Seto Kaiba

Yeah, that's the case for pretty much all modern fighter aircraft... and a fair few non-fighter aircraft that have highly unconventional aerodynamic profiles like the B-2 Spirit flying wing bomber and the F-117A Nighthawk attacker. There's no indication that the New UN Government and/or the central New UN Forces had any ulterior motives like that behind their redaction of key technical details from the YF-24 Evolution spec shared with the emigrant governments. Locally-developed variant specifications were an inevitability long before the New UN Government enacted its new restrictions on arms exports to emigrant governments in the wake of the Sharon Apple incident. Emigrant fleets were headed out into the great wilderness of space with every expectation that it would take years to find a habitable planet to settle on, and they were equipped with the manufacturing facilities needed to maintain themselves and their defense forces. It was never going to be a logistically sane proposal to ship hundreds or thousands of new VFs to a fleet that might be ten years away from Earth by space fold. Instead, the emigrant governments would manufacture those new VFs themselves under license from the manufacturer. With variances in the technical capabilities of some of those fleets and access to raw materials, that not every emigrant government would be able to manufacture them to the same standard was inevitable. Similarly, once emigrant governments became more established and emigrant fleets got large enough to have their own self-sustaining economies, it was equally inevitable that some of them would opt to tweak the new designs they received to incorporate their own technical advancements or to fit different requirements from their local defense forces... similar to how Japan tweaked the build-under-license F-16 into the Mitsubishi F-2. The arms export restrictions intended to preserve the superiority of the central New UN Forces and Earth's NUNS were the reason the specs for the YF-24 Evolution were redacted, but there's a strong possibility most emigrant fleets wouldn't have been able to replicate Earth's most advanced overtechnology even if they'd shared it. TL;DR: Even if the New UN Gov't had shared the unredacted YF-24 Evolution specs it would've been inevitable that many different local variations were built because of differences in local manufacturing capability, resource availability, etc. There would've been no need to instigate it, it would've happened naturally. It's related... the Draken III is a different kind of delta wing design called a tailless cranked arrow delta wing. By having two different levels of sweepback in the wing, it's able to overcome the problematic loss of performance at low airspeeds in exchange for needing a larger wing surface. Like the Saab 35 that inspired it, the Draken III provides this by having a blended wing body design so the entire underside of the plane functions as wing surface. By going tailless and using airfoil shaping combined with using the trailing edge of the wing as elevons, instability could be induced in the otherwise stable delta wing design to make the aircraft more agile. Combine that with thrust vectoring on multiple axes, and considerable agility can be acheived. What little exists in terms of official writeups for the Sv-262 haven't mentioned any fuel in the micro-missile pods. (Presumably they'd want to keep them as compact as possible to avoid compromising the aerodynamics of the blended wing body.) The Draken III is a 5th Generation VF, it uses Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines. I did a summary of the different generations of engine technology here back in September. The TL;DR version is that the first three generations of VF used the initial-type thermonuclear reaction turbine engine. That was replaced by a more efficient design, the thermonuclear reaction burst turbine, starting on the Gen 3.5 VFs like the VF-17D/S type and 4th Gen VFs like the VF-19, VF-22, and VF-171. That, in turns, was replaced by an even more powerful engine design called the Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engine on the 5th Generation VFs. With each generation of engine tech, there's just about a doubling of maximum thrust and improvements in heat-exchange and gravity control system tech. As far as relevance beyond engine power, the thermonuclear reaction burst turbines combined with enlarged airframes to effectively remove the need for FAST Packs or conformal fuel tanks for most short-to-medium duration space operations. The later Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines greater power and efficiency flipped the FAST Pack equation around such that the point of them became using boosters to offset the weight of massive amounts of additional weaponry instead of adding a couple weapons to improve the survivability of a booster system.

It's an aerodynamics issue. Specifically, it's because the delta wing design that the VF-4 adopted to improve its internal fuel capacity and its payload capacity is has comparatively high aerodynamic stability for a fighter. Fighters get a lot of their maneuverability from being inherently unstable. The VF-4's long fuselage and large delta wing airframe gives it excellent performance in high speed straight-line flight but its high drag at low speeds and large wing area made it less able to turn quickly. That's not a problem for it in space, where there's none of that pesky air to get in the way of turning by vernier power, but in atmosphere it's more suited to interceptor and attacker roles.

