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Chronocidal

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  1. Chronocidal
    Ah, so the polished stuff gets rid of the molding ridges then? Good to know, I'll make sure to get that type in the future. Personally, I'm all for a set of VF-11 wings with hardpoints next, since it's such a relatively simple thing to do. Use it on a VF-11C, and you don't even really need paint. Once the VF-4 comes out and you can measure it, I'd say hardpointed wings for that would be great as well. Anyhow.. had a slight brainstorm about the VF-0D's legs. I know the totally canon solution is to make a new lower leg, but what if you built the missing portion of the leg into a modified leg pack? I wouldn't want to rely on the little magnets they currently use, but if you made the pack wrap up and around the back of the leg, you could potentially have it clip inside the back of the ankle. I don't know if that would give you something sturdy enough to attach the tails to, but it would at least eat up some of the gap between the wings and legs, and streamline things a bit.
  2. Chronocidal

    Macross 30

    Chronocidal replied to Tochiro's topic in Games

    Ok, I don't know if I care much about the character or not yet, but I want a VF-11C in those markings now. Come on Yamato, you added NUNS markings to the VF-17 and VF-19, you can make an SMS VF-11C happen!
  3. Chronocidal
    Is it just me, or does that set look a LOT smoother than the previous shots? I figured the pieces are going to have some layering, but I wasn't expecting the amount in the previous photos, with the really clear stair-stepped look. Unless this new set has had some sanding already done? I'm going to have to grab a set of these after Christmas I think.
  4. Chronocidal
    Well, no, that's coming from the viewpoint of someone who bought a bunch of VF-25 kits because they were the only decent representation of the VF-25 at the time. That's not the case here. Hasegawa already makes 1/72 fighter and battroid kits. If you're not planning on ever transforming these kits, why buy them instead of a Hasegawa one? And if you really want something that transforms, why not get the Yamato one instead, since it will be sturdier? Hasegawas are bound to be cheaper because you don't need all those extra parts for transforming, and if the VF-25 is any indication, the Hasegawa kits will be MUCH easier to build and paint, because you don't have to deal with all the assembly nonsense that building a transforming kit entails. The only thing Hasegawa didn't do is gerwalk kit (that I know of). I guess the question is this... is the ability to pick to build it in any mode (including gerwalk) enough to convince people to buy these instead of the Hasegawas? I'm not saying there aren't people who will want to buy these kits and build them instead of the Yamato ones (I'll probably get one or two just because I love building things, and I'm curious how they'll work the mechanisms). I just wonder if there is enough of a market left to justify it. Not like Bandai can't afford to take a loss anyway, but it just seems silly to release something like this now. Now, on the other hand.. if they want to expand their 1/72 line to include a bunch of other valks? Sure, I'd love to see a complete line of transforming valk kits.
  5. Chronocidal
    Hah, now to see if David ever comes to be. (Or Genesis, for that matter) Though, I suppose when you have an almost believeable plot device that can potentially resurrect dead characters, it's understandable that they'd want to re-use it if they can. Let's just throw a twist in this time though.. have the entire crew die when the Enterprise crash lands there!
  6. Chronocidal
