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Chronocidal

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  1. Chronocidal
    I think my one gripe about this design is that I think they could have sacrificed a bit of the battroid stubbyness, and made the lower legs longer to cover more of the knee joint in fighter. The covers don't look terrible from the bottom, but the knee joint stands out pretty strongly from the side. Not bad by any means, but since the design of the knee is a little different than the VF-19's, the joint isn't hidden as well. I actually think the old Yamato holds up better in fighter than in battroid, compared with the new one. The only thing really different about the side profile is the dropped nose (which was most of the problem to begin with), and the top profile hasn't changed much at all. The lower legs do look a good deal shorter though, which really helps the battroid.
  2. Chronocidal
    Oh, I'm referring more to the type of wheels that used technics axles, not the original metal ones. I don't think I own any from the period before they became the common treaded tire you see today. Anyway, given the quality of the past few releases, I seriously doubt they'll have these sort of issues again.
  3. Chronocidal
    Actually, I never had the tires dissolve things, but over time I definitely had a few hubs that were cracked from the stress of being pushed on and off of axles, and the tires were actually holding them together.
  4. Chronocidal
    I'd love to get about a dozen of those, but with round bases I could paint the kite emblem onto.
  5. Chronocidal
    Actually, that makes sense, I seriously doubt Bandai's going to let anyone in on their cash cow yet. I'm sure they're well aware of the resourcefulness of their customer base though, both in terms of molding and casting, and in terms of 3d printing. I probably wouldn't even use the shoulder packs myself, since they wouldn't work well in battroid (technically neither would the boosters), but I'm hoping they sized those notches to let you stick the existing VF-25 packs on it.
  6. Chronocidal
    That plastic in particular was bad all around. It wasn't even limited to the VF-0s, my old YF-19 has some of the same types of cracking on certain parts. On my VF-0s, it wasn't just the shoulders either.. every part made made of that same texured plastic has developed spiderweb-style crazes and cracks all over them. I took apart the knee joints on one of mine, and the insides of them looked like shattered glass from all the cracking. They were just thick enough not to fail catastrophically like the shoulders tended to. I soaked them in superglue from the inside, and they've held up ok since then. If I do wind up buying a v.2 VF-0S/A, I'll probably find some crazy way to customize the ones I already have.
  7. Chronocidal
    Probably an easy enough repaint really, and no need to paint the handle, so it won't scratch off. I'm eagerly awaiting the pics to start rolling out when people realize the ridges in the wing roots are for attaching Bandai's VF-25 booster packs.
  8. Chronocidal
    Given the title, I think that's more a case of unholy moly. But.. agreed.
  9. Chronocidal
    I'll know soon, FedEx is usually around $40 for me for a box that size (shipping two that is, one would be quite a bit less), but I like their service in my town better than the post office.
  10. Chronocidal
    Ditto, though I'm not going to tell them to ship til I pack a few extras with it... I might need some more modeling supplies.
  11. Chronocidal
    So.. funny question.. what happened to the tan gunpod?
  12. Chronocidal
    Considering how development for games has been fairly open-source, I doubt they're going to stop people from adapting games to use it. Killing that kind of innovation would destroy the entire market they're hoping to cash in on. And either way, OR is just the first. Sony's already making one to compete, and there will be others. I did find this image incredibly amusing though.
  13. Chronocidal
    Meheheh.. me likey.. I can stick one of the spare Isamus in my old YF-19 too... wait, why would I do that? *chucks it against the wall* GOOD RIDDANCE! I'll just put him in my YF-29 where he belongs, and chuck the Bandai figure too.
  14. Chronocidal
    Actually, I'm not worried about any of the other voices, just because I've seen some insanely good voice talent out there. If they aim for people who can imitate the classic sound, they'll get it. I'm sure if they needed, they could probably get a good Bill Melendez impersonator too, but being able to use his original voicework is too perfect to pass up.
  15. Chronocidal
    Heh, just reading this reminded me, I had planned to try designing a replacement lower triangle once my 3d printer was up again. Good thing I ordered a spool of black ABS. I intend to base it off of the Yamato VF-17 design, and just have a simple flap that folds down under the chest. It'll kinda just hang there in battroid mode, but it shouldn't be too visible. Anyway, I'm probably remembering more thigh swivel problems than I actually have (funny how bandai valks lend them to that kind of thinking ). In the 171's case though, I'm pretty sure it has something to do with that screwball kneejoint. Honestly, half of the reason I don't transform mine is specifically because those joints never work reliably going back to fighter mode, and I'm worried I'm going to shear the entire leg off trying to rotate it.
  16. Chronocidal
    Ok.. can't say I'm not skeptical, but the fact that they're drawing 2-dimensional motion lines (in 3D no less) over the top of 3-dimensional animation has me very intrigued. It looks like they've rendered the characters, and then gone back to draw in all the faces and gestures after the fact. Plus, sourcing the original soundtrack and character voices will probably sell me quickly on it. I just hope they can keep to the classic story styling, and keep in mind how Schulz may have wanted things done with his characters. I grew up with the original Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas specials, and the more recent productions with the characters have gotten further and further off the mark set by those.
