Chronocidal
-
Posts
10759 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Gallery
Everything posted by Chronocidal
-
Considering how many comparisons constantly pop up between Star Wars and Star Trek, my mind always falls back to the "at least Star Wars hasn't screwed with time travel" argument (and at this point, I might be wrong, but I don't think it's ever been used in what's now considered canon). I'm personally waiting for the big reveal that Luke is actually his own grandfather, and Rey is Padme's mother. -
Well, like so many project ideas I have, I don't know if it'll get done by me personally, but either way, I intend to get a design figured out. Finding time to actually build things has been difficult for me recently.
-
I do wonder that myself. The single engine is going to need a split down the middle like the 262, but you don't have nearly the same bulk to make up the legs. I could definitely see another twisty "arms in the spine" system though, where the length of the fuselage collapses in on itself to form the torso. It'd be a challenge any way you look at it. But then again, I don't think anyone would have thought you could get a robot out of a Draken either, and that's already done. It seems like Kawamori is having fun challenging himself, trying to make workable transformations for aircraft that don't seem like they'd work well. Personally, I'm loving it. It's part of why I love designs like the VF-4 so much. "Hey, cool looking plane, I love how clean the desi- wait, what are you doing, why is it unfolding, HOLY CRAP IT'S A TRANSFORMER?" Crud.. now I'm having this hilarious image of all of Kawamori's valks lining up to slap a movie-version Jetfire, like that hysterical woman in Airplane.
-
I did wind up picking up a third YF-19 this time around, but that's a combination of a few personal reasons. Mostly I just love the design, but my brain likes the idea of having three of any valk before I seriously consider experimenting or customizing one. Mentally, it means I can keep one mint, transform one freely, and modify the third. The third one will probably remain mint, while I tinker with the wing mechanism of one of the older ones, which I've already disassembled. If I can get access to the resources to do it, I plan on reworking the wing mechanism entirely so it functions off of a sliding pivot, instead of the double swing arm. Whether I'll need access to metalworking tools to do this, I don't know, but I hope whatever I come up with can be put up on Shapeways. At the very least, I plan on a new pivot that'll just remove the high speed mode function.
-
Why is it that the 262 looks completely ready to hit the market, while they keep displaying that unfinished 31 prototype? I'm not even sure the 31 battroid is finished, it looks like some of the main joints are molded together still.
-
It's hard to see from the shadows, but the plane definitely has a T-tail, just like an F-104. I really hope it's got the full transformation already worked out, because I seriously want one of those now. Kawamori must be enjoying himself, pulling out all those nice Cold War era designs. Oh, and the Sv-262 is looking amazing.. I don't think I'll be picking up every version, because that will just get silly, but hopefully the multitude of designs will make these a little easier to order. That is, unless Bandai decides to start making sense, and just includes decals or swappable panels to make the different non-commander variants.
-
I almost wouldn't be surprised if the YF-30 thing is on purpose. You get one canard correct for both battroid and fighter, similar to how the VF-1's gunpod always had UN SPACY upside down on one side. I did check a screenshot from the game though, and the canards there both have SMS oriented to be right side up in battroid. I'd guess it pretty much boils down to Bandai probably not being familiar enough with the alphabet to know the difference.
-
Star Trek Beyond (the not The Search for Spock)
Chronocidal replied to areaseven's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
To be fair, they did try going the sciency, harder sci-fi route with TMP, and it didn't really get them anywhere. All problems aside, I still really like that movie and it's premise, but the pacing makes it hard to stay awake. On the other hand, they may have inadvertently invented the look of Apple screensavers for years to come. -
You would think that, but Bandai doesn't like making that much sense. They've repeatedly refused to replace individual parts, even for people living in Japan, if I recall correctly. They pretty much go for an all or nothing approach, so you'd have to return the entire thing and play Bandai-roulette to see if the next one they send has all the pieces included. Really though, the impression that I get is that Japan doesn't frequently operate on the principle of keeping spare parts around. I had a class on manufacturing a while back that was taught by a former Toyota engineer, and part of their strategy is to keep as few spare parts in stock as possible, since it saves a fortune on storage space, and helps their bottom line immensely. The premium on storage space is probably a very common issue for large production companies in Japan, so I can see that easily being part of why Bandai seems to have such terrible customer service.
-
I assume you mean you want to make a new part in metal to replace the blue section? I honestly wouldn't suggest trying to do that, because while it'll fix the problem of the tab not being strong enough, you also have to entirely disassemble the hip to get to those pieces. That's not an easy task, and you may do far more damage to the hip getting it apart than is worth it to repair that little hidden tab. If you mean you want to order replacement parts, you're fairly well out of luck unless you live in Japan, or have someone who can order the parts directly from Arcadia. Even then though, the best you'll get are plastic parts, since the originals aren't metal. Just to clarify though, did yours actually break, or are you trying to fix the part before it has a chance to fail? If it hasn't broken yet, there is really nothing to fix. Just don't bend the leg more than three clicks, and you'll have no problem.
-
Looking back, I really wish I'd ordered spare sets of the armor for both Alto and Ozma, so I could display fighter and battroid versions of both. Fortunately, the model kits have me covered there. Bandai really needs to realize that re-releasing those packs would be like writing themselves a blank check. I can understand keeping demand high to a point, but this has gotten ridiculous.