    See.. here's the problem with this.. Yamato already released a kit. It's transformable, and designed to be very sturdy. It's even in a bigger scale than this one is. When you consider that the Bandai one will probably be almost as expensive, have just as many problems with paint being scraped off from transformation, and may have horrible quality decals like their VF-25 kits.. I kinda don't get what all the fuss is about in general. Unless they pull off something fantastic with the transformation, or manage to make the markings themselves built into the plastic so they don't scrape off, I don't know why they think another VF-1 is a good idea.
  7. Chronocidal
    I didn't want to glue mine together yet, but they would definitely benefit from it. They're meant to be very posable, and they do really well with stuff like the Macross Frontier kits, but mounting bigger stuff gets tricky. I am having a thought though. Since the adapters clearly hold onto the tabs on the stand mounts well enough, I wonder what else they could be attached to? I don't want this to turn into a stack of adapters that eventually winds up with you plugging your valks into a USB port, but how hard would it be to make an adapter that fits on the end of something like an acrylic rod? Or, a better question.. how hard would it be to cut/shape an acrylic rod to fit into one of these adapters, and bend around into a traditional stand shape?
  8. Chronocidal
    Still feels like the entire universe got sucked through a plot hole.. There has been a lot of parallel universe stuff in the past, but I think this is the first time they actually stuck with one for any substantial amount of time (besides the extended plot of the Mirror Universe though, which I would still love to see more of). But yeah. Time shenanigans is fun, but for something that tends to make people think so hard, it's amazing what people miss. Maybe the key is just that you're trying so hard to wrap your brain around it that the obvious things don't come to mind? For instance.. the whale biologist in ST:IV. Sure, she claimed to have nobody in her life during the movie. But could they be certain it would remain that way? Cue confused looks when they return to the future and every person who could have traced their family line back to her suddenly never existed. And while I love First Contact, the entire plot falls apart if you think 5 minutes about the first 5 minutes of the movie. Why did the borg have to attack Earth at all? If they had a time machine, they could have gone back in time from anywhere in space and not had to worry about being followed back in time by those meddling ki- I mean, the Enterprise. Edit: By the way, some new stuff about who the villain is. Apparently Karl Urban let slip something along the lines of "Ben is doing an awesome job playing Mitchell" or something equally indicative that he's playing Gary Mitchell. (I don't know why I thought his name was Gary Powers.. maybe because he got them? )
  9. Chronocidal
    That's actually more what I meant by a ratcheted joint. Bottom line, you need teeth on it. The Bandai stands already have a screw, but it doesn't stop the stand from drooping, because it's just a friction joint. The SV-51 stand doesn't even have a screw, it just has a ratcheted ring with teeth that interlock once the pin is pressed into place. That's really what we need. Well.. either that, or new mounts for every fighter mode that relocate the mounting point to somewhere that makes sense. After fiddling with my VF-1 though, my biggest annoyance with the way Yamato does stands is how ridiulously labor intensive it is to remove a valk from the stand. At least with the VF-19, it's just a clip that is (a bit too) easily removed from the belly. But the VF-1 requires you to transform it halfway to battroid just to attach or remove the stand mount. I wound up cutting and filing down the pegs on a VF-1 fighter adapter to see if I could make it possible to attach it without pulling the intakes loose.
  10. Chronocidal
    You'd need some sort of ratcheted joint to do that, so I don't know how easy that would be to do. These stands really weren't meant for stuff as heavy as these valks, so Bandai probably never even considered such a thing necessary.
  11. Chronocidal

