sdf-1 length allocation

[jasgripen]

Any idea on what length is the sdf-1's main cannon? the macross is 1.2km in length so I was wondering on how much is allocated to macross city including un spacy hq?

[Morpheus]

Any idea on what length is the sdf-1's main cannon? the macross is 1.2km in length so I was wondering on how much is allocated to macross city including un spacy hq?

Hmm, 1/3 main cannon assembly, 1/3 midship-command center, 1/3 engine block?

[SchizophrenicMC]

Any idea on what length is the sdf-1's main cannon? the macross is 1.2km in length so I was wondering on how much is allocated to macross city including un spacy hq?

Well, the city in SDFM TV was in the leg....

[Morpheus]

Well, the city in SDFM TV was in the leg....

Thank god Misa invented Daedalus Punch instead of Macross Kick....

[Master Dex]

Why would you build a city in the leg? The Leg is supposed to be a giant engine isn't it.. I figured the engine block was closer to the leg than the middle or anything. I just assumed the city was somewhere in the middle. That also makes me thing.. that city must have had some good leak protection for all those times the SDF-1 was submerged in the ocean after its return to Earth, considering the leg was completely underwater.

[SchizophrenicMC]

Why would you build a city in the leg? The Leg is supposed to be a giant engine isn't it.. I figured the engine block was closer to the leg than the middle or anything. I just assumed the city was somewhere in the middle. That also makes me thing.. that city must have had some good leak protection for all those times the SDF-1 was submerged in the ocean after its return to Earth, considering the leg was completely underwater.

Engine block, amazingly, only takes up a small portion of the leg...

Also, considering it's a deep space cruiser, one would hope that it's airtight, therefore watertight...

What I don't get is the stuff staying upright on earth. It's buit with everything on the inside of the front of the leg. Therefore, on Earth, buildings and such would be jutting out sideways. Can you say DYRL?

[Mr March]

Going from the side schematic of the SDF-1, the main gun is 49% of the total length of the ship. If the ship is 1,210 meters, that's roughly 603 meters of main gun. The civilian city sections appear to be placed in the aft section/legs of the SDF-1. The legs (not including knees) are roughly 28% of the ship's length, resulting in approx 342 meters of ship (minus the engine machinery).

What I don't get is the stuff staying upright on earth. It's buit with everything on the inside of the front of the leg. Therefore, on Earth, buildings and such would be jutting out sideways. Can you say DYRL?

The technology is gravity control so I would assume it controls gravity no matter where the ship may be. The system is localized within the ship (and possibly along the hull?), so I don't see any reason why they couldn't land on a planet upside down if they wanted, so long as the gravity system was functioning.

[Master Dex]

You got a point their Schizo, I didn't think about it needing to be airtight for space... that is a rare miss for me.

Good thought on the gravity control March, always thinking every angle (literally).

[anime52k8]

Going from the side schematic of the SDF-1, the main gun is 49% of the total length of the ship. If the ship is 1,210 meters, that's roughly 603 meters of main gun. The civilian city sections appear to be placed in the aft section/legs of the SDF-1. The legs (not including knees) are roughly 28% of the ship's length, resulting in approx 342 meters of ship (minus the engine machinery).

The technology is gravity control so I would assume it controls gravity no matter where the ship may be. The system is localized within the ship (and possibly along the hull?), so I don't see any reason why they couldn't land on a planet upside down if they wanted, so long as the gravity system was functioning.

wouldn't you still experience gravity from the planet though though? you'd be accelerating towards the ground and two the side. also if you had a failure of the gravity control system, or had to turn it off for maintenance, that would be a problem. by the way, I wonder what it would be like going from one part of the ship to another when they have different orientations of down.

[SchizophrenicMC]

Going from the side schematic of the SDF-1, the main gun is 49% of the total length of the ship. If the ship is 1,210 meters, that's roughly 603 meters of main gun. The civilian city sections appear to be placed in the aft section/legs of the SDF-1. The legs (not including knees) are roughly 28% of the ship's length, resulting in approx 342 meters of ship (minus the engine machinery).

