Chronocidal

I need to stop reading everything about this game. I loved AC4, 5, and 0, and it just hurts not being able to play it. I keep holding out hope that since MS got the license on their system, they'll try a PC version. I'd be willing to fork over quite a bit to play any AC game on a PC with a full joystick/throttle/rudder pedal setup. Probably not likely though PC flight games get raked over the coals if they aren't real enough.. but I'm tired of consoles getting all the fun flight games, while PC's only get rivet-counter sims. There hasn't been a good fun-oriented air combat game on the PC since.. well, I would say X-Wing vs Tie Fighter or Freespace 2, but those are in space. There have been lots of sims with multiplayer, but the majority of them are WWII era. I know Novalogic had a series of multiplayer games with Mig-29s and F-16s, but that was 10 years ago now. I've tried coming up with more reasons to get a 360 than this game, but I just can't justify it yet.. hopefully somewhere along the way, I'll have the spare cash and boredom to get it. Btw, if it's anything like AC0, you should be able to unlock the schemes in free mission mode.

Lol.. you didn't see this one did you? VF-1S Really, that one was ridiculous, and shrinking things down really does help the strength. But as for them coming in kits with a pre-determined way of putting them together, I really have to disagree with you there, but, yep, it is getting off topic. My main concern with Bandai kits was the polycap joints, but it's true, the kits I have seen are much older, so they've probably gotten better. Hopefully they'll give this same treatment to any Macross kits, and they'll have sturdy joints to hold them together. I'm not so worried about internal details, but I guess what it boils down to is that I hope they don't overdo it, and make it overly fragile/complex. Considering the size comparisons, they could probably do a 1/48th Valk easy, with roughly the same amount of material as the average PG Gundam. Bigger would be better in this case, since the plastic is light enough not to get too heavy, and the extra room will make the joints bigger and tougher.

That's a beautiful job, the scheme really fits that plane well. I agree with the idea about the darker parts on the legs, but I'd compare it to the CF SV-51 pics just released.. they would look good dark, but blending them with the camo pattern would work just as well. Only big difference I notice is the overall amount of blue being less on yours, not in the amount of patches, but in the size of them. It'd probably be tough to add more now though, so don't risk it if you like it the way it is.

Just for the sake of argument, there is plenty of detail you can reproduce in a model. The problem comes when you try to make it transform and be detailed at the same time. I ran into this problem when I tried to build my 1/18th VF-1 with Legos. I've seen dozens of giant sized Lego Gundams, and they all work beautifully, but only because they have tons of room for the internals, and they're built like tanks. Gundams have no problem with giant exposed hinges, pivots, and joints. They build a strong internal structure, then cover it with armor that isn't necessary to the structure. A Valk is the other way around. Since it's an aircraft first, the shape is dictated by aerodynamics, and there's very little room to spare. When I got to the point of putting that Lego VF-1 together, the structure just wasn't strong enough to hold it's own weight. There's very little room for extra structure to hold it together, and for the joints to have any hope of keeping the arms on, they took up the entire internal space. This is why 99% of aircraft transformers wind up with huge honking limb structures hanging out in aircraft mode.. there's no room to cram a decent structure into a frame the size of the aircraft. It isn't that bad in smaller scales, but looking at the 1/48 VF-1 should explain why you're not going to find much special internal stuff like the Gundams. A Valk can't have an internal skeleton in the normal sense, since things have to transform, and move around a lot. The arms contain the hands.. that's realistic, you could detail up the internals of the arms if you wanted, but now you're talking hydraulic pistons that are probably millimeters in diameter each, and they have to function, or the hands won't have room to retract. The legs on a Valk are solid engine, and there's no way you're going to get an engine modeled inside the legs and still have room for any type of knee, hip, or foot joint that'll support the leg. Forget any type of landing gear as well. The only reason the main gear on the 1/48 VF-1 work is because they fold directly into where the engine would be. Try reproducing the complex twisting hydraulic mechanism those gear would require in real life to fold flat underneath the engine, and they'd snap like twigs in that scale. It all becomes a trade off between detail and strength. Make it too detailed, you won't be able to breathe on it without parts falling off. Make it strong, and you get a Chunky Monkey. Yamato so far has hit the happy medium, keeping the functionality and detail very balanced. But those are toys. Change that to a model built for detail first, durability second, and you upset that balance. Just ask any person who's customized a Hasegawa Valk to transform, and find out how sturdy they are. Joints become a big issue as well, and are one reason I really prefer transforming toys to models. For instance, the 1/48th's joints are ratcheted. Gundam joints are primarily friction based. Ratcheted joints take up lots of space, and have metal parts (springs, gears, etc). They also last a very long time due to that durability. On the other hand, my younger brother has a 1/60th Wing Zero that can't even hold his gun up. Polycaps wear down, as will any friction-joint. Posability is one thing, but when you're talking about joints that hold a plane together, polycaps aren't going to cut it. Transform it one too many times, and your VF-25's nose is going to look like an elephant. Oy.. sorry for the essay, didn't realize how much I'd typed until I re-read it.

