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Chronocidal

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Everything posted by Chronocidal

  1. Chronocidal
    Don't see why that would even be necessary, I'm sure some of the folks on this board could make them from scratch, offer up a printing, or just make a set of shapeways parts.
  2. Chronocidal
    It's really a combination of shoddy materials with pants-on-head engineering techniques. After taking apart the leg of my 171CF, I have to wonder what the people designing it were smoking, because it is just such a ridiculously overengineered piece of nonsense, I feel like I need to redesign the knee joint from scratch so it doesn't hurt my brain anymore.
  3. Chronocidal
    I'm fairly sure it could potentially be removed... but that's assuming bandai's assembly monkies don't dunk the thing in gorilla glue like they did on several of the other valks I have. Bandai just really doesn't want their valks coming apart for any reason, and it tends to completely stifle any kind of attempt to repair their shoddy engineering when it fails.
  4. Chronocidal
    Eh, when you consider that the legs are held on by a small shaft going through the nose, I guess the backpack is pretty beefy by comparison. I guess I just like being able to pick up the VF-1s by their packs without worrying something will break. The 1/48 always felt dangerous to hold there, since the backpack was held down by that tiny hook in the backplate.
  5. Chronocidal
    I'll admit, I never had a problem with the VF-1 fast pack bracket, because the 1/48 packs always scared the crap out of me that I was going to snap off the backpack. Even in-universe though, the idea of that backpack hinge being so strong that it can just hold all that weight and thrust just feels wrong somehow. I know, overtechnology and everything, but it still looks like a really questionable way to mount something that heavy.
  6. Chronocidal
    Build a bridge out of him! And sadly, now I want to see a Robotech Abridged series that completely eschews any form of storytelling, and simply lumps all three generations together, with the entire cast being completely aware of how little sense it makes.
  7. Chronocidal
    Every time I do that to a bandai valk that I've decided not to transform? The parts go all explodey, and I'm left with a pile of debris (I'm looking at you, VF-171CF..)
  8. Chronocidal
    Glad I'm only buying this for the fighter mode.
  9. Chronocidal
    Yeah, I would pick up the white/purple scheme in an instant if it were an option. It's just so pretty. I see what you did there.
  10. Chronocidal
    I've kind of plotted my VF-25 purchases with future displays in mind (no room yet.. but someday), specifically so I can get a nice range of display types without too much clutter.. so far, my plan is this: 1 armored Alto in fighter 1 armored Ozma in battroid 1 bare Alto in fighter (with Ranka in the back seat) 1 tornado packed Michael in fighter 1 super Luca in fighter (possibly gerwalk) 1 VF-25A in fighter 1 VF-25A in battroid (possibly with a spare set of Luca super packs) I basically picked up at least one of each exclusive pack, so I can mix and match them some. In hindsight, I wish I'd waited to get the VF-25A brownie packs, but I grabbed a second set of Luca's packs instead. On the plus side though, I don't think the green will look bad on the 25A, and I get a spare set of Ghosts to mess with (probably will be heavily modding one and painting it red). I might switch out the armored Alto for a tornado pack, or a super in battroid, posed with the rifle over his shoulder. And if they ever release the VF-25G again, I'll pick another up, and have him posed for sniping with super packs. And I'd probably pick up another Ozma as well, if that ever happens, but dunno if I'd use the super packs for him, or just display him in bare fighter mode. Oh, and the YF-25 will be in fighter FOR-EV-ER.
  11. Chronocidal
    Actually, that's kinda the funny part.. my triangles are fine.
  12. Chronocidal
    Well, it's half plastic batch, and it's half pants-on-head engineering. The knee pivot is such a stupidly overcomplicated design, it's begging to destroy itself. Instead of putting some kind of rubber insert,and using a solid rotation peg, they decided they were going to make the peg hollow with a spring pin in the middle to provide friction.. Of course, this hollow pin is what shattered, and destroyed the knee. Nice job, dipwads. Should say, though, that's not the only part of that part that broke.. that entire section of the knee joint just seems to be crazed and cracked to high heaven, and the thigh swivel peg is only one of the parts of it that have broken off. Frankly, it's broken into so many pieces, the only way it's going to stay together is if I glue the leg together in a single position forever.
  13. Chronocidal
    Looks like they're mounted to a clamp that wraps around the upper half of the wing glove.. That's just.. weird. Only way you can really mount them in that orientation though, or the legs would get in the way.
  14. Chronocidal
    So, anyone have a battered and broken CF-171 they'd be willing to sell for parts? One of the legs on mine is freaking shattered. Like, worse than original VF-0 release shattered. I tried to take the thing apart to see why one knee was loose, and when I started trying to remove the screw covers, I discovered that they're pretty much all that was holding the knee together. I seriously want to take the people who designed this toy, hang them from the rafters by their tonails, and play piñata with their heads. This is by far the most stupdendously unnecessarily overcomplicated piece of crap design I've ever seen. Tiny senseless parts everwhere, no regard for any kind of structural reinforcement, and some of the worst hinge designs I've ever seen. So yeah.. I was able to get the legs off of the main valk with no trouble, because those were actually held down by screws, and not glued anywhere. The legs themselves are a lost cause... not only did they cover the screws with hidden screw covers (only discovered one hidden screw because the opposite half of the piece it was holding decided it was gonna just break off entirely), but they actually glued detail panels over the top of certain seams, so even if you get the screws out, the entire thing is still wrapped up in glue and plastic. Anyway.. yeah. I managed to get the lower triangles off without breaking them, so I'm going to experiment with replacement designs for those, but unless I completely rebuild the knee hinge from scratch, this thing is going to be glued in fighter mode forever... not that I really intended to take it out of that mode anyway, but it was nice at least having the illusion that the freaking thing was solidly constructed.
