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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    It'd take an incredible amount of force to do that... especially since it looks like Windermere is an Earth-type planet in most respects, with gravity at or in the vicinity of 1G. We can say with some certainty that they've licked caseless ammo's issues... given that several models of Valkyrie equip, as standard, gun pods that fire caseless rounds. Mostly Generation 3.5 or 4 designs like the VF-17, VF-22, or VF-171's gun pods.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Buckshot doesn't spread out enough over short to medium ranges... what Messer needed was a goddamn light grenade launcher or flechette gun. As far as active camouflage goes, I think that's probably a no-go. If they're not much improved over Sheryl's rig in Macross Frontier they can make that bodysuit appear invisible in part or in full (done once in an amusing little short comic in Macross Ace), but turning the wearer invisible probably isn't in the cards without more power or a more sophisticated projector. The YF-27-5 had a holographic camouflage system like that, but that had a lot more power behind it. It seems a bit inconsistent, since even in the 90's we were seeing futuristic firearms in the hands of UN Forces, the Varauta troops, and Zolans.How'd the NUNS go backwards from laser machineguns to a rifle from 1995? They use a rifle no more advanced than the FAMAS G2 Shin was brandishing way back in Macross Zero... Dunno 'bout you, but photorealistic CG always comes off looking a bit odd or out of place to me... the articulations are never quite right, features blur unrealistically, etc. Maybe they're just sticklers for authenticity, or maybe they just find using motion capture with a real Valkyrie makes for a more natural CG compositing job in postproduction? Every time they've filmed an in-universe docu-drama so far, they've used real Valkyries either as-is or as motion capture targets for later editing. That should be perfectly possible... but we've seen that Xaos, Delta Flight, and Walkure are not exactly good at what they do.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Dunno 'bout Messer's rifle, but the H&K G36 knockoff has line art from Macross Frontier that shows it ejecting shell casings when firing. I don't think we've had a confirmed caseless gun in Macross since the original series.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Let's just say it wouldn't be the first time in Macross that someone's static display of an old Valkyrie turned out to still be in working order and possessed of enough emergency backup power to transform and maneuver briefly.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Or maybe... or better yet...
  6. Seto Kaiba
    That kind of ventures into the territory of "Why would you do such a terrible thing?". To be fair, everything the Windermereans are using is a human design. Even their fighters were developed and built by humans. They were an agrarian society before humanity showed up, and to a certain extent still are. The history of firearms in Macross is a weird one though, and they seem to be evolving BACKWARDS. The standard-issue weapons used by the UN Spacy in the First Space War were caseless machine guns... but by the 2040's in Macross Plus and Macross 7 they're back to using .380 ACP handguns, Colt Police Positive revolvers, and knockoffs of the MP-5 and AR-15. The G-36 clone Windermere's using in Delta is a rifle also used in Macross Frontier by the New UN Forces infantry aboard Island-1. (Considering how recently the NUNS was on the planet, Windermere probably either purchased those rifles through the New UN Forces or looted them from the supply depot at the base we saw Arad and Kaname visit in the last episode.) Kawamori-san's excuses for Zeerust and the schizophrenic inter-show aesthetic continuity aside, Do You Remember Love? is the only Macross title to be officially identified as a dramatization of events. Mind you, the 2031 movie Do You Remember Love? was shot using as many period-appropriate props as possible... and substituted holograms for anything that wasn't readily available. A few of the things they used have been identified, like late-block VF-1 Valkyries and the use of a West Point-class training ship with a holographic skin for Boddole Zer's flagship. We can hazard guesses at a few of the other things that were used. The Zentradi, their ships, and their mecha were probably supplied by the UN Spacy Marines with some actors mixed in, and the role of the Macross was probably played by the SDFN-1 General (Takashi) Hayase or one of her sister ships the way the USS Ranger was used as a stand in for USS Enterprise in the filming of Star Trek IV. One of my colleagues has an interesting theory that the "movie versions" of the stories are all propaganda docu-dramas produced by the (New) UN Forces intended to make the general public think they had a better handle of the situations than they did. Like how DYRL? skips the UN Forces brass being intransigent and ignoring the Macross crew's advice about the size of the enemy fleet, or how the Frontier movies changed the nature of Leon Mishima's involvement in the Vajra war to remove him as one of the primary local conspirators in Macross Galaxy's plot to take over the New UN Government. (If true, you have to wonder how a Macross Delta movie would play out... the NUNS'd probably put up a lot more of a fight.)