Ugh... well, at least Oscar Isaac will have a shiny new Razzie to go with the Golden Globe he won for Show Me a Hero if this actually gets made. A compressed adaptation of Hideo Kojima's already-terrible writing can only end badly. Dragonball Evolution-tier badly. His stories are such tangled, borderline incoherent narratives infested with badly-delivered exposition dumps, arbitrary plot-lengthening twists, and the kind of tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist insane troll logic that even Tom Clancy's ghostwriters would laugh out of town. It's the kind of crap you need a flowchart the size of Rhode Island just to follow, and I can't see audiences being too keen on having to read a guidebook the size of a doctoral thesis just to know what the hell is going on.

Well, yeah... there are people who'll cling to tradition no matter what just because "that's the way it's always been" even if it no longer serves any purpose. Like so many other traditions that've lost, or are in the process of losing, their societal relevance the number of people who feel compelled to follow tradition for tradition's sake will steadily decline with the passage of time. Right now, the movie theater industry's saving grace is that the major studios are too hidebound by last century's market model to be confident about declaring their independence from the big movie theater chains. It's also fortunate for them that, right now, the streaming media market is fragmenting as the major studios and networks are trying (and for the most part, failing) to launch their own proprietary streaming brands so they won't have to share profits with Netflix, Hulu, Google Play, or Amazon Prime. The main thing theaters will have going for them in the next couple of years is that most consumers won't want to subscribe to a dozen different streaming services, especially when that service only has one or two shows that people actually want to watch like CBS All Access and Star Trek, Disney+ and The Mandalorean, or HBO Max and... ok, drawing a blank here, nothing really stands out on their slate of exclusive programming... a lot of DC stuff, I guess? Movie theaters are gonna have to seriously rethink their business model or risk being run out of business by the ever-increasing quality and accessibility of home theater. Back before the pandemic, a number of the theaters out my way were trying to modernize their business model by adding restaurants or bars to their premises that serve alcohol. It sounded like a good idea on paper, I guess. For my money it was a bad idea since it just added the smell of cheap beer and cheaper wine and the annoyances caused by inebriated moviegoers to the experience. That and the restaurants were all upscale pub food-type places, which this area already has a glut of. It might be more workable in a town that doesn't have a university, and the drinking-to-get-wasted that inevitably comes with them.

Essentially, yes... both in the sense that it had a high degree of equipment customizability via Option Packs and that it could operate equally well in space and in the atmospheres of planets. That was, to the central New UN Forces and most emigrant governments, more desirable than the greater main engine thrust and better passive stealth performance of the VF-14. If anything, I'd actually say the opposite would be true. In terms of familiarity, a pilot who qualified on the VF-4 would probably find the model conversion training for the VF-14 less of an adjustment than the VF-11's. The VF-14's design is structurally and aerodynamically a lot closer to the VF-4's and they're both VFs optimized for operations in space. The difference in handling isn't going to be as great as it would be with the more VF-1-like VF-11. Especially in atmospheric flight, where the VF-11 is going to be a lot more maneuverable. Pilots who'd qualified on the VF-5000 would probably find the VF-11 the easier aircraft to switch to for similar reasons.

Just as long as you don't make me think about Basara. As much as I love Macross, that guy still grinds my gears with his lack of character development. Oh boy, where to start... With respect to the subject of Project Nova and why Shinsei Industry's VF-11 Thunderbolt was selected over General Galaxy's VF-14 Vampire as the next main fighter of the New UN Forces... it's all about roles, and what the New UN Forces were looking for in a 3rd Generation main VF. The 2nd Generation VFs left the New UN Forces managing large numbers of specialized and niche VFs that were optimized to operate in specific conditions or environments, and which often performed poorly if forced to operate outside their metaphorical comfort zone. New UN Forces leadership were looking for a "true successor" to the multi-purposefulness of the original VF-1 Valkyrie. They wanted an all-regime 3rd Generation VF. Something compact enough to easily operate in a space carrier's unique "ecosystem" and also flexible enough to operate equally well from space carriers and surface bases. Shinsei Industry's VF-11 delivered exactly what the New UN Forces asked for: a balanced all-regime main variable fighter ideally suited to be used aboard existing carriers old and new as well as on surface bases. What General Galaxy delivered with the VF-14 was a further exploration of the design concept behind the VF-4 Lightning III with all the good and bad that comes with it. As good a design as it was, it wasn't what the New UN Forces were looking for. Like the VF-4, the VF-14 is first and foremost a space-use variable fighter. It had an unusually large airframe for its time and that additional size was leveraged mainly to improve its performance in space and, to a lesser extent, improve its stealthiness. The VF-14 uses the same generation engine technology as the VF-11 but its greater size allowed the engine to be scaled up accordingly for more power and allowed the fighter to internally carry more fuel to extend its cruising range in space beyond what the VF-11 could accomplish without external tanks. Its armaments were also internalized and its aerodynamics adjusted for maximum passive stealth performance. The design choices that made it such an excellent space fighter also made a relatively stable aircraft in atmosphere, negatively impacting its maneuverability. Not to the same level that it did the VF-4, which didn't surpass its predecessor, but enough that the VF-11 had a clear advantage. It's also worth noting that the Special Research Unit's VF-14s - the ones that were captured by the Protodeviln and became the basis for the Fz-109 and Az-130 - weren't the standard New UN Forces model. Macross Chronicle describes them as being an independently developed "heavily armed" specification that differed significantly from the standard New UN Forces VF-14s seen in Macross M3. The standard VF-14 didn't have the micro-missile launchers or the chest-mounted guns. Some emigrant governments had different priorities for their defense forces than the central New UN Forces, and opted to adopt the space-focused VF-14 over the VF-11... but most governments went with the VF-11 for that balanced performance and versatility. The VF-17 (starting from the D type), VF-19, VF-22, and VF-171 were built with the next-generation thermonuclear reaction burst turbine engine technology. Their greater thrust output comes from having a more advanced and efficient engine design. The VF-14, on the other hand, is brute forcing its way to higher thrust outputs by simply making a bigger engine so it's less efficient.

