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Mr March

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  1. Mr March
    I had always assumed VTOL was achieved by doing either one of two things (or both): transforming to GERWALK mode or simply lifting via vernier thrusters. The latter theory does have the virtue of being official, since we see the VT-1 Super Ostrich thrusters performing VTOL in the DYRL film.
  2. Mr March
    How about a reference challenge? I've recently finished a complete revision of the VF-3000 profile, including redrawing AND recoloring the Fighter and Battroid line art. While scrutinizing the art, I suddenly realized the dorsal fuselage is actually concaved. The fuselage of all other valkyries are either convex or flat. When you look at the VF-3000 front schematic, the hull peaks on the outer sides, descending as the hull flows inward to the center line of the craft where the cockpit and nose are situated. I've created a picture with the concave hull colored. Now, this concave hull could be a completely original design element created by Kawamori. But knowing Kawamori's tendency for using real-world jet craft designs in his art I'm curious if there are other jet or fighter craft from which he may have drawn influence for this concave hull design choice.
  3. Mr March
    This is dire news. It's necessary research for me to see the film and so I will, but I've got a bad feeling about this
  4. Mr March
    I love the positioning of the red box for the clock. Nicely done! Reminds me of the smart phone wallpaper thread I started; I should come up with some new stuff to post.
  5. Mr March
    Looking good. That's a smart position for those new torso/shoulder missile racks. I can already envision how they look in fighter mode. Clever!
  6. Mr March
    JBO Okay, that's a valid interpretation of the VF-1 Valkyrie. I was only concerned I may have missed something official but that's not the case. I guess that personally I'd just be more conservative interpreting the valkyrie designs. Having said that, I think broad interpretive strokes about "wings" and the existence of FAST packs might not lead to an accurate conclusion. All the valkyries have those. Regarding the nature of a multipurpose vehicle, I don't believe a speedboat vs. hovercraft analogy works. Regardless of the VF-1 Valkyrie multipurpose design compromises, it's first and foremost designed for high-peformance air/space superiority; a hovercraft is not designed to in any way compete for high performance. One might say this is because current hovercraft technology can't compete, but apparently in Macross, VF technology can. Just flip the logic of those assumptions about wings/FAST Packs; if the VF-1 Valkyrie were so hampered by multipurpose design compromises, it'd never achieve performance necessary for a combat superiority space fighter; it's existence as such a craft would mean it excells and can only be optimized by augmentation. It also important to remember there are many inherent design compromises in all the valkyries. By default, ALL the variable fighters are compromised as aerospace craft designed to both fly in an atmosphere and operate in space. Even further, they are compromised by default as transformable machines. Both these compromises require more complexity, more machinery and more mass/weight which negatively impacts performance. How would we benchmark the performance gap between the multipurpose vs. optimized designs? Other than official trivia stating one VF is optimized for air or space over another (ex. trivia for the VF-4 and VF-5000), there's no way to compare. I think it's a stretch even further into declaring one craft is deficient when we have no way of knowing. It's also important to keep this all in the context of the Zentradi aerospace craft that battled the VF-1 Valkyrie, none of which have wings/FAST packs nor any performance advantage for or against the theory (Q-Rau possibly excepted). That in itself makes the theory hard to reconcile. I think my problem is just the wording. Flaws, deficiencies, or weaknesses are all words that make it sound like there are design problems with the VF-1 when in truth it's described as purpose-built and achieved excellence during service life. The VF-4 Lightning III is not flawed as an air superiority fighter just because it's optimized for space. The VF-4 is a high-performance air superiority craft, it's just a craft that won't perform as well in the air as dedicated aircraft like the VF-5000 Star Mirage. At an equal level of technology, it's impossible to build a space-optimized variable fighter that bests all air-optimized variable fighters in an atmosphere. That's purpose-built, not flawed.
  7. Mr March
    Glorius. The scale looks great. Bravo!
