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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    That's actually a really good question... every VF has had infrared cameras as part of its sensor suite, so why the hell are the Aerial Knights wasting their time sweeping the frozen hinterland with searchlights? Maybe, in the epilogue. Odds are he's probably pulling the strings behind the NUNS counteroffensive... being better at saving the galaxy than the protagonists.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    I don't believe it's ever been quantified in explicit terms, no... but the VF-1 uses verniers out on the wingtips for roll control even in atmospheric flight (finally animated as such in Macross Delta Ep.3), so the output of the high-thrust verniers must be pretty damned huge for their size (tens of kilonewtons).
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Well, all six launchers are just below the knee... so that may be what's up there.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Did they? I thought they only warned us that the love triangle was going to be done differently... (and by differently, I suppose they meant "not at all").
  5. Seto Kaiba
    Maybe... but then, large-scale applications of hologram technology in starships have been done for reasons scarcely less flimsy than that. I'd suppose the propaganda value of the Do You Remember Love? movie was largely based on the presentation of more Zentradi fleets as a very real, very immediate threat. Unfortunately, a threat that in recent decades seems to have only popped up offