Seto Kaiba

We do not know. We have very few actual specs for that initial-type thermonuclear reaction turbine engine... most of which pertain to its propellant efficiency in space. The available data very loosely suggests the FF-1999 had about 90% the performance of the FF-2001. The VF-0 "The Nostalgia" restoration that was done for the First Space War armistice 25th Anniversary was using reproduction EGF-127 turbofan jet engines. Six engines were made as part of the restoration process.

Well, the VF-4's ramjets would only be an asset once it reaches a certain speed and altitude... and the rockets are going to have a very limited burn time before they run out of fuel. The VF-1's Super Pack boosters only have enough fuel for 150 seconds at maximum output. The VF-2SS's sub-engines are mainly to offset the extra mass of the Super Armed Pack, rather than to improve its performance. Excluding, of course, the VF-0 and SV-51... but not the thermonuclear reaction engine-equipped versions and later replicas.

Not sure! We know it's a next-generation engine technology that incorporated improvements made in heat exchange technology that greatly improved fuel efficiency and output. The specifics of what improved and how are unknown. There may be a "non-canon" explanation buried in the Master File books. Another excellent question we don't really have an answer for. Now, I have a theory about why the VF-4 does not list its other engine systems... but nothing more than circumstantial evidence to back it up. The physical dimensions in the VF-4 stats prior to Macross Chronicle did not match the physical proportions of the aircraft. I suspect that the specs we have were originally written for the VF-X-4, which didn't have ramjets and rocket boosters built into it the way the production VF-4 does. Still, it's an odd omission in all cases... esp. since the VF-2SS Valkyrie II and VA-1SS Metal Siren are both four-engine VFs. They have four thermonuclear reaction turbine engines... two main engines, and two "sub-engines". We can at least guess in the Valkyrie II's case, since it supposedly had three times the engine output of the original Valkyrie and the engines that are listed are a bit over two times.

So... that kind of depends on how you want to define "orbit". Even the comparatively humble VF-1 Valkyrie can reach altitudes in excess of 100km - the nominal boundary of space - on an Earth-type planet. It takes a lot of fuel to get up there, so it's often more economical to either have the VF ride to orbit aboard a ship or use a booster system to reach orbit without consuming any fuel from its internal tanks. It's not a thrust-to-weight ratio thing, it's more a question of how efficient the engine is and how much fuel the fighter carries. As VFs got larger, the amount of fuel they were able to carry internally increased. Likewise, as engine technology advanced the engines themselves got more efficient. What ultimately made the process of launching a VF from a planet's surface into orbit under its own power economical enough to be done casually was the introduction of the 2nd Gen thermonuclear reaction engine technology: the thermonuclear reaction burst turbine engine. They were a 4th Generation VF design feature, but some 3rd Generation VFs were outfitted with them like the VF-16 and VF-17D/S/T. Partly... but it's more along the lines of a fuel efficiency thing. Being able to reach orbit over an Earth-type planet while retaining enough fuel to usefully maneuver.

Nope. We can make some reasonable inferences, but that's about it. One detail that has remained mostly consistent is that model numbers ending in 99 are usually the initial model in a particular hardware generation. For instance, the FF-1999 being the initial-type thermonuclear reaction turbine engine or the FF-2099 being the first thermonuclear reaction burst turbine engine. Presumably, if the pattern continues, the Sv-262's engine (model FF-2999) was the initial-type Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engine. Model numbers 1999-2098 seem to be 1st Gen engine designs, with 2099-2998 being 2nd Gen engine designs, and 2999+ being 3rd Gen. There are a few aberrations, like the typo in Macross Chronicle that incorrectly gives the VF-11MAXL's engine number as FF-3600 and the VF-14 using model FF-2770 even though it was not a burst turbine model. The same with the FF-2450 on the VF-3000. Skipped design numbers usually mean a prototype that didn't pan out or a significant change in hardware prompting the start of a new design series. I'd ignore the VF-3000 on that front, odds are they didn't notice they'd already used that number... because the VF-3000's engines are 1st Gen and the VF-22's are 2nd. Higher number doesn't necessarily mean "more powerful" either... just (potentially) a later model. /FC1 and /FC2 denote some kind of upgrade, but we're not sure specifically what since the FF-3001[A] is rated for 1,620kN, the FF-3001/FC1 is rated for 2,105kN, and the FF-3001/FC2 is rated for 2,110kN. The Draken III's engines are FF-2999/FC2, so they're not the original FF-2999 spec. The FF-3011 used by the VF-27 is individually less powerful than the FF-3001, but the VF-27 has four of them. Engine tuning also affects its output power. You'll notice the YF-30's FF-3001/FC2 engines are rated for 2,110kN while the detuned version used by the VF-31 Siegfrieds is only putting out 1,875kN.