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Probably exactly the same as this... you'd have a handful of people who are just happy there's another Macross show on the air or praising its "easy to follow" absence of a story, and the rest would probably be baying for the director's blood over Macross 7 having two full cours of "bugger all's going on". At least Macross 7 had a much stronger finish than Delta is likely to receive, with those two cours of nothing being run-up to something much more reasonably-paced and interesting. I'd actually rank 7 above Delta on those grounds. 7 started weak and finished strong. Delta started strong and will finish weak, and be all the more disappointing for it. Five'll get you twenty an Armored Siegfried will show up in the Variable Fighter Master File book a year or so from now as equipment issued to the NUNS squadrons flying it. As lame as the dogfights have been, I almost have to say "good riddance"... Xaos is almost as bad in the air as they are on the ground, and the VF-31's too good-looking an aircraft to have its legacy weighed down by association with them.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Yeah, I'll admit if this one didn't have Macross in the title it'd long since have joined the very elite fraternity of shows that were so awful I couldn't finish them. In a lot of ways, it feels worse than shows which were garbage from the outset like Stratos4 or Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 AD because all the elements of Macross greatness are there. The main trio are actually quite interesting, even the weaker songs like Walkure Attack! are eminently listenable, the mecha are interesting and some downright gorgeous, the scenery is beautiful and the setting enormous... but it's put together wrong. It's painful to watch because it's obvious a competent staff could have turned this into something wonderful and exciting, and the nutters running the show have produced something that I actually straight-up dread watching every week with a plot that is pants-on-head retarded. In all honesty, Mythbusters proved you could polish a turd (Ep.113)... but some turds really don't deserve the effort. I doubt condensation is going to do this sh*t awful barely-there plot any favors, and I don't need Macross serving up two disappointments in a row when installments are so infrequent.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    All right! In the interest of honesty and in acknowledgement of the show's horrendous track record, I'm not going to pretend I have any anticipation for this new episode... so, instead, we'll settle in for another date with Delta Disappointment and spend 24 minutes wishing we were watching something else. This was actually a mild improvement over the shoddy mess that was 19 and 20, but it still feels like Macross Delta's producers are desperately rummaging around in the show's toybox for something to show us. Trying to humanize Mikumo NOW is a waste of time. It should've been done half a series ago, and falls flat now that she's Ms. McGuffin. So I'm going to have to tender a negative vote again, but with less venom this time.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Apart from Ozma's modified 2003 Lancia Delta HF Integrale, which has clearly been equipped with Milky Road modifications, it's kind of disappointing that they seem to just be reusing CG models of modern cars from other shows. I'm offended beyond words as a powertrain engineer that the f***ing Prius seems to have survived into the spacefuture but not something much more satisfying like a bloody Alfa Romeo 4C Spyder, a Dodge Viper, Mustang GT, etc. Small wonder these people are always going to war if everyone's daily driver is a soulless mess like a Prius... they must be dying for a little excitement, even if it involves explosions. ... ... ... please no, not another edition so soon. My wallet cannae take the strain!
  11. Seto Kaiba
    That would be the opposite of what I, and almost everyone else in the thread, have been telling you... so the answer is "No".What we have been repeatedly telling you is that even if the VF-31 is using stock FF-3001/FC2 engines, the engines will still need to be adjusted to accommodate the unique characteristics of the VF-31's airframe. These adjustments could be manual modification of the engines by the ground crew, control restrictions and input adjustment set by the fighter's Ariel II airframe control AI, or both... and would almost certainly result in changes to the maximum output the engine could deliver. The real world truth of it, as related by folks who work on jet engines for a living, is that even minor differences in airframe design can cause measurable changes in engine performance. Nah, Delta has so far been pretty lame on the mecha front and I don't expect that to change. They made a lot of grandiose promises about how this series would be different from the Macross norm, but so far the only way they've really stepped out of the mold was with the worst writing in Macross history. Everything else has been a by-the-numbers affair. I'm pretty sure we're not gonna see a new Super Prototype at the end of the series. They've barely used the fighters they have.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    For the most part, handguns and other firearms seem to be one of the things in Macross that haven't really visibly benefitted from OTM. Outside of the original series, where we had caseless machine guns and other fun toys, rifles and pistols seem to be mostly the same as modern weapons.She's in good company, since SMS seems to issue Glocks to its people, Frontier New UN Forces infantry use a clone of the H&K G36, the security forces in City 7 had AR-15s, and so on... It's even more frustrating because the YF-29B was The Rival's plane... having no stats would be every bit as frustrating as not having stats for the Draken III. Not really. The third approach I mentioned is actually extremely common. Major automakers, for instance, don't write all-new engine software for every single model of car or even every variant of engine. It's actually much easier to put together one or a small handful of engine software packages that adapt how the engine performs based on external inputs from other controllers on the vehicle data bus. (Considering we've seen that some add-on equipment for VFs is practically plug and play in previous shows, that suggests they're passing vehicle configuration data over the control bus the same way a modern vehicle is.)