  17. Chronocidal
    I want to say that every single one of my Bandai valks has this problem actually. Given the generic problems of looseness on pretty much every one of them, I'd think Bandai just has no concept of how to design a joint that can stay functional. Both of my 171s have this problem, and if I recall correctly, tightening the screws didn't help at all, because the looseness is from shoddy friction inserts that don't fit well, and are mounted in such a way that tightening the screws doesn't actually press them against the joints more tightly. All tightening the screws does is overstress the pieces. It's because the entire joint is sandwiched in that stupid locking joint to keep the legs from twisting while extended (heaven forbid anyone would actually want to use that joint for better posability or something). I can't say for certain exactly how loose my 171s have gotten by now, because after one or two transformations, I gave up and decided to keep them in fighter mode forever to keep them from disintegrating.
  18. Chronocidal
    If you strip all the ludicrous markings off, and paint it like an actual aircraft, yes. Clearly, they were quite worried about maintenance crews, pilots, wingmen, even enemies, forgetting just which particular plane they were fighting.
  19. Chronocidal
    Actually.. if it means the mechanism works the way the old Kenner mold did, I can get behind that. The FX wing mechanism was terrible. All around just sounds like an even bigger version to have fun customizing, and maybe closer to true scale with the figures.
  20. Chronocidal
    Thing is, there's really no reason to have a transforming one of those. The Monster kind of gets a pass because it's more like mobile artillery, but if your mission is to drop bombs from an altitude that negates the need for close combat capabilities, you really don't need to be landing and punching things. Now, granted.. they've never bothered to apply that logic to the existing transforming capital ships (which I still think is ridiculous, but hey, rule of cool), so that's not to say Kawamori wouldn't come up with something like that. But if you consider the payload regular valks can carry at this point, you're talking something more along the lines of a missile boat, and all that does is insure that all of your big missiles are concentrated in one spot, so they're easier to hit. Plus, I don't think anyone would bother with traditional guided bombs in combat once you have the ability to beamspam everything from a tank to an entire city in a matter of seconds, from orbit.
  21. Chronocidal
    Not so much this, as Bandai's generic middle finger to people who care about all things aircraft. It's like they've turned refusing to conform to standard practices into their own misguided trademark. They seem to cling to inaccuracies as if they have an incurable obsession with nostalgia, even at the cost of quality and accuracy...which, I wonder if it's literally the case.. nostalgia for the old Takatoku-style bare gear vs accurate aircraft detailing? They probably researched the impact of such things on sales. Yamato/Arcadia tend to have plenty good looking gear, even if they aren't specifically accurate (the only ones that actually follow the true retraction method are the VF-11 and YF-21/VF-22, they're all supposed to rotate 90 degrees into the bay). They still manage to transform. Honestly, if Bandai would take the time to paint them instead of leaving them bare metal, it would help immensely. The goofy metallic just looks incredibly cheap.
  22. Chronocidal
    Well, to start with, you may be better off waiting for the Alto reissue, and using those as the base, for a few reasons. First off, the less painting you have to do the better. While they weren't technically white aircraft, the scheme Cypher's plane was based on is one of the prototype F-15s, which was a nice gloss white. Pixy's later plane in the game was also white. Unless you were planning on painting them both gray from the start, in which case it won't really matter. As far as having something durable though, being able to start with a pure white aircraft and leave it the base color would avoid all the frustration of scratching over time. Plus, not having to paint the entire thing would save you a lot of time and effort, since you could just focus on removing the Alto markings, and adding the AC ones. Anyway, as far as disassembling them, I haven't gotten much experience with the renewals, but if they're anything like the VF-27, be very careful about keeping left and right parts seperated, and taking pictures of exactly how they go together as you take them apart. The VF-27 uses a bunch of parts that can be mixed and matched, and it's very easy to assemble things the wrong way, rendering the valk completely unable to transform at all.
  23. Chronocidal
    Actually, I'd love to get one just to use the canopy on another valk, since it's the only one in molded in that particular shade. But I'm not going to do that unless I see it drop to insanely low prices. And really.. I don't ever want it to reach those prices, because it'll mean Arcadia is having issues with selling it, and I'd rather not start down that path again.
  24. Chronocidal
    Oh, I know, I just find it funny that it's like they're trying to cover up their ineptitude at making flat wings by making the wing packs droop on purpose to counter it. They've gotten better over time (my VF-25A has pretty much perfectly molded wings), but most of my VF-25s still have the flappy problem. Really though, if they bend them down that far? I don't think I'm going to feel comfortable displaying them. At least the armor packs latch onto the wing gloves, and the wings aren't even inside those, but these look like they'd wind up forcing the wings to remain bent completely opposite their natural shape. (Unless I'm mistaken at how they attach, and the wings don't go into the tornado packs either. I've never looked that closely at them.)
  25. Chronocidal
    They'd definitely be cheaper, but you might have to do a lot more work to get a Figma into that shape, since they're usually modeled with a lot more clothing that you'd have to remove, and you might not get a useable body underneath. Figmas in simple bodysuits are pretty hard to find. Those Votoms figures are pretty much ready made to convert into Meltrans, since there's really nothing significant to change. Too bad no one thought of this when they came out, because they were about the same price as Figmas.
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