Don't get too excited, we're still months away from launching... getting absolutely destroyed at work thanks to furloughs and temporary headcount reductions brought on by the whole lockdown thing. I can't even interview replacements because of the extreme restrictions on access to our facilities now. At the very least, I'm fairly confident there won't be anything too attention-grabbing in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1S Roy Focker Special that'll distract my group from working on Masahiro Chiba's original Sky Angels doujinshi. If it's anything like Master Archive Mobile Suit: MSV Ace Pilot Log it'll be mostly biographical info on Roy's military service. The Sky Angels book has been a really fascinating look into Macross's earliest lore. I especially enjoyed the foreword, which is presented as an excerpt from another fictional book by the title Valkyrie in the Blue Sky by an author M. L. Gadjet (sic) that talks about the first flight of the initial VF-1 prototype. That prototype, called VFX-FP-1, was a converted F-14 that was outfitted with the QF-3000's FF-1999 thermonuclear reaction turbine engine. It took off from the Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards Air Force Base for a 70 minute test flight a bit 12:30 on September 21st, 2006. Master File borrowed a fair bit of that, especially the use of the FF-1999 for early testing like it did with the VF-0-NF.

This just in, it's been retitled as Haruhiko Mikimoto Forever... coming "when it's done".

Bingo. There are books I have more than two of... but that's mostly because they're old enough that finding a pristine copy for scanning is difficult or if I screw up and accidentally win multiple copies on YJA. Incidentally, the terribly mysterious website's servers are up but haven't been populated with webpages yet... so I can at least say the project's official name is Macross Historica.

Oh ho! Maybe the comic book collectors. Collecting the larger publications is comparatively easy since publishers can't get away with just changing the cover a bit and re-sell the same book as a new product the way that toy companies can redeco an existing mold and call it an all-new product. They have to actually come up with new content or people won't buy their book. For the record, I have two personal-use copies of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1S Roy Focker Special on order... one for my own use, and one for scanning and archival. Same as all the other volumes. We know the Master File for the "Roy Focker Special" isn't going to be a reprint of an older book. It's gonna be something akin to the Master Archive Mobile Suit: MSV Ace Pilot Log book that was done for Gundam, talking about the career of a particular ace pilot more than the actual mecha. Though, admittedly, even I wish they'd put their energy into a volume about something other than the VF-1. There are enough VF-19s floating around to do a VF-19 Vol.2, or maybe a VF-31 Vol.2 that actually talks about the production VF-31. Or a book for the VF-17 and VF-171. Or, shock, maybe a book about the SV-51 or Sv-262, or the SV Works in general. I don't expect anything great or particularly interesting from the Roy Focker Special book. Likely a lot of fuss and noise about the VF-0S, VF-X-1, VF-1A-1, and VF-1S-4, with some side notes about the F203 and probably F-14A+ to go along with a general biography of Roy and probably a featurette about the other units who drew inspiration from the SVF-1 Skulls like Max and Milia's Dancing Skulls, Ozma Lee's SMS Skull Platoon, etc.

Should we start a pool? Take bets on whether it'll be July, August, September, October, etc.?