  8. Mr March
    I recolored the art and revised the whole profile for the SF-3A Lancer II with new trivia for the next update of my website. So some of us still give it some love I don't get the impression you're hating on the VF-1 Valkyrie, just providing objective assessement. However, I'm unclear why one may have the impression of the VF-1 Valkyrie as deficient in space. I'm not sure anything official supports that reading of the VF-1. By the same token, I don't recall anything stating it was optimized for atmospheric performance either. Everything official describes a multipurpose craft designed for the best possible performance in all-regimes, while of course not enjoying any specialized advantages within the separate operational environments. As I understand it: The general-purpose VF-1 can become a specialized heavy weapons platform through use of the GBP-1S Armored Pack The general-purpose VF-1 can become a space-optimized fighter through use of the FAST/Super Packs To me, some of the language being used to describe the VF-1 Valkyrie might give the impression of a poor-performing spacecraft that needs FAST/Super Packs just to be a spaceworthy combat craft. I'm not sure that's the case. Only thing I've read is that successor craft to the VF-1 were specialized. The VF-4 Lightning III was space optimized while the VF-5000 Star Mirage was atmosphere optimized. I guess I'm asking do you consider "multipurpose" an inherently deficient design?
  9. Mr March
    Thoughts? I have none. Emotional/sexual arrousal? Hells yeah! Seriously, that is awesome work. The detail is amazing and even looks drawn, like genuine line art. I had no idea that you were going to do something like this. I'm thrilled with the results. Bravo!
  10. Mr March
    Whenever one does anything public, volunteers and or posts online, one will suffer some unwanted attention. I’m not saying accept it or make excuses, but be aware and understand it's unavoidable. Just be thankful that you’re not a high profile woman in the video games industry right now Because of my Macross fansite, I still get requests by folks that want Macross stuff. Occasionally I’ll have to suffer the odd harassment by someone incessantly demanding I provide them customized art. My only advice to those translators is not to let the bad bring them down. When it comes to the legal/financial ethics of fandom online, I really don’t have an answer. It’s up to each individual to reconcile what they share online and think about the results. I build my Macross fansite because of love for the IP, the hobby’s prohibitive expense and the desire to share what is so obscure for most fans. So much of the Macross material never sees the light of day over here in North America and even fewer are aware. As a result, the English-speaking fans are typically left to do for themselves. At this point in the age of the franchise, most of the rarer material will never be seen by most Macross fans unless someone like me shares it on a website. What good is some 25-year-old $250 collectible Macross book if all it does is gather dust on my shelf until I die? I might as well scan the art, have fun learning to color it and share the artwork online. At least other Macross fans can enjoy art they would never have seen otherwise.
  11. Mr March
    Don't be so critical of Macross in those respects; there are more reasons than one would think for the order of battle in the franchise. Ultimately, Macross has an emphasis on aerial/space dogfighting because as entertainment, such action can be very compelling, tense and dramatic. In-universe, the very nature of OverTechnology, OT weaponry and variable fighters (as well as flying humanoid mecha) make it absolutely essential that vehicles prioritize dogfighting. Several major factors (high speed and extreme maneuverability, commonplace point defense beam/laser weaponry and missile-foiling gun pods) seem to prevent long-range attack beyond visual range from being viable for anything other than an "opening fusillade". Only large space craft with anti-ship weaponry commonly fight BVR in the Macross universe. IMO despite the emphasis on dogfighting, Macross seems to have much farther engagement ranges than most mecha shows. Anime seems to revel in this romanticized concept of the honorable one-on-one melee battle; almost every mecha anime finds some way of eventually reducing the action to a fist-fight with unlikely regularity. Due to the high speed, jet fighter nature of the Macross fiction (and a lack of emphasis of any melee weaponry, at least until Frontier), most battles are at distance and more BVR combat than you would think. Until Frontier, all out hand-to-hand brawls in Macross had been rare. I'd advise to ensure one understands all the fiction about the Macross universe when turning some key points on their head, especially those aspects that go unsaid. Despite it's age, not everything about the Macross fiction has been frequently discussed by the production staff or the many publications about the franchise. We can sometimes take them for granted
  12. Mr March
    I've been exposed to many of these new super hero shows like The Flash, Arrow, Agents of Shield, Gotham and IMO they've all been forgettable mediocrity. Watching that Daredevil trailer, it looks like Netflix may have created the first super hero TV series for viewers like me. The trailer had a unique style, a very clever "sonic tone" and is shot like no other super hero TV series I've ever seen. D'onofrio being cast as Kingpin is an unexpected but surprisingly smart move. I like the ideas and the direction they're going with this new shot. It's definitely on my radar.
