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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    The VF-31's engine is identified as the FF-3001A, so I'd assume it's the same size as the one used on the VF-25. I'd assume the micro-missile launchers were installed in the space the VF-25 dedicated to an airbrake and the fighter's countermeasure dispensers... while the missile bays (or the racks for Cygnus multidrones) are probably achieved by extending the back of the leg a bit to gain more clearance above the top of the airframe. (This, of course, raises the awkward question of where the VF-31's chaff, flare, and smoke dispensers are...)
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Seems a bit overelaborate when simulator training should do just as well with much less effort... Eh... I'm not sure it's as simple as one fighter or the other having more of any one thing. It'd help if we had more information about the VF-31 Kairos's design and construction... but such has not been forthcoming (yet).Sure, the VF-31 has two antiprojectile shields instead of one. It's difficult to say without a scale comparison, but the shields look a bit smaller and not nearly as thick as the VF-25's shield. We also don't know what they were made from. The VF-31 seems to have been made on the cheap and the shields are part of the wing surface, they may have gone for a lighter and cheaper alternative like layering conventional energy conversion armor even if it didn't offer as much protection as a slab of advanced energy conversion armor. Armaments-wise it's harder to say... the VF-25 has its eight underwing pylons while the VF-31 only has the four, but the VF-31 makes up part of that with a pair of internal ordinance bays and the micro-missile launchers (which, in an incredibly convenient turn of events, have the same capacity as your typical micro-missile pod). All told they're on a mostly even footing... just VF-31s apparently prize passive stealthiness over versatility, and the VF-25s prize versatility over passive stealthiness.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, that was my reaction too... "This series was such a monstrous disappointment that it's made me look back more fondly on Macross 7." At least they didn't stick us with a whiny milquetoast like Saji Crossroad or Relina Peacecraft.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, that's just an animation error in the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series that The-Franchise-that-must-not-be-named decided to run with to pad out the game and squeeze one more overpriced, low-quality, "limited edition" VF-1 toy out before Toynami went on to other designs. There is a VF-1R in Macross... but it's quite a bit different (it's actually a family of three VF-1 variants: the VF-1AR, VF-1JR, and VF-1SR) and was made for Macross II's first video game tie-in, Macross 2036 for the PC Engine, around ten years before the game in question was developed.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    They did activate the sound boosters successfully at the end of the series. No, I think it really is just bad writing... because the available technical materials (official and otherwise) don't point to any actual technical issue with the low rate initial production VF-25s in service in 2059, unless you'd like to count the Master File view that SMS's VF-25A's were built with wings made from below-spec hypercarbon composites due to Macross Olympia missing a promised delivery date for the material. ... but they didn't remove overboost from the VF-4. The cockpit block used on the VF-1 Valkyrie from Block 6 onwards is identical to the VF-4's production-intent cockpit starting with the Block 0 trial production model. They stopped listing it in the stats, or at least stopped listing it separately around the time Macross 7 aired and they switched to listing engine outputs using "maximum instantaneous thrust in space", but even the VF-17's cockpit art has an overboost setting marked on the throttle lever. We haven't really had well labeled cockpit diagrams since Plus. Since that cockpit design was put into use on many different models of VF, it seems a fair assumption that they all have overboost.(It's worth noting that the throttle lever on the VF-1A-6/VF-4A-0 cockpit has markings up to 240%, where the VF-1A-5 and earlier cockpit's throttle lever's markings only go up to 200%. I wonder if that means we have to amend our VF-1 entries for the DYRL section?) Actually, I would argue that it's perfectly fair to compare the VF-31 against any other production 5th Generation Main VF. After all, they're aircraft from the same generation and built to do the same job and even replace the same old aircraft. You'd be hard-pressed to argue the VF-31 was better than the VF-25 because of the amusing realization we had when the Kairos specs first came to light... a LOT of its systems are "off the shelf" hardware already used by the VF-25. The one thing that has me scratching my head is that the FF-3001A engine used on the VF-31 is listed as "Stage IIC". NO clue what that means. The FF-2999/FC2 engine used on the Sv-262 is listed as "Stage IIG". Oh, there was enough fishy business going on on Frontier thanks to the Bilra Transport Co. having its fingers in every damn pie in the fleet that one can probably be forgiven for assuming there was some inky-fingered pen-pusher on Bilra's payroll involved in screwing up procurement.(I suppose the longer SMS could withhold the VF-25 from the New UN Forces, the longer they could remain an essential part of the fleet's tactical structure.) I dunno, I think he did a good enough job of making hero units stand out even before they were flying different fighters... e.g. Skull Platoon.(Or, if you're feeling fancy, Ray Lovelock's Pink Peckers.)
