Graham

Saw one in the basement of Sino Center last week when Danguard Ace was visiting HK, but decided not to buy it. Haven't seen pics online yet, but you should be able to order it through either HMV Japan or Amazon Japan. Graham

OK, had a long talk on the phone with Yamato last night and here's what I was told. The $2,000 SDF-1 is an exact replica of Yamato’s prototype and is being marketed as such. It is neither a toy, or a model kit per say. Each one is being individually built by the prototype maker, not mass produced in a Chinese toy factory. This is why the high cost. I was told that it can often cost a million yen getting prototypes made. Yamato will only be having a small run of these made and had to negotiate quite hard with the maker to get the price they did. It will be sold unpainted. It will be sold partially assembled. The major sub-assemblies, such as the ARMDs, body, legs, etc will be pre-assembled and then the customer just has to bolt everything together. The joints will be ratchet joints and will be made of hard nylon for durability. The main material IIRC is High Density Polyethylene (HDP), which has excellent tensile strength and impact resistance. I was told it is 6 times stronger than the type of resin used for garage kits. As mentioned, HDP is widely used on cars. Why are Yamato even selling this? – Well, when they originally had the prototype made, Yamato thought that it would be possible to produce it in ABS at a lower cost. Unfortunately, with the tooling limitations of the toy factories they use, it was not possible to mass produce it. So rather than scrap the whole project and write it off as a loss, they decided to still offer it to those hard-core fans who just had to have a large scale SDF-1. For those wanting a smaller, more affordable SDF-1, I’ll just say that patience is a virtue and the virtuous are often rewarded. And yes, for those curious, I have been offered one and call me crazy, but I will probably turn it down, as a) it's too big for my shoebox sized Hong Kong appartment and b) I'd honestly feel guilty about accepting such an expensive gift for free. Graham

I have the game guide book for MUF, so if anybody wants to know how many points you need to S or SS a specific stage, please ask. Just let me know the era and the stage name. Graham

I have the game guide books for MAF and MUF, so if anybody wants to know how many points you need to S or SS a specific stage, please ask. Graham

have requested clarifying information from Yamato, stay tuned. However, as far as I know (although this information is a bit old), it will be sold assembled and pre-painted. The resin used is not the same type of resin used for garage kits, I was told it is used in the automobile industry and is supposed to be very strong. The reason I was told for not using ABS is that the injection molding machines in the Chinese toy factories cannot handle the large size of some of the parts. Graham

I'm all for dedicated toy threads, with the proviso, that the manufacturer, product name, scale and series the toy is from be clearly mentioned in the thread title. None of these vague, sometimes confusing "Surprise non-cannon repaint" type thread titles please. As for the main site, unfortunately, work and family committments keep both Shawn and I far too busy to do much about it. I'd love to be able to work on the main site full-time. but unless, someone wants to pay me the same or more than I'm earning now, so I can can quit my job to work on Macrossworld I can't see a way out of the present stagnation At the moment, I'm leaning towards an open source approach, but in the end the final decision and implementation would be down to Shawn. Graham

Apart from my Sega Mega Drive, I bought all my consoles to play Macross games: - Ninetendo Super Famicom to play Scrambled Valkyrie. Playstation to play VF-X. Of course VF-X2, DYRL & MPGE also came out. Sega Dreamcast to play M3. PS2 to play Macross game and also the Another Century games which feature Macross mecha. PSP to play MAF and now MUF. Graham

On shop level 20 and bought everything in the 'New Mode' (3rd) category, including the expensive stuff that was 25K+ and 36k+ IIRC, but still no stat limiter or era unlocker. Well, to clarify, I think I've bought them, but they are not working yet. Mind you, I've only played the Zero and SDFM eras so far (been playing the crap out of them to level up everything (35 hours spent just on 2 eras). Just started on DYRL. Graham

Strange, that's the opposite for me. Buying stuff from Ranka in the shop is more expensive than buying from Sheryl. Also, what do you mean by the phrase "As always, held triangle when I went to the shop"? Graham

How does one rescue a downed partner (when they have a red circle with an X over their mecha)? Graham

Anybody done a translation of the items in the shop yet for the third choice down? There's lot's of really expensive items in there and I'd like to know what I'm buying before plonking down my points. On shop level 16 at the moment. If the era unlimiter or stat unlimiter is there, I'd like to buy it. Graham

I do like the Zero with Ghost Booster though. Graham

Very happy that there is less need to use melee combat in MUF in order to get a high score. That was one thing I disliked about MAF, that in many stages you needed to melee attack most enemies to get an S or SS. IMO, Macross should be about missile and gunpod combat, with melee used as a last resort or attack of opportunity,, not the main method of attack. Macross is not Gundam, where beam rifles seem to run out after a few shots or be ineffective and the hero inevitably has to charge in with his beam saber. Graham

Looks like you have to remove the canards to transform to battroid. Graham

The Sheryl book is A4 size, about 64 pages. Picked one up a couple of days ago. Graham

Yes, thank you ~Homer~likeVF19A, those translations are ver, very helpful. Graham

Quick question for those that have played the M7 era. Do the VF-19F/S and VF-17D/S get Super Parts? Graham

Loads of stuff excites me, specifically: - Mechanic Sheet * VF-0A Phoenix * Battle Suits * VF-17 Nightmare Technology Sheet * Beam Weapons Can't go wrong with more VF-17! Graham

Ah I see. So I was wondering, why does your player character even have a command skill if you can't use it. But then I realized, that I suppose it is for instances where you swap your charceter and use him in the support role. Graham

You are right of course, I was confusing some of the commands. But if Circle+X activates the Support Character's Command Skill, how do you activate your own Command Skill? Graham

So how do you activate the Support character's command skill? I know for the player's Command Skill it is 'Circle & X' buttons. And for your partner's Command Skill it is 'Select, then down on the d-pad'. But how about the Support character? Graham

Are the Command Skills the same as Macross Ace Frontier, or is there any difference? Graham

Heh, funny thing happened on the bus to work this morning. I was playing the final Zero mission where you fight the AFOS, but this time I was trying to get killed. Or more specifically, I was trying to get infront of the AFOS’s big beam, so I could block (L button) and build up my character’s skill points on his blocking ability. However, I never did get infront of the beam and unintentionally ended up doing so well in the mission that I actually got an S grade for the first time! Graham

Did that with the VF-0S with Ghost Booster and got SS! Yes. Now got SS on all but two of the Zero missions and those I have S on. Time to move onto SDFM era now. Graham

Thanks, that's fantastic. Really helpful. Graham