Offhand, I don't recall Kawamori ever giving a specific reason for modifying the VF-1A's monitor turret design for the movie... but I'd assume he wanted to make it somewhat more visually impressive-looking since it was going to be (however temporarily) a main character mecha. The TV version VF-1A head is kind of flat and undetailed looking. The far more angular movie version looks a lot more impressive and dynamic. There was no need to mess with the VF-1D head since it wasn't appearing in the film (replaced by the VT-1), and both the VF-1J and the VF-1S already had that certain je ne sais quoi that makes them stand out as main character mecha even though the J was only getting a glorified cameo. I suspect the VF-1A head was the only one he set out to retool. But only one of those was done by Kawamori... he made some slight tweaks to the J-type head to modernize the design for Macross the First. The D-type head design was done by Hidetaka. Macross the First is its own alternate take though, and the revamped designs haven't been seen outside of it. Even Macross Delta, which was made well after Macross the First, uses an unmodified TV series VF-1J head. Since Macross the First is cancelled (again), I doubt we'll see any more of those designs. Personally, I think you're jumping to conclusions here and making a lot of unfounded assumptions of intent by the notoriously airy-fairy Kawamori-sensei who hates being pinned down to anything. Bandai would keep pumping out new versions every few years no matter what happened... they're Bandai, it's what they do. As to there being no way of knowing what head is correct... that's not correct. Excluding the VF-1A, there's only one official monitor turret design for any given variant. The VF-1A's two monitor turret designs are BOTH correct, given that the TV version officially corresponds to VF-1A's from Blocks 1-5 and the DYRL? version to Blocks 6 and later. They gave that explanation way back in Variable Fighter's Aero Report. ... as Gavil might have said under the circumstances, "The Beauty of Marketing to Collectors". They've got you lot over a barrel and they freaking know it. Yup... though there's a fun little asterisk there in that the "Movie-type" VF-1 was actually in service before the end of the First Space War. The TV version of the VF-1 is representative of the VF-1's first few production blocks (1-5), and the Movie version of the entire rest of the VF-1's production run (Block 6 and up). The SDF-1 Macross's VF-1s were mainly Block 4 and 5 aircraft, but there are a few sources (like This is Animation: Macross Plus) that put Block 6 VF-1s in operation not long after the First Space War began. It mentions a UN Spacy Marine Corps training squadron - SVMAT-102 - was equipped with the Block 6 VT-1 Super Ostrich and began a three month assignment to ARMD-04 Clemenceau in October 2009 (around the time the Macross reached Mars in episode 7). Yes, that's what the production block numbers denote... minor variations in hardware, software, and feature support made while a particular model or variant of aircraft is still in mass production that wouldn't, on their own, be enough to constitute a new variant. New aircraft are built to that updated standard, and older models are updated to it as resources and time permit. You may have heard in the news about the US Navy's recent delivery of the new F/A-18E/F Block III Super Hornets, and plans to update all the old Block II's to Block III level. The last TV version production block was Block 5, and the first Movie version production block was Block 6. Variable Fighter Master File, though not official setting material, follows this line religiously and asserts that Block 8 was the current standard in production when the Zentradi wiped out everything on Earth's surface. The reason given for the VF-1A's monitor turret design changing was an update/improvement/refinement in the design of the sensor cluster that went hand-in-hand with the various avionics improvements for operations in space that were also part of Block 6.

