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Chronocidal

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  1. Chronocidal
    Oh, just read your location, and actually, while I still wouldn't personally risk it, San Francisco is probably one of the safer parts of California to do that. The damage I had happened in the central valley, and I live near Mojave now, so there's no way I'd ever even consider storing anything in my garage.
  2. Chronocidal
    I wouldn't personally store any valk anywhere that isn't air-conditioned. California especially. I've had old toys in complete darkness turn a nice shade of urine yellow, because they were left in a box in a garage. I don't know whether it was just the heat, or a combination of heat and UV, but a garage is just not good for either because the ceiling probably won't be very well insulated compared with the rest of the building.
  3. Chronocidal
    Looks like they reworked the knee joints as well to use an extending hinge like the VF-1, instead of that weird double joint the first version had. I actually liked how much range of motion the old one had, but the design made it hard to rotate the lower legs out because the knee cap could interfere.
  4. Chronocidal
    Wouldn't it make much more sense to devote funding to artbooks and merchandise after people actually see the series they're for? You know, so they might have more of a reason to purchase it? They're acting as if the series will already be made, and people will want merchandise based on it....Are they basically calling their own bluff and going on the assumption that it will be funded whether the kickstarter fails or not? Well, to be fair.. with the shipping times we've seen before, maybe this way the merchandise will arrive concurrent with the series being complete.
  5. Chronocidal
    Well, that one did have the tray with all those missiles added.
  6. Chronocidal
    I don't think the batsuit is veiny so much as it just looks wrinkled on the mannequin. The lines don't look consistent across it enough to be on purpose.
  7. Chronocidal
    However useful they are, they're still eyesores. People have been asking for less gigantic stands for a long time, something with a simple base and pedestal that doesn't take up twice the footprint of the valk sitting on it.
  8. Chronocidal
    I'm sold regardless, but I'm more thrilled about the fact that they put CONFORMAL PYLONS on the wingtips. Looks like normal AMRAAMs, with the mid-body fin embedded in the pylon, and no big ugly attachment peg.
  9. Chronocidal
    Heheh.. I need to get to work making a shapeways version for everyone. Stupid distracting life.
  10. Chronocidal
    If someone wants the 1J, but doesn't need the armor, I might be happy to buy a set. Otherwise, I might grab one myself, but I've got two of this valk already.
  11. Chronocidal
    Reposting a little discovery here that I mentioned in the Luca RVF-171 thread, regarding the lower leg rotation. Long story short, Bandai wrote their own transformation instructions wrong, or didn't realize that going back to fighter mode from battroid or gerwalk is not the same as leaving fighter mode. Leaving fighter, they show you dropping the lower leg by the knee joint, and then rotating the lower leg 90 degrees. That's fine.. but it doesn't work in reverse. Because of how that (entirely unnecessary) interlock is rigged, the knee must be completely collapsed before it disengages, and allows the lower leg to rotate correctly. And since bending the knee even slightly will actually pull the knee joint out a tiny bit, this means the knee must be completely straight before the lower leg will rotate freely. There's enough slippage in the mechanism to let you rotate the feet into position with the knee bent one click forward, but you can't rotate them back. So, going back to fighter requires a different order of steps. You need to rotate the feet back sideways before snapping the thighs into the belly, not afterward. That will let you keep the knees straight while rotating them back. Once the feet are back sideways, you can bend the knee down one click again (actually that's as far as the knees will go with the feet oriented sideways) to help get the thighs back into place. Maybe this isn't news to anyone? I dunno. But it literally took me completely removing the legs on my CF before I discovered how this mechanism works.