... well, that certainly helps the size of this book hit home. I kinda feel bad for the delivery guy now. I ordered multiples.

Eh... not The End, but arguably a step in its direction. Let's be honest, the movie-going experience was never all that great and has been losing A LOT of ground to home theater for the last 13 years or so. There's precious little charm to be found in paying ten bucks or more for the privilege of sitting in cramped, uncomfortable seating in a room where every surface is liberally caked in congealed soda with a dusting of crushed popcorn with a bunch of other people after dropping fifty bucks on concessions just to see a movie. That was the only way to do justice to a film back when your average patron's home television was a grainy 28 inch 480i CRT. Now that the average television in service is a 40+ inch 1080p flat panel and the average new television is a 52+ inch 4K flat panel, that brief period of theatrical exclusivity is about all that's keeping the cinemas in business. Why go to the theater when you've got a nice big, vibrant screen in the privacy* of your home, where you can watch in a room that is as clean or filthy as you please**, in a comfy chair, where that same popcorn you paid $20 for at the theater costs $0.46, and where you can technically hurl problematic moviegoers from the room without incident. Now that that... charming... moviegoing experience also comes with the possibility of catching the plague and dying, it's not surprising studios are looking at going directly to home theaters with streaming. I'm just surprised it was Warner Bros who made the first move. I expected it'd be one of the companies in worse financial straits like Paramount that'd be the ones to call AMC's bluff and risk a potential chain-wide boycott of their movies * Not available in homes with children. ** Or can tolerate.

So... I could practically hear my name being called to answer Part 1 of this question. Yes, official Macross publications (e.g. Macross Chronicle) acknowledge three different VF-1D paintjobs in the series: Hikaru's VT-102 from the first few episodes, the VF-1D that's commonly referred to as the "Virgin Road Valkyrie" which Max and Milia flew in in "Virgin Road", and the VF-1D's in mass production colors seen in the wedding procession. It isn't well-drawn, but I do not believe that it is an animation error given that it's referenced in Macross Chronicle. Very few VF-1D's were ever built, but the Macross was noted to have enough for a training squadron (12 aircraft) when she launched in February 2009. The VF-1D was not used in space if it could be helped, because the modifications to fit the second seat into a standard cockpit block involved compromising some of the space-use survival systems. It was quietly discontinued and replaced by the VT-1 starting in Block 6. That one scene in "Virgin Road" might constitute an appearance of as much as 20% of all VF-1D's built.

Even if we take the safer assumption that it's the flyaway cost, it's not especially useful in context since we don't know what the VF-171 actually costs. The closest we've ever come to that was Sky Angels giving an actual flyaway cost for the early block VF-1 Valkyrie of $126 million. That was an absolutely outrageous sum in 1984 when the doujinshi was written, between five and nine times the cost of a then-current (4th) generation fighter jet. Reality ensued, and it turned out to be an actually pretty reasonable flyaway cost for a wholly conventional 5th generation fighter jet.