  13. Seto Kaiba
    The VF-1 Valkyrie's GU-11 gun pod is a rotary cannon driven by an electric motor, so the rate of fire can be controlled across a wide range by controlling the speed of the motor. The VF-0 Phoenix's GPU-9 had selectable fire rates ranging from 60rpm to 2,500rpm. The GU-11 tops out at 1,200rpm with its larger rounds, but I'd assume it's able to fire every bit as slow as the GPU-9.Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.2 has an excerpt from a VF-1's JOFTOPS manual that indicates the GU-11A has a selectable rate of fire and could fire in single shots, bursts, and full automatic. This is controlled from the cockpit via the fire control system. All variants of the GU-11 described thus far have been built for 55mm rounds of a much greater power than conventional ammunition. The main reason that "traditional" guns are in common use is that the energy conversion armor that pretty much every mecha has is incredibly tough stuff and has good heat resistence. That protection can be defeated with greater ease using special armor-piercing explosive ammo than by trying to get through it with brute force. (It helps that overtechnology improved guns and explosives an awful lot, so these "traditional" guns achieve muzzle velocities you'd probably need a railgun for otherwise. The GU-11 is throwing those 55mm shells downrange at 2km/s, and it's one of the slower ones!)Most human mecha simply didn't have the generator surplus necessary to achieve the same kind of results with energy weapons that could be achieved with that special AP ammo... destroids had low reactor outputs, and VFs used most of their energy on energy conversion armor to beef up their defensive ability and on flight. You're 0 for 3 on assumptions about disadvantages to energy weapons though... only the massive ones mounted on the largest warships have had any mention of cooldown times between shots, for the most part they're driven off the reactor(s) of the mecha mounting them or capacitors fed from same, and "beam machineguns" are totally a thing. The reason they were mostly secondary or special duty weapons is that the amount of power necessary for a mecha-mounted beam gun to achieve sustainable destruction on a level equal to or greater than those high-powered rotary cannons and their special ammo was not readily achievable until the 5th Generation VFs... which has seen a lot of beam rifles in service. The Monster uses cannons because what it's got up the pipe is an assortment of specialized artillery rounds for land warfare and anti-ship thermonuclear reaction warheads for space warfare. It exists to make that ugly city-sized alien warship into an ugly but ultimately non-threatening cloud of debris.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    I'd give an awful lot for detailed specs for the YF-29B Percival... I actually bought the DX from a vendor at last year's MacrossWorldCon, and was disappointed that the included manual didn't give stats for it any more than the game, the game's art book and player's guide, or Macross Chronicle mechanic sheet did.Literally all we know is that the YF-29B Percival was an improved YF-29 given to ace pilots attached to the NUNS Special Forces unit "Havamal" including their top ace, Rod Baltemar. I would assume that, given that it's a NUNS Special Forces unit, the YF-29B's systems were improved... more engine power, more powerful weapons, tougher armor, etc.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    I feel I didn't communicate the substance of my point correctly... the finer points of engine design and tuning are obvious to an engineer, but not necessarily to the average person. What I'm talking about is a circumstance where the FF-3001/FC2 engine is running with a stock configuration and stock ECU software, but external controllers on the data bus communicate in such a way that the engine is simply never commanded to yield full power. The engine is still capable of that power on paper, but the control software elsewhere in the aircraft is written in such a way that the aircraft is not capable of commanding the ECU to yield that much power. (This is actually quite common in automobile engines as a safety feature... particularly with e-motors, which can yield maximum torque at 0 rpm. I've had personal experience with what can happen when that protection is not functioning, and it certainly gets the adrenaline pumping.) You're misremembering, I'm afraid.It's the fighter you race him with BEFORE you get the YF-30 for the first time that suffers engine trouble, causing you to lose the race. (On New Game Plus, this is literally whatever fighter you're flying, even the YF-29.) The second race when you're using the YF-30 is then interrupted by Guld and Brera attacking you and dumping you into one of those trench runs. Slightly different model. The YF-29's two main engines are FF-3001/FC1 engines, the difference in net thrust between that the the /FC2 type the YF-30 uses is just 5kN.You are right that the YF-30, with its high-powered engines and fold dimensional resonance system, was able to go toe-to-toe with an improved YF-29 designated YF-29B Percival and win.