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Chronocidal

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  1. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    Fixed. I'll never ever understand why Bandai is so obsessed with designing such massive brackets to mount their valks on. You'd think someone at Bandai would be able to save them a ton of plastic by coming up with some sort of clip that just latches onto the valk.
  2. Chronocidal
    Given the way SW tech plays around with gravity, I always assumed that the internal decking of the Death Star could just be however was practical for the location. Surface-oriented at the surface (and probably down several decks worth) with the central docking area just being an oddity. And, while all the railing-less areas looked silly, they work a little better if you consider that there's no guarantee you'll actually fall if you step off those ledges.
  3. Chronocidal
    Have to say, I think I'm 100x more excited for this release than I am the 31, just because it's something new, and has less features that make me scratch my head.
  4. Chronocidal
    Assuming they don't get lost in a wormhole between China and here.
  5. Chronocidal
    I'm kind of worried it will turn into another Elite Dangerous... which I guess isn't all bad? But mindlessly exploring with no goal other than exploration, no real attempt at fun combat mechanics, and even less interaction with other players than ED sounds like it wouldn't last long at all. I've heard it compared somewhat with Minecraft (IN SPACE!), but without any of the creative aspects, since you can't actually build anything on any of those umpteen gajillion procedurally generated worlds. I might try it out, but for now it seems like an empty universe waiting for people to fill it in with something interesting to do... which will be really hard if there's pretty much no way to establish any kind of reference point to meet up with other players (and unless I read incorrectly, no real way to tell even the difference between an NPC and a human player). I think what kept my interest in ED as long as I played it was purely the fact that I enjoyed that someone had finally written a satisfying manual docking sequence into a space sim. The combat wasn't bad either, but for all the "things to do" in that universe, it just didn't feel like there was any motivation to do them. I hope NMS has enough of a central plot to avoid that.
  6. Chronocidal
    Bandai and Hasegawa both love their huge boxes. My Hasegawa 1/48th strike VF-1 box has 4 complete kits in it, with room for the weapons sets I have ordered.The Bandai kits though... in general, the parts for a VF-25 kit will fit into a sandwich baggie. My armored Ozma box has about 8 kits inside it (including 2 full armored VF-25s and 2 with super packs), with room to spare.
  7. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    Remember this is just the preorder though, and the main character on top of it. This one will probably wind up like Alto's with multiple releases. It's the other characters I'm concerned for.
  8. Chronocidal
    I could definitely get behind this. Have to second the "never transformed it" sentiment though, it's just so pretty in fighter mode. I can however say though, the wings on this one can get potentially floppy, just like the Arcadia's. Had one of mine go loose at the mid-point hinge, and the wing would just sag backwards. I was able to do the same rivet squeeze trick as on the Arcadia, but it takes a little more work. You need a flat post to press down on the underside of the rivet, and flatten it against the hinge, or you'll get no tension added. A small, flat-ended metal cylinder like a screw head might work, I actually used the shoulder pin from a Yammie v2 VF-1 I had laying around. It's just a little precarious using something too tall that could potentially slip out of the pliers.
  9. Chronocidal
    Spoiling myself a little since I haven't seen this yet, but I'm just gonna throw this out there.
  10. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    Actually, having any of these as a web exclusive is, ironically, the best thing that can happen. When web exclusives are sold in shops like Nippon Yasan, they take however many preorders are in before the deadline, and they're made to order, so everyone gets one. No rush, no cart jacking, just a nice relaxing purchase.
