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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    You gotta remember that a VF's armor is some seriously tough stuff... calling armor "sub-par compared to VFs" covers a MASSIVE range of armor strength once you're looking at 4th Generation or later VFs. Just as an example, if we were to assume the Cheyenne II had armor equivalent to 1/2 the battroid-mode defensive ability of a VF-171, that doesn't sound as impressive as it is. Half a VF-171's armor strength is a 33% improvement over the 1st and 2nd Generation VFs and the Tomahawk destroid. About 2-3 times the armor strength of the VF-25 is in full blown cruiser-level battleship armor territory. (Also, it's "Al Shahal" with a shah- sound, from the katakana. I don't speak any Arabic, so I'll confess I have no idea what the significance is. Were you mentally connecting it to the abbreviation for the Israeli army?) That's kind of an unfounded declaration in and of itself, given that the units are seldom actually seen inside the domes at all... and we only see a fraction of the ~30 islands in the Macross Frontier.(Island-15 "Reno" doesn't count, since most of the VFs kept there are owned by civilians.) It's also not even clear how many of the few Cheyenne IIs seen inside Island-1 are New UN Forces-owned, as SMS has their own complement of 'em. EDIT: It's also quite possible that there are no Cheyenne IIs stationed inside the domes under normal circumstances either... and that they sortie out from the Battle Frontier when an alert is called, the same way we've seen VF-25s enter the city from the Macross Quarter's dock. Both of its Macross Chronicle mechanic sheets are very precise that its main use was/is anti-air defense... though combat against flying targets inside of the islands is also lumped into "air defense". The movie sheet goes farther to say it was also rendered basically useless by the high mobility evidenced by the Vajra (or late-gen VFs) and was only really useful for throwing up walls of fire to narrow the enemy's line of advance. I'm including every in-continuity appearance of the Zentradi thus far... but I feel I haven't communicated effectively. Specifically, you seem to be laboring under the misconception that the Gnerl (AKA "Air Battle Pod") was the Zentradi Army's main "fighter" and that there was some circumstance that saw that role adopted by the Regult. The official publications make it quite clear that is not the case... and are quite clear about the Regult having been the Zentradi Army's main all-regime mecha going back to before the fall of the Protoculture's Stellar Republic. The Gnerl is described as being a supplemental craft that compensates for the Regults and Glaugs being unremarkable performers in atmospheric flight. On the ground or out in space, the Regult dominates the Zentradi inventory. There's no reason to deploy "Gnerl support" in space beyond slightly added to the numerical advantage, because it's a vacuum, where aerodynamics matter not one bit and the limbs of the battle pods offer significant advantages for maneuvering and combat. You're right about one thing... sending in the destroids is illogical as hell on the battlefields of Macross. They were a concept based on a rather fundamental misconception about the nature of warfare before first contact in 2009.At best, you could attribute the drubbing the Cheyenne IIs got to the New UN Spacy Marine garrison force almost certainly being a federal unit like those troops stationed on Gallia IV, and those destroids being the local scrubs of the Al Shahal NUNS. Undeniably... and there are so many options that the choice to employ the Cheyenne II makes zero sense. Oh, it's undeniably bad writing... mainly because, unlike the Macross Frontier fleet, there is absolutely no practical reason for Al Shahal to own a Cheyenne II series destroid, let alone a battery or more of 'em. They were a thing on the Frontier fleet because SMS needed mobile AA guns for their borrowed Macross Quarter-class ship and because the fleet wanted something that could operate safely inside the domes without messing up their pavement. None of the other Brisingr Alliance member worlds seem to use those destroids. The pavement on Al Shahal seems to be stressed to handle a jumping dancing Workroid based off the same platform, while laden with cargo, so they almost certainly aren't constrained by pavement damage worries... Animation, yes... media, no.Variable Fighter Aero Report in This is Animation Special: Macross Plus has paintjobs and brief histories of several Spacy Marine VF squadrons, and a couple more are mentioned and shown in various Variable Fighter Master File volumes and Tenjin's "Valkyries" art books.