Yes and no... Production I.G. was originally I.G. Tatsunoko Limited, a satellite production house that Tatsunoko Production set up to help it retain talented staff in '87. They bought out Tatsunoko's 20% stake in the company and went solo in 1993 to become Production I.G., and now own an 11.2% stake in their former parent company. Indeed. Eh... it wasn't really something they were actively trying to do, it just kind of happened because their plans to release their bowdlerized localization of the Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series were shot to hell by Revell and they had to start over from scratch and invent ways to tie Macross into two other shows on the fly to meet the new demand for a series long enough for first-run syndication. They didn't plan a damn thing, they were very literally making it up as they went... which is why there are so many inconsistencies and outright errors in their version. Oh my, no... the previous staff, by which we mean Carl Macek, absolutely had the guts (and the necessary lack of creative integrity) to do exactly that. Every pitch he made for a Robotech project, save one, was built on Macross and making Robotech more like Macross. The few ideas he had that weren't shut down by the lawyers at Harmony Gold and/or Tatsunoko Production for being dangerously close to, or actually, infringing on Big West's copyrights were shut down by his own incompetence. Robotech II: the Sentinels was the closest he got, a story about the Macross cast and a new generation of characters who were all just thinly disguised knockoffs of Macross characters, using the closest he could get to a VF-1 (the Legioss) and a bunch of imitation-brand Macross mecha that were meant to be distinct enough to not incur a lawsuit while looking enough like designs from Macross to be familiar. Fortunately for him, his own ineptitude flew the poorly-funded project into the ground before the exchange rate crash administered the coup de grace before most of the potentially-infringing material could be animated. The one time he got away from his obsession with trying to "Macross-ize" Robotech was the biggest flop in the franchise's history prior to Robotech Academy... Robotech 3000. Since he wasn't allowed to rip off Macross the way he wanted to, all he could do was bash it in interviews like a petulant and deeply disingenuous man-child. The current staff aren't any sharper, but they ARE aware that there are alternative media formats where they CAN get away with that kind of thing because of the way their license is drawn up. That's why the flagship title for the rebooted and relaunched Robotech franchise in the early 2000s was a collection of Macross-based comics. It's likely no coincidence its first title was a prequel about the development of the VF-1... conceived around the time Macross Zero promotional materials started doing the rounds online and published the same month as the debut of Macross Zero's first episode. The one non-Macross comic they did had to have a Macross mini-comic in it to sell it. When the time came to do animation, the same legal constraints were applied and they had to go for a more Macek-level attempt to Macross-ize the MOSPEADA ships and mecha... and as with Macek, a lot of their proposals ended up rejected by legal for "are you trying to get us sued?" reasons. Apart from the "original" series, Robotech's history is a nearly-unbroken continuity of "how can we be more like Macross to make people like us?". Same reason they were constantly banging on about the live action movie license and insisting it was not only practically a done deal but set to be a tentpole franchise for a major studio... trying to drum up enough interest to actually get funding to do something. Well, we now have Diamond Comic Distributors' cancellation lists for both June and July (there is no May list due to the shutdown)... and there are some new minor developments on that front. Robotech Remix #5 is still listed as cancelled, and as of June Robotech Remix #6 is also officially listed as cancelled with Status 2 ("will resolicit"). The series is still absent from Titan's release schedule through the end of the year. With issue #5 now almost six months late, it seems highly probable the series was quietly cancelled due to poor sales or some other issue that Titan doesn't want to draw attention to. The total silence makes me suspect legal problems. Titan's trade paperback editions of Comico's Robotech comics also showed up on the list with status 2, though in that case it appears to be a multi-month delay with Titan's release schedule now showing the next volume as planned for 2020 Week 38 (the week of September 14-20). Nope... not unless they import it and resell it in their own store. Harmony Gold's license excludes Japan, so if a Japanese company decides to license the property to make merchandise intended for sale in the Japanese domestic market HG has no involvement at all because that's all occurring outside the scope of their license. Likewise, if that product intended for the JDM should happen to be sold internationally by a store in Japan... Harmony Gold can't do a damn thing to stop it because it's a Japanese product made under a Japanese license and and the sale technically occurred in Japan. They wouldn't receive any percentage of the sale... which is why toy collectors should only buy authentic Macross and MOSPEADA merchandise from Japan, and not the stuff made by Toynami and KidzLogic under licenses from HG. That's also why Harmony Gold can't do anything to stop stores like HobbyLink Japan, Amazon Japan, Mandarake, etc. from selling Macross goods outside of Japan. Those stores are still based in Japan and thus the sales technically occur in Japan, where Harmony Gold has no rights to the property and therefore no legal standing to bring a complaint. Unlikely, Macross is Robotech's money spinner... MOSPEADA toys and goods don't sell anywhere near as well for them. They're still trying to offload Toynami MOSPEADA stuff they made over a decade ago..

The official website doesn't offer much more detail than that... they just mention that they've made a new head mold based on a new interpretation of the design that differs from the one they did for the movie version. Must be... This does appear to be basically that... Bandai changing things simply for the sake of changing them, since the VF-1S's head is supposed to be exactly the same.

And there it is!

Both, for the record... but in the VF-0's case, Roy Focker's role was much less because he was a replacement for the original lead test pilot D.D. Ivanov. Ivanov defected to the Anti-Unification Alliance and took the VF-0's development data with him, which was what allowed Sukhoi, IAI, and Dornier to rush their SV-51 to completion. Roy was D.D.'s protege of sorts, and one of the lead test pilots on the VF-X-1. It's never really been clear why so much merchandise insistently calls it the "Roy Focker Special"... because there was never anything special about it in the show except the fact that it had a wicked cool paint job and sentimental value to Hikaru after Roy's passing. It's not an ace custom or anything like that. It's an utterly unremarkable, bog standard, Block 4 VF-1S Valkyrie identical in every way to the twenty-nine other VF-1S units the SDF-1 Macross carried during the First Space War (TV ver.). The only significance it had was that it was Roy's aircraft, and later passed down to Hikaru as a memento of him. Yeah... though even the oldest technical materials clearly indicate there were 29 others, Roy's is the only one we see because the SVF-1 Skulls are the only squadron we ever get an up-close look at. I assume he's referring to the fact that a lot of art of the VF-1S is subtly incorrect - particularly around the neck area - when compared to Kawamori's original line art. There is, after all, only one set of art for the VF-1S's head... it's the same in the TV series and DYRL.

