eugimon

I don't think two years is that unreasonable, they probably want to milk the alpha design before they launch another MPC. besides... don't they kinda have to come up with the beta design on their own this time around?

hideous.

I'm wondering if there's just a lot of pre programmed moves... you don't have to control the basic walking, jumping, stuff like that... the ai just figures out what you want from you doing more basic commands... kinda like how you handle movement in games like tomb raider and what not... but officially I go with anime magic.

sweet can't afford.... sad.

Apology accepted--now let's get back to what makes Macross fun: talking about it, asking about it, writing about it, and yes, speculating about it like fans will do for any story. Once again, just please do not present something as accurate when it isn't, something as official when it isn't, something that trumpets "facts" when it itself is wrong, and something as being copyrighted by you when permission was not asked from the original creators. uhm... I don't know how the etiquette is one this... but there's that other thread, the one about the chaff/explosions in mac plus? could you answer that one too please?

heh... the idea of a two gun alpha is something I've liked since way back... if we can mount two guns, means I'm getting two alphas. hahaha. well... maybe not... anyone wanna do recasts?

I don't think the VB-6 has any landing gear. None is shown in the line-art and in the VF-X2 opening movie, the VB-6 transforms from Shuttle to Gerwalk mode as it lands. Graham Good point , I remeber the VF-X2 Op. animation. The Koenig would certainly look bad with tiny looking landing gears , it´s far too wide for that. hmmm, dunno... I think some monster landing gear would be sweet... like 4 wheels in the front, 6x2 on the back?

I wonder if the variant will be the metallic paint version they were shopping around earlier... .... and I wonder what the next MPC will be...? you think they'll give us the beta right away, or send out a cyclone? or one of those tanks from southern cross?

I like the way the dry transfers look, but putting them on, specially on angles and curves is a pain.... but they're nice for half assed model builders like me who don't/can't paint.

That is a properly built and painted Gundam model. It's the same kit as the starter of this thread has. I wish people would think of Gundam kits more as actual models than as unassembled toys. Too bad Bandai isn't helping. I'll agree with you on that... the nicer models are just amazing.. the amount of thought and detailing that goes into a perfect grade kit is just astounding. and man, those pics are sweet.

did you guys ask about how the gun mounts under the wing? can it be mounted under both sides? ................................................................................. nevermind, found it... gunpod, bothsides. awesome.

The Ghost X-9 and its Super Packs were not illustrated by Shoji Kawamori. This is a bad misinterpretation. With widespread misinformation like this, people still wonder why I don't have time for updating and answering email. give us the answer then!!!

looks great... still wish for some more surface detailing though... something that size should have more in the way of panel lining... i think... definitely want to get this though.