The technology is gravity control so I would assume it controls gravity no matter where the ship may be. The system is localized within the ship (and possibly along the hull?), so I don't see any reason why they couldn't land on a planet upside down if they wanted, so long as the gravity system was functioning.

Well, I take a visual clue from the launches from the Prometheus: The fighters go down after launch. This tells me that it runs in BUBBLES of gravity. So, in essence, a set of bubbles of gravity control are wrapped around the ship, and the reasoning behind catapults is to push the fighters away from the ship fast enough to clear it before being sent through a gravitational loop, thus killing the pilot when his plane smacks the side of the Macross...

However, I don't think they counteract gravity, just add it. In essence, you'd be firmly anchored to the "floor", while being pulled "Down" by Earth's gravity. My advice: Stand at 45 degree angles!

Also, the Macross landed on Mars in ship mode and got caught by gravity mines.

[Mr March]

To my mind, gravity control means gravity control. The technology basically sounds like manipulation of gravity in an area affected by the gravity control generators, which are typically placed aboard a ship. It doesn't mean addition or negation of gravity; it means "control". But since we can't get more specific than the name, it takes some faith on the part of the audience to accept that it works. In either case, it makes perfect sense to me that the gravity control system can function inside a gravity well. If the gravity system can keep everyone aboard the SDF-1 safely upright while the ship is accelerating or maneuvering in space (especially all the crew aboard the Daedalus when it's doing it's anti-warship right hook), I see no reason why the gravity control can't function planet-side.

Edited February 2, 2009 by Mr March

[RedWolf]

Well yeah when I first saw Macross II I figured UN Spacy got rid of the city sections for a new heavy energy cannons.

Makes me wonder if the city is still there in the regular Macross universe.

The Macross may be the centre of Macross City but having a place to sleep, wine and dine, and shop in it would be good.

[SchizophrenicMC]

To my mind, gravity control means gravity control. The technology basically sounds like manipulation of gravity in an area affected by the gravity control generators, which are typically placed aboard a ship. It doesn't mean addition or negation of gravity; it means "control". But since we can't get more specific than the name, it takes some faith on the part of the audience to accept that it works. In either case, it makes perfect sense to me that the gravity control system can function inside a gravity well. If the gravity system can keep everyone aboard the SDF-1 safely upright while the ship is accelerating or maneuvering in space (especially all the crew aboard the Daedalus when it's doing it's anti-warship right hook), I see no reason why the gravity control can't function planet-side.

Considering that in space, there's miniscule gravity to begin with, what little there is is background noise, anyway. However, on Earth, there's substantially more gravity. So, the system would at least be stressed 1000 or so times as much as in microgravity. That's the minimum. Control is not infinite, as we see. Earth's gravity remains such that the SDF-1 is anchored down, non? There's no better proof than Mac+ ep 4 as it splashes down, or even when mad scientist jumps. if the gravity control were so controlling, logic dictates that he wouldn't have fallen, rather he would have been pulled toward the ship as residual gravity acted upon his body. It didn't.

[Fade Rathnik]

Well the gravity control would also have to counteract the forces of acceleration. Considering the speed at witch the Macross can move. Think about the ending of Frontier when M Frontier sucker punched M Galaxy. Imagine being a crewman inside that arm, there would have to be some type of pocket of controlled gravity.

Besides it's already cannon that they can do complex gravitational fields while in a gravity well just watch DYRL, after Hikaru and Misa get picked up

[eugimon]

Gravity control is one of those things that just doesn't make sense at all if you try to use a real world understanding of gravity, since it's a function of mass and not some sort of energy field. If the Macross (or whatever ship) were generating a "gravity field" it should be impossible to use that technology anywhere near a planet. If the moon can exert such tremendous influence on the Earth with its weak gravity, imagine what another "earth" would do if suddenly showed up in the upper atmosphere?