  11. Chronocidal
    While I love Plus to death, it does have a lot of inferred development by way of flashbacks. It's a pretty quick and easy one-shot story with not a lot of room for massive development though. I do think the development in the movie showed a little better than the OVA though. I really don't know where things are going to go with Delta, and I can hope and dream all I like about minor things, but the feeling I cannot shake is that the bombing of Windermere saved the planet. Whether by way of stopping a NUNS group that was about to dig up a Protoculture doomsday device, or by stopping the Windermereans from doing the same. What gets more and more confusing is the way the pseudo-science, song energy, fold wave generation stuff keeps working like an out of control McGuffin. We get it, the Protoculture liked their music. But more seriously, I really appreciated that (despite the naked out-of-body weirdness) they gave a very sensible reason for what singing was doing with the Vajra in Frontier. Now though, it looks like they've stepped beyond "practical" use for the songs, and are tapping into something more similar to Galaxy's plot to link humanity into a hive mind. I guess here's what gets me... the wacky trance state Hayate is getting pulled into looks close enough to Alto's experiences to be relatively the same thing. The only reason Sheryl and Ranka could do that was because they were both carrying around Vajra bacteria, and Alto was wearing Sheryl's earring. In fact, the "riding the wind" stuff going on looks an awful lot like Alto in the YF-29. Up until now, this has all seemed to depend on proximity to fold quartz, which seems to, for lack of a more scientific explanation, turn focused emotions into EM emissions that exist in the same frequency domain as the energy associated with fold drives. The big question then... Why does Windermere seem to have the ability to mess with the minds of people who are nowhere near any sort of fold quartz? Or, barring that, is that entire cluster of planets so chock full of Protoculture technology (and possible massive amounts of fold quartz) that the entire cluster acts like a giant fold wave amplifier?
  12. Chronocidal
    What I'm saying is that relative velocity doesn't matter in terms of closure rate. It matters because a moving platform can launch missiles a lot farther. If you launched a mach 2 missile from a plane also going mach 2, you might be launching a missile at mach 4. While the math isn't that simple in reality, let's say that also extends the missile's range to double. The fighter will be able to fire off salvos of missiles at the battroid with impunity, and the battroid won't be able to touch him, because his missiles can't fly that far starting from zero velocity. Even if they're using cannon rounds, the same rough physics will be in play, though if standard gatling gun physics apply, your round grouping is going to be terrible at those sorts of ranges. With guns, as long as you account for ballistic trajectory, there's still a chance they could hit. Micro missiles in the Macross universe though seem very dependent on thrust vectoring, so once they run out of fuel, they might just drop out of the sky. No worries about the debate, glad you're enjoying the discussion. It's a fun diversion from real life problems.
  13. Chronocidal
    That actually occurred to me about Shin and Nora first meeting in Zero. If it weren't for slow motion coming into play there, Shin may have been out of range of Nora by the time she actually opened fire.
  14. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    Just don't ever expect AmiAmi to care if they send you a broken product. Or most any of the online shops really, I think HLJ's the only source for these things that you have any remote chance of getting replacement for if they arrive with broken or missing parts.
  15. Chronocidal
    Not that I've noticed, it's mostly just that the pieces don't interlock enough, or have stiff enough connections to survive the stresses put on them by transforming. They've greatly simplified the construction compared with the VF-25 kits, but the cost of that has been that quite a few of the pieces don't interlock nearly as solidly or from as many directions. Rotating the gerwalk twist will often pop the outer panel of the hips clean off, possibly detaching the front of the intake. The most surprising to me though is the main wing hinge connection. On the VF-25, the hinge was sandwiched between two layers of fuselage plate. This one just has a dinky tab that's supposed to hold onto two little pegs to support the entire wing.
  16. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    Judging by how fast it disappeared? I imagine they only had it up for a few minutes at best.
  17. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    Actually, this is what's got me entirely confused right now. For this particular preorder NY is way below the retail price. And on top of that, when did they stop their trend of opening up increasingly higher priced lots? I'd gotten to where I was fairly comfortable with the way they did their business, just for the reassurance that, yeah, I might pay a bit more, but I'll be able to get one of whatever I'm trying to order. With all the recent orders though (HMRs and DXs), I haven't seen any more appear on their site.
  18. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    Man, got my hopes up. Probably only had a couple. Actually, what kind of irks me is that they'll cancel people's preorders entirely, then have stock appear out of nowhere and not fill those orders. Wish they would keep the preorders under some sort of "at risk" or "waiting list" status if you manage to get through the order process, but they don't know if they'll get stock to fill it. I'm just going to wait until release and hope it reappears, can't spend every waking moment waiting on a preorder to pop.