    Macross 30

    Chronocidal replied to Tochiro's topic in Games

    Think those fins you're seeing on Isamu's YF-29 are the fast packs, but I could be wrong.
  12. Chronocidal
    Tried out some coloring methods, and coloring these with a standard permanent marker works great. They seem to absorb the ink pretty well. Think this might have been mentioned before, possibly in the other thread.
  13. Chronocidal
    Make sure to rock it in the correct direction. The tabs that hold the arm pieces on have an angled edge on one side of the arm, to let the armor slip past them. Should be on the inside of the arms in fighter mode, where a gunpod would usually mount. I think it's the side of the arm without screws. If you rock the armor towards the side with screws, it should come loose without too much trouble. If it still seems stuck though, you could try to gently lift the attachments with something like a toothpick.
  14. Chronocidal
    You know what though? ST:V was still much more entertaining than Nemesis, if only for the cheese factor (5, Mister Sulu ). It also made a lot more sense than Nemesis, on every level. After an initial "bleh" impression of Nemesis, the more I thought about it, the more it came off as badly written fan-fic, and quickly went south of even ST:V. I personally love this review of the plot. http://tvtropes.org/...StarTrekNemesis
  15. Chronocidal
    Yeah, actually mounting stuff off center or leaning like the VE-1 is what concerns me most about these stands. Unless you glue them together, they can flex around quite a bit, and they tend to twist under certain loadings. By the way, thanks for covering me on the picture side of things, Froy.
  16. Chronocidal
    Actually, no, the center of gravity is entirely unrelated to where the stand is mounted. That's actually the entire problem, because Yamato didn't even attempt to put the mounts near where the balance points of their valks are. It'd be nice if we could get the weight centered on the mount, but I don't know if it's actually necessary. The adapter isn't the point that needs the stress taken off it, it's the hinge. Here's a quick pic of what I'm thinking. This doesn't take the stress off the actual mounting point, which still could fail. All it does is shift the weight so that you don't have a ton of force acting way behind the stand hinge, making it droop. You might need to experiment on a good extension length so you could use this type of thing on multiple valks, but I think it'd be simpler than trying to make something like a cradle. The place where this gets complicated is that you'll definitely run into gunpods unless you keep the initial mount pretty tall. Developing new mounts entirely for everything might be a much better way to go though. I still wonder how hard it would be to find hidden places to drill holes for simple mounting points to use in fighter mode. Clipping around the arms would probably work on the VF-1, but you'll need something that attaches to the metal backplate for the VF-19, and I don't know what you'd attach to on the VF-17.
  17. Chronocidal
    Nah, just go find a floor plan for a brewery, and you've got Main Engineering covered.
  18. Chronocidal
    If the stand mounts for the VF-4 are as far back as they look to be, I don't think that should be too bad... but the metal content might make the stands quite unstable. Really, what it boils down to is that the stands have quite a few quirks in terms of construction. The way the support post attaches to the main arm is a tricky thing, and since both can twist at the base, you often wind up with the two pieces out of alignment. The safest thing to do would probably glue the entire stand together from the start. You lose any adjustment, but it will be quite a bit stronger. The one stand I have assembled seems to lean one direction quite a bit, so I haven't left anything on it for very long. Edit: Quick note, I tested a few battroid modes, and most seem to work fine, even if the fighter mode is too heavy to use. Had no problem keeping the Fire Valk upright in a semi-actiony pose, likewise for the VF-11 and a strike packed VF-1. Haven't tried my VF-17 or VF-0 yet, since I couldn't find their battroid adapters. One thing I did notice though, I can't actually get my stand to support a fully loaded VF-1 in fighter. The stand hinge just gives way after a little while. So, I have an idea for a future version of these mounts. How about an adapter with a built-in offset? Basically, it'd be the same top and bottom, with some sort of extrusion between the stand mount and the valk mount, specifically to push the center of mass to a decent location. They'd probably cost at least twice as much, since you'd be adding a decent amount of material, but they'd be much sturdier in general, since the valk would be located farther forward.
  19. Chronocidal
    Sorry if I was mistaken, I thought Spock's ship actually was specifically a time machine.. could be I was reading what the happy meal toy description of it was though. Either way though... yeah. Averting a planetary disaster seems plenty reason to mess with time.
  20. Chronocidal
    Update: Tried a couple gerwalk modes. VF-11 works fine. VF-17 actually also works decently, since putting it in gerwalk places that mounting point pretty much right at the center of mass, and you can adjust the angle decently without it tipping forward or back. VF-19 is pretty much a no-go though, unless you put it in an extreme nose-down pose. The mounting point is so far forward, moving the legs forward does nothing to shift the balance. Basically, bottom line about these stands: If you glue them together, or maybe reinforce some of the pivot points on them, they should be strong enough to support pretty much any valk (barring something huge like fully loaded 1/48ths and the SV-51). The ability to pose the heavier ones is very limited though. But the stands do look like they can potentially support even the heavy valks in terms of weight. Have to try battroid poses later, and hopefully come up with a few pictures of all three modes for everything I've tried.
  21. Chronocidal