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Funnily enough, if you'd looked up the abbreviations individually over on the Compendium or, really, checked any Macross artbook or tech manual that mentions them, you'd have realized that index page you cited is incorrect for those abbreviations. It's "Spacy Air Force" and "Spacy Marine Corps". This is also incorrect. The UN Army is also seen in Macross II, where characters are shown with uniform patches that clearly read "ARMY". The Army troops also have a distinctive uniform variant in a different color from the Spacy and other branches (khaki). The most visible one (and the one featured in the art books) is the UN Army colonel who commanded Earth's defenses in the last episode. I don't recall it mentioning them as Marines... can you cite a page? I recall them identified as beloning to the Macross Galaxy Corporate Army. Also don't recall any explicit identification of the Cheyennes in Zero being UN Marine Corps property... they're badged UN SPACY, but the model was used by multiple branches of the UN Forces including the Marines, Army, Navy, and Spacy. I think you may be jumping to some conclusions here... To the best of my knowledge, no comparison has been drawn between the armor of the Cheyenne II and the New UN Forces battlepod derivatives... so that right there is an unfounded assumption.Apart from the Monster, the original generation Destroids were reasonably mobile... certainly as much so as the Cheyenne, but nowhere near as much as a battlepod or VF. It was not often shown, however, since the destroids had an unpleasant habit of standing still and shooting. A bad habit they still have in the 2050's and 2060's. Your source? We've seen Valkyries used as ground-based protection in normal duty even during wartime, going back as far as the original series. The Grand Cannon 1/Alaska Base surface side installation had a VF-1 guard detail, we've even documented their unique color scheme on M3. There was a VF-1 guard detail outside the base inside the SDF-1, outside New Edwards on Eden, patrolling the city on occupied Voldor, etc. etc. etc. Most of the galaxy would seem to agree with you... though the Frontier fleet apparently felt there was still a niche there, because official material has described the Cheyenne II as principally being for air defense. You don't have to like it... but it IS official. More that their role could be done better by Valkyries... but hey. You... may want to go rewatch the original series. The Gnerl was much, MUCH less common in air and space battles than battle pods and battle suits. The bloody thing didn't even appear in DYRL?... and I don't recall it in any other Macross titles besides Macross M3 and Macross 30, whereas the Regult is EVERYWHERE. Even in Macross 30, the Regult is a MUCH more common unit than the Gnerl or any other Zentradi mecha.Regults were the most common unit in the Zentradi army, explicitly described as the Zentradi Army's main mecha. Yeah, they die a lot... but it's worth remembering two facts: 1. In DYRL, the VF-1s had to thin the herd with reaction weapons to have any hope of surviving. (The standard DYRL load in line art, toys, etc. is four RMS-1 thermonuclear reaction missiles and two UUM-7 missile pods). 2. For the first 2/3 of the original series and a good chunk of DYRL, the Zentradi were deliberately pulling their punches in the name of studying humanity. IIRC the VF-1 achieved a 12:1 kill ratio against the unmodified Regult when the Zentradi weren't fighting seriously... and presumably the ZBP-104 and -106 have received significant defensive upgrades as the Queadluun-Rhea did when it was developed from the Queadluun-Rau. After all, the New UN Forces don't consider their Zentradi soldiers expendable and don't clone 'em by the billion the way Zentradi main fleets do.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    The UN Forces and New UN Forces are divided into seven branches... you've got some of the names wrong. The four terrestrial branches are your standard Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. The other three are the Space Forces, that being the Spacy, Spacy Air Force, and Spacy Marine Corps.To date, I don't believe the NUNS Marines have been associated with destroids... the only mecha we've ever seen associated with them are variable fighters and Zentradi mecha. ... you sure you watched the same show we did? The niche is one thing, but to characterize their effectiveness as anything other than "abysmal" would be to stretch the truth to an astonishing degree. Armor will only do so much, being highly mobile is what keeps you alive in Macross... which is why those destroids die in droves even fighting against battle pods.A battle pod or battroid could do the job of fighting inside the islands just as well (or better), the only problem is they'd muss up the pavement... and a fastidious Frontier Government apparently considered that a step too far. I feel like an English teacher whenever I have to make this point, but a canon is something you can get behind... a cannon is something you should never try standing in front of.Also, you'd be misquoting me if you did... remember, the point was Kawamori's down on the idea of inter-series canon. He considers each Macross series an island unto itself. So what's written in coverage for a mecha in the context of a series (e.g. a Macross Chronicle Mechanic Sheet) would be quite valid. The other English teacher nitpick (and I hate doing that, because I'm only an adjunct faculty member in summer semester and only in Computer Science), is I said that the Cheyenne II's operating profile is still mainly air defense. It can do other things, and really an AA gun becomes an anti-everything gun if the enemy is close enough, but it's mostly for shooting at flying enemies. No, I'm pretty much bang-on. You're forgetting the Zentradi 500,000 year war with the Supervision Army has been fought almost entirely in space... they're not the best space fighters out there, but battlepods are very much a deadly space fighter when used properly (which usually entails "send a load of those at the enemy"). In fact, the official materials mention they're kind of lousy on land because of their high center of gravity and low stability due to the leg design. (That's why they prefer to jump instead of running.)
