VF-25S Full Armour

Well, Mace Windu died, and he's one badass hero. Impact enough for you? Hero death, when overused and abused, gets one sick to the stomach, but with none of the drama that's supposed to be conveyed as one simply gets desensitized and anticipative.

My thoughts too. I'm a practical person and value function and durability over looks alone, but compromises so painfully obvious and severe, even when not absolutely necessary, was what put me off ordering these. I'm willing spend just under 200 AUD on them and frankly I now know I'm not going to get my money's worth.

I was REALLY excited about the VF-25S Ozma version and was really eager to pre-order it, until I figured out the for the crazy prices they're commanding these days (almost 200 AUD!!!) they're simply not worth the serious compromises they make. If it wasn't for the fugly hip joint placement, I would have still bought it anyway since frankly, gerwalk and fighter doesn't look that bad at all despite of mismatches with lineart. A guy like me buys relatively few toys, but when I do I am willing to pay the required price as long as the matching quality is there. I'm not expecting absolute lineart accuracy, but I do expect it to look so close to line art (i.e. gets all the basic proportions and features correct) that you'll actually need to be a stickler for detail to notice the difference. I'm happy to pay just under 250 AUD for a VF-25S 1/60 that I deem good enough, but I'm VERY serious about the good enough part. And of course, diecast (or a material of equivalent strength and durability) is a must for all major load bearing parts.

ROFL Totally agree with that too. Though VF-25F Alto custom model replacements might be good for Bilrer's business (might also explain why he's so fond of him...), blowing so many custom built machines in such a short while definitely hits a nerve with the poor folks in charge of building them. Just another day in the SMS office: "Just blew another one, damn Alto, how many times do I have to tell him VFs do NOT grow on trees!!!!! Another all nighter, and honey's already screaming her head off about our abysmal marriage....."

It seems that I am one of the people here who has some serious and genuine dreams of his own and fully comprehends how it is like to be oppressed and generally hated just because I am who I am and love what I love no matter what those around me try to force on me. I really identify with Alto in a deep level, accept of course for his denseness when it comes to women. It is easy to say he was running away from his family imposed "destiny" and all that nonsense when one has no dreams like he does. He loves to fly and that's who he is and always will be. His family background of course makes him a very competent actor, but that is more training than anything else. It is no wonder he misses his mother so much, since she must have been the only person in the family that fully understood and appreciated his dream of boundless flight. All this reminds me of why I'll always love Macross as long as it stays true to what it is. To pursue and live one's dreams as hard as one possibly can, to love and to cherish.

True. A lot of what we see in macross still seems magical to our current science, and let's just say there are occasions where believability is stretched to near breaking point for me. But as the saying goes, the magic of today is the science of tomorrow. Back in the earlier 20th century, when Albert Einstein created his theory of relativity based on his postulate that light appears to be moving at the same speed no matter what frame of reference you're in, he figured that since speed of light = c must be constant, time must contort to make sense of the universe. He was supposed to get 2 instead of just 1 Nobel prizes (he got one for explaining the quantized nature of photons) but at the time, the idea of fluid time was just too incredible. All this inability to accept a fundamental fact of the universe was due to the unspoken belief in classical Newtonian mechanics that time is absolute and the same for a ll frames of reference. These days, fast moving objects such as orbiting satellites prove time and time again with their atomic clocks that the following: Tperceived = Tonboard / (1 - (v/c)^2)^0.5 is very valid in our universe. Basically, the fast moving object is travelling into the future, since its time passes more sloly than ours whilst it is traveling. I'm not saying that the "science" in macross is all valid, its just to remind ourselves that our understanding of the universe is still very limited and we should keep our eyes and minds open. edit:typo

ROFLMAO!!!!!! Seems that shipper creativity knows no bounds...

Macross Frontier Movie Edition scene no.47: Klan-Klan meets the cyberized Michael, now working for Darth Grace Darth Michael: "Klan-Klan, you never knew what happened to your lover. I AM YOUR LOVER!" Klan-Klan: "That's not true, that's impossible! NOOOOO!!!!!!!!" Klan-Klan's Zentradi instincts kicked in, lunging towards what remains of her former loved one with her PPB saber...