Let's say you're on this side, and your teammate is on the other side. You're both closing in on your target in the middle. Would you blindly shoot at your target, hoping that you'll hit it, when you know that your teammate on the other side is just as likely to get hit? when did I ever say blindly..? the situation I describe has and is as a first attack system once you realize m.particles have been detected in system. And the situation you describe is laughable... you assume that MS units rate of hit is 100%. Otherwise at anytime during a conflict once the initial line/formations have been changed you will have this situation. Friendly fire always happens. Apaches fly low and slow. Saturate an area in space is simply unrealistic, because it's too big. Assuming two fleets park right outside the effective range of its MS, then they would be some six kilometers apart. When Apaches are flying six kilometers up and Iraqis are still harassing them with small arms fire, then it would be comparable. Otherwise, it is not. Which is it? MS units send out just enough m. particles to cover themselves? or enough to saturate huge areas of space? if they saturate huge areas of space, then I maintain you should be able to map changes in particle density based on the amount of radar or other transmissions able to make it through the cloud. If they saturate only enough to make individual units/ships invisible, then it's sime, find the diameter of the cloud, saturate area in the middle with ballistics and submunitions. I didn't realize the gundam ships can move so quickly as to out manuveur high velocity rounds. well, again, it depends on the field... it's not like you would be firing blindly into space... your firing into areas where nothing shows up. in fact, for my idea to work, the more spread out the better, you would then have distinct area of nothing instead of a globular mass of nothing. In Gundam 0079, they do launch a shitload of missiles and rockets into the opposing fleet, using Public assault ships. They rarely ever hit anything, and they are usually destroyed before they get close enough to launch their missiles. sorry, my bad, forgot in anime small missiles, high velocity missiles are easy to shoot down. and yet, large ponderous mecha never get hit... yes, they emit signals, yes they still need to envelope the object, that is, there has to be enough of them to be able to overpower the radar beam. same difference. Radar == Radio detection and ranging. The word "Radio" there should have given you a clue that ECM would disrupt radar, since it works with radio waves. Why would ECM selectively leave out radio waves from radar? The only way for a radar to defeat ECM is to use enough power to burn through the noisy signal. The same concept applies with Minovsky particles, except the radars they have there aren't nearly powerful enough to do so. I should have been more clear. ECM does not block radar... it dupes the radar into thinking nothing is there by sending back dummy signals before the actual bounce returns. or by brodcasting flase signals that confuse radar operators. non of these are the active stealth that you keep discrbing. ECM disrupts our ability to interpret radar... it does nothing about the radar wave itself. Which is why anit-jamming techniques are possible... Where did you get that Minovsky particles block radar by enveloping the object? As best as we can tell from screen, they emit EM signals that scrambles radar, just like ECM. got the idea from the website, which says that they block. http://web.archive.org/web/20010605004534/...d/minovsky.html hmmm, also says it forms lattice work, which means orderly pattern, thuse no density changes... but you should still be able to map the outer surface area and therefore hit things inside the field. What's to stop the MS from destroying the satellites? Your proposal maybe effective for area defense, where they're trying to stop an MS from infiltrating, but by the time Minovsky particles have been broadcast, then they would know something is out there, and the satellite network becomes useless. well, once an MS enters the brodacast field, they would be detected... and since their attention would be on taking out the satelittes, they would be easy targets. ah, wel if the answer to every question is just that gundams can do whatever they want... sometimes they send out just enough, sometimes they send a lot, they both block and emit EM, but are simultaneously undetectable, gundam fleets have material limitations yet waste time/money and materials building huge platforms and countless missiles that are ineffective.. then I say my earlier statement is true... gundam is just a big game of: oh yeah?

from what I rememer, the cell tower detection system would only be used if they knew that stealth planes were coming in... it's not an early warning detection system at all.