Thereabouts, yeah... assuming that Windermere IV's military (the Aerial Knights) had a total strength approximately equal to a 3rd Generation emigrant fleet. It's not clear how large Windermere IV's military actually was, given that they were able to capture twenty or so inhabited planets in the Brisingr cluster through a combination of surprise attacks and mind control of the defending forces but were apparently ill equipped to deal with an actual coordinated counteroffensive from what remained of the Brisingr Alliance NUNS. Yeah, that's one of the few comparisons with respect to cost that is made in later Macross materials. The AIF-7/QF-4000 Ghost is approximately one-third the cost of a VF-171 and comes without the need to risk the life of a flesh-and-blood pilot, which made it a very attractive option as a first-wave response unit to feel out an attacking enemy's capabilities or, in some fleets, as a wholesale replacement for manned Valkyries. That the Lilldraken is smaller than the current-gen Ghost is not necessarily a guarantee that it's cheaper... initial cost and cost of operation are a delicate balance of many factors. The Lilldraken definitely has less weaponry than the Ghost does and appears to be a single-engine unit, which would definitely result in lower cost, but it's also got some features that add cost and complexity like its ability to dock with the Draken III physically and be used as a booster and drop tank or the fact that it's got its own energy conversion armor (which is only active while docked, but still).

TV Hikaru knew exactly what that felt like... in "Kung Fu Dandy", Misa botches a Daedalus Attack because she's distracted and the missile salvo meant to sink the attacking Zentradi ship downs him instead. That was what cost him his second (and final) VF-1J and left him confined to a hospital bed for the next two episodes to have the trippy clipshow dream we see in "Phantasm" and miss the defensive battle where someone in Milia's unit lethally wounds Roy in "Pineapple Salad", only to finally get back on his feet in the next episode ("Burst Point") and promptly lose Kakizaki too. That boy had it ROUGH right around the halfway point of the TV series.

Given Hikaru's questionable taste, that could end poorly... Misa: *sees a canopy cover marked H.I.❤L.M.* Hikaru: Um... oh... er... that stands for Love... Misa. Yeah, Love Misa! Followed immediately by the sound of a man being pounded into the deckplates like a tent peg with his own photo album by an irate flight controller.

If I had to guess, my guess would be that Hikaru's VF-1S was given a red canopy cover to make it more visually distinct from the other two VF-1S units that appeared earlier in the movie. Y'know, to make it more obvious that this was The Hero's mecha since it otherwise shares a design with the VFs flown by supporting characters. (It's also possible that the final color scheme wasn't set or was changed late, after the point that the artist had drawn that box art and the toy's color scheme had been set.)

Probably at least twice as many LD-262S Lilldrakens as they had Sv-262 Draken IIIs... likely more than that, given that they would have expected to have a higher loss rate for the unmanned support fighters. Every Sv-262 Draken III operating in space was outfitted with a pair of LD-262S Lilldrakens to offset the Draken III's comparatively low onboard fuel capacity by serving as a combination of drop tank and booster. The only times we see Draken IIIs without Lilldrakens is when they're operating on Windermere IV itself. Hard to say... matters of cost are almost never discussed except when something is either too expensive, or they're trying to frame something as comparatively inexpensive like the QF-4000/AIF-7 vs. the VF-171.

Strictly speaking, it wasn't... the YF-30 was never intended to be a competitor to the YF-29. It was sheer dumb luck that the gone-rogue VF-X Special Forces unit Havamal decided to locally build a small number of YF-29s on Uroboros at the same time that the YF-30 was under test by SMS on the same remote planet. (Even dumber luck that Odin-1's pilot and Siegfried-1's pilot happened to be former best friends and wingmen, making their duel as brutally level-handed as possible.) The Sv-262 Draken III used a different system than the YF-29 and VF-31 Siegfried type called the Fold Reheat. Both the standard (Ba) and command (Hs) variants have the fold reheat system, but the command variant's fold reheat system is more powerful thanks to using large fold quartz crystals provided by the Windermere royal family. The fold reheat system used by the Sv-262 could be called a more specialized derivative of the fold wave system. Instead of providing a modest increase in engine performance and performing other functions like providing additional energy to the VF via fold dimensional energy conversion, the fold reheat has and only one job: MORE THRUST. Consequently, it produces a greater improvement in maximum thrust than the fold wave system does because all of its output is focused on that one thing. It gets 25% improvement in maximum thrust (30% on the Hs type) compared to the Siegfried's fold wave system's 15%. Macross 30 was a trip, and no mistake. It got me to break the habit of a lifetime and actually buy a DX Chogokin toy. All we know of the YF-29B Perceval is that it's an improved, military spec version of the YF-29. Its only evident improvement is higher stats in-game and a bayonet attached to its heavy quantum beam gunpod. Variable Fighter Master File, the tech manual series, is what mentions a military spec YF-30 designated YF-30B (in a fetching shade of Barbie pink oddly enough) and a VF-30. Macross Delta's official setting materials make it pretty clear the VF-31 is an economized YF-30 without the proprietary hardware meant for mass production. On the list of unsavory things the Macross Galaxy fleet did, creating technically-illegal cyborg soldiers is on the tame end. The Galaxy Executives went beyond the bounds of what might be called "usual evil" and did some pretty damned inhumane things over the years in their efforts to mass-manufacture cyborg troops. Ever seen Universal Soldier? They clearly have. Ghost in the Shell too...