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    No, they are both just FF-3001/FC2... the VF-31's FF-3001/FC2 engines are just detuned 11.1% for reasons that have not been explained. There are probably as many possible reasons for it as there are parts in the engine itself.Like I said before, having two of the exact same model of engine tuned to different levels of performance is something that happens a LOT in Macross. Just because you don't like it won't make it untrue. There are any number of potential reasons for using a detuned engine... like increasing the time between maintenance overhauls of the engine, reducing the burden on the cooling system, reducing structural stresses on the aircraft, reserving more reaction output for generating power instead of producing thrust, etc. The airframe shape and mass had pretty much nothing to do with it, actually... unless you'd count the airframe design being incompatible with an ISC. The reason the VF-171EX uses detuned FF-2550F thermonuclear reaction burst turbine engines is that they pushed the fighter right to the design tolerances. Had they tuned those engines for maximum power the excess thrust and its implications for maneuverability would have put the pilot in the unenviable position of being able to accidentally fly the plane to pieces. There is a third possibility, as we have alluded to before... the engine could be the same FF-3001/FC2 and something in the design of the aircraft the engine is installed on is imposing a limit on the engine's performance, like greater system loads on the PGS, the design limits of the airframe, inadequate cooling, etc.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    The Blu-Ray Limited Edition's liner notes are an official publication for the series, vetted by the show's creators, so it's an extremely safe bet that the stats are accurate.Macross Chronicle is by no means the only source of official stats or an exhaustively complete resource, but it is an excellent centralized information source spanning all of the main Macross titles produced prior to its time of publication. It's certainly not unheard-of for there to be errors when a magazine is the source doing the "big reveal" of the stats due to editorial cockups, but by the time they've made it to stuff like art books or liner notes they're pretty well vetted and official... so I wouldn't start holding my breath for a correction at this point. As I've said several times already, this is not an uncommon thing for Macross to do... having the same model engine tuned differently installed in two different variants, or two of the same variant built to different local specifications. (The VF-19 Master File has, IIRC, presented the same model engine used in a half dozen VF-19 variants tuned at least four different ways... but even the VF-1 has examples of this.) Aye... I'm a powertrain development engineer working in vehicle electrification and alt-fuel systems.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    Not what I meant. We don't know what actually changed between those models of engine... and thus, why it went to a completely new form of designation that hasn't been used before now. Very rarely they do (VF-19EF Caliburn) but more often than not they don't... they're simply identified as local/regional versions of that variant.You'd run out of letters pretty quick considering there are dozens of planets and fleets out there, each of which is technically at liberty to modify specs for whatever it's building. (Not everybody uses the same alphabet, but you'd still run out of letters right quick.) Our resident aviation engineers would seem to disagree with that "it must be a defective model" on a real-world experience basis... No, they're both using the "real" FF-3001/FC2. Just ones built or tuned to a different set of operating requirements or local build standards. That would be because Macross Delta is the first title to start to put actual quantification of the engine performance improvement resulting from a fold wave system. Prior to that, the increase was simply "large".It certainly appears that, when the fold wave system was conceived, Kawamori didn't anticipate it being included in aircraft intended for production. (Also, no slash in the FF-3001A's designation.) Yes, I and everyone else here is very familiar with it... but the problem is that's for competing hypotheses on otherwise equal footings. What I'm pointing out (and others are as well) is that your premise isn't as realistic as you believe it to be... and that I'm not really debating here, I'm merely pointing out long-established trends and facts in the Macross universe. Macross Chronicle has not yet covered anything from Macross Delta. The stats come solely from model kit packaging and the liner notes for the Blu-Ray limited edition release.I'm sure that, some day in the not-too-distant future Macross Chronicle will receive a 3rd Edition to cover Macross Delta and any newer titles released in the interim with an even greater page count than the 1,600 page 1st Edition or bookshelf-straining 2,560 page 2nd Edition. I won't look forward to that day without at least a little worry, since it's not a cheap undertaking when it's ~$7 a volume (not counting shipping) and the number of volumes gets close to 100. (1st Ed. was 50, 2nd Ed. was 81.) As previously explained, it is not uncommon for two VFs to have the same model engine tuned to different performance levels... so I doubt the VF-31's engine is a typo. It was meant to be a derivative of the YF-30 (per Kawamori), so it seems highly unlikely that citing the FF-3001/FC2 engine was an error. Esp. given that it's been cited consistently.