That's why I made my post about the overall greatness of the episode despite of my slight disappointment that a lot of stuff still remains unanswered. What makes macross so enjoyable is the fact that things do get revealed over time, but for every revelation spawns new and fascinating mysteries. It's just like studying the universe in real life, where for every mystery you resolve you discover even deeper and more exciting fundamental mysteries. Hope for the future this is, and a guarantee that macross will remain relevant and timeless. And let's just say I'm annoyed anytime someone starts obsessing over some supposed triangle resolution. The sad reality is that monogamy runs on the basis of evil, not good, since it exists to satisfy jealousy and possessiveness, nothing more, nothing less. End of the day, it's how much people love and care for each other that counts, not some perverse ideal that has somehow entrenched itself so deeply in modern society.

Watched the raw and frankly it was exactly as I expected. Still quite a few questions unanswered, but there was no shortage of mecha action, none of which seemed out of place. Rushed as hell too. Frankly, I am slightly disappointed in the sense that it wasn't enough closure, until I figured that a Macross movie will show up in the near future anyway to answer some questions and perhaps open new mysteries too. Hope for the future, the one thing that's really important to the Macross Universe and one of the many reasons why I liked Macross since SDFM. Grace's (at least her current body's) end was really fitting. There's a price to pay for dissing the (late) ultimate womanizer of the series. You naughty bitch, adding salt to his unhealed wounds. Alto shooting her with Michael's gun was his greatest act of honor for his late friend and comrade, whose motto with both enemy targets and women was: "ONE SHOT, ONE KILL."

That just answered a large part of your question VFTF1. And you also answered the other part of the question yourself too.

Maneuverability in space has nothing to do with just wingspan alone, besides the fact that bigger wingspan does move the mass distribution away from the COG a bit and cause a relatively slight increase in inertia. But practically, most of its mass is still at the fuselage i.e. close to COG, so that's not much of an issue. Also do remember that having verniers at the tips of your wings does lead to insane roll rates both atmospherically and in space. In space, all that aero is of course useless, but it's a different story when fluid dynamics come to play. Yes, with the sheer power and number of verniers in all the right places, zentradi suits can obviously work in the atmosphere. And do remember that zentradi are predominantly space faring, so atmospheric performance isn't exactly their chief concern. If it wasn't from the sheer power of their vertical thrusters, keeping those ships flying well in the atmosphere will be an absolute pain. Not to mention that it'll never be as efficient and as high performance as a well designed winged aircraft. Try to chase a VF-1S in fighter mode running away with a Glaug and you'll get the picture. In space, it's all about mass, mass distribution and thrust magnitude + vector. Whilst in the atmosphere, a non-lifting shape will always be less efficient and rely more on the magnitude, vectoring and control of power than anything else, assuming that the machine could actually take the immense aero induced stresses involved. edit: silly mistype

The problem is, well, its that it's the SHORTEST TV Macross series ever, and many episodes were spent fooling around, which would have been OK if it were longer. Note: NOT counting plus and zero.

If that happens, I'm fine with it. But that also serves as practically a 2nd season for Macross Frontier, which for who knows what reason some here seem to be phobic to. If a series is good and has a lot more stories to tell, why end it?

Oh yeah, another zero style finish. How predictable. It's disappointing that such lazy storytelling has now become the norm in macross. Killing off Michael just like THAT for the sake of drama was silly enough (sheer character wastage), and now a going nowhere zero style ending has become the norm. If this goes down, the last words the writers will hear from me are: "You have disappointed me for the last time."

If we somehow end up with an hour long surprise, then maybe most major questions will be reasonably well answered. But with the usual 25 minute episode, I say there is an over 95% probability that major questions like the origin of NUNs, a reasonably detailed history of what REALLY happened in the 117th fleet incident, etc.