  13. Mr March
    Amazing article. But also rather concerning. A good read.
  14. Mr March
    LOL, I can just see the Xzibit parody picture now Unlike conventional FAST packs, the Macross FAST/Super Parts are designed to provide performance in addition to fuel and additional equipment. Like Seto said they have big engines/rockets designed specifically for propulsion, but since they are designed for aerospace craft, they also have maneuvering thrusters (and of course, weapons). So you wouldn't dump them for combat when the seem designed for it.
  15. Mr March
    The words "adult" and "mature" are being used to describe the short all over the internet and not in context of NSFW (which is added on top of those) For my part, my post was not to reflect upon the OP at all.
  16. Mr March
    The acting and production values were very good. I'm surprised this short film worked as well as it did, especially considering the ridiculous source material. But overall, this is just dumb and tone deaf. It was anything BUT mature. Graphic violence and titties doesn't make a film mature; if anything this only draws attention to the short's childish catering to the raging heterosexual frat boy demographic. The Incredibles is more mature and politically/socially sophisticated than this. Joseph Kahn is a fun personality and kinetic filmmaker, but he's not the right guy for this kind of property. I'm not a Power Rangers fan and couldn't give a crap about Super Sentai. But this short vividly displays why schlock like Bayformers and his TMNT remake fail: they are too self-serious and suck the joy out of the original property. Something like Power Rangers needs to be Guardians of the Galaxy in style and tone. This short film looks like it's trying to be Halo mixed with Spartacus: Blood and Sand. The film also suffers too much from an American-centric perspective: the film characters are all about individualism, whereas Super Sentai is specifically interested in team dynamics, in as much as there is any depth of that sort. This is a no go, for me. It's a solid short that is well shot, tightly edited and and well acted, but the themes are all wrong, the tone isn't right for the IP and it's too much like so many other movies we're not for want.
  17. Mr March
    I think the human looks too big if we're following the line art exactly, though I'm uncertain of the human-to-destroid scale compared to the actual official height of the Monster. I've never bothered to confirm the line art interpretation of the scale; it could be correct or it could be off. However, the Monster's foot on the other hand, looks excellent. EDIT okay I just took some time to confirm that the human height in the official line art is accurate for the Monster's height of 22.46 meters tall. So your human scale figure should be about half the height shown.
  18. Mr March
    I'm a little sad, but just so happy he shared his talent on the screen. I'll never forget the joy he's given to us. "It is a reminder to me that all things end" RIP
  19. Mr March
    Hehehe Be thankful for my boundless love of mecha...the Macross Mecha Manual might not exist otherwise
  20. Mr March
    I always wondered if the thrust vectoring plates were fictional or were inspired by a real craft. Thanks for posting!
  21. Mr March
    This is good news. I've always wanted some better quality audio of the Macross stuff. Of course, I hope it really is better quality and not just garbage.