  6. Seto Kaiba
    While the official publications (e.g. Macross Chronicle) do mention the existence of emigrant fleets that have made the QF-4000 (AIF-7) Ghost the main (or only) fighter of their fleet's New UN Forces, the Macross Frontier fleet's not one of them. Their main fighter was the VF-171 Nightmare Plus, intended to be replaced in the near future by the VF-25 Messiah. Moreover, they weren't inexperienced or poorly trained either... they'd fought anti-government terrorists and Zentradi before. They were just fighting WAAAAY outside their weight class against the Vajra. After all, that's what the VF-25 was for... to enable the Frontier fleet NUNS to effectively fight the Vajra. With a more-or-less standardized control layout and EX-Gear that is said to be able to reduce training times significantly, I would have expected them to get VF-25s in the air before the end of the war. Actually, when you think about it, the VF-171EX makes very little sense as its controls were overhauled to be the same as the VF-25's. You'd have troops with much the same learning curve either way. The changes to the controls and the aircraft's performance would've meant even experienced VF-171 pilots would be doing some serious retraining. They didn't start applying fold quartz to weapons until near the end of the war... initially they just switched to a higher-powered ammunition for their standard gunpods. It was only the VF-25s and VF-171EXs that were given those MDE shells and micro-missiles which used fold quartz. The YF-29 never entered official production... that's why it's still YF.So far, the only party identified as having built even a small number of YF-29 units is the rogue New UN Spacy Special Forces 815th Independent Squadron (AKA "Havamal"), and even then they only issued those to their most elite top aces like Rod Baltemar. As bank-breakingly expensive as a fighter with a fold wave system is, it's profoundly unlikely that any production aircraft will ever be fielded with one. (It says a LOT about Havamal's clout that they were able to build more than one... the Frontier fleet could only afford the one they gave to Alto Saotome.) What entered production as the next main fighter varies by region (or fleet). The Macross Frontier emigrant fleet and its allies adopted the VF-25 Messiah, Macross Galaxy adopted the VF-27 Lucifer, Earth and the federal NUNS adopted the VF-24, and the Brisingr Alliance adopted the VF-31 Kairos. (There is one mention of a VF-30 in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-4 Lightning III, but I'd take that one with a pinch of salt.) Thus far, we've only seen two New UN Spacy special forces units in this time period. The Macross Frontier fleet's NUNS special forces unit "Round Table" used the VF-19EF Caliburn, and the 815th Independent Squadron "Havamal" used several different aircraft including the YF-29B, VF-19F/S, VF-171EX, and VF-22S.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    That's why I tend to favor the interpretation that Basara was too thick or too self-obsessed to give any thought to Ray Lovelock suddenly turning up with a heavily customized 4th Gen VF that even the military doesn't have yet. If he had, he probably would've noticed early on he was a guinea pig in a secret military test program. I've got a lot more respect for the Jamming Birds than I do for Basara... they were ordinary people who were, as any civilian would be, quite terrified at being sent into battle against brainwashed professional soldiers and actual goddamn monsters. Their problem was simply that they were inexperienced and lacked Basara's complete and utter fixation on singing that was likely all that was standing between him and messing his trousers.By the end of the series, they were doing just fine... and indications are they enjoyed some success afterwards as an idol group.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Yep, he was a New UN Forces VF pilot before he joined SMS.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    It's certainly frustrating, especially given that the Macross Frontier side story/prequel Macross the Ride has the Frontier fleet go and have over 150 custom VF-19s put together on short notice. You'd think they could have put together a few squadrons of VF-25s before the war ended, especially considering they were raking in fold quartz like mad by killing Vajra. Actually, they were technically both... Sound Force was a military-sponsored irregular unit even before it was formalized. Basara was either savvy enough to realize that he didn't want to know how Ray got hold of a VF-19 Custom, or he was too thick and self-absorbed to care.