  4. Seto Kaiba
    The Cheyenne II's a modernized ADR-03-Mk.III Cheyenne... but its equipment and its operating profile is largely the same. Macross Chronicle's mechanic sheet identifies it as still being mainly for air defense. Those particle beam guns it has are enough to improve its abilities against hard targets, but that only makes it an air defense robot with a little extra firepower. That's kind of an interesting assumption given the general absence of destroid units in all but a few remote regions. It's not clear why Al Shahal wanted the Cheyenne II, but Frontier opted for them on the basis of a very specific niche need rather than general usefulness or cost-performance.Likewise, the maintenance of Zentradi hardware is also predicated on more than just cost-effectiveness. Namely, the need for equipment that suits the combat style and physical proportions of the Zentradi soldiers of the NUNS Marines. Mind you, it's been explicitly said of at least one of /those/ units that the reason the military kept them around is their exceptional performance. I'd imagine the high-mobility performance of the ZBP-104 and ZBP-106 is something to write home about as well. The dialog would point to them being two separate units... one is the Zentradi NUNS Marines and the other is some Al Shahal ground force unit. Perhaps in the relatively underdeveloped or cash-strapped Brisingr Alliance... The New UN Forces generally doesn't use destroids anymore... so that's more of a case of Al Shahal fielding destroids for no clear reason, when destroids are a generally ineffective combat platform. The Zentradi Marines are using mecha that account for the realities of space warfare that destroids were never suited to.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    It's not terribly surprising, really... even after being modernized, you can't escape the fact that the Cheyenne II is a 50+ year old clunker that belongs to a family of mecha that had been retired as generally unsuited for anything but anti-aircraft defense almost three decades prior and retired to service as the spacefuture equivalent of heavy equipment. Mobility is king on the battlefield in Macross, and a big slow walking tank just can't hack it for obvious reasons... which is why we really haven't seen a new destroid since the First Space War ended.Get right down to it, it's basically a Workroid someone gussied up with armor, guns, and a fresh coat of "kill me khaki" paint. Frontier did it because they wanted an AA platform that wouldn't mess up the pavement inside their Islands (no, really!). Al Shahal's probably using them because it's a comparatively impoverished and underdeveloped part of the New UN Government... it's still slightly more effective than resorting to harsh language. Actually, most destroids have two power plants... a primary generator, and a lower-output backup generator. The only one that has a documented engine and didn't have two generators was the MBR-07 series Spartan. Most destroids do, in fact, possess energy conversion armor... but their more limited generator outputs mean that it's less a primary defense and more just supplementing the strength of a considerable amount of physical armor. That's an approach that worked well in the First Space War, giving the Tomahawk more armor strength than the VF-1 battroid, but VFs and their substantial reactor outputs won the armor arms race in the years that followed. Really, that there are destroids at all in Frontier or Delta is where the bad writing is... previous shows already made it quite clear that a destroid is good for little more than construction equipment or police duty. Generally speaking, the goal is to stop the enemy in space before he gets to your planet... and you have to do something with your fighters when a enemy hasn't presented itself. Voldor didn't seem to have any problem with using VFs for ground patrols... and Eden didn't either.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    We've seen members of Delta Flight use them... so clearly not that improbable. Arad used one in Ep23. Just the rescue... not the entire series? I think Kawamori and co. probably did their research just fine... the F-14A is the most numerous F-14 variant, and the units aboard the Illustria were not new-built units. They were retrofit models that had been improved with OTM from the VF-0 program, presumably to help them keep pace with the new fighters entering service that were developed and built around OTM like the F203 Dragon II and MiM-31.Variable Fighter Master File does mention a version of the F-14X though, which adopted more OTM and advancements like thrust vectoring... and was also used in the initial variable fighter testbed program. (Essentially, they paint the thing as the direct ancestor of the VF-0.) Aye... by a modest margin in terms of engines, and a more noteworthy one in terms of weaponry. It's one thing to have monkey model units that Shinsei and General Galaxy are required to sell to New UN Gov't member states in lieu of the full-capability versions used by the Federal New UN Forces... but the question that I keep on coming back to is whether there's a further reduction in capability done with fighters that are being sold to non-governmental organizations like Strategic Military Services or Xaos to ensure that the local NUNS will always be a fair bit shootier than the corporate goons.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    OK, after some digging I think I've found the explanation for this one... and even I was partly wrong. The official sources (liner notes, Chronicle) identify Shin's F-14 as being a F-14A+. No double plus, no kai. The F-14A++ and F-14A+2 designations belong to the same aircraft and come from Variable Fighter Master File, which is equivalent to the official F-14A+. The Kai seems to be something Bandai added. The avionics and airframe control system are managed by a fairly sophisticated AI... I'd imagine they probably set up some manner of preconfigured behavior such that a fighter could react to an external signal by automatically flying to a specific set of coordinates. IIRC in Ep23 even the guys seemed to have communicators attached to their thumbnails... maybe Windermere just forgot to confiscate it (or didn't notice it?).
