Chronocidal
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Everything posted by Chronocidal
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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.
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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.
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Macross Δ (Delta) - Mission 18 - READ 1st POST
Chronocidal replied to azrael's topic in Movies and TV Series
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. -
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?
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Macross Δ (Delta) - Mission 18 - READ 1st POST
Chronocidal replied to azrael's topic in Movies and TV Series
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. -
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.
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Macross Δ (Delta) - Mission 18 - READ 1st POST
Chronocidal replied to azrael's topic in Movies and TV Series
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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.
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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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I'm actually thinking this one has double gerwalk joints, since you can see the leg twisting in two places in gerwalk. The models don't like trying to add the twisty knee joint section, probably for structural reasons.
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Ever since the VF-19 Advance, I don't trust any of Bandai's "production" photos. But yeah... Delta is doing a lousy job showcasing the planes, and an even worse job making me want to buy any add-ons. Maybe that effect will carry over into more of the fanbase, and things won't be so hard to order? I don't know.
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The nose cone literally can't be upside down, because the rotation joint is at an angle, and turning it 180 degrees bends it downwards. I love the way the joint works actually. The problem is, it looks like they either stuck a misprinted or misshapen nose on there, because none of the markings line up. Really, the nose cone looks too short and stubby, as if someone trimmed a few millimeters off the back edge, and stuck it on.
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Wow... that's a pretty big screw-up with the nose cone there. Makes me wonder just what they did to cause that one.
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I'm not sure I remember what those were, are we talking the old TOS-style Federation mashups that had the saucer stuck on a single warp nacelle, and the three-nacelle dreadnaught? See, I worked on Bridge Commander so long and saw so many amazing custom designs, I don't think anything the people working on an actual budget make is ever going to measure up.
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See, I'm thinking from the lighting there, that might actually be the door hanging in front of the gear strut, combined with a bit of glint off the lower half of the strut. Otherwise, I don't see any gear doors there. The pic is too low resolution to really tell.
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Guessing you mean the Miranda class? That did get used now and again, though I think the original USS Reliant model was modded into the Soyuz class at some point? I don't remember if it was a permanent change or not. The Miranda got seen now and again when DS9 started moving toward big fleet battles. I believe Sisko was also stationed on one at Wolf 359, the USS Saratoga. Looking at the ship again though, it's clearly got TMP-styled phaser bank turrets all over the saucer, and minimal blue glowy stuff on the nacelles, so I'm assuming this is supposed to be a similar timeframe to TOS. It's just that nothing else looks like it fits really.
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Macross Δ (Delta) - Mission 17 - READ 1st POST
Chronocidal replied to azrael's topic in Movies and TV Series
Haven't seen this yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes. -
Looking at the legs there, I just realized. Judging by the angles of hip, thigh, and lower leg, I think they actually put in two separate joints for sideways rotation: one above the knee like on the renewal VF-25, and one above the thigh, like the VF-19 Advanced has. Not sure why they felt the need to make it double jointed (yay, more tiny moving parts ) but it should open up some interesting posing options for gerwalk mode.
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I feel like this is just targeted at the same type of collectors who like to have 1/18th aircraft to hang from the ceiling. Based on the shape and details, I really don't expect it to transform though, unless it's setup to work as a multi-mode kit that you can assemble in different ways. This would probably be the perfect scale to attempt a more sturdy version of the true-to-animation leg transformation that Bandai put in its 1/72 kit, but the whole thing is just too huge to be practical, and you're going to need a massively strong internal skeleton to keep everything from drooping. Aside from the "whoa" factor, this thing is really just too big to display anywhere, and if I was going to spring for such a huge centerpiece, I'd want a fully loaded strike pack set anyway.
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The texture on the surface of that model makes me think the entire thing is one huge 3D print, so yeah, I can't imagine the finished product would be that simple.
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I think the thing that stands out to me about that design? It reminds me of mid-90s polygon graphics designs that were made specifically to allow good performance. Big, blocky, and easy to render on low-end hardware. That being said, I don't know what era this design is supposed to fit in, alternate timeline or original. It looks like nothing from any series or movie. I'm really not a fan of pretty much any thing about it, but I'm admittedly very biased toward the post-TNG aesthetic, having worked on mods for Bridge Commander for many years.
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I'm starting to wonder.. either no one setting up these displays is very skilled at transforming these valks to look presentable, or there is literally nothing to be done about how ducking fugly the spine is.
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Macross Δ (Delta) - Mission 16 - READ 1st POST
Chronocidal replied to azrael's topic in Movies and TV Series
Rule of cool aside, just thinking back to Macross 30, I hardly ever used anything but fighter unless I was in a confined space, and even then, I'd prefer gerwalk for the mobility. When everyone has turreted guns to pick off incoming missiles without moving out of fighter mode, or even beam cannons to take things out from any direction, it just makes more sense to keep dodging. For the type of fights they're in right now? I can understand why they're only popping into gerwalk for minor maneuvers. It's definitely useful to be able to direct your thrust and jump all over the sky, but unlike certain situations like Macross Plus and Zero, these are very rarely true one-on-one fights, and slowing down enough to go hand-to-hand is likely to get you picked off really quickly from someone covering your target. It's really something we haven't seen since Macross Zero where Nora wiped out Shin's flight group. She didn't transform until Shin was the only one left, and only because he was actually keeping up with her. As long as your target has wingmen, you don't want to give them an easy target. From the Windermerean point of view, they don't seem like they want to get into protracted battles ("duels of honor" notwithstanding). They're bum rushing their targets to counter immediate threats just long enough to give Heinz time to neutralize any combatants, then bugging out. In space though? All bets are off, you don't have to slow down to transform, and you can just flip and spin all over the place to point your weapons in whichever way you need. What does make sense though is that a head on-profile in fighter is a whole lot smaller than a battroid, and between Keith's using the force and lasering whatever was directly in his path, it let him utterly decimate those jammer ships by flying between their firing patterns. -
I'm probably going to try and get at least a couple of these, but I might stick with Hayate and Mirage (and the eventual 31A if it ever happens.. MAYBE Chuck, just because I really like the color). Might change a bit later in the show, but I don't think Delta is doing as good a job at marketing the valks as Frontier did. The dogfights are cool and all, but the lack of any significant battroid-based baddassery is making me think I'd be more interested in a fixed fighter-mode model. I just think comparatively how, by the end of the first two episodes of Frontier, we'd already seen two separate armor variants of the VF-25, we'd seen all three modes showcased, and I was left with the feeling that I neeeeeeeeded an armored VF-25S. Maybe it's the design choices, maybe it's just the lack of interesting action, but I don't feel that way about the 31. Fortunately, with the folding wings and general shape of the valk, I think I should be able to easily display these standing on the feet in fighter mode, because Bandai still can't make an attractive stand, and those landing gear are an abomination.
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Honestly, if the colors matched decently, I'd probably shell out for one of these just to adapt the parts to an HMR VF-1D. Odds are, Bandai's never going to release packs in those colors anyway, and the entire Toynami valk might wind up cheaper to get than official Bandai super packs to customize. So far, they haven't even seemed interested in releasing separate packs at all.