A few years ago, I might have said "Roy". Now that I'm managing a larger group with way more responsibilities and have gained a few problematic subordinates along the way... I find it a lot easier to identify with Vrlitwhai and all the crap he had to put up with. It could not have been easy to be Quamzin and Laplamiz's boss and the man constantly on the back foot thanks to humanity's bullsh*t approach to space warfare.

So, bets on how long this one gets delayed? It says due out June 2020... they're rapidly running out of June.

As far as I am aware, there are none... the line art for the VF-1's S-type monitor turret is exactly the same in both Macross Perfect Memory and the Macross: Do You Remember Love? Data Bank book. And I mean EXACTLY the same, as in "it's literally the same art reprinted". Can you offer more detail about what they claim to be doing? I am not a toy collector by any stretch of the imagination.

Gave Eromanga-sensei a try, and it's actually turning out to be OK if a bit cliched... not as fanservice-y as the title made me think. It does feel a tad suspiciously convenient that every light novel author seems to be a junior high or high school student though... where are all the adults? Especially the guardians who would have to be present for these characters to be working as professional novelists and artists?

Oh no, no... Tatsunoko Production would LOVE to get their foot in Macross's door again. They want a piece of that action REAL bad. So bad that they went to court to try to claim they were owed royalties from subsequent Macross works because of their involvement in funding production of the original series. The courts shot 'em down. It's not hard to see why that would appeal to them, though. Like every animation production house, Tatsunoko has to cope with the razor-thin profit margins of the anime industry and therefore nothing would be quite so appealing as having even a modest percentage of the steady revenue stream produced by a fairly consistent earner like Macross. Of course, with Kawamori being a bigshot at Satelight there's basically no chance that Tatsunoko will ever get to be involved in a Macross production again. Kawamori, for his part, does still seem to be averse to the idea of direct sequels.

All I really remember is a lot of tedious talk about space politics... like it was C-SPAN Space.

IIRC, they have been having a rough couple of years... not a strong downward trend like this year, but a downward trend nonetheless. Until that report that they're down 89%, there wasn't really cause for anyone to notice since lean years are normal for an animation production house given the fickle anime industry and the notoriously razor-thin profit margins that come with working in it. If nothing else, they probably weren't referring to Remix. That's an alterniverse story, not a reboot. Harmony Gold likes to talk a big game, but as you know talk is all it ever turns out to be. Rebooting Robotech would require a major outlay... the kind of cash that neither Harmony Gold nor any of its partners or licensees has NEVER been willing to invest in the series. It'd require them to throw out the original three shows and create all-new material to replace it... and even doing a crap job on that scale costs a lot of money. Money the franchise does not have, and never did. Every Robotech production has been done as cheaply as possible because nobody has ever really been convinced that a new Robotech development has the potential to succeed. Tommy Yune only got his sub-million dollar budget for Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles because it was the flagship animated property in Robotech's plan for a reboot and "comeback" in the early 2000s and because he swore blind that it would elevate Robotech into the ranks of mainstream anime and bring in investors that'd bankroll all of the subsequent installments. That support never materialized, so funding never materialized and the next title had to go beg for money on Kickstarter in order to bankroll a pilot for a new series that looked even more amateurish than Shadow Chronicles did. TL;DR: There's nobody out there dumb enough to put up the kind of money Robotech needs to do a reboot... not even in Harmony Gold itself. Is that what they're saying these days? No, the reason that the Shadow Chronicles OVA was cancelled after just one episode was that a budget for Part II never materialized. Tommy Yune had to make some fairly grandiose promises to get Harmony Gold to put up the rather paltry budget they provided to produce the first episode and Shadow Chronicles failed to deliver on all of them. The most critical of those was that the success of the OVA's first episode would attract investors who would bankroll the rest of the episodes. Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles was released directly to home video and promptly ignored by basically everyone who wasn't a Robotech fan or actively mocking Robotech fans... so it never elevated Robotech to the ranks of mainstream sci-fi anime, it never brought in that new generation of fans, and it certainly never attracted any investors. Even Robotech fans hated it. So Part II was put on indefinite hiatus because it had no budget. There were none of the promised outside investors clamoring to put their money into Robotech, and Harmony Gold wasn't willing to sink any more money into what was looking increasingly like another Robo-flop. Harmony Gold did have some trouble with Funimation later on... but that was when they were negotiating a license renewal for Robotech and went into the negotiations on a colossal ego trip like they thought they were doing Funimation a huge favor by licensing them a property to rival Gundam instead of practically begging Funimation to license a series that's a laughingstock and borderline nonentity in its own genre. Funimation opted to pass on renewing the Robotech license in the face of Harmony Gold's ridiculous posturing. I'm sure it probably privately amused Funimation to see Harmony Gold come crawling back years later with a much more appropriately humble attitude... though I'm equally sure they're far too professional to let it show on their faces. With a few minutes of poor quality original animation thrown in to tenuously connect it to Robotech, yeah. Harmony Gold's licenses exclude Japan, so it won't have any impact on anything Tatsunoko or its licensees produce for MOSPEADA in the Japanese domestic market...