As far as we know, the VF-27's Super Pack wasn't intended to match the YF-29... that was more a happy accident. It was described in Macross Chronicle as being intended to further enhance the VF-27's maneuverability and armor, and the ability to match the YF-29 in combat was attributed more to the Brain Direct Interface's precision control and the high degree of parts commonality between the two aircraft. I would assume they are roughly comparable in power for most purposes... and the YF-29's beam gunpod was depicted with a rapid fire mode in Macross 30. It's unclear how many micro-missiles the VF-27 Super Lucifer had. We know the YF-29 had 100. There are some oddities in the YF-29 spec. While it appears to have the wing root gun mounts from the VF-25 and VF-27, no weapon actually listed as being mounted there. In what is perhaps a stealth nod to plans for the original VF-1, the YF-29 doesn't have beam guns on its head... it has a pair of 25mm machine guns of the same model that can be mounted on the VF-25 and VF-27's wing root. So, all in all, it has its heavy quantum beam gunpod, its MDE beam cannon turret, 100 internally carried micro-missiles, and the two 25mm machine guns on its head. (The doodads on its forearms are verniers of the same type mounted on the forearms of the VF-25's Armored Pack.) The VF-27's armament is less clear, since its micro-missile launcher capacity is not discussed. It has the head-mounted 20mm beam machine gun, the wing root-mounted 25mm gun mounts, the 35mm beam machine guns in the engine nacelles, and that heavy quantum beam gunpod. When you get right down to it, they're pretty comparable in most respects... the VF-27 is even technically a derivative of the YF-29 completed using illicitly obtained YF-29 development data. It just compensates for its extreme performance by hardening the pilot's body instead of developing a more powerful ISC with higher-purity fold quartz that wasn't available in sufficient quantities for mass production. The VF-27 has the major advantage that it can be mass produced, where the YF-29 cannot... though mass production carries ethical and legal concerns WRT the cyborg pilots. (Macross Galaxy having a rather casual attitude towards human rights abuses and what could arguably be called technological necromancy.) The YF-30 is noteworthy for four main reasons: It is the only known VF with a higher unboosted thrust-to-weight ratio than the YF-29. (53.085) Unlike the YF-29, it was not constructed to be used in combat... it was a technology demonstrator. The technology it was built to demonstrate, the Fold Dimensional Resonance system, is a more powerful version of the YF-29's fold wave system. It is the only VF to score a documented kill on a YF-29. All in all, it demonstrated the ability to go toe to toe with the upgraded New UN Forces spec YF-29B Perceval and win due to its greater performance and flexibility even though it was not as heavily armed. Macross Chronicle, though not official setting material, asserts there was an improved military spec (YF-30B) produced and that a VF-30 was also developed... though likely without the proprietary Fold Dimensional Resonance system and with either derated or different engines. Yeah... like the VF-27, the Sv-262 can be mass produced. This is partly due to Windermere IV having large deposits of high purity fold quartz that the Kingdom of the Wind's royal family went to war with the New UN Government over mining regulations of. There are more than just a few squadrons of them. The Sv-262 Draken III was the main variable fighter of the Kingdom of the Wind during its 2067 war with the New UN Government. Most, if not all, of its VF pilots were flying them. Even if they only have the military strength of a single medium-sized emigrant fleet, that's almost 2,000 of them. Their heavy quantum beam gunpods seem to have near-identical firepower to those of the VF-27, YF-29, and YF-30. Its 27mm railguns are comparable to the military spec VF-31's, being the same basic model (LM-27). Their firepower is unclear, though it's worth noting that it's a stupidly safe bet they're firing similar anti-energy conversion armor rounds to what's used in more traditional machine guns. As solid ammo weapons, that would put them on similar terms to the YF-29's ES-25A machine guns, but in a higher caliber and possibly with greater muzzle energy as either a railgun-assisted traditional projectile or a true railgun round. The YF-29's armor is heavier, but if remarks about the Draken III's fold reheat are accurate then it may actually be able to out-perform the YF-29 in a dogfight if they're both boosting. It may also be to the Sv-262's advantage that it normally sorties with two Lilldraken units that function as additional boosters and drone aircraft. I was actually thinking more of the VF-25's Super Pack and Armored Pack... but that works too. In all three cases, we're talking at least twice the number of missiles the YF-29 has to work with, with various other additional weaponry. Raw thrust is not necessarily a great metric to work from. Thrust-to-weight ratio is a better indicator of how much engine power will actually affect performance because that accounts for the mass of the aircraft the engines are pushing. The YF-30's FF-3001/FC2 engines have the highest rated thrust of any thermonuclear reaction turbine engine thus far at 2,110 kN. The YF-29 is runner up, with its FF-3001/FC1 main engines being rated at 2,105 kN. The Sv-262 has a lock on third place with its FF-2999/FC2 engines rated for 1,955 kN. The YF-29 does indeed have the most raw engine power available, a whopping total of 7,150 kN... but it's also far and away the heaviest modern VF at an empty weight of 15,620 kg, almost double that of the typical mass production 5th Generation VF. The VF-27 is in second with 5,508 kN of total thrust, but it's also the second-heaviest at 12,080 kg making it half-again as heavy as a typical mass production 5th Gen VF. The YF-30 is in third, with 4,220 kN, though its much lower mass of 8,106 kg means that it boasts the highest thrust-to-weight ratio by a considerable margin. The Sv-262 Draken III is in fourth, with 3,910 kN and a slightly high airframe mass of 9,782 kg. In terms of thrust-to-weight ratio, the YF-30 is tops with 53.085. The YF-29 is in second with 46.676. The VF-27 is in third with 46.493. The Sv-262 is in fourth with 40.758. If you factor in boost systems, at least WRT the VFs equipped with fold wave or fold reheat systems, that potentially takes the YF-29 to 49.554 but puts the Sv-262Ba over it at 50.948 and Sv-262Hs over it at 52.834. That would leave the unboosted YF-30 in first, the boosted Sv-262 in second, the boosted YF-29 in third, and the VF-27 in fourth. Well, the YF-30 is often described as a descendant of both the YF-24 Evolution design and the YF-29 Durandal design... though what it takes from the Durandal is mainly just the fold wave system that it improved into the fold dimensional resonance system. The mass-production VF-31, not so much... though several of those were given aftermarket customizations to install a fold wave system into them. Strictly speaking, I don't think we've actually seen a "stock" YF-29 since the YF-29 was rushed to completion using appropriated VF-25 parts in Macross Frontier. Of that, I am not so sure. Macross Delta was kind of a de-escalation in a lot of ways. As I've argued in the past, the stock VF-31 Kairos was not really much of an improvement on the nearly ten year old VF-25A-1 Messiah. The Xaos custom "Siegfried" type wasn't able to sustain the kind of performance the YF-29 or YF-30 enjoyed simply because it wasn't designed for it. They were customized VF-31As that were designed for much lower engine outputs and Hayate was admonished several times for the damage that simply flying that custom VF-31 without kid gloves was causing to it. The Sv-262 Draken III was only slightly better in its unboosted state, and while its boost could also take it into similar territory with the YF-29 and YF-30, that was noted to have unpleasant effects on both aircraft AND pilot and the comparatively lower levels of training and practical experience on the part of Windermere IV's armed forces meant that in a level fight even the previous generation VF-171-II was shown to be able to overcome the difference that existed in their base performance thanks to the NUNS pilots having more experience and training. The Aerial Knights were running mainly on natural talent and luck, rather than skill and experience. Delta Flight's new VFs were ace customs that were themselves fairly bank-breaking affairs, though not to the same extent as the YF-29 due to their more sparing use of fold quartz... and barely able to withstand that lower level of performance as it was. I'd expect that if they're the ones to fight this new threat, the new threat will probably not be any more intimidating than the VF-27 or Sv-262 on paper. The YF-29 was an irreplaceable Super Prototype... a weapon of awesome power that was simply too difficult to complete and too impractical to actually use until there was literally no other option left on the table.