  8. Seto Kaiba
    The term "monkey model" followed at quite a distance from the first appearance of a "monkey model" VF... the VF-19P Excalibur in Macross Dynamite 7 Ep3 "Lonesome" (released 25 May 1998). Wikipedia has a fairly useful description of the term and its origin, with some practical Cold War examples.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    In name, sure... but the Federal NUNS and local NUNS are horses of two totally different colors and bound by different levels of restrictions. IIRC those are officially "F-14A++". It shouldn't... that's the whole point of a "monkey model", to be a reduced-capability version built for export to allies. The purpose is twofold: to make certain you have the upper hand if your ally should turn on you, and to ensure your enemy doesn't get an accurate idea of what the weapon can really do. The term itself has its origins in the Soviet Union's export practices. In point of fact, Isamu's VF-19EF/A has less engine power than a stock VF-19F. NUNS is the military... the space branch of the military at that. The government is the New UN Government (NUNG). Actually, that term is used in the official publications too... particularly in connection with the VF-19's local variants. That's for new developments like the YF-24 derivatives all over the galaxy... for existing aircraft like the VF-19 or VF-22, there are restrictions imposed on many aspects of the locally-produced or imported version's performance by the New UN Government to ensure the local models will generally be weaker or less capable than the Federal New UN Forces version. In many cases, there are also restrictions on the number of these craft that can be produced by any one fleet or owned by one organization, which makes it very difficult for them to be employed in significant numbers.For instance, the maximum engine output is capped, the target acquisition rate of the missile launchers is reduced, etc.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    No, I did say "Frontier New UN Forces"... Probably my fault for not being precise... I was speaking mainly of how that has been used in Macross. To date, if we don't count one alterniverse example from the Macross II timeline, every variable fighter designated with a "Kai" has been a one-off... and many of the ones that could justifiably take it are one-offs (like the SMS Konig Monster). The custom VF-31s Xaos produced for Delta Flight are more than likely the single largest lot of one-offs to date at five aircraft. Why they're NOT designated as custom units isn't clear, because from the way they're described they very explicitly are. Considering the only real difference between the lot is the monitor turret, I'm surprised they weren't designated "VF-31改 <Character> Special" instead. It would have made a great deal more sense, considering it's obvious these fighters will never be mass produced because of how ruinously expensive a fold wave system is. That'd be at odds with the stats as printed, though... they've identified the VF-31 as the fighter Xaos intends to make its standard fighter, not as what's tipped for the Brisingr Alliance's NUNS 5th Gen VF. It's highly probable that the VF-31A/B Kairos is the next main fighter of the Brisingr Alliance, but it does appear that Xaos actually owns the fighters its pilots are flying rather than having them for testing purposes the way SMS Frontier did for its VF-25s. (Though Master File does suggest SMS purchased its own VF-25s via its connections at Shinsei and LAI.)Whether the ones Xaos has purchased are full military spec is what I wonder... one has to wonder what restrictions the PMCs have on purchasing fighters like that. You'd assume the local New UN Forces would want to have more power than some corporate army that answers only to the biggest pocketbook. I don't think we could call the forward-swept wing version of the VF-31 a "monkey model", considering its performance exceeds that of the base model.We know for a fact it's an in-house custom job by Xaos Valkyrie Works though, so the variant letters attached are basically meaningless. They really ought to all be designated VF-31改. I didn't count, but I'm relatively certain Chuck only fired about half of his micro-missiles.