So either artificial gravity is just that, some sort of energy field that exerts properties similar to that of gravity but not gravity or with artificial gravity comes a way to limit the extent of the gravity well and it's effects. Or, gravity in universes such as in the one that Macross takes place is simply completely different from what we call gravity.

[blobness]

If I remember correctley, after that first, somewhat disasterous transformation, they rebuilt macross city to somehow orient itself with the ship depending on the mode. Well, I think that was how it worked. I distinctley remember tiers...

[sketchley]

also if you had a failure of the gravity control system, or had to turn it off for maintenance, that would be a problem. by the way, I wonder what it would be like going from one part of the ship to another when they have different orientations of down.

Just that thing (failure of the system over a moon of Saturn) happens during the opening combat of DYRL.

They must have overcome the problem of different orientations, as both the DYRL SDF-1 and the Megaroad-01 have at least 3 different orientations of down! (If one includes the fighters being launched in DYRL, it becomes 4!)

[Mr March]

The gravity generators obviously functioned well enough (prior to the accident) to lift the SDF-1 Macross off the surface of the Earth and later vessels like the Megaroad in FB2012 and the New Macross Class in Macross 7 are shown doing the same without incident. How any of these events somehow implies that a Macross-style gravity control system couldn't function inside a gravity well is beyond me. In fact, gravity control systems are obviously specifically designed to function on a planet surface, otherwise the spaceships in Macross couldn't function anywhere near a planet. Hell, the Zentradi even used gravity mines to prevent the SDF-1 Macross from lifting off the surface of Mars.

Maintaining certain active gravity zones inside the SDF-1 during an "upright" landing on Earth seems like trivial feat in comparison to the capabilities displayed by the gravity systems in the various Macross shows.

[Killer Robot]

Also, considering it's a deep space cruiser, one would hope that it's airtight, therefore watertight...

That's another one of those tricky parts: airtight is a lot easier than watertight, if you plan on going far under water. That's why in the real world submarines have much thicker hulls than spacecraft. If 300 meters of leg are under water, the hull near the bottom is going to be under 30 atmospheres of pressure, as opposed to 1 atmosphere in space: that's something nearing 500 pounds per square inch. Further, on initial landing the Macross was briefly fully submersed and upright: that would be considerably more pressure still.

Not saying it's unreasonable to have a supertech battleship like that survive such treatment, especially in a show with ten meter humanoids and fighter planes that transform into robots: more saying that the Macross holding water out when standing in the ocean is a much more demanding feat than just holding water in when floating in space.

As for gravity, in the real world it is by one explanation an energy field that is a function of mass and carried by gravitons, in the same way that electromagnetic fields are a function of charge and carried by photons. The difference is, in the real world there is no known way to block that field, or to generate it without simply having a large amount of mass. Obviously, the Macross universe has a way.

[Beltane70]

In the case of the Macross being water-tight, I would assume that the OTEC materials make the ship far more pressure resistant than any modern submarine.

[anime52k8]

If I remember correctley, after that first, somewhat disasterous transformation, they rebuilt macross city to somehow orient itself with the ship depending on the mode. Well, I think that was how it worked. I distinctley remember tiers...

I remember that big sections of the city could move around and change elevation, and I was never sure if they were rotating to change orientation, or if they are moving because they are located in section of the ship that are changing position.

while the gravity control system would be perfectly capable of maintaining the orientation, I think it would make more sence to have the city re-oriented to be in line with earths gravity so that they don't have to keep the gravity system running all the time. that way if they have to take things off line for maintenance or what ever they don't end up having cars and crap falling down a street for several blocks and nailing the sides of buildings.

here's another thought: this is the city within the leg of the SDF-1 (DYRL? version)

so the city itself is only 350 meters or so long, and (generously) 150 meters wide so that's 52,500 square meters. if that's all there is to the city and there really is 58,000 people on the ship you've got a population density of about 1.1 million people per square kilometer (that's a little less than 1 meter per person)

I figure that the city is built in layers and there may even bee another section in the other leg (I totally don't remember if that's a possibility or not).