    Ok, I didn't have my camera handy to take pictures here, but I've tested these stands out with pretty much everything I have now, with some surprising results. Note about the stands, they have a tendency to twist due to their construction. I'd recommend gluing them together, and avoiding heavily loaded sideways mountings. VF-11: No trouble really, packs included. I was able to give it a variety of pitch and bank angles, and it held up decently. The VF-11 isn't much heavier than a VF-1, so it's not too surprising. VF-0: REALLY surprised here.. but this goes to show how important the location of the stand mount is. Note, I wasn't following the instructions for how the stand mount was meant to attach, so I may have mounted it backwards. Doing it how I did though, the stand mount was firmly centered around the knee covers, and it balanced nearly perfectly. I was able to sit it on there, and pose it at any pitch angle. Then I added the Ghost booster to it, and it still worked. I didn't have it fully loaded, since I didn't want to dig for all the missile packs, but I'd say a fully loaded VF-0 has potential. I wouldn't recommend any sideways banked poses though. VF-19: Believe it or not, the stand will hold it up, but only in one position, and I'm not sure I'd trust it anyway. Basically, I mounted the stand pedestal with the legs spread as far as I could while keeping it stable. You'll want to use the small square add-on piece, and mount the stand in the center of that, with the second leg placed on the farthest hole on the opposite side of the base. Banking isn't possible, and you only get one pose: nose angled up, with the valk drooped as low as the stand's pivot tip will go before the adapter collides with the pedestal and holds it in place. It's also not very sturdy, so probably will need the stand glued together for this one if you want to risk it. Note on this one: It's actually decently well supported, but the weak point is how the adapter (badly) attaches to the VF-19. I actually had the valk fall back, with the mount still firmly attached to the stand adapter. It just doesn't clip on very well at all. VF-17: Same situation as the VF-19, though in this case the mount attaches very solidly to the belly, so no risk of the valk popping off. It'll sit in the same nose-up pose when the adapter stops the pivot. The thing I'm realizing though... I honestly do not think the folks at Yamato have even the slightest idea of what they're doing developing these stand adapters. The only one placed anywhere near the actual center of gravity of the valk is the VF-0, which is why it works so well even with the Ghost mounted on its back. The VF-17 is actually a facepalm-worthy case of this.. The stand mount is a long plate that attaches to the belly... and they put the stand peg on the front half of the plate.. they easily could have shifted the peg back another whole inch, and helped take stress off the stand, but nope. Anyhow, these are all done in fighter mode, and I'll see if I can get a few pictures up soon, possibly with some gerwalk and battroid poses as well. The issues in almost every case are just ones involving the center of mass of the various valks, so I'm expecting gerwalk and battroid to work much much better, even for the really heavy valks.
  22. Chronocidal
    Mind meld =/= another movie's worth of explanation over what the crap happened. Not to mention yeah, the entire borg-esque mining vessel thing. At least with the original Khan, you KNEW why he was upset with Kirk, and no one had to spell out the plot in a comic book to explain it. Really though, the thing that drove me nuttiest about that entire plot.. Yes, your planet was just destroyed. You have acquired A FREAKING TIME MACHINE. You could fix it.. but no. You decide that instead of using your new-fangled time travel ability to set things right, you go nuts and decide to set things wronger by going back in time and destroying the planet of the person you thought was responsible... WHICH STILL MEANS YOUR PLANET DIES IN THIS NEW TIMELINE TOO. Seriously. Edit: And nope, already not the same ship as in the teaser trailer. Looks like someone took the 2009 movie version and dressed it up in TOS markings, but we know from the teaser those markings aren't on the nacelles, and they're already shown to be the TMP-onward style of markings. And the ship is still freaking hideous.
  23. Chronocidal
    Well upright, sure, but what if you just let it sag to however far it will go? Will the stand support the overall weight, or just collapse?
  24. Chronocidal
    I'd think there's a pretty good chance these could support something like a VF-11, even with packs. Aside from that though, there aren't really that many other valks to try. VF-22 works decently it seems from those pics, though balancing it might get tricky. For the SV-51s, they came with their own stands, so that's not really necessary, but I think VF-0s are going to be too heavy. The YF-19 might work, but then you're starting to dip into the ones that are really off balance around the stand mount. Now, the question I have.. if you ignore the fact that the pivot on the tip of the stand isn't that strong, are the stands themselves sturdy enough to support heavier valks? The pivot seems to be the weakpoint for all of the heavier valks, but what if you just re-define the problem? Say you just mount the adapters sideways, so the pivot lets you roll the valk instead of pitching it up or down? Or what if you just accept that the pivot can't hold the weight, and let it sag until it hits the maximum travel the adapter will allow? Would the stand support a Fire Valk if you accept that it's just going to have its nose pointed at the sky? If I recall correctly, the actual model adapters that those stands use normally are octagonal, allowing you to mount them at 45 degree increments, kind of like how the SV-51 stands do. That won't work with these adapters, since they go over the outside of the tips, but if the tips are square like I think they are, they should let you attach the adapters sideways. On another note though.. has anyone tried these with stuff in battroid mode yet?
  25. Chronocidal
    You know what they really need? A villain with a motivation that isn't based on events that occurred entirely offscreen. Nero was bad enough, since you only really knew what happened if you read that comic book prequel. Now another guy shows up vowing vengeance for something that we've probably never heard of. Really. If it IS Khan, what's he going off about vengeance for? The Botany Bay wasn't a penal colony ship. Khan used it to escape Earth, looking for a new place to go. Unless in this version they decide that he vows to destroy everything because he's still pissed at being defeated... ugh. I still can't see how this guy could be Khan though. "Khan Noonien Singh" really doesn't sound anything like "blue-eyed, black-hared, pasty-white dude wielding a gatling gun."
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