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Not sure why the federal New UN Forces would want the Frontier fleet's monkey model when the original it's based on is already part of their inventory... But with respect to numbers and letters, the IAI Kfir was an all-new aircraft to the US Navy and as such got its own assignment in the tri-service system even though relatively few were acquired. The VF-19EF Caliburn wouldn't/shouldn't merit its own stand-alone variant letter, given that it's just a locally-produced VF-19E monkey model. Oddly, one of the other locally built VF-19E derivatives DID get designated correctly... Aisha Blanchett's VF-19E from the Macross 30 novelization. (Oddly, the VF-19E seems to have become unaccountably popular as a variant to produce local monkey models for in the 2050's... which is odd considering it didn't exist in production terms until ~2010.) I wonder... would the VF-31s with Walkure's equipment have to be designated VF-31_-##/XAOS? Unlike SMS and the VF-25s it was operating in Macross Frontier, Xaos seems to actually OWN the VF-31s it's operating... whereas SMS just had them on loan from the Frontier NUNS. Is the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma platoon VF-31A a governmental stock model or a monkey model made for PMC use? Is there one "region" code for the entire Brisingr Alliance, or does each world have its own? Questions questions... ... I fear you may be misremembering. Japan bought 140 F-4EJs, built 138 more under license, and impored 14 RF-4E units. That's 278 (not counting the RF-4Es), of which only 96 were upgraded to F-4EJ改.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    On that, I'm not so sure... to us, 154 fighters may sound like a lot, but the scale of air power in Macross is something totally other. From a 2050s standpoint, a medium-sized emigrant fleet can muster more fighter aircraft at one time than than most modern air forces or navies. The UN Spacy forces that are attached to the 37th Large Scale Long Distance Emigrant Fleet (Macross-7) had close to twice as many fighters as the entire US Navy.A fleet like the 55th Large Scale Long Distance Emigrant Fleet is a good deal larger... an escort force potentially over four times the size of Macross-7's with fighter complement to match. If Frontier had the same fleet size as the Macross Valiant's and we assumed each ship was operating at maybe 1/2 of its capacity, that's almost twenty thousand planes (19,480). 154 fighters of one variant is a big deal today, but with an air force potentially numbering 20k, it almost feels like you could lose 154 as a rounding error. (It's less than 1%!) That's just one fleet, too... there have been at least 59 large-scale long-distance emigrant fleets. I say "at least" because that's the highest number to appear thus far (Macross 29, from Macross the Musiculture), and we basically have almost two decades (the 2050's and 2060's) where they haven't identified any fleet launches yet. Plus there's the ~100 short-distance emigrant fleets and the Federal forces too... Cutting right to the Aesop at the end of this lamentably long rant... the New UN Spacy is BIG. 154 fighters is a vanishingly small drop in an ocean of VFs. I'm not sure I'd equate the -EX designation with 改.With one noteworthy exception that is not relevant to the ongoing timeline, 改 (Kai) is more for non-production "aftermarket" customizations made to a single aircraft or small group of aircraft. The -EX variant designation is a production designation for aircraft that are factory retrofitted or built-to-suit with the necessary avionics and controls upgrades to accommodate an EX-Gear cockpit system and all the necessary other hardware bits to support same. EDIT: ... looking back at that, the second half is totally linguistic nit-picking on my part.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    You're makin' a pretty big unfounded assumption there... and the contradictions there are a little more subtle, but still present.The VF-19EF Caliburn was a monkey model developed in the Macross Frontier emigrant fleet by their local Shinsei office, but there's no evidence it was ever intended for export. It was tardy to the party, you might say... being developed while Frontier Shinsei and LAI were in the home stretch on YF-25 development, partly as a data collection platform. They only made 154 of 'em, split between the Frontier New UN Forces and SMS. (It's not clear if this total includes the customized testbed version, VF-19ACTIVE.) As a fleet-specific VF-19E derivative it really should be VF-19E-##/MF25. Or possibly it should've been VF-19EX-##/MF25 considering the onboard equipment. The VF-19P's got some contradictory backstory, but it's either the locally-produced detuned Zolan model or a variant produced for export sale to Zola... but it came before all this, so they haven't retroactively applied a correct designation to it. The VF-171EX should also be getting a fleet-specific designator (like it did, in a non-systemic way in the movies), because -EX is a shared variant letter used by any program for which an existing model of fighter has been retrofitted with an EX-Gear cockpit system. It should be VF-171EX-##/MF25 to reflect the fact that other fleets may also develop their own EX-Gear equippped VF-171s to extend the fighter's service life. The movie version gave the upgrade a unique block number (IIIF) instead. The units produced locally on Uroboros likely had their own local variations, so separate designation should be necessary (unless, of course, they're exempt as illegal, off-the-books units produced by Havamal and, in one case, given to "Bandit King" Ganess Modora.)