Huh... so, it took me a hot minute there to figure out what exactly you were asking since I'm not a toy collector and don't follow the toy threads. I usually only post there when specifically summoned to answer a question. In DYRL?, Hikaru's (011), Kakizaki's (012), and Max's (013) VF-1A Valkyries all have their armored canopy covers painted in the pilot's color... red, green, and blue respectively. Roy's VF-1S has always had a black canopy cover. The bone of contention here why the VF-1S that Max was flying during the dogfight with Milia after becoming Skull Leader had a black canopy cover while the one Hikaru gets at the start of the final battle scene when he is acting as Skull Leader is painted red? In Macross, as in most mecha anime, there is almost never any evident rhyme or reason behind the specific character color schemes. It seems to be down to the pilot's personal preference most, if not all, of the time. The only instance I can recall where that was specifically not the case was in Macross II: Lovers Again. It's never referenced in the anime, but in the OVA's artbooks the VF-2SS Valkyrie IIs flown by pilots other than Sylvie and Nex are supposedly color-coded by the pilot's gender. The VF-2SS with green trim is captioned "For male pilots", and the VF-2SS with yellow trim as "For female pilots". Of course, since Sylvie and Fairy Platoon are the only female pilots ever shown on screen this may be more a case of an elite unit and the Spacy's two most elite pilots having special color schemes to mark them out as the elite. (Fairy Platoon's colors are reversed for the Moon Festival, all red or all yellow with white trim, though the holographic? light trails they're trailing during the airshow are the original Skull platoon's colors: red, green, blue, and yellow.) In Macross 7, there is an isolated case where accent color seems to reflect organizational intent... though it's hard to say if this is an actual organizational requirement or a choice intended to honor the memory of a deceased mentor. Diamond Force's VF-17s were matte black with a colored trim stripe. Their default accent color was white, though Captain Kinryu had gold/yellow trim on his VF-17S. It's possible this was his personal preference and a play on words, since he has the kanji for "Gold" in his name. As the series progressed, Kinryu was replaced by Milia (who repainted Kinryu's VF-17S red but retained the yellow trim) and then Gamlin (who repainted it black but also kept the yellow trim). When Docker, one of Gamlin's wingmen who was incapacitated way back in the first episode, returned to duty and was given command of Emerald Force he also went with white trim for his wingmen's machines and gold trim for his VF-19S. It's not made clear if this use of yellow trim is something actually mandated for the command units or simply a personal touch by their leaders (who both served under Kinryu).

