copies of the Arcadia 1/60 molds, with all of the material limitations that process brings with it. They were never designed to function at that scale, it was just very convenient for Bandai that they happen to work well enough to sell.
  2. Chronocidal
    Yeah, no, Bandai has repeatedly demonstrated that they are incapable of making a solid VF-1-style transformation into fighter mode. They do not understand how the arms and legs and backpack have to fit together, and everything feels slightly out of line, and far too fiddly. The DX is the best at it, but even that feels like things don't quite fit as they should at times (mostly due to the stupid pegs used). It's honestly bizarre. It's like they are completely incapable of using the same types of engineering tolerances they have on every other franchise when it comes to something like the VF-1. Even their model was a disaster of misaligned and ill-fitting parts when it came to the arms, legs and backpack. Edit - I realized belatedly that you're probably talking about the sliding clips for the shoulders, rather than the rotation hinges Yamato used. Those generally work mostly okay for me, but the stiffness of the shoulder joints is unfortunately far stronger than the clip holding them on, and they tend to pop off of their rails more often than not. I've also noticed that the position of those clips actually limits how far back the wings can sweep in fighter mode, which isn't really a problem, just an interesting difference.
  3. Chronocidal
    Yeah, I think that chest look might be pretty easy to mitigate by filing down the ridges on the inside of the chest that lock into the shoulder tabs. They look like they're quite a bit oversized. I did the same thing with my M&Ms back in the day to keep those ridges from scraping off the white paint on the shoulders, and it never stopped those from holding together fine, but these KOs might be a different story there. That video though.. I would love to know what's making the thing sit so cock-eyed in the last few seconds. it doesn't look like anything in particular is wrong, it's just somehow sitting on that mirror at an angle.
  4. Chronocidal
    Honestly, for all of the benefits of being able to get all the other franchises internationally, it still feels like a loss to still have to import anything SDF/DYRL-related.
  5. Chronocidal
    I can't even say the triangles (upper or lower) were the biggest issue with the CF-171. That entire production batch was laced with explodium, especially the silver parts.
  6. Chronocidal
    Oh wtf.. Bandai, stop crapping all over our existing art with your nonsense tampo, please.
  7. Chronocidal
    Those aren't the mushroom pegs, those are the removable pegs that you pulled out to swap the wings. It doesn't look any different than what's on the old version. The "mushroom" peg is the one on the left, and is the actual pivot point of the wing. The cap on that peg is generally very easy to snap off when removing the wings, but it doesn't actually matter most of the time, since most of the force of holding the wing on is done by the larger removable peg on the right (provided it actually stays in, of course). Sad to see there's really no improvements other than the finish though. The 171s never were really missing any markings to begin with, but if they really wanted to improve them, all of the changes should have been made to the armor packs. I don't know if the chest panels were ever shown to open, but they could have at least added working hatches to the quad pack on the arm.
  8. Chronocidal
    You assume that the instructions are actually clear and comprehensible. If this is anything like any of the third-party transformers I've bought, I expect they come with an A4 sheet folded in half three times with a 5-step transformation.
  9. Chronocidal
    Honestly, it wouldn't even be hard to completely negate the swappable wings. Just install a screw instead of the mushroom peg, and they're in for good, with no changes to the molds. Stupid pegs always broke off anyhow, so it's not like they ever did anything.
  10. Chronocidal
    I might spring for one, just because of the matte finish. I only got one of these the first go-around. Still, funny to me that we're getting a re-release of this one, rather than a tan one with Hayate. What, was he not as popular as Alto or something?
  11. Chronocidal