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Frustratingly, there IS an official system of designation markup to denote local variants... but it's not consistently applied and therefore becomes somewhat frustrating and unhelpful.The most commonly used version is a standard Navy-ish MDSB format, but followed with a slash after the block number, a two letter fleet name abbreviation and the fleet number. We've not seen the equivalent format for a planet yet. To give an example, let's say we're talking about a locally produced VF-19E Excalibur from the Macross Valiant fleet. The VF-19E was a variant introduced at Block 10 (they count blocks by 1's instead of 10's, so Block 10 is the actual 10th block), and Macross Valiant was the 46th Long-Distance Emigrant Fleet, so you'd get: VF-19E-10/MV16 Excalibur There are aberrations all over hell, like the Frontier fleet's local VF-19E derivative, which got a double variant letter instead (VF-19EF) but no fleet designator. The Zolan version of the VF-19 got a single variant letter all to itself (VF-19P). The VF-171, which Macross Chronicle indicates used roman numerals for its block numbers instead, also had at least one case had a fleet-unique block number (IIIF, the movie equivalent of the -EX type). In theory, Jessica Blanc's marksman model Nightmare Plus would be fully designated: VF-171AS-II/MF25 Nightmare Plus ... but is never actually cited as such. If you have a headache after reading that, welcome to the club. This also unhelpfully doesn't extend to non-governmental fighters operated by private contractors... so it's a mystery how someone would denote the unique modifications made to SMS's Konig Monster in the Frontier branch, or Xaos's modified VF-31s.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    It'd be convenient, but I doubt they'd do something like that... since the Federal NUNS isn't likely to develop anywhere near the number of VFs that the combined emigrant forces are. It'd make no sense to skip half of all numbers for a force that's developing maybe a tenth of new fighters.We'll probably see each new fighter generation's first model be the Federal main fighter, and the rest will be local derivatives of its censored YF spec. Mind you, even a fighter with the same series number as the Federal one isn't guaranteed to also be Federal spec... because of the local monkey model variants of those, like Galaxy or Frontier's local versions of the VF-19C and VF-19E respectively, or the local variants that the VF-171 has.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    True, though the chances of getting away undamaged when you're the one doing the stabbing are generally better if what you're using is a nice, solid, and thoroughly hardened object more durable than the thing you're stabbing.While the VF-171's forearms are specially hardened to act as a shield when in Battroid mode, trying to turn the stabilizers into a stabbing weapon without the barrier in place would probably be bad for both parties since they're not solid... there are antennae and sensors and air vents for the boundary layer control system in there. The advantage of a knife is that a knife is a solid, deadly sharp chunk of super-hard alloy even if the barrier's not on. Pretty safe bet the knife isn't much use against the carapace of the larger Vajra types... which is probably why they always seem to aim for the softer flesh exposed by the gaps in the carapace necessary for articulation... the neck and joints. When Ozma scored the first knife "kill" of a Vajra, he put that knife right through its throat... being ignorant, at the time, of that inconvenient fact that there's basically nothing vital in a Vajra's head. Maybe they wouldn't have to... y'know, bring back roller disco?
  17. Seto Kaiba
    I think you're probably giving the VF-171 too much credit here. Since we don't see the confrontation from start to finish, only the finishing blow, we really have no way of knowing if that particular Vajra's carapace had been damaged in combat by another weapon first... such as the high-powered anti-ECA rounds the Frontier NUNS issued to its troops for that assault. It'd also be a mistake to assume that all Vajra armor is equal. The defensive ability of a Vajra varies based on its maturity and developmental stage. That Vajra that was finished off with a pinpoint barrier punch was one of the less powerful forms, the "Mobile Soldier Vajra" form, which the Mechanic Sheets in Macross Chronicle speculate to be an intermediate form between a larva and the Heavy Soldier Vajra type (the "big red") and its carapace is somewhat weaker. On the occasions where we see the knife used, it's almost invariably used on the more mature, much more durable Vajra forms like the Heavy Soldier and/or Heavy Mobile Soldier (mantis) types which have a carapace tough enough to be very resistent even to the super-high powered shells the GU-17 uses. The bayonet fitting on the VF-11's gunpod was removed as a cost save, not for want of a clear use. It's not clear how widespread the decision to go for the cheaper gunpod was, but it's worth noting even the VF-14 has been depicted as using the variant with the bayonet.(It's also worth noting that the bayonet made a comeback in Macross 30 on the NUNS version of the YF-29...) Maybe someone at Surya Aerospace really, REALLY likes Crocodile Dundee? It is a little odd, but then I suppose the decision to do without a blade is more in keeping with their mobility-centered ethos. If they're resorting to fisticuffs something has gone badly wrong with their entire strategy of hit-and-run attacks.It's hard to see in the art on the official web site, but the shield is long enough that it could potentially be used for a stabbing attack... and there's some manner of spike visible between the surface of the shield and left wrist that protrudes past the hand and could make a serviceable stabbing weapon in the right circumstances.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Save me a bit of writing there...As to why VF developers are suddenly so interested in putting anti-armor knives on variable fighters for close combat, I can only surmise it has a lot to do with the expectations that New UN Forces officials and the developers had regarding the armor strength of the Vajra... and, to a lesser extent, other 5th Generation VFs. Pinpoint barrier-enhanced blunt trauma's only going to go so far, and with Vajra carapace working like ECA with a toughness matching (or exceeding) what a 5th Generation VF Battroid has, a nice sharp object that could stab a Vajra between the plates of its carapace probably sounded like a really good idea. Armor strength on VFs has only gone up... the VF-0 got an energy conversion armor defensive capability rivaling a tank, and the VF-1 tripled that based on older published material. In the 4th Generation VFs had achieved a level of defensive ability in their "naked" form that rivaled or exceeded the VF-1's Armored Pack (an 8x improvement in defensive ability vs. the VF-0), and the 5th Generation went up from there thanks to more generator output, superior materials, and in some cases simply making the armor thicker (like the YF-29).