Where did you get that idea? The Earth Federation waste more than enough of Balls and missile ships and GM's that it must put a dent in their pocket. Simply wasting blind shots at maneuvering targets seems unwise. Honestly, the fact that they (both sides) can still field armies of what must be expensive MS, send waves of carriers into space. They do not fight like, nor use tatcits that would suggest that material cost is a major factor. And, historically, area saturation fire has always been used... it is not expensive... modern smart weapons are much much more expensive. The final destination of physical munitions do matter, especially in scenarios where you're protecting your own space colony, or the other half of your fleet has surrounded his fleet. The only thing encouraging area saturation is beam weapons, which is plenty in Gundam, but even then, it takes a finite amount of time in between shots, and space is a very big area. By the time the shots get to where the MS used to be, the MS is no longer there. Saturate a big area in a small amount of time is very difficult, regardless of how big your fleet currently is, especially when taking the sizes of the ships/MS in the fleet and the battlefield. completely not true... in space, where gravity and friction are not an issue, unused ballistic rounds will simply travel on forever... no diferent from the incredible clouds of shrapnel that would already be generated during any of their numerous engagements. Area saturation, even against ghost targets has already been proven useful in the Iraqi theater. Iraqis were told to fire straight into the air when aircraft was known to be flying overhead, this sort of heavy indisicriminate small arms fire was a very real threat, forcing apaches to significantly alter tactics. And yes, space is nearly inifnitely large, however, a staging area is not. An attack force, is not. MS units still lanuch from a carrier, there are still bottlenecks in deployment. They would still need to cluster together to form effective combat teams. a lone MS would be easy prey, an MS by itself is not an army... Actually, beam weapons would not be all too useful for area saturation fire... beam weapons have too narrow a focus... and in the gundam univers, take too much time and energy... simple large caliber ballistics, exploding shells, 20th century technology. And yes, gundams are vulnerable to ballistic weaponry. It's ultimate purpose is to disrupt radar. The Minovsky particles achieve the same effect. Since the end result is similar, the means are irrelevant. ECM does not block radar. ECM is not active stealth. ECM blocks radio, communications, that sort of thing. it does so by turning orderly packets of information carried along that spectrum into gibberish by adding noise to the order... like static. Minovsky particles are a physical thing, that blocks radar by enveloping the object you are trying to hide. How can you measure the particle density of something that you can't even sense directly in the first place? Like Sundown correctly pointed out, the particles themselves are undetectable. Only their effect, which is a blind radar simple, actually the chinese figured this out a while back to defeat stealth technology. The chinese used mobile cell phone tech... cell towers broadcast a steady signal to another tower, when a stealth object passes in this area, the resulting hole is where the stealth object is. For an anti MS use, simple small satelittes masked with the minovsky particles to protect from long range detection, could pepper the theater, continuously broadcasting... once holes appear in the net it would be a simple matter than to fire into the holes. Especially since it's not like wide areas are masked by the effect. As for a m. particle hunter missile... also very similar.. add radar. the missile is fired, sends out steady pulse, as the radar is more effectively masked, this is where the missile goes. to be truly invisible, you cannot affect the environment around you. Indeed, but during a battle, ships rarely ever send out less than enough particles to nullify radar. At such densities, variations of the field strength would be so low that the effect would be negligible. as long as you're sending out particles, there are changes in density. changes in effect. area saturation doesn't work by getting direct hits... think depth charges and less sniper. a munition shell packed with sub-munitions, fired remotely close (and it would be close, as you said, ships send out enough only to cover themselves). Fire such a round at an area known to be a clusttering of the m. particle effect, and simply pepper the area with munitions. if you want to keep them contained, the sub munitions can be mines.

lovely job... I think your armament spec is off for the 1A though...

The same reason you don't use area saturation fire whenever you detect ECM being used. You know something is out there, but you don't know where. well no, for several reasons... we don't saturate areas when an ECM device lights up for several reasons, 2 big ones: 1. it's very expensive to start lobbing that many warheads around. 2. you don't know where the munitions will end up. however... in the gundam universe, it's obvious that material/weapons costs are not a big factor... in fact, large scale area saturation fire would probably be a great deal more practical in terms of materials and lives than the sort of fighting depicted in the anime. In space and in all out war, it doesn't really matter where unused munitions end up. Also, ECM is a type of electromagnetic wave that is sent out to disrupt other electromagnetic waves.. like radio. it disrupts the signal adds noise, etc. a particle field has to be generated from somewhere... it has a point of origin... as long as the field is being generated there would be no way to have the particles evenly saturated over what is essentially infinite volume (space)... therefore you would have changes in density, from lower to higher the closer you got to the generators. So... even if area saturation is a bit overkill, one could still make a missile that homed in on the particles and was designed to swim through the field, looking for denser particle areas. Even if the field itself is invisible... the effects would still be measurable... and really, if the effects are measurable (the website says that large quantities are needed to be effective, which implies that the blocking is less effective at lower saturation) than a missile or other weapon could still be set up to search out areas of greatest effect.

No amount of camo is gonna hide a 18 meter tall mobile suit. Trust me on that. http://www.globalatlantic.com/janes2.html under the right conditions, very large things can be made very hard to see... I'm thinking it wouldn't be too hard to camo a mech... at least break up the lines so that it's not so easy to make out the various bits and pieces on one of these things.

If Minovsky particles can't block a Mobile Suit's heat signature, then I wonder why IR homing (heat seeking) missiles are not used in the Gundam universe? Graham my question is... since these guys can generate these minovsky particles, they must have some way of detecting them as well... so why don't they just use area saturation fire whenever large densities of these particles are detected?

that's a sweet and easy mod... I like the look of hound much better this way, looks sleeker... more like the original military jeep.

could be, but I don't remember any missiles in that scene, visual or audio cues... I stick with exploding chaff.

sweeeeeet