The drawing makes it look like the city has maybe 2 layers, but even with that and a city section in each leg that's still around 276,000 people per square kilometer at the start of the war, (the largest population density I can find is Dhaka, Bangladesh at around 43,000 people/km2)

that sounds way more cramped than it ever was in the show.

[RedWolf]

Well at least its not as cramped as the Galactica.

They had at least as many survivors but they're slowly dying out.

Global managed to save most of his civilians not only to repopulate Earth but migrate to space.

[Retracting Head Ter Ter]

I said it many times here. Given a 1.2km long ship, and the visuals we have in DYRL and the TV series of nice big parks and streets and stadiums and military bases etc etc, there is a serious distortion of inter-spatial perception going on.

I always wondered why. With the attention to detail on the proper proportions (compared to say mighty morphing transformers) for the Valks, it is surprising that the creators let this one go.

[RedWolf]

I said it many times here. Given a 1.2km long ship, and the visuals we have in DYRL and the TV series of nice big parks and streets and stadiums and military bases etc etc, there is a serious distortion of inter-spatial perception going on.

I always wondered why. With the attention to detail on the proper proportions (compared to say mighty morphing transformers) for the Valks, it is surprising that the creators let this one go.

Well hologram tech helped making it look more open but notice in the earlier episodes that the city is layered.

While we are talking about the length we have to take account the height and the width.

[jasgripen]

that's a nice schematic you got there and i got to agree that there is serious distortion in the city however, i thought that the city located in the legs was connected to another portion in the torso? is the torso all UN HQ or another possible extension of parks and residential areas?

Why do they have cars in the first place if they were only gonna run for 300 meters back and forth the city...

[RedWolf]

Guess you guys are plain dwellers.

Think of Macross City as a highland town. There are steps above and below.

Notice other places are more elevated ground.

This was shown in the episode of initial transformation.

[edwin3060]

I said it many times here. Given a 1.2km long ship, and the visuals we have in DYRL and the TV series of nice big parks and streets and stadiums and military bases etc etc, there is a serious distortion of inter-spatial perception going on.

I always wondered why. With the attention to detail on the proper proportions (compared to say mighty morphing transformers) for the Valks, it is surprising that the creators let this one go.

They didn't call it a Super Dimensional Fortress for nothing!

[Bri]

In episode 18 of SDFM the Macross is in robot form. Max and Miliya fight in the city. Global orders to open a hatch to drive Miliya out. When she and Max take of you can see the multiple layers of the city. As they take of vertically from the ground it would suggest that the city rotates 90 degrees during transformation.

[eugimon]

layered or not, there's no way the stadium featured at the beginning of DYRL could fit in there. I agree with the pocket dimension theory.

[Mr March]

The SDF-1 Macross is a ship, not a city.

The topmost "layer" of the civilian zones in the "leg" portion of the ship is obviously just the surface of a much larger, multi-decked system. There are many levels and even "ceiling" dwellings inside the ship with their own gravity zones. Why equate a two-dimensional measurement for habitation to a ship that is clearly fully utilizing it's three-dimensional space? The picture above shows at least half the volume of the entire leg is habitable and it's not even showing the ceiling levels either.

The SDF-1 Macross has 178 times the displacement of a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier (which can accommodate a crew of over 5,000). If we were simply scale up the volume of the Nimitz to the size of the SDF-1 Macross, this Super-Dimension-Nimitz could accommodate 890,000 people. Now we all know military Aircraft Carriers are built for efficiency and not comfortable living space, so let's give the crew of our SD-Nimitz ten times the space of a normal crewman and knock the pop down to 89,000 people. Interesting, that figure is very close to the 78,000 people on the SDF-1 Macross (20,000 crew + 58,000 civilians) and we haven't even taken into account the Daedalus, Prometheus, or the ARMDs. Seems okay to me.