  19. Seto Kaiba
    Tomytech didn't get the message on the "Ragna" front, but they're singing from the same psalter as the official subs on "Xaos".The "Ragna" spelling is shown on-screen several times in the series. The first occasion was Mission 0.89/1.0's pre-story exposition, where they show a labeled galaxy map to illustrate how far away the Brisingr cluster is from Earth. The same spelling crops in later episodes when star charts of the Brisingr cluster itself are shown. The official subs are using the spelling shown in the animation. IIRC, the "Xaos" spelling is only seen in merchandise and the official subs, since printed materials like the liner notes and magazine articles usually show the logo (styled in Greek, as Χάος) and write it in kana (ケイオス). I assume this is intended to be a mild homage to the Greek spelling, swapping the letters for their phoenitic and English equivalents instead of translating it directly... Χάος becoming Xaos.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Waiting a second... done! The spelling used in the animation of the series itself and the official subs on the Blu-Rays is "Ragna". (I went and double-checked just for you.) That's how it's spelled in the official subtitles on the Blu-Rays.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Almost certainly.The FF-3001/FC2 Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engine has a maximum instantaneous thrust rating almost 30% higher than the FF-3001A variant that was installed in the stock VF-31 Kairos. Even without having to make several adjustments to account for differences in the aircraft design, they'd likely need to detune the engine to prevent its normal maximum operating power from damaging the plane. Who knows what a full-power FF-3001/FC2 engine can do if hooked up to a properly functioning fold dimensional resonance system? Those engines are rated for 2,110kN unassisted... if the FDR system produces a 30% improvement in power they're pushing 2,750kN actual maximum power. To be fair, that was always true... it just wasn't this obvious before because we seldom saw more than two fighter designs from the same generation operating side by side. Usually the UN Spacy forces in any one locale only used one type of main fighter, which made it hard to compare. There were also a few cases of fighters upgraded to a ".5" Generation that muddied the waters a bit, like the VF-17 Nightmare which made that jump when its D variant and beyond were fitted with thermonuclear reaction burst turbines. Now that the New UN Forces have become as decentralized as the New UN Gov't, the number of new main fighters from the same generation has gone up quite a lot. Not counting local variants, the 5th Generation Main VF title is shared locally by at least five or six fighters we know about: the VF-24 which both Earth and the Federal New UN Forces use, the VF-25 developed by Frontier for itself and its allies, Galaxy's VF-27, Uroboros' VF-30 mentioned in Variable Fighter Master File, the Brisingr Alliance's VF-31, and the Sv-262 which the Windermere Kingdom uses. That's not counting units in trial and/or unofficial production like the YF-29. All told, the knife probably isn't a particularly useful piece of equipment... except in situations where precision counts for more than sheer destruction.The VF-27's blade-below-the-elbow was probably a more useful weapon, since it didn't depend on the manipulators. With the pinpoint barrier in the way, there really isn't a lot of appreciable difference between the knife and hand except surface area... either way, what you're doing is using an immovable spatial distortion to smash your way past armor. It's less like cutting and more like breaking something open using a wedge and mallet. Given what we saw the SMS Macross Quarter do in Macross Frontier, I have to wonder why they haven't gone to just using a barrier itself as the blade. It'd make a lot more sense, since that too isn't really dependent on the manipulator, and you could adjust the size and position of that blade to suit your personal tastes and you could deploy it instantly.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    It's a little hard to read the pictures because of the glare, and the description seems like it's mostly focused on the VF-31 being a 5th Generation VF and derivative of the YF-30.All things considered, I'd expect it to be something developed for the Brisingr Alliance NUNS as their replacement for their aging fleet of VF-171 Nightmare Pluses. In Variable Fighter Master File: VF-4 Lightning III there's a VF-31 Kairos in NUNS livery circa 2067, which would tend to support that view. There's also mention of a VF-30, which would seem to suggest the Kairos isn't the first local 5th Gen VF developed from the Chronos either. As far as we know, Xaos is just buying them from Surya Aerospace and has opted to make them their official main fighter.SMS Uroboros developed the YF-30 Chronos with the collaboration of Shinsei Industry, LAI, and the Uroboros AWDAP station... and they would've had to disclose the spec to the New UN Gov't under galaxy law eventually. Shinsei and LAI probably had an agreement with SMS that they'd be allowed to exploit the design to their own ends without the proprietary SMS hardware when they collaborated with Major Blanchett on Uroboros.