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, I think a big part of that is the VF-11C itself... an economy model, and one that was up against enemy fighters that were theoretically equivalent to a Gen 3.5 or Gen 4 VF like the VF-17 or VF-19 (respectively). Of course, even the aces flying the VF-17s and VF-19s ended up clobbered, so that's probably Basara's Mary Sue factor kicking in. Yeah, that's the real problem... we keep getting asked to excuse the plot involving enemies that can only be beaten by the latest and greatest VF out there, which is conveniently only used in small numbers by PMCs because they're testing it for the military.Once was annoying, and raised the awkward question "Why didn't you just push the damned thing into production then?". Twice is simply obnoxious, especially when the fighter always seems to find its way into military hands a year or two after the war and the official material doesn't hide the fact that the fighter design and testing are basically done even before the series started.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    I think it's just their way of justifying it being a transformable warship... if it's modular like the Macross-class then the next logical step is to make every module its own ship rather than the main body of the ship and its arms.We had the same thing going on with the Macross Quarter-class as well as the Macross Elysion... they're each five warships put together (the two BASTER gunships, the core body block and the two arms), but the only times we've ever seen one separate from the main ship is the Macross Quarter stowing its carrier on its back so it'd have both hands free for a shot from its gunship, and the Elysion sending one of its carrier arms ahead of it. To be fair, the last two series haven't actually depicted the local New UN Forces as being in any way unskilled or incompetent. They just keep getting asked to fight enemies who have some significant unfair advantage that renders the New UN Forces incapable of actually confronting the enemy. It's always just a plot device to justify the PMC being the heroes, rather than an annoying bunch of weekend warriors who are surplus to requirements.In Frontier, it was the fact that the Vajra's energy conversion armor was so tough the VF-171's weapons weren't powerful enough to get through it. So, of course, SMS has to step in and save the day for no reason other than their main character status granting them access to the latest and greatest VF. (Why the military didn't just repo the VF-25s is beyond me, since they belonged to them in the first place.) A few episodes later they get better ammunition to defeat the Vajra's armor, and then all the sudden VF-171s are killing Vajra by the dozen. In Delta, it was for no reason other than that Prince (later King) Ketchup was singing his freaky opera song and messing with their brains. The minute he takes a powder, the Aerial Knights get their clocks cleaned and are left literally begging for reinforcements by the New UN Forces troops on a half-dozen planets who weren't under mind control. All of the sudden we get treated to local NUNS forces in VF-171s shooting down Aerial Knights Sv-262s despite them being one generation older and substantially lower performance. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a show that kicks PMCs to the curb and brings the military back to the spotlight... but the NUNS aren't being portrayed as slouches. They're just getting the short end of the stick because the writers have a love affair with PMCs. (Amusingly, since Delta portrayed Xaos as being barely competent at the best of times and hilariously and totally inept most of the time, the whole "PMCs are awesome" thing fell rather flat that time... made worse by the fact that, if they had cooperated with the NUNS instead of treating them with unjustified scorn, the war would've been over a LOT faster and with a lot fewer dead people. It was so bad at points that I kept expecting some NUNS officer who'd mentored Ernest or Arad to pop up and say "We trained him wrong on purpose, as a joke".) In a move inspired by an episode of Red Dwarf, my RPG group's players started referring to PMC troops as "Canaries", for their status as expendable troops first into combat to see if it's too dangerous... and, in keeping with same, it's become an acronym for: Corporate Army Nearly Always Retreating Inept and Extremely Sloppy.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, there is a pretty obvious American bias in the (New) UN Forces. They did throw the other key nations of the UN Government a bone when they were deciding on names for the first fourteen ARMD-class ships though. Around half had American Navy reference names, but you also had the Invincible, Clemenceau, Akagi, Minsk, Haruna, and Kiev. (Two were named for the first two prime ministers of the UN Government, leaving six ARMD-class ships with American names.)