  22. Mr March
    Mommar Yes, the creator's intentions were to have us suspend our disbelief. But their intentions were also for us to experience the "Real Robot" genre, created specifically to apply real world understanding/measurement to fictional mecha and present those mecha in a real world context. We can explain away everything with "it's anime magic" and leave it at that, but that pretty much ends the conversation and ends the fun. Personally, I like to imagine how the Macross world works by applying my real world knowledge because it's creative, interesting and fun. Otherwise, all we have are favorite threads (no offense to those threads, of course; I join in those too)
  23. Mr March
    Far too many great mecha in Macross to choose a handful or one. That's kinda why I built the M3, because I'm in love with a lot of the Macross mecha :wub: Smallest list I could make (not in any order): VF-1S Strike Valkyrie VF-1J GBP-1S Armored Valkyrie (TV Version) VF-4 Lightning III VF-11B Super Thunderbolt VF-11C Thunderbolt APS-11 Protect Armor YF-19/VF-19A Excalibur YF-21/VF-22 Sturmvogel II VF-171 Nightmare Plus VF-25F Messiah YF-30 Chronos SDP-1 Stampede Valkyrie VF-3000 Crusader VB-6 Konig Monster Destroid Monster MK IP Destroid HWR-00 Monster Mk II Destroid Cheyenne Mk II SDF-1 Macross (Film Version) Meltran Gunboat Guantánamo Class Stealth Carrier Northampton Class Stealth Frigate Uraga Class Escort Battle Carrier QF-3000E Ghost X-9 Ghost QF-4000 (and AIF-7S) Ghost Fighter
  24. Mr March
    Valkyrie Driver That's actually a very good idea. I could see single-engine variable fighters in that role. I think by your theory, the VF-5000 Star Mirage could have been a single engine machine. Which would be very cool and like you said, much more cost effective given the deployment and the type of role the VF would fulfill. Mommar I think going for triple engines may be - as JBO said - adding unnecessary complexity to that which is already over-engineered. However, I think the engineering of the technology in Macross has always been something we're just supposed to accept and suspend our disbelief, which is probably why so little official trivia has been written about the subject. We already have quad-engine Valkyries, so why not three or five? OverTechnology really acts like a magic box in Macross. By all scientific and mechanical understanding we have today, the variable fighters - or even just the Destroids - would be entirely untenable as reliable military machines. The current F-22 Raptor has a notorious reputation as one of the highest cost-per-flight fighter aircraft ever, requiring upward of 30 hours in maintenance for every 1 hour of flight time. Something vastly more complex like a destroid or a valkyrie would be in the hundreds of hours based on our current understanding, meaning they would be functionally ineffective in even the least dangerous theatre of operation. Yet the many Macross TV series and films depict the exact opposite, often times showing valkyries flown for extended periods of time and redeployed in the same day. If anything, the mecha of Macross seem easy to maintain, easy to repair and reliable in even when stressed in the extreme. So one of the miracles of OverTechnology seems to be making the complex very simple and reducing component degradation by entire orders of magnitude. With that kind of technology, variable fighters may not even need a twin engine design to be highly reliable and redundant. There may also be more practical reasons for the twin engine design when considering the Battroid mode. The vast majority of valkyries transform in such a way that the engines are in the lower legs. Since engines are the heaviest parts of any VF, their position in the lower legs would grant the Battroid a very low center of gravity, making the robot configuration highly stable.
  25. Mr March
    That would be incredibly awesome and interesting world building to my adult mind, but I don't believe any of that is in the official fiction. If some is, it certainly wasn't detailed extensively in any satisfying sort of way. More's the pity. I think the New UN civilization remains cohesive despite it's decentralization and vast diaspora because of the collective sense of community following the near-annihilation of the human species. Nothing else really makes sense, if we ignore that Macross takes a very simplified view of it's political/cultural/social world building. Just examining the industrial, economic, scientific, technological and cultural distinctions, it's clear almost any colony world or fleet can be just as key as Earth. The colony worlds and fleets seem to have no problem building anything, they are all self-sufficient, and each appears capable of producing their own cultural megastars (like Eden's Myung/Sharon Apple, or Macross 7's FIre Bomber). Perhaps variable fighter technology and the Factory Satellites are all controlled and produced by the NUN Spacy, so maybe that breeds a certain dependency among the colony worlds/fleets, but I doubt access is that tightly contained. So I think it's ultimately the very strong sense of community and survival the people feel that maintains the cohesion of the NUN civilization. Given that variable fighters are all aerospace craft that are designed for use in space every bit as much as planetside, I think redundancy is a very important safety consideration for building all variable fighters with a second engine. Twin engine design is popular today for that very reason; add in the far more extreme hazard of travelling through the vacuum of space and the need for redundancy in variable craft is all that more compelling.
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