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Looking back over the specs for the base model Surya Aerospace VF-31 Kairos, I have to say I'm forced to admit I wasn't entirely sure what I was expecting. I'll admit to being mildly annoyed at how, even in the description of the mass production VF-31 variant, the Macross Delta series all but forgot about the New UN Forces. Apart from mentioning the VF-31 is a production model based on the YF-30 developed by a partnership of Shinsei, LAI, and two new companies named Hiotori and Bharat it says nothing about the development of the VF-31 or its intended customer. The VF-31 Siegfried kind of gave us all a false impression of the abilities of the VF-31. I wasn't particularly happy with the "super prototype" YF-29 in the Frontier movies, but I gave it a pass as a fighter that was built to do one job and was too expensive to be produced in numbers. I gave the YF-30 that same pass since it was a technology demonstrator built by a company that had a budget so vast it bankrolled an entire emigrant fleet to pursue some obsession its owner had. It seems a bit... unfeasible... for a company like Xaos that is so cash-strapped it can barely afford to keep its ships fueled once its forces get run out of Brisingr by the Aerial Knights to be able to afford five custom VFs with fold wave systems. It makes more sense that the Aerial Knights would spring for higher quality fighters, since the Windermere Kingdom is massively outnumbered and have to make up the disparity elsewhere. All told, the stock VF-31's not a particularly remarkable fighter. It's almost what you'd expect from an intermediate block VF-25. It's a little bigger and a little lighter than the Shinsei/LAI VF-25, but it's using the same engine with some minor incremental improvement in performance (just +25kN), its control AI is an upgraded Ariel II package, its HMI is the same model of EX-Gear used by the NUNS and SMS for the last ten years, it's using a variant of the same ISC system with minimal performance improvement (+0.5G capacity), it's coaxial gun is the same ROV-127 12.7mm beam machinegun, it's using an upgraded version of the same anti-armor knife, and its missile launchers are the same type used in the SPS-25 Super Pack. In so many ways, it feels like the VF-31 Kairos was an "ala carte" design made by picking existing systems wherever possible to keep costs down. (You could almost mistake it for that delta wing VF-25 that the VF-1 Riders did... the VF-25 Messiah Legacy.) Its only real standout features are in its guns... replacing a conventional rotary cannon with a heavy quantum beam rifle, and adopting railguns as the replacement for what would ordinarily be a beam machine gun or high-powered machine gun with HEACA ammo. They're neglecting the ordinance container and treating it like a glorified gunpod holster. With the two leg bays and four pylons on top of its 36 internal micro-missiles, it's only about on par with the VF-25 for missile capacity... given the VF-25's 8 pylons. The one question I'm left with is, when Xaos Valkyrie Works was upgrading the VF-31 Kairos to make the Siegfried, did they uparmor it as well the way that SMS Frontier did to the YF-29's carryover VF-25 parts? The YF-29's defensive ability was increased to 400% of the original spec for the VF-25 parts used, but it looks like the VF-31 Siegfried is using the exact same energy conversion armor as the stock model. Did Xaos cheap out on defense? Did Messer snuff it because Lady M was too cheap to pay for improved armor on her already pricey showpieces?
  24. Seto Kaiba
    The GU-11 had a helical magazine around the barrels (though separated from the barrels by the cooling system)... but the GU-11 didn't return spent casings to the magazine. It ejected them.To the best of my knowledge, Macross has never had a gunpod identified as returning spent cases to the magazine. The vast majority of gunpods in the Macross metaseries eject spent cases. Caseless ammunition is something General Galaxy seems to have developed a liking for "stealth gunpods" used on their 3rd and 4th Generation designs. The YF-21/VF-22 gunpod (GV-17L) was the first in production terms to be identified as using caseless ammo, though the VF-17's MC-17A is another example... and it's a safe bet the Fz-109's gunpods are as well (identical setup to the VF-17, no external ejector port), and the VF-171's are derivative of the VF-17's. The GU-XS-06 used by the VF-11's Protect Armor Pack is the one odd bird... it has no obvious ejection port, and we know next to nothing about it except the ammo it uses is incredibly high-powered.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Episode 1... Reina is introduced riding in the back seat of Chuck's VF-31E, and when Walkure starts their performance she jumps from the cockpit still wearing the suit.
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