  12. Chronocidal
    After studying the CF I've taken apart quite a bit, I can say that it's actually more than that, since the design itself is so darn shoddy. The metallic looking plastic used in the knee joints can have some serious structural issues for the areas they're using it for. The stresses of that lower leg rotation were too much for one of my CF's knee joints, and it exploded into obsidian-like shards, broken right across the flow lines visible in the plastic. Here's the thing about the lower leg rotation.. Bandai wrote their own directions WRONG.. They show you dropping the legs at the knee joint, and then rotating the lower leg at that point. That only barely works going from fighter to gerwalk, and it won't work at all going back to fighter mode. Since they don't bother to write directions to go back to fighter, they figure the transformation is the same both directions. In this case, it is not. In order for the lower leg rotation to properly unlock, the knee must be ENTIRELY UNBENT. Because of the shape of the knee joint, any bend in the knee will pull the joint out slightly, and keep the lower leg rotation from engaging correctly. Going from fighter to gerwalk, there is enough slippage in the mechanism to let the leg rotate with the knee pulled down one click. But that rotation is one-way only, and it will not rotate back after you do it. I always wondered why it was so easy to turn the leg when going to gerwalk from fighter mode, but I could never get it to turn back. This is why. It took me removing the leg entirely before I was able to notice this, because reversing the instructions would have you snap the thighs back into the belly before rotating the legs back to fighter position The solution? Do not rotate the lower legs with the knees bent. The step where they show it done should be replaced by dropping the legs at the hip joint, not at the knee. That's the only way to get the rotation to work freely. When going back to fighter, rotate the legs into the right orientation before snapping the thighs back in, and then you can still bend the knee very slightly while snapping the legs up into the belly. And when you rotate it, hold the leg by the knee joint, and lower leg, because otherwise you're also applying a bunch of off-center torque to that thigh pivot, which is prone to shattering due to extreme structural engineering incompetence on the part of the design team. Now, is there some note in Japanese telling people about this? That I can't say. All I know is that the instructions only show rotating the lower leg while the knee is bent, which will only work one direction.
  13. Chronocidal
    Ah... yeah, that just looks terrible... like it ran into a wall in the middle of a hyperspace jump. The pile of original style nosecones is interesting though. Maybe they're designing an SD version ahead of time?
  14. Chronocidal
    Shows how much I know about Robotech in general. Eh, I can see a few ways to turn it into a workable design, but it would likely just involve turning it into something that looks like it came from Macross.
  15. Chronocidal
    Mighty fine thing to do, I might try it as well if I manage to get any orders in before the scalping starts. I'm pretty much okay with just one Ozma I think, though if I could get a second set of armor, I'd get another of those to have one in fighter and one in battroid. I'll test my luck getting in a pre-order when they pop up, but I'm probably not going to stress over it. If I can get multiples ordered for retail, I'll probably grab two or three to redistribute.
  16. Chronocidal
    So.. what you're saying is, it's a Beta test fighter? I'll give them this, it looks at least a bit more aerodynamic than the original Beta. Underside looks like it might be a sea of kibble, but the legs don't appear to take up the entire body.
  17. Chronocidal
    Eh, any unpainted-metal-looking surface has left a bad taste in my mouth since Episode 1. And I mentioned the other things in my first post, but yeah, it's all made-up speculation by fans attempting to explain nonsense physics. Probably nothing is going to make me like this one, because the old one is still my favorite sci-fi design period, and I don't see any reason why it needs to be overhauled into something so different looking. Why not just introduce a new design entirely? It's like trying to evoke nostalgia for it by saying, "Hey, it's an X-Wing!"... but it's got none of the charm the original design has for me. Heh.. particularly, the fuselage rework just reminds me heavily of various bad reproductions of how the original fuselage is supposed to look. That overly stretched nosecone just looks ugly to me.
  18. Chronocidal
    Can't argue about the resemblence to the old design, but the wing mechanism is just what gripes me the most, assuming it is that weird mid-split. It's definitely more slicked-back and streamlined though, and the pseudo-chromed intake cowlings just look completely out of place for a fighter.