That's a significant drop... Tatsunoko must be having a really rough year. Like every studio, they're going to take a nasty hit as a result of the coronavirus lockdown but they've been in a rough patch for a while now and this can't be helping. The animation studios run on really narrow profit margins even when times are good. Whether or not one of their new titles is a hit right out of the gate can be the difference between finishing the year in the red or in the black, while it takes years to recoup the costs for the shows that don't take off (if they ever do). They've got one show running right now, but I can't find any data on average viewership. Maybe it's not doing well. Yeah, lean years are nothing unusual for an animation production house like Tatsunoko... though if it becomes a multi-year trend they might be in trouble. I understand they bet a lot on Egao no Daika and it massively did not pay off.

That, IMO, is one of the things that makes Hikaru easier for the average viewer to relate to than Roy, Isamu, Basara, or even Alto... Not only is our boy Hikaru completely clueless when it comes to girls, he's not The Best or The Ace. He's a talented but otherwise normal guy out there doing his best, and he does occasionally get completely REKT for his efforts. He's also not really given much in the way of special treatment, except plausible stuff like getting a leg up in training because he is already a highly trained stunt pilot, and he flies the same VF that the rank-and-file grunts do (more or less). I know it's not as action figure-friendly, but I really dislike the way most protagonists in Macross after Macross II have essentially been flying Ace Customs in spirit if not in actual practice. One of the things I've really enjoyed about some of the video games, manga, and homebrew RPG materials is there's a lot more attention given to those neglected main VFs that are not getting their due in the animation. The VF-11 finally became a main character's main mecha in 20-freaking-12 and the Macross Delta prequels actually gave us a proper look at a VF-171 squadron.

SAME. This is one of the reasons I'm not a bigger fan of Gundam, TBH... entirely too much of that franchise falls into the category of "bleh characters in omnipotent mecha". It takes all the drama out of a fight if the main character's mecha can tank entire magazines of anti-mecha machine gun fire while the enemy mecha explode if anyone so much as coughs in their immediate vicinity. New Mobile Report Gundam Wing was probably the worst offender, with Leos seemingly exploding out of pity even if Heero missed them with his big beam rifle by a clear 50 yards. Fortunately, my regular gaming group are a pretty laid-back group who are more interested in interesting roleplay and an enjoyable game session than powergaming or any kind of coolness one-upmanship. Some of the other gaming groups I've been involved with haven't been so fortunate. That Macross MUSH I was on lost about 3/4 of its playerbase after a sysadmin decided his character was The Main Character and went full Mary Sue in a way that had practically everyone rolling their eyes. Realistically speaking, there's nothing at all stopping a space fighter from being as garishly painted as its pilot desires... because space isn't as well lit as sci-fi would have us believe... clown car paint is just as stealthy in space as matte black. So it's totally realistic for VFs to be painted like they're headed to an airshow in the course of normal duty. Macross Chronicle did establish that the VF-17 also has an active stealth system, but it's a generation older than the state of the art 3rd Generation active stealth systems developed for use on the VF-19 and VF-22. The VF-17 went for passive stealth to complement its active stealth system because 2nd Generation active stealth was less effective at concealing a VF at short ranges or from powerful radar systems. Every little bit helps, y'know? The VF-19A/B/C/D and VF-22 were also designed around passive stealth and support that with an advanced 3rd Generation active stealth system that can make them virtually invisible to older model radars even at short ranges as seen in Macross Plus. It definitely isn't far outside what'd be considered normal specs-wise for a 3.5th Generation or 4th Generation VF. Ah, I see. Yeah, there wouldn't really be much in the way of counters for the Gigamesh's high-speed combat claws on a typical VF would there? Look at it this way, nothing you've designed has caught fire or had part of it explode. I cannot make the same boast. (Government projects and high voltages, y'know...)