  13. Seto Kaiba
    It doesn't have the thrust reverser ring, but it looks like the speaker pod's nozzle may be able to traverse a little... so they may be self-stabilizing.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Let's be plain... this series didn't end, it just sort of lurched to a stop when it ran out of episodes.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Well... the way it's described, the speaker pod launcher sounds like it's likely a cousin of the high-speed armor-piercing rocket launchers commonly found on Armored Pack. The line art for the speaker pods themselves shows they have a small rocket motor affixed to the rear, so the only major difference would be that the speaker pods aren't carrying a lethal load of OTM-based explosives. From the description, it sounds more like the ISC system is temporarily displacing the energy into super dimension space rather than into a specific "capacitor"...
  16. Seto Kaiba
    So... I'm guessing you forgot, or overlooked, when I pointed out that Master File was just regurgitating official material in that case? The technical and continuity article that was published in the official artbook This is Animation: Macross Plus (the "Variable Fighter Aero Report") explains a lot of the technical backstory leading up to the YF-19 and YF-21, including how the TV and DYRL VF-1s fit together and introduces a number of fighters that hadn't even appeared yet (like the VF-5000, VA-3, etc.). That'd be where the idea that the VE-1 and VT-1 were in use in 2009 came from... and it even offers an example or two of squadrons and ships using them from that period. Per Macross Chronicle, the VT-1C was made available as a civilian market variable aircraft circa 2030.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    *coughs and points to the link to M3 in his signature*
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Well, kinda... in VF terms, the DYRL? VF-1 represents the state of technology during the First Space War pretty much everywhere but aboard the Macross. The carrier "air" wings aboard the Macross and Prometheus were among the first to receive VF-1 Valkyries... which were drawn from the very earliest production blocks so their pilots had time to train on their new aircraft. As a result, a lot of their VF-1s belonged to Block 1 thru 5 (the "TV" version). They would have been upgraded gradually to the Block 6 spec had they not ended up cut off from Earth and logistical support.Even before the Macross left port and then accidentially teleported itself and said port to the fringes of the solar system, the carrier "air" wings assigned to the ARMDs and bases on Earth and its moon were receiving fighters from the same early blocks and also an assortment of craft from later blocks as production ramped up and incremental improvements were made in each new production block. So you had some cases like ARMD-02 where they were operating "TV" and "Movie" VF-1s side by side in 2009, with some training squadrons flying VF-1Ds while others had been issued the newer VT-1. After the war ended, the surviving VF-1 Valkyries were gradually upgraded to meet Block 6+ ("movie") specs... and the new VF-1s produced in that period were built to the Block 6 and later production standard. Officially, DYRL? and SDF:M are both equally valid competing views of the First Space War. Neither is a 100% "true" depiction of the events of the conflict, but the official publications generally favor the TV series for continuity purposes even while later shows and other narrative material favors the aesthetics of DYRL? for reasons explained previously.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    That's great, but apart from the very high probability that the Prometheus was where that VEFR-1 came from, I'm not really seeing the relevance... Movie props? There's a key point here I must not be communicating properly... those weren't props.The in-universe movie Do You Remember Love? used real VF-1 Valkyries and Zentradi mecha for its action sequences and stunts. Some of the ships, like Boddole Zer's mobile fortress, were faked up using holographic projections over smaller starships, but otherwise they used real military hardware. That the mecha in DYRL? are real in-universe was a detail established about 22 years back... and the same goes for many of the changes made to characters, etc. Official explanations like that the TV and Movie VF-1 are the same fighter built to two different production block standards came out of that period. (It is, as noted previously, not interchangeable with the real world movie that came out in 1984... as we've seen in-series evidence it contains scenes that were not in the 1984 film like the wedding of Max and Milia.)