Hm... "Yes and no", would have to be my answer. On the one hand, the YF-29 is arguably the strongest Variable Fighter to appear in a Macross story so far in terms of its combination of flight performance and armament. On the other hand, the YF-29 is Macross's first Gundam-esque Super Prototype that's effectively impossible to mass produce due to its cost, complexity, and the difficulty inherent in obtaining enough fold quartz at the necessary level of purity. There are other 5th Generation VF designs that rival or even exceed its flight performance, and there are other 5th Generation VF designs that can rival or exceed it for raw firepower. One of those, the YF-30 Chronos, is a less super Super Prototype that boasts an even higher T/W ratio than the YF-29's (46.676 vs 53.085). The production Sv-262 can get to 50.948 with its fold reheat, and the production VF-27 Super Lucifer is also noted to be able to rival the YF-29 in flight performance. Several other 5th Generation VFs can rival the YF-29 for firepower with Option Packs that give them 2-3x the number of missiles to play with. The Queadluun-Alma, a rogue mecha belonging to the anti-government organization Fasces can put in an unusual claim as it boasts supreme defensive power via its Astral system that can supposedly tank hits from a Macross Cannon. Essentially, whether or not the YF-29 is the strongest Valkyrie to yet appear depends on what criteria we're considering.

Yup... Star Trek: Discovery's creators are getting dragged pretty hard over how ridiculous that looks. IMO, some of the complaining is unwarranted. There's no hard and fast rule that says that warp coils have to be energized by plasma direct from the warp core. As long as they've got some means of either getting plasma over there or sending energy to generate plasma over there there shouldn't actually be a reason why detached nacelles wouldn't work at warp speeds. Funnily enough, the crew actually tried that back in season two... it failed due to interference from the AI protecting the sphere data. I'd like to dismiss it on those grounds too... but they've obviously building towards it in season three's story.

One minor correction... the VF-4's six engines are a pair of thermonuclear reaction turbine engines, a pair of thermonuclear ramjet engines, and a pair of (conventional) hybrid rocket engines. Not really, no... the closest we ever get to that kind of complexity is the König Monster's combination of thermonuclear reaction turbine engines and plasma rockets. At the very least, we know that the thermonuclear reaction turbine engines and hybrid rocket engines are designed to operate concurrently. The VF-4's Master File book, while not official setting material, suggests the answer is a very definite "maybe". It contends that the thermonuclear ramjet engines in the wings only operate at airspeeds of Mach 3 or above, at which their output is high enough for them to effectively take over for the thermonuclear reaction turbine engines. So, official materials indicate the VF-4A-0's FF-2011 thermonuclear reaction turbine engines were good for 14,000kgf (137.3kN) at 100% power. It's worth noting that, on those older specs, 100% was not the actual peak power of the engine... the actual maximum rated output was 200% on the early block VF-1's and 240% on later block VF-1s and later models. That would make their actual maximum power was 33,600kgf (329.5kN). No thrust figure is given for the ramjets, AFAIK. Master File is the only source to list a thrust for the rocket engines, which appropriate to their reduced size is significantly less than the NP-BP-01's 120,000kgf (1176.8kN) at a mere 18,560kgf (182.0kN). The ramjet engines were a way to improve high-altitude performance and increase maximum cruising speed.