  15. Chronocidal
    I'm still curious if they designed them to overlap the wings without having to extend them or not. One of the early pics showed the wings not seated in the normal position with the trailing edge against the legs, but it's hard to tell if that's the case for all of the images. As far as battroid goes.. well, having big directional boosters attached to the wing gloves that way would make them pretty useful for space combat. Structurally though, having those things hanging off of such a small pivot point rubs my brain all sorts of the wrong way. And that's entirely in-universe-wise. In terms of the actual figure, if those boosters are solid resin, I don't think the hinge pivots are going to be able to hold them at any high angle for very long before loosening up. It wouldn't matter in space (or on a stand), but standing up, the wings/boosters might drag on the ground.
  16. Chronocidal
    Most of the droopy neck problem was caused by warped metal plates in the nose interior structure, but a decent portion also had to do with the lously plastic that got used, and sloppy molding. I posted a fix for the metal piece a while back, so that's not even a huge deal if they keep the same structure, but tightening up the molds to hold together better would make a world of difference.
  17. Chronocidal
    There we go, finally found (almost) what I remembered. The pairing of Hikaru's VF-1J with super packs goes back before Yamato did it. This isn't the original concept-like image I remember, but the style is exactly the same, with the balloon hands, and overall level of panel detailing on the valk. The art actually makes me wonder though, whether it was an after-the-fact thing, or if it came from before the plot of SDFM was finalized. Maybe they drew up the designs for Hikaru on his 1J, so as not to spoil the fact that he'd be inheriting Roy's plane? Or maybe the original concept work was done before they decided to have Hikaru switch planes? Have to probably ask Kawamori about that one. In terms of model kits though, the pairing makes perfect sense, and Hasegawa's new 1/48 kit is the same deal. If you're making a kit to build M&M supers, you're going to mold it in white, because molding it in blue or red means you'll have to either split the production and make two separate kits (with separate packaging designs), or sell both in one box, which will bump up the price, and be harder to sell. And once you have a white kit with the boosters, you know some people are going to get lazy with painting, and decide to just make Hikaru's plane anyway.
  18. Chronocidal
    Would the missiles and packs taken out have knocked $50-100 off the price? We'll never know. Either way, a lot of people wound up paying for things they could have done without.
  19. Chronocidal
    While I personally like the missiles, I probably would have traded them for a good stand... I do hope though that we get later releases minus all the extras, for something like the Supernova schemes.
  20. Chronocidal
    The VF-1J in super packs may have some roots in a piece of concept art I remember. I can't find the image, and don't know the timing of it, so it may have come later, but it was a gritty image of the VF-1J gerwalk, with the classic fat-fingered SDFM look.
  21. Chronocidal
    Yeah, while they look nice on the fighter, battroid mode is one giant pile of nope. Those big boosters hanging off the wings is going to utterly destroy any tension those wing pivots have naturally. Not to mention they're resin, and much heavier than normal plastic would be. At least it's nice to see the boosters can be made to work without too much redesign. Edit: Scratch that, apparently even they couldn't get the boosters to work without extending the wings? That's rather disappointing actually.
  22. Chronocidal
    Easy to make sequels when you don't actually care about any kind of continuity or plot coherence.
  23. Chronocidal
    Mine just got dropped off a bit ago, very nice looking piece. Little smudge on one of the hip markings, and the wings are printed a little off-center, but really nice overall. And yeah, Bandai still hasn't quite figured out how to make double gear doors line up at all. I think it's partly because of the screwy complex curve around the front gear, which really is due to the design itself. Any warping in those doors, and they just won't fit well.
  24. Chronocidal
    It's a cool transformation on paper, or in a computer model, but the mechanics behind it don't work out very well in real life. See, I like the design.. but there's a few little things that have bugged me since I first tried to transform the 171, and they haven't gotten any better with later releases. I'll spoilerfy this so I don't flood the thread with a wall-o-text, but there's a lot going on with the VF-171 that makes no mechanical sense. 1. The hip swing-bar design. 2. The hip joints themselves. 3. The brainless design behind the knee joints. There is no reason for the stupid interlocks they built in to keep the legs from rotating unless they're extended at the knee. 4. The overcomplicated triangle pieces... don't think I need to explain my distaste for those. 5. The @#&*#*$ stupid wing pivots. Worst hinge design in history, and expressly for the purpose of ripping their customers off, no less. 6. That double fold backplate hinge is just a pain in the backside, period. I've had my 171EX for several years now, and it still won't fold all the way, because the tolerances were screwed up on the parts. Anyway.. yeah.. there's a lot of reasons my 171s will remain In fighter mode indefinitely. There are just enough bad design elements incorporated there to make my engineering senses weep. it's really sad too, because I really do like the 171 battroid.
  25. Chronocidal
    Hard to tell from that angle, but I wonder if that's an early version before they added fancy things like radar. Also, I will always find the Backfire one of the most beautiful designs produced.
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