  19. Chronocidal
    Heheh.. eh, that was an overreaction. Mostly, it's the "let's just make everything smoother and shinier" fad. The original trilogy stuff was all fairly rough and industrial looking, which fit the idea of a rebellion struggling to survive. Thing is, that look is so incredibly iconic now, making things look shiny and new just winds up looking out of place to me. It's sort of the "why do you feel like you have to change everything?" feeling. The X-Wings were brand new in ANH, and sure, new models come out, but with the way ships in the Star Wars universe are treated, they cross the line from military fighter to something more along the lines of a personal car. Luke's X-Wing is one of those things I don't see why they'd need to change, and putting him in a new model gives me the same feeling as the new KITT made out of a Mustang. Granted, there's no word on whether this is Luke's ship, or some other one, but I do hope they keep some famililar classics besides the Falcon in the new movies. In terms of design, I just don't see why they feel the need to streamline anything, or change it so much, and it feels like they're changing it just because they can. Maybe there's more thought involved from the designers, but it feels like a completely unnatural design progression to me in terms of utility and function. Forgive me by the way, I've spent far too much time making X-Wings over the years, and I've gotten way too into the details of the design. I just feel the same way about this design as I did about the JJ-prise, and while I know he probably isn't directly responsible for the design in any way, it still makes me think, "here we go again."
  20. Chronocidal
    Clearly, they didn't design the prop to actually have the wings separate. I'm just... sad. Like, seriously, we've had years of people refining the old trilogy designs in various ways, with some fairly reasonable progressions for X-Wing designs.. Can we please not JJ-prise EVERYTHING? There are actually a lot more valid reasons for the splitting wings on the X-Wing. Besides the obvious cooling idea from getting the engines farther apart, it also would increase maneuverability, since now you're spreading your thrust over a much wider area, and computer controlled throttle variation for maneuvering is going to be much more effective in the pitch axis. On top of that, since we never actually saw any kind of maneuvering thrusters, a lot of people theorized that the ships used arrays of internal gyros to generate maneuvering forces. Spreading the wings would spread those out further as well, since they'd likely be inside the wings, and while I can't personally quote any math that would vouch for that being helpful, it seems like it would be, on an intuitive level. This design... just.. I don't know. It's not a bad progression mostly, but the engine and wing arrangement just looks silly compared to the original. All splitting the wings down the center will do is make the thing look entirely unbalanced with the wings spread. The original has a nice sense of symmetry to it, and this will absolutely kill that aesthetic. What I'd love to see though? A simple auto-retracting boarding ladder like the F-15 or F-18 uses. The one there looks fairly well attached, but I can't tell if it's meant to collapse. To be entirely fair though, the original X-Wing never had any space for the main landing gear either, unless those lower engines were just magically smaller than the upper ones, or the main "intakes" never really had any function to begin with. Could be, the entire engine was actually located in the J-79 afterburner section on the back.
  21. Chronocidal
    Also have that little Klan Q-Rea for about $5
  22. Chronocidal
    I actually want to say that I don't think so, since despite the horribly inaccurate leg pack transformation, I think the bulkier design of the 1.0 might have been sturdier overall (if you don't count the tendencies the armor packs had to crack the entire backplate). Problem really is, the attachment points on the v.2 wing roots aren't all that sturdy to begin with. The small pegs they latch on with let the armor flop around a little more than I'd prefer. For what it's worth, these look like they might be much sturdier, since they envelop so much of the wing root.
  23. Chronocidal
    Did the MAXL have the same speaker gunpod as the Fire Valk?
  24. Chronocidal
    My apologies for the necro, but I figured this might be worth dragging up. For everyone who thought the original price was insane (though this appears to be some variation on the original? I don't know the difference specifically). http://www.hlj.com/product/BAN981581/Sci They also have the blade attachment on sale, for a similar discount.
  25. Chronocidal
    The sheer size of these things kinda bugs me, I admit. It's not a matter of the parts weighing more or less than the armor, it's the fact that these concentrate a significant portion of the weight a bit farther out than the armor reaches. If they weigh the same as the armor, depending on where the CoG is, they might be putting more strain on the wings.
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