Hope so. Otherwise, it's going be one crazy 25 minute cram fest, and it won't look too pretty. Unless they simply leave some main questions unanswered and large gaping holes gaping forever.

VF-27. The current peak of Variable Fighter technology. Unmatched combat effectiveness. Unparalleled firepower. No gun short of an MDE slug thrower could possibly rival its quantum beam cannon. Speed and g pulling capability so high only well designed and built androids or cyborgs could pilot it. VF-27. There is no substitute.

One could only wonder at the moment as to how it would be like if the SV-51 ended up with thermonuclear engines and fighting in space just like the VF-1. It is quite possible that if such were the case it could have ended up as the superior machine in some ways. Let's just look at armament. The VF-1 has one 55mm gun pod and a number of lasers on its head, plus some multi-missle packs. The SV-51 had all that too, but up close it would have been much more prickly to a zentradi warrior then the relatively simplistically armed VF-1. With all those smaller but still somewhat dangerous to zentradi at close range machine guns over some key locations on its body, it would be extremely annoying to an armored zentradi infantry up close and possibly fatal to one with compromised or nonexistent armor (or shot in some delicate and unarmored part). The zents may be huge, but their flesh is still far from bullet proof. A prickly machine the SV-51 is. If anything, the SV-51 was a more mature design given the technology they had at the time.

For comparison, an F-22 has a T/W ratio of 1.09 at full fuel load. With such insane power, the VF-27 can literally tow a fully loaded 747 in fighter mode and still outrun AND out accelerate the supposedly best air superiority fighter humanity currently has at the moment. Power, UNLIMITED POWER!!!!!!

All very good points and I also considered those possibilities, but to be bluntly honest I couldn't resist.

Following this possibility, it is possible that Grace and Galaxy will eventually stumbled on the Protodevlin or something unknown even to them (along these lines) in episode 25 and end this series with an even bigger problem? Baring that, and if Grace somehow succeeds with her fold implant plan... "WE ARE GRACE. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. WE WILL ADD YOUR BIOLOGICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN. YOUR CULTURE WILL ADAPT TO SERVICE US. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE."

Based on what I've seen, I must say that I agree with you 100% on this. This is in fact, at its core, no different from the clone wars in Star Wars, where both sides (Republic and Separatist) were manipulated into a war to pave the way for the Emperor Palpatine. Yes, I've been aware of what 0 lag communications implant network does and aims to achieve since the last episode, when Grace was arguing with Ranshe. This is in fact no different from what RFID and internal comm implants (both of which are already technically possible today) can potentially achieve as their capabilities evolved. Both Frontier and Vajra, unwittingly led into paving the way for Grace's new empire. EMPRESS GRACE O' CONNOR. She shall rule the world with her fold quartz fist. Join the Grace side, or you will all pay with your lack of vision! HAHAHAHAHA!!!! (Maniacal Grace laughter)

Sad to say, but the terrible and honest truth is that so called higher education remains a sick joke/game to this day. This applies best to engineering in general, though of course some are worse than others.

Speaking of which, I also see absolutely no physical laws that would stop the battroid mode from working as well as it did in Macross as long as there is sufficient thrust coming from all the right places and pointed at the right directions on the VF-1's body. For crying out loud, we've already had fully functional jet packs for decades, and they happen to be fully controllable devices. Just check a classic James Bond Movie (unfortunately I can't remember which one now) and you could see an actual jet pack in action. The only real limitation of those devices was their short range. With Overtechnology enhanced versions of working fusion generators (ITER is already a working progress), power and range will no longer be an issue. Incidentally, the success of nuclear fusion isn't just a prerequisite to making machines as amazing as the VFs possible, but also the only long term solution for long term energy production in general. And any greeny asshats that will do anything to destroy anything nuclear, well, just remember that if it weren't for the biggest and most powerful fusion generator in our solar system, life on the earth's surface would never be half as plentiful as it is now. Note: I am an environmentalist myself and I genuinely care about the environment, which includes everything INCLUDING people. I simply can't stand hypocrites that are good for nothing more than whining and standing in the way of hope for a better future for all human kind .