Maybe, but I'm going to wait for references before I try anything more serious with this design. Really, it's only the upper half of the plane with intakes added, and it's really low detail. Only took about an hour to make, after all. Besides, I don't want to derail this any further than I already did, anything else will be in the fan works section. For landing gear, they could pop out the sides of the legs for a change, where the YF-19 had it's missile bays. They might even fit underneath the wing roots in this design. There should be plenty of room either way. Besides, the shots we've seen have all be so fast, it'd be tough to pick out the edges of gear doors. That reminds me though, did we ever see the VF-17 use landing gear, or was it always launched from that glowy-pokey-tripod-like thing? It's probably safe to assume they had them, but I don't remember where they were mounted.

I think if they're going to have Megaroad 1 pop up again, it won't be just for a cameo. My guess would be more along the lines of what happened to the Macross 5, or the group that found the protodevlin. Hopefully not catastrophic, so there are survivors, but finding Hikaru and Misa as old grandparents on some distant colony would be just too easy. I've got it.. the Megaroad 1 ran into some sort of crazy plague or something that mutates genetic code, and the bugs they're fighting are the former crew of Megaroad 1! Actually that sounds too much like Star Trek. Really, what I'm half expecting at some point is for someone to discover that there is more to the Protoculture than just super intelligent beings spreading genetic code around.. really, the way humans are traveling all over spreading their race, and spreading culture, they're starting to sound an awful lot like the Protoculture themselves, just without the genetic manipulation.. at least, so far. Go far enough in the future, and similar events might happen again... shoot, you play around with space and time enough, and humans might be the Protoculture to begin with. :?

Probably not that much, judging by this auction.. Ebay Link It's possible he has a reserve on it though.

I think in one way the green beam could be similar to the little waves of energy shown radiating out from the compressor wheels in the first VF-0 sequence.. looks kinda cool, gives the impression of some sort of crazy power level.. but never going to happen. It probably indicates some sort of connection being made between systems.. though how it's arcing in pure vacuum I don't know. In the meantime, I couldn't wait. (note to self: don't mix boredom, insanity, and copious amounts of sugar again) Anyone have ideas of how long it'll take any plan views or line art of these new planes to circulate? (btw, if this doesn't belong in here, I can take it out. just figured insanity is better when shared. I might try transforming it as more pics come out.) Edit: lol.. just noticed why the hips looked funny still in that gif. Someone goofed in the animation, and two of the lower torso sections actually pass right through each other during the transformation. >_<

Judging by the amount of stuff that looks like it's added, and assuming the armored one is a base white color like the fighter mode pic (just with yellow/black Roy-ish markings), there's a lot more stuff tacked onto the armored one ... The armor color looks similar to old TV fast pack green-ish grey, and there are bits of it all over, around the hips, shoulders (shoulders, not so sure, they're the same shape/size as the regular battroid, but not white like the nose cone), especially over the front of the chest. The head even looks like it's got an extra armor layer over it in a helmet shape around the visor. I seriously doubt that much stuff would still allow it to transform. Looks like there's also an added layer of armor over the arm shield. Speaking of transformation though, one thing about this design really bugs me, and it's very visible in that animated gif on the last page.. how do the hips even connect? I've never seen any Valk pull off such a bow-legged pose before. I know they've always kept intakes on the VFs, but by the looks of it, this thing's hip joint would have to be smack dab in the middle of the compressor blades. Edit: K, it took reformatting the animation to 20 sec/frame before I could see it.. but it looks like the hip joint might actually mounted on top of the intake, allowing the hip to pivot outwards, and the tips of the intakes actually can pivot behind a portion of the lower torso. Nice change posability-wise, but structurally that might be tough to pull off for a toy/model. The more I watch this thing, the more it reminds me of the YF-19 transformation, with the shoulders/upper torso moving up and over as the forward fuselag folds to shorten. They just had to add more folds on this one for the longer fuselage to work.