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Slight hole in your theory... Windermere's war of independence was SEVEN years before the start of Macross Delta.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    The in-universe movie Do You Remember Love? was, yes, filmed about two decades after the war ended using (to a limited extent) actual VF-1 Valkyries, Zentradi Army mecha, and starships, sometimes aided by holography like how the Boddole Zer mothership was played by a West Point-class training ship.They used later production blocks of VF-1 because that's what was available... but the cosmetic differences are not period-inappropriate because those models of VF-1 were, in fact, in service during the First Space War. Also, because of the way there isn't one definitive version of the First Space War, there also may have been Block 6 VF-1s on the Macross. In later appearances, like Macross 30, a First Space War-era Hikaru is shown wearing a DYRL pilot suit and flying a Block 6 VF-1. The Macross wasn't carrying any atmospheric craft... and, to the best of my knowledge, the Prometheus was only carrying a handful of atmospheric craft like Sea Sergeant helecopters, ES-11 Cat's Eye recon planes, and Dragon II fighters, while the majority of its complement was 150 VF-1 Valkyries and a handful of Ghosts. The demonstrable, official answer is "No, they are not an anachronism". There were VT-1 units serving aboard the ARMD-02 before the war started, and aboard the ARMD-04 during the war. As we have seen, and I have pointed out, on many occasions... both the TV and DYRL versions of mecha exist in canon side-by-side. In truth, it's really more like the DYRL versions of a few mecha like the Nousjadeul-Ger totally replaced the TV series versions... though we do see things like the TV and DYRL version of Zentradi body armor side-by-side in the same units (like the NUNSM Zentradi garrison on Gallia IV).
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Point of order... the additional destroids produced in the Macross's onboard factory were not built from scratch. They were built using the stockpiles of spare parts that were part of the Macross's original consignment, and also the spare parts carried by the Daedalus.As the VEFR-1 is not seen until after the ship's resupply after returning to Earth and we know she didn't leave port with one originally, it seems likely that the VEFR-1s were either acquired from the Prometheus (a seabound carrier) or were issued to the ship as part of its resupply operation before leaving for space again (the UN Forces presumably not wanting to waste state of the art craft on a ship that was on a suicide mission to distract the enemy.) Presumably it didn't build any VE-1 or VT-1 units because it didn't have the necessary parts and maintenance of existing combat units would naturally take priority over building new unarmed fighters. Debatable, given that several of the real-world equivalents of the "bland name" companies behind the military aircraft in Macross were also giants of the private sector like McDonnell Douglas... they may simply have not seen a ton of use for non-transatmospheric craft considering what a craphole Earth was by that point.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    Technically, there would have been if the Zentradi hadn't sunk ARMD-02... one of the two ships intended to dock with the Macross. Whether there were any or not among the Macross's carrier air wings is unclear, because we've never yet had a full inventory of the ~300+ VF-1s assigned to it throughout the entire war. There weren't any when she launched, but we don't know if she could have picked some up when she returned to Earth and was resupplied. To be fair, we don't really see Earth much between 2012 and 2040... so we don't know how quickly non-governmental air travel resumed. They had no problems with building fighters and transport aircraft by the hundred, so I have a hard time with the idea that they couldn't build jet airliners... and the planet was not exactly travel-friendly, being mildly radioactive and all kinds of barren. Not your ideal tourist trap.As far as the ships go... you may be getting a false impression of what that ventral fin is for. It folds flat against the ship's ventral hull when in water, and contains the ship's fold system. T-Crush is one of those school sports, y'know... and it's hardly nonviolent. Must be legal, it's played at schools... and if it weren't, they'd hardly be broadcasting it to the entire fleet with the fleet's mayor (Milia) acting as guest color commentator. A version of DYRL? is considered to be an in-universe historical drama film (produced for propaganda purposes) that came out in 2031. (From the in-universe