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    The point is that we don't know how similar the FF-3001A and FF-3001/FC2 are... we don't know what technological advances were made between those two models to produce that sizable jump in power. No, it's a relatively well-established fact that not all fleets and planets possess the same levels of manufacturing capability. It depends on things like the age of the fleet or colony, the industrial presences there, whether or not they have factory satellites, etc. They have, for the most part, the same blueprints... but not all of them have the ability to build them to the same standard, and some choose not to build them to the same standard for their own reasons.One example given is that the Macross Frontier fleet did not have the ability to produce the specific grade of hypercarbon armor used in the VF-25's wings, which had to be supplied from the Macross Olypmia fleet. Some of the initial batch of VF-25s had wings made with inferior materials as a result. No I'm not, you just don't appear to have understood me. I'm just stating the facts of the Macross universe here.In the Macross universe, it's an established fact that a particular variant built in different locales will not necessarily be identical in terms of quality or performance. But they will, however, carry the same basic designation because they're local versions of that base variant spec adjusted either for the tactical demands and preferences of that regional military or the limitations of the local manufacturing capabilities. The VF-171 is practically the poster child for this (and may be the original offender), but it's been mentioned in connection with the VF-19 and the VF-25 as well. The VF-25, however, wears that fact fairly openly... There's even one case where a locally-produced VF-19C was made with adjusted specs for what I can honestly only characterize as "trolling". (Seriously, Macross Galaxy's corporate army really is THAT juvenile sometimes.) No, I really meant "to a higher standard"... see the above.Though there are any number of other minor modifications or limiting factors that could also account for the VF-31's FF-3001/FC2 engine having inferior performance to the YF-30's... like cooling system issues, airframe structural limits, tuning changes to optimize the engine for a particular set of operating conditions or requirements, etc. There is, however, no indication that the FF-3001/FC2 engines in the YF-30 were in anything other than factory condition when the fighter was put into combat service briefly in 2060. We're talking about a VF from a game, yes, but the stats are presented in the same format and in the same official publication (Macross Chronicle) as the stats for any VF that's shown up in animation.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    At the risk of pointing out a hole in your reasoning, you're assuming the FF-3001A and FF-3001/FC2 are only slightly different. That isn't a fact. That is an unfounded assumption as well... one of the more frustrating parts about the way the New UN Government and New UN Forces are presented in later Macross works is the existence of regional variations. This was first hinted at in Frontier and exploded into an ugly mess with the help of Macross the Ride, the fact that the vagaries of having the individual fleets and planets of the New UN Government having a choice between building their own VFs, buying export models, or locally building an existing fighter design under license led to a significant amount of local variation.(Believe me, this next bit frustrates me to no end...) So, starting at some as-of-yet unidentified point in the 2040's, you could have the same variant of VF built by three different local governments and all three could have different specs while retaining an identical operational designation for most purposes. A VF-171A built for the Brisingr NUNS could have a different set of capabilities and performance limits than a VF-171A built by, say, the Macross Frontier fleet... but they're both still VF-171A's as long as the base design isn't deviated from too heavily. (So, of course, now every time we go to document a fighter we have to stop and ask "Is this the base spec, or is this a local spec version?".) It's perfectly possible that the FF-3001/FC2 engines built by Uroboros AWDAP for the YF-30 and the FF-3001/FC2 engines Surya Aerospace acquired for VF-31 trial production were the same design built to different standards based on budgetary constraints or issues of material quality. The Brisingr cluster is not a wealthy region, so they may have built the FF-3001/FC2 to lower design tolerances to save money or because the VF-31 lacked the structural strength for the full-strength engine as a model economized for mass production. They could have made minor design changes to reduce the thrust output in favor of greater