Now, having said all that (phew) I agree that the city as shown in the anime fudges things. It's not that the ship can't accommodate plenty of people; the ship just can't accommodate buildings in the way they are shown in the series and film. Like eugimon has said, the stadium would take up over half the interior rather than one tenth the space. Now it could be a small stadium (since it obviously isn't for sports), but it's got to be at least 100 meters to accommodate the kind of seating we see in the anime. So yes, there's some creative license going on

Attached, is a picture of Bri's observation.

[SchizophrenicMC]

Wow... That's a lot of stuff, and the only thing I care to cover at this point is this:

I would hope a gunship built by people who fought wars in space for 100000+ years can take that kind of punishment. Screw post-rebuild. It should be able to do it from its original condition!

[Nied]

here's another thought: this is the city within the leg of the SDF-1 (DYRL? version)

http://www.new-un-spacy.com/macrossdyrl/ma...nternalcity.jpg

so the city itself is only 350 meters or so long, and (generously) 150 meters wide so that's 52,500 square meters. if that's all there is to the city and there really is 58,000 people on the ship you've got a population density of about 1.1 million people per square kilometer (that's a little less than 1 meter per person)

I figure that the city is built in layers and there may even bee another section in the other leg (I totally don't remember if that's a possibility or not).

The drawing makes it look like the city has maybe 2 layers, but even with that and a city section in each leg that's still around 276,000 people per square kilometer at the start of the war, (the largest population density I can find is Dhaka, Bangladesh at around 43,000 people/km2)

that sounds way more cramped than it ever was in the show.

Are you accounting for both leg's in your calculations? Because that and some sections in the torso would increase the amount of living space available considerably. That plus as Mr March pointed out you'd gain a good deal of space from stacking levels of the city on top of each other (It's possible that Macross City was built in the Zentradi sized sections of the ship, your average sized brownstone would fit easily in a deck designed for a 11m tall person).

I don't have it out right now to check, but weren't there some shots in DYRL that showed sections of the city built on the ceiling?

Edited February 3, 2009 by Nied

[Mr March]

Yes, in DYRL we can clearly see habitable areas and even roads with vehicles moving along the ceiling of the city sections. Like I said, they appear to use the large majority of the internal space of the legs for living areas.

[KingNor]

the gravity system uses plot-tonium to opperate. it works perfectly in all situations except for the times when it doesn't.

[anime52k8]

Are you accounting for both leg's in your calculations? Because that and some sections in the torso would increase the amount of living space available considerably. That plus as Mr March pointed out you'd gain a good deal of space from stacking levels of the city on top of each other (It's possible that Macross City was built in the Zentradi sized sections of the ship, your average sized brownstone would fit easily in a deck designed for a 11m tall person).

I don't have it out right now to check, but weren't there some shots in DYRL that showed sections of the city built on the ceiling?

the first number, (1.1 milion people/km2) is based on one layer in one leg.

the second (the 276,000 people/km2) is based on 2 layers in both legs.

well, that episode that was pointed out indicates more like 3 layers. now just for the benefit of the doubt, they built up city space everywhere they could and they got another leg (with 3 layers of city) worth of space out of that. now you're closer to 127,000 people/km2 which is getting a lot more reasonable, but still sounds a little too cramped compared to how things are depicted.

of course, there's a lot of other questions to look at like where rest of the crew is living, and where they're keeping all the mechs and stuff, and what was all that empty space that got turned into city originally used for?

I could understand there being so much open space if the ship needed a similar complement before and after rebuild but with the crew being 5 times bigger. I'd wonder why so much of it is unused, though it could be that before the civilians showed up, the military crew had a LOT of space to live/work/store everything (i.e. it was more like being on an airbase rather than a ship), and after the fold they had all the military stuff cramed down to submarine level, and all mecha related material moved to the Daedalus and Prometheus in order to make things comfortable for the civilians.

I wonder how that went over with the military personnel when they found out they were going to have to hot bunk so the civilians could build a stadium?