Nah... unless Q gets involved the writers won't stand trial for it in-universe. Besides, we've seen (in Voyager) that bad writing is a civil matter, not a criminal one. All told, while I expected that the writing would take a dive again around the middle of season three like it did in the previous two seasons... the refit of the USS Discovery is one of the things I think I'm the least happy about. The Crossfield-class USS Discovery was already kind of an ugly piece of crap almost literally rescued from Ralph McQuarrie's trash can. It was with good reason that Ken Adam and Ralph McQuarrie's rough draft of a refit Enterprise created for Planet of the Titans was scrapped in favor of something that more closely resembled the iconic Matt Jeffries design. Reviving the design with Discovery's obsession with digital VFX just made the ship look simultaneously ugly and too advanced for the era of Star Trek's history it was supposed to belong to, along with a registry that suggested the ship was MUCH older than it was. After moving on to the 32nd century, the show's writers had a pre-prepared excuse to abandon the unlovely and unpopular Crossfield-class design and have the crew take possession of a less-ugly modern Starfleet ship with all the latest bells and whistles that 32nd century Starfleet can provide. This was actually important to continuity, since the Short Treks episode "Calypso" indicated that they abandoned the Discovery in some remote region of space in its 23rd century form. Instead, we got this. I'll give the writers one thing. I agree with their decision to change the ship's registry. Starfleet Command officially listed USS Discovery as destroyed with all hands back in 2257. Since, in Discovery's timeline, time travel was banned after the conclusion of the Temporal Cold War it makes sense that Starfleet would make at least a token effort to disguise the fact that this ship had unlawfully time traveled from the distant past by registering her as a different vessel that just happens to have inherited the older ship's name and registry. Unfortunately, that's the beginning and the end of my ability to take this thing seriously... because all I see when I look at the redesigned USS Discovery is a Starfleet ship that's been riced out. It looks like they took the already unloved and unlovely Crossfield-class CG model and decided that the only way to make it look more futuristic was to add the spaceship equivalent of ground effects.

They pardoned Burnham... they ARE a political joke. Now that I think on it, it's kind of weird how quickly the crew of the USS Discovery get over their displeasure at having to work with Burnham after her conviction and her dishonorable discharge. Everyone but Detmer and Saru seems to take having Starfleet's Public Enemy No.1 aboard ship in stride. You'd expect she'd meet a reception as frosty as what the other convict crew like Ro Laren and Tom Paris got, especially when they get introduced to officers who aren't aware (or don't care) about her pardon and alleged redemption like Reno and Pike. (And the idea that her crimes vanished from history just because she was pardoned and her record expunged is a bit odd too... it's not like Starfleet can just order everyone to erase the memory of her trial and conviction from their memories. Once the 32nd century Starfleet figured out who she is, you'd have expected them to react more unfavorably to a woman who was, in her time, the worst criminal in Starfleet history.)

Yup, there's that mid-season plot snarl I was talking about a few posts back... we've hit the middle of the Season 3 and, for the second time, Star Trek: Discovery's writers revealed that they will always fall back on their bad habits to the detriment of the series and franchise as a whole. Eh... in all fairness, this wouldn't exactly be the first time that the Vulcan scientific establishment collectively folded their arms and refused to consider any explanation that didn't line up perfectly with their preconceived notions of how the universe works. "The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that time travel is impossible." Remember how well that proclamation aged? Once they started preaching the impossibility of time travel to Starfleet officers, it took Starfleet barely two years to serve up physical evidence of time travel and not quite three years for Starfleet to have one of its ships actually travel in time. Three years and they had the Science Directorate eating their words and quite possibly their own robes in frustration as a human they'd previously dismissed as crazy undermined thousands or maybe millions of scientific papers and punched gaping holes in Vulcan's understanding of the universe. If the Science Directorate still exists in the 32nd century, I can hear their complaining now... "The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined that getting the humans involved is cheating". That said, one would almost expect that the reason the 23rd century Discovery crew are the ones being assigned to figure out what "the burn" was and why it happened is because everyone else in that future has grown up with the consequences of it and really isn't as invested in solving it as they are. ... yeah, definitely not Saru's smartest moment. "Let's promote the raw ensign who has barely any qualifications and no social skills over the heads of dozens of more qualified candidates. That's a great idea that in no way, shape, or form will smack of favoritism or come back to bite me in the future." It's not the all-time biggest failure to judge character in the series, though. That belongs to the unnamed Federation President c.2257 who pardoned Michael Burnham.

Hmm... I'm now especially interested since it appears to include stuff Kawamori designed for non-canon Macross games.