Meh. I could care less how it transforms, I just want that fighter. Actually, that worries me a bit as well.. if Bandai gets the license, I'm guessing that would keep Hasegawa from making kits... which would probably mean that we'd get no dedicated aircraft models. I'd probably still buy a transforming kit, but I don't like the thought of not having a solid aircraft mode around for display purposes... instead it might wind up being one that could lose joint tension, and start falling out of shape like the gundam kits tend to after a long time. You could glue the thing together, sure.. but then you wasted half the cost of the kit in extra parts. I'll just have to hope they put a decent effort in.. and maybe hope that they can badger HG into letting it into the US. Edit: btw, just had another look at the first trailer. Assuming that they're color coordinating, and the blue-haired guy (very tempting to call him Blair btw) is flying the blue striped VF-25, I'm a little relieved that it appears he has no qualms about blowing stuff up.

Actually, the belly plates on the -22 are a little different as well, they hold the gunpods internally (you can see that a little on the model pics above). What I find a little odd is that even though Bandai has the M7 license, they never attempted a VF-22.. probably too complex compared with the others, but still a little surprising. For now, I'll just hope that the VF-22 appears in Macross Frontier somehow, and Yamato uses that to make a ton of em. Anyone for an Angel Birds scheme? Edit: Hmm.. never noticed it before, but looks like that Black Clouds Hasegawa mod has the sliding canopy area to shorten the nose like the Yamato one. Wonder if they based the transformation roughly on that one?

Hmm.. VF-25 I'm loving a lot, takes a lot of the best features from several Valks so far. Transformation really reminds me of the SV-51, with the multi-bend fuselage, and the way the wings stay on the shoulders. Wonder if the new license will let Yamato finally make a VF-17 (sort of)?

Definitely looks like the gear are in the wings, but I can't wait to see how that'll work. Hopefully there's enough room for a sturdy landing gear. The nose gear is animated in the commercial, and it's beautiful though. I'd guess the intake covers are separate, it looks like you can see little notches in the intake area where they'll snap in. I could care less about that personally though. I hope they make more than one version though.. I could probably stand not having the YF-21 if they put out M&M VF-22s.

I think I just wet myself. O_O That thing looks beautiful, the fighter mode is so close to the Hasegawa kit, I thought I was seeing things. Ooooh, I can't wait till I graduate and get a job...

While I am drooling over this thing massively, I do have one little nitpick... I think the curved cut out areas on the underside of the main guns (the part that sits next to the "head" once transformed) looks just a little too smooth/soft around the edges, compared with the rest of the ship. While it looks great in distance shots, up close that spot just looks a lot less sharply defined than most of the ship, which has very fine detail. Dunno if you intended it that way though, it's beautifully smooth. Oh, and your SDF-1 texture is backwards on the starboard side.

Like this one?

I don't have a DYRL version to compare with, but those lines are on the TV 1J, both front and back of the upper arm segments.

Actually, from a marketing standpoint, I think it makes sense. The Hikaru 1J was (I think) the first pure TV release they had, unless the Max/Miria ones were first. M&M used them in the series, so they work, but they had custom colors on their FPs. So, in order to get out a set of TV colored standard FPs, they tacked them on to the new Hikaru 1J and marketed it for the series, rather than DYRL (TV hands/pilot included). Sure, they could have made a new TV edition Skull 1, but it would've hardly been different from Roy's, and may not have sold as well as the new 1J, which is pretty much a series icon. Sales-wise, a new VF-1J with unique fast packs is better off than an older VF-1S with unique fast packs. It also set up the Hikaru 1J as the only way to get a set of plain TV fast packs, driving up value. Besides, a separate TV FP set would contain less stuff (unless they replaced the beam cannon with extra TV hands), and probably not sell as well as the DYRL FP set. So really, the Hikaru 1J FPs should go on a Skull 1S... it just made better business sense to include them with another Valk.