-
It wouldn't be hard to convert the base valk to a TV Roy, just need to color the arrows on the head black instead of yellow. Pilot is a little trickier, since you'd need a TV style figured repainted in Roy's colors. Wouldn't have the puffy tv-style hands either, now that I think about it, but those might be easy to get a spare set of. The FAST packs are just a different color all around though, and the arm packs are a different shape. The strike packs have always included the standard kite markings on the sticker sheets, along with black, red, blue, and green skull stickers, so you can kind of fake a TV set by leaving the strike cannon off, but it doesn't fix the other differences.
-
You might have more luck with a return/exchange, but time and time again, people requesting just a replacement part (missing or broken) might get one or two "We'll see what we can do" emails, before having their junk slammed in the door by Bandai refusing to offer replacement parts. Since NY still has them in stock, you might have luck with returning it, but I don't honestly know if they offer any shipping coverage, so you might have to pay both the return and replacement shipping yourself.
-
This sort of breakage was actually seen before in several versions of the Yamato VF-19 mold, and while annoying, I believe it doesn't really have any serious effect on transformation or posing, as long as you don't move that joint past the last detent to let it hang.. That upper thigh joint just doesn't have as much range as people expected.
-
Bandai to release Star Wars Model kits
Chronocidal replied to Wiz13688's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
The 1/144 kits are nowhere near as detailed as the 1/72s, specifically with the X-Wings, they left most of the gun mount details off completely, leaving the fronts of them as blank cylinders. And as good as Bandai might be at making stickers that look decent from a distance, the distance required for them to look good means you'll barely even be able to see the kits at that size. I'm all for smaller scaled kits of the bigger ships, but the entire concept seems to be based on the whole "box scaled" nonsense they're going after now, so I wouldn't be surprised if they released kits of everything that wind up roughly the same size, only a few inches long. -
Star Trek Beyond (the not The Search for Spock)
Chronocidal replied to areaseven's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
I didn't mind the first reboot movie the first time I saw it, but on repeated viewings the plot and plot devices just started to fall apart under repeat observation. The main cast was great, it was just that I felt they wasted a perfectly good set of characters on a plot full of misunderstood callbacks to old Trek stuff, and what I'm just going to refer to as a universe built in JJ-scale (that is, no consistency in any way whatsoever). Admittedly, I never watched Into Darkness, because the cheap and misused callbacks to TWOK just ruined the concept for me. -
Bandai to release Star Wars Model kits
Chronocidal replied to Wiz13688's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
I kinda hope they just release them separately, they are nowhere near the size to properly display next to the 1/72 kits. As far as the tiny models go.... naaaahhhhh. While I get the idea of trying to appeal to people with limited space, it seems like a lousy idea to prioritize the micro-scale stuff over developing larger models that'll actually display nicely without needing to view them from 1 foot away or less. -
The color is really why I keep going back to the old Yamato releases. I just don't like the blinding white so much. I'd love to grab a DYRL Max 1S, but only if it matched all my other old Yamato releases, because I don't think I'm going to keep the Arcadia Hikaru and Roy that I already got at the original release.
-
Yeah, this is no different than replacing the NUNS triangles, and it's even more work than replacing the lower ones, since they don't even need tampo. This is pretty much unheard of, since every serious issue seen so far (missing pieces, broken pieces, valks assembled freaking backwards with two left arms) has been met with "Screw you, send the entire thing back." Dare we hope that someone at Bandai finally realized that supporting your customers is a beneficial strategy?
-
Can't believe Bandai seems to care about this, and ignores all the other issues where parts are entirely shattering.
-
The triangles were mostly issues with tolerancing from what I can tell. Apparently the tolerances for the CF were relaxed compared with the Alto version, and we all paid the price for their lack of understanding just how important it is to mold those types of parts accurately.. The legs though? Those are a nice tidy combination of terrible design, bad materials, and inadequate operating instructions. I don't need to go into the details again, and there are ways to mitigate the problems, but they're just a rotten piece of engineering. I don't think there is any difference between the legs on the CF and any other release, either. The tighter tolerances may have helped the Alto release, but I've examined all the legs on every version I have, and they all have fractures forming in the knee casings. I'm just resigned to never transforming any of them ever, until I find a way to make new knee joints from scratch, and also find a way to replace them without entirely destroying the existing glue-sandwich of a leg.
-
I have a compulsion to just stockpile as many YF/VF-19s as possible. So I did grab another of these. Also, gives me another huge set of weapons to mess with. My main goal though is to have a backup that I can experiment with. I'm planning on fiddling with the wing mechanism to see if I can come up with something that slides a single pivot point, instead of the goofy double-hinged system they went with.
-
Yep, got the request for an extra $7 just today, which I'm guessing means I'm getting the stand, but bleh. Not a huge deal, but annoying none the less. If I don't get the stand, I'm going to be crying foul and asking them why they were so bad at estimating shipping for something they've sold before.
-
I guess I'm not so worried about how much they do or don't pull out of the EU, I think I'm just annoyed that they act like they're deciding that the EU doesn't count, but then they're simultaneously too lazy to try and come up with something original to replace it. This might be just me, but it feels kind of like the EU burned through so many of the available "good" ideas for more Star Wars stories, the new movies might have trouble coming up with new material that doesn't use all the same plot and character elements we've already seen. Not going to argue that the EU had a lot of crap fanfic thrown into it though, I'm mostly just thinking of the Zahn books. Some of the material and characters developed in those books became so prevalent, they leaked into what probably would have previously been called canon.
-
Oh, the $50 VF-1s might have been a rarity, but I recall a few shelf warmers getting around that level late in the game. Might have been things like the TV Kakizaki and CF. I might actually be remembering the unassembled kits though, which were always cheaper. The general sale price was probably closer to the $80 mark like was mentioned.