generator output or more stability in a particular power band (since the VF-31s are mostly used for low-altitude combat). The YF-30 was, after all, built by Aisha Blanchett and Uroboros AWDAP with the nearly unlimited wealth of Strategic Military Services and Bilra Transport Co., so it wouldn't be surprising if they could build the FF-3001/FC2 to a higher standard. The teased VF-31 Master File may lend some help on this front... or it may do what the VF-25 book did and comment almost exclusively upon one of those local variations instead of the base design! That's inconsistent with over thirty years of relatively consistent formatting of information... overboost performance is always given separately from normal engine operating maximums. That's why I don't buy that theory... it would mark a radical and pointless departure from their well-established stats publishing format. Even the VF-31 stats are presented in that consistent manner. Word.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    There may be some method to their madness, I will elaborate below. Granted, that's the case normally... but the choice of "tuning" carries a much broader set of implications than "trimming" does, and I don't think they're misusing the term. (This is coming from my work as a powertrain development engineer in the auto industry, mainly, but also a bit of my experience in robotics.)What you call "trimming" is also commonly referred to in other applications as "chip tuning": changing the engine control software calibrations stored in the engine control unit's EEPROM. The engine itself isn't changed, but the way its software behaves can be altered by changing timings, pressure limits, etc. for improved or diminished performance. The term "tuning" also encompasses "performance tuning" as well... in which an engine's hardware, software, and calibrations can all be modified to increase aspects of the engine's performance (usually at the expense of other areas of performance). It's this that I think they mean when they use "tuned" to refer to modified engines. Physically modifying the engine for increased power, for greater fuel efficiency, for greater generator output, etc. (or the reverse, like the VF-171's FF-2110X engines). I think it's particularly likely that there are changes to the engine hardware and software in cases where they refer to tuning... especially given that many cases are engines of diminished performance intended for export, and the NUNG wouldn't want to make it so easy for the people buying the export engines to recal them for the same output as the federal NUNS fighters have. I wouldn't put it past them to write-protect the engine control software as well, so an engine couldn't be rebuilt to federal NUNS spec and still function normally. If it's just a calibrations thing, then the engine cals could be reprogrammed or reset to increase the performance of the detuned engine. If the tuning extended to changes to the engine's hardware and software, that would be much, MUCH harder to reverse. As noted above, I suspect this is what was done to export model engines... and why, when aircraft that were using a detuned engine model were upgraded they outright replaced the engines with a new model. (The VF-171EX.)
  22. Seto Kaiba
    There are a few significant problems with your reasoning here.The first is that, while it may be the same engine, the version the VF-31s are fitted with is a significantly detuned version... so it's the same engine, but the performance is not the same. The second is that the YF-30's 2,110kN is NOT presented as being the engine's boosted output, but as the rated performance of the engine itself... the same as the VF-31's 1,875kN. The only logical interpretation of the stats is it is NOT accounting for the improvement provided by the fold dimensional resonance system. This is true of experimental and early prototype aircraft... but the ones that have featured in Macross stories have been pretty uniformly the late or final prototypes which were built to full or near-full military spec using the production-intent materials and hardware. The VF-X-11 No.2 that was appropriated by the Dancing Skulls for a rescue op became the final production spec for the VF-11A. The YF-19 No.2 prototype in Project Super Nova was practically identical to the initial VF-19A Excalibur production model. The YF-21 No.2 didn't change a hell of a lot either, given that most of the changes were to the control system. The YF-25 Prophecy also was pretty much full military spec except for the special monitor turret for data recording. The YF-27-5 probably doesn't count because even though it was nowhere near the military spec for the VF-27, it was still fully combat-ready and was made with an intention to mislead people about the capabilities of the true VF-27... The YF-30 was, by all accounts, a full custom-fab job by the Uroboros AWDAP facility in partnership with Shinsei and LAI. The only part I'm aware of that was "off the shelf" was the Ariel II "Brunhilde" super-AI control package off the VF-25. (It's a safe bet the VF-31 is also an Ariel II platform, but I wonder if it's also using the Brunhilde build or if Surya came up with their own software to drive the flight control system?)