  19. Chronocidal
    Pretty much, yep. The thrust to weight ratios of valks must be insane to do the things they do. Modern tactics and technology are irreversibly intertwined, so trying to apply tactics in a future like this is just a mental exercise at best. All this isn't to say there's no use for battroid mode, but in an atmosphere, it just imposes a lot of limits, no matter how powerful your engines are. Unless you've got technology allowing you to generate and dissipate momentum instantaneously, you're still fighting a classic air battle where energy is the most precious resource you have.
  20. Chronocidal
    I might have gotten a lemon somehow, but I would say don't expect the VF-31 kits to stay together without glue either. The one I've built pretty much falls apart at the seams any time I start to transform it. Worst offender is the tails coming off every time I try to fold them, second would be a tie between the hips falling apart and the entire wing assemblies popping off. Or maybe they expect the stickers to hold it all together?
  21. Chronocidal
    If the pilot staying in fighter knows what's good for him? He's not going to go anywhere near the range of the guy in battroid. And he wouldn't have to. That's one other thing speed gains you: range. The guy who zips around at arm's length lobbing missiles at the relatively stationary battroid isn't at much risk from most of his weaponry, because his own weapons inherit a massive energy advantage from his speed. He may still have energy weapons to contend with, but the guy in battroid is a relatively fixed point to unload on, and the fighter can just let loose with everything he has at his own maximum range, while he might be outside of the battroid's max range entirely. Even if the fighter closes with the battroid, the battroid's missiles are at an absolute minimum level of performance, making them that much easier to avoid or outrun. On top of that, if he does close in, because he's moving so fast, his missiles might be coming from more angles than the battroid can effectively cover simultaneously, and he'll have to run. Note, that's all using current day tactics and missile performance, but even 50 years in the future, missiles launched from a moving platform are going to go faster and farther.
  22. Chronocidal
    So, question about these, how big are the boxes for them? I'm assuming pretty small, but I'm thinking about grabbing a few and wondering how many I have space in my closet for. I'm starting to think getting the DXs might not be worth the struggle, and these will be much easier to display, and a whole heckuva lot cheaper.
  23. Chronocidal
  24. Chronocidal
    I spent a few hours doing a quick and dirty build-up this past weekend, no painting or markings. I just cut loose everything and slapped it all together with minimal cleanup where it was necessary. Overall I'd agree that this kit was better thought out than the VF-25, and it's really nice to see some sort of thigh swivel, but I think it still has some serious compromises for transformation. Warning, nitpicky comments ahead, read at your own risk. Nowwww... all that said, I do like the kit, despite my own issues with the kit design. It went together smoothly, and the fit was close to perfect all around. The newer joint designs allow for a larger variety of poses than the VF-25 kits, and the variety of sliding/locking joints in the fuselage adds a lot to a sturdy fuselage. I admit, I haven't transformed the entire kit yet, but I fiddled with all the mechanisms as I built it, so I can kind of see how it all functions. Outside of the kit itself though, I'm tempted to make a few mods to this and try to fix some of the more annoying features of the design. I really want to slice open the outer surface of the legs, and put some reasonable looking landing gear in there. The angled surface is really just begging for a simple door and an angled F-16 style strut. I might even fill in the slots for the canards, I actually think the design looks better without them. I also want to see if I can come up with a way to streamline the butt end of the spine, because it's an eyesore. I don't know why they ended the fuselage so bluntly, it's like they looked at the YF-30's spine and asked "How can we make this uglier in every way possible?" All they had to do was taper the surface down to blend with the upper side of the weapons pod, but nope, they decided to give it a blunt edge, and leave the pod looking like it was wedged uncomfortably between the engines. I really want a version of this without all the ridiculous airshow colors though. Never going to touch the decals (I'll do my own panel lining, thanks), and that paintscheme is a nightmare.
  25. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    Wow, I completely blanked on this one, forgot about it entirely. Guess I'll wait for round two to pop up... Well maybe, after building up my 1/72 kit yesterday, maybe it killed some of my enthusiasm. Just not that impressed by the design maybe? I don't know. The kit's transformation design felt pretty lacking to me, hopefully the DX is a lot better.
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