    Hi-Metal R

    Chronocidal replied to joppewo's topic in Toys

    Definitely in the same spot, and I need to start thinning down what I hold onto. I have a lot of duplicates acquired just from the sheer nonsense of trying to make sure I get a single copy during pre-orders, and some specific cases like the VF-171s that I ordered multiples of just to make it more likely that I'd get one good one out of the bunch The HMRs are dangerous though, and it's really easy to justify multiples, since they're so much smaller. It falls into the same sort of logic as "if they have half the calories, I can eat twice as many, right?"
  12. Chronocidal
    Ok, those are absolutely beautiful. Considering the effort involved, I can see why they didn't do that themselves though. Would have been a good start if they molded them in more colors to begin with.
  13. Chronocidal
    What's going on with the release dates? Amazon's saying it's not out until October.
  14. Chronocidal
    Oof... looks like it doesn't even come with the second missile pack though. Just the strike cannon, and one spare clear one. Considering they're not actually symmetrical, I wonder which one they're actually including. Hope you don't plan on using the packs on something else.
  15. Chronocidal
    I recall hearing other stories that the MiG-23 airframe has a history of being difficult to handle, and who knows how fickle a Russian swing-wing aircraft would be. I recall one story about a captured plane being plowed in hard when a general steamrolled his way into getting to fly it, and could not handle it. Mostly just reminds me of this old meme though.
  16. Chronocidal
    It's actually really helpful for them to have not glued that, so I haven't minded. Makes it really easy to pull out to paint or decal it, or in the case of Roy's, you can pretty easily convert it between TV and DYRL versions by swapping the instrument panels. Still some other minor differences, but since Bandai seems like they have no interest in making a DYRL Roy, I'm happy to swap a few parts here and there. I just need a spare DYRL pilot to paint, and I should be good.
  17. Chronocidal
    I haven't seen any real reason to go for the knockoffs, but I might actually jump on this one. It actually includes something Yamato and Arcadia never did: A full set of painted TV missiles! I have enough other Yamatos to mess with that I won't really care if it feels sloppy, it'll be a great conversation piece.
  18. Chronocidal
    I'm not even sure I've heard of them doing replacement parts in Japan. Every time I've ever heard of them dealing with faulty products has been a full return/replace of the item.
  19. Chronocidal
    I thought whole sections of the lower legs and backplate in the 1/55s were metal as well? Not to mention the landing gear. The feet being metal on the VF-1 HMRs is a nice feature, and gives them some good stability, but the VF-0s don't even have that, because the feet are much more detailed.
  20. Chronocidal
    And no, the legs never fit all the way up the pegs either, because the packs actually collide with the backplate before they can sit in place. Bandai.. proving once again they can absolutely take a perfectly functional system someone else made, and make it worse in every way.
  21. Chronocidal
    Availability of either dependent, of course. Though, I did have a funny thought about why there are so many returns. How many people unfamiliar with the franchise and the Arcadia/Bandai marketing shenanigans in Japan may have bought this expecting the Arcadia version? The molds are almost identical, and Amazon doesn't have any pictures of the packaging on the page (though someone did post a series of photos in their review). I could see someone so blown away by the fact that they found a VF-0 on Amazon that they completely missed who made it. Far as shipping goes though, this one set a record. Purchase to door in under 20 hours. Packaging was bare minimum though, just a plastic bag over the box, so I can see a lot of folks receiving these pretty banged up, and returning them. Mine fortunately didn't travel far enough to get any damage, but not even using a bubble pack is pretty crappy on Amazon's part.
  22. Chronocidal
    I think people are disappointed in how cheap it feels, and maybe what feels like a lack of detail? I don't honestly feel like there's anything wrong with it, but I think part of the issue is that it's got even less metal than the HMR VF-1, so it's very light. I don't know what people really expected, considering it's a shrunken Arcadia VF-0 model.
  23. Chronocidal
    Sheesh, at that price, I'll take a chance on a second one.
  24. Chronocidal
    Nice work! Glad you got the proportions and measurements down so they work. I am a little surprised it's strong enough when printed that direction though, since I would think the layers would make the tabs much more likely to snap off. I've had half a mind to print some more realistic pylons based on something like the F-18 for a while, but hadn't gotten the motivation. Are you planning on selling these through somewhere like Shapeways, or just sharing the files when you're happy with them? The most annoying part for me with many of Bandai's weapons mounts is their inability to do a 5 minute google search to look for photos of how actual weapons mount to pylons. Those AMRAAM look-alikes would fit much better if they had the pylon attachment at the 45-degree point, making the fins into an X instead of a +.
  25. Chronocidal
    I think the complaint wasn't so much about Boeing making military hardware, because they've done Boeing planes before. It was primarily because the V-22 doesn't have any civilian version, even though it's been proposed (and ignoring the fact that LEGO made a knock-off Osprey before as one of their minifig-scaled sets). The structural concerns were real though, I watched someone build it up from the instructions that were leaked, and the gearing system designed to move all the parts was ripping teeth off of the gears. There were just too many stresses on them in different ways, and the shifting mechanism was causing hard stops and reversals. There were definitely ways to mitigate that, and I think they proposed a re-design, but they probably took the easy-out blaming the military situation.
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