K, can anyone tell me the difference between the two VF-0D models there? I might be the angle of the photo, but the camo one looks stubby for some reason.. can't really tell though. The only change I can tell for certain is that the little spike things on top of the legs are much bigger on the camo one. Is that a different model than the Hasegawa kit?

Yep, the control surfaces are nearly identical.. flap system is a little different, and no stabilators, but the wings are very similar. I'd say for a rough estimate, the wings might sweep back between 0.5 and 1.2 mach (F-14 I think is between 0.5 and 0.85 or so, but the VF-1's wings go further back), and they shouldn't sweep ALL the way back... at full sweep, there's almost no wing surface. Maybe just stop them once the leading edge matches the angle of the wing glove area like the F-14. Any more would be like the oversweep storage setting on the F-14. Spoilers, maybe cut them out at half sweep (you don't use them with the wings swept since they cause too much yawing force at those angles). With the thrust vectoring, and power this thing has (dunno thrust ratings, but sheesh they're nuclear engines after all), it would probably maneuver like an F-16, with a top speed of maybe mach 3, more likely mach 2.5 or so. If you really want it to maneuver well, and possibly in space, you could also give it thrusters, or "puffers" in PlaneMaker, sort of a beefed up version of the hovering directional system in the Harrier. I worked with X-Plane for a while, and while interesting in the area of design flexibility, I really was never impressed by the graphics (texture mapping blows chunks), or the lousy interface. If they've gotten much better, I may have to rethink that, but I don't need another game to work on.

Well, I'll put it this way.. I haven't hit the polygon limit yet in FSX. Course, I haven't been experimenting much lately, but I did get a 90k poly model running beautifully (no textures though). I can't actually sell anything like this, due to copyright junk, but I'll gladly put it up for free download.. whenever it gets finished that is. :?

Hey, sorry it doesn't appear to be up yet, I don't quite know what happened. I mailed the file off to someone who offered to host it, then headed home for Christmas, and didn't get to check back till now. I would try sending it to someone now, but I'm on a 28k modem at the moment. It might be another week before I can do anything about it. But I can give you a preview of the new one I'm working on for FSX

Oy. Megabloks. >___< I've personally never been a fan of "specialized" pieces, ones made to fill a specific need... like the Star Wars laser gun pieces they introduced, or any number of other things (Most of the SW Legos I've bought were never assembled, and the parts went to building my own set of SW ships in Technic's scale ) But Megabloks is infinitely worse. They just model outright whole sections of vehicles, giving you a piece that'll be nigh unusable on anything else. But for that price, these things are pathetic. Normally, MB sets are huge bargains comparitively to Legos.. Legos seem to tend toward 10 cents per piece on average, while MB tend to offer a much lower price... but the quality shows the difference. Now, this is a lego mech. The design is a custom, but it's completely self supported, geared, balanced, etc. Not to mention it's ginormous. What it would cost to produce, I don't even want to know. The real challenge for Lego mechs is the support system they need to stand up (when you build them big anyway). Which is what makes a large scale Lego transformer incredibly hard...still got a transforming 1/18th VF-1S up in my closet with no legs.. been sitting there for 3 years now, while I try to find a joint system strong enough for the hips/knees, and find a way to reduce the weight of the main body while keeping it looking decent.

K, sending now, should be up soon. Lemme know if there's any problems.. hopefully there won't be, I just ran a test with each model, and they all looked ok, but there always seems to be something to fix.

K, I apologize it's taken me this long to get this out, I've just had to push everything aside lately for classwork. The plane isn't quite done in my opinion, there's still more I'd like to do, but I don't have the time to learn how to do it right. I've got the basic plane done, with an extremely basic 3d cockpit, a stock instrument panel for the 2d view, and seven paintschemes, with no fancy effects or anything. It might even run in FSX, but it's meant for FS2004. Hopefully people will add in what's missing, since I don't have time to. Of course, now that FSX is out, I'm already rebuilding it from the ground up with about 4x as many polygons, and tons more detail. Dunno when it'll be done, but the model exterior is just about done, and is extremely smooth. It's kind of a learning project to teach myself the details of FSX modeling. I'll see about compiling all the files for my CFS3 YF-19 as well later. Blatant overkill in a WWII environment, but it's amusing to blow away every enemy in Europe in one strike mission. Now, is there somewhere I can stick a 10 mb rar file so people here can download it?