clips we've seen, this version apparently included Max and Milia's wedding and some other stuff that wasn't in the actual 1984 film.)DYRL? as we know it is also part of that cloud of vagueness that exists with respect to the "true" version of events in the First Space War. There is no one version of the story identified as the "correct" one. (Which is part of why we keep getting mingled TV and movie aesthetics in sequels.) For the VF-1's purposes, the official technical materials classify the TV and DYRL? versions of the VF-1 as two different sets of production blocks that coexist in the same timeline. The TV series VF-1 is representative of a VF-1 Valkyrie from Blocks 1-5, while the Movie VF-1 is representative of the VF-1 Valkyrie from Block 6 onwards.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Some of the specific dates do... but in this case it's the writers of Master File showing the audience that they've done their homework. The part about the deficiencies of the early model tandem cockpit blocks goes way back. In fact, I recall that was cited as the reason the VF-1D wasn't depicted in DYRL? in the "VF History" piece done for Macross II back in 1992. I'd have to check, but that may go all the way back to the original VF-1 tech manual.There are, for the record, official publications which establish the presence of VT-1 and VE-1 units during the First Space War. The "Variable Fighter Aero Report" in This is Animation Macross Plus is one such source. To give an example, it establishes the presence of a UN Spacy Marine Corps training squadron, SVMAT-102 and its VT-1 Super Ostriches, aboard ARMD-04 Clemenceau for three months starting in October 2009. (It also places a UN Spacy unit with VT-1s, SVT-24) aboard ARMD-02 Invincible.) What little official information exists for the VEFR-1 paints it as an official variant, so I doubt it's an in-the-field design. (The Macross II timeline actually paints the VE-1 as a semi-official field customization built on the VT-1 by the Macross's onboard factory and the test teams who embarked to evaluate the performance of the Super Valkyrie.) The Master File books present themselves as in-universe publications published in various in-universe years (2020, 2030, 2067, etc.), and their contents aren't strictly canon... but then, they're also periodically corroborated by official sources too. Oh, the Zentradi absolutely did a number on Earth's surface... but that's what they focused on, to the exclusion of all else (or maybe they never just got 'round to the rest). So they missed the space colonies, the moon bases and colony, the L5 manufacturing station, and so on... which proved to be quite fortunate, since it meant there were more survivors than the ones in Grand Cannon III and V, and they had space-based manufacturing capabilities that'd escaped the war unscathed. That's how they were able to turn out a massive emigrant ship so fast after the war... they were building the SDF-2 as a Macross-class ship at Apollo Base on Luna, and once the war ended they converted the incomplete ship into an emigrant ship instead. The carriers and so on that accompanied it were built at the L5 manufacturing station and factories in those space colonies. (This is also how the only surviving parts of the VF-X-3 program survived... some photographs and one part contracted out to a space factory escaped destruction while everything else went up in smoke.) That probably has a lot to do with the relative size and efficiency of fold systems... they were big, unwieldy things for most of the postwar years, and small fold systems like a fold booster were only good for an extremely small object over an extremely short distance, one way only. It probably took a while to miniaturize the engine technology enough to mount a fold system that was reusable and long ranged on something the size of a jet airliner. I doubt it... Macross 7 Trash paints a picture of an educational system where sports (televised in particular) are one of the key things keeping physical school campuses open... and that this state of affairs has been the norm for some time. It's quite official, not bootleg. Drawn by Mikimoto-sensei himself.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    The idea of an inertial protection system is one of those "as old as sci-fi" tropes.... but Frontier's ISC is actually one of the most unusual takes on it that I've ever seen, principally because it isn't magically cancelling inertia, it's actually acknowledging conservation of energy and only storing that energy before returning it to the aircraft.G-Tekketsu's is a more traditional inertial damper, canceling out g-forces with an antigravity field.
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