  23. Seto Kaiba
    The YF-30 Chronos and VF-31 Kairos/Siegfried use the same engine... but the version used by the Kairos and Siegfried has been detuned 12.5% (1,875kN vs 2,110kN). Given that one of the only stated details of the fold dimensional resonance system is that it outclasses the fold wave system of the YF-29, even if the increase in thrust provided by the overboost mode was the same 15% the YF-30 would be producing more thrust because of the greater capability the base engine offers. (The YF-30 is also capable of independently penetrating fold faults, an option no other fighter has.) The YF-30 Chronos is only a technology demonstrator as seen in Macross 30, but with less mass, 12.5% more engine power, a superior version of the fold wave system that grants independent ability to penetrate fold fault barriers, and the heavy quantum beam rifle the fighter was equipped with for live combat was a MDE beam rifle (one megadeath nastier than what the VF-31 has.)
  24. Seto Kaiba
    No problemo... the "thermonuclear reaction burst turbine" isn't a term often used. Macross the Ride threw it around a lot, and Macross 30's voiceover actually did throw it out rather blatantly at one point, but it's usually a "blink and you'll miss it" kind of affair.(As a fun note, it appears that the easiest way to tell the engine type apart is the model number. Each block of engine types seems to start with __99, the initial one being FF-1999 for the QF-3000 Ghost, while thermonuclear reaction burst turbines started at FF-2099 from the VF-16 and VF-11MAXL, and Stage II engines appear to have started with FF-2999, for which an upgraded model was used on the Sv-262.) If someone wanted to be a smartarse, the point could be made that Isamu's YF-29 from Macross 30 was a vanilla-colored YF-29. IIRC didn't that one have the fold wave system as its Box 3 weapon in-game? We know for relatively certain (thanks Great Mechanics G) that the Kairos does not have a fold wave system or any fold quartz-based subsystems except its ISC. Given the parts commonality between the two, I'd argue it is a fair statement since the Kairos and Siegfried are using detuned versions of YF-30 parts with performance differences in excess of 10%. The Draken III only superficially looks like a single-engine VF... it does in fact have two FF-2999/FC2 engines.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Yep... unless the fighter in question is outfitted with a fold wave system or fold dimensional resonance system, or a four-engine configuration using Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines. There's no "burst" in the name of the Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines. The thermonuclear reaction burst turbine engines were the previous generation engine model that replaced the initial thermonuclear reaction turbine engines and were in turn replaced by the Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines. It's a lot more limited than that.The stock 2-engine 5th Generation VF has enough surplus generator output to run only light energy conversion armor around vital areas like the cockpit and the engines. GERWALK mode and Battroid mode enjoy boosted armor strength for the entire airframe. The VF-27's 4-engine configuration enabled it to optionally run its energy conversion armor and pin-point barrier in fighter mode, though it isn't clear if the generator surplus is sufficient to fully power the armor or if that all-around coverage is at a reduced level vs. battroid mode. VFs like the YF-29, YF-30, and VF-31 Siegfried Custom are able to fully power their energy conversion armor in all modes because their generator output is supplemented by the fold wave system or fold dimensional resonance system providing energy directly from super dimension space. (This, of course, is bank-breakingly expensive and not widely applied.) Aye, 100% in all three modes if you've got a fold wave or fold dimensional resonance system supplementing (or outright replacing) generator output from the engines with energy drawn from super dimension space.As noted above, the YF-29, YF-30, and the Siegfried version of the VF-31 can all do this by virtue of being equipped with either a fold wave system or a fold dimensional resonance system. Whether the Sv-262 is able to do this is unclear, since its reheat system is a sort of poor man's fold wave system to improve engine performance... it's not mentioned if it has dimensional energy conversion capabilities too. At present, there is no indication of any YF-30 besides the one on Uroboros... which was apparently economized significantly to make the VF-31. (Curiously, the VF-4 Master File makes brief mention of a VF-30... so the original model may have made it into mass production after all.) See the above about the VF-27's armor... it could run the armor, certainly, but at full power without a fold wave system? That's not clear. No source I am aware of has described the fold wave system as anything other than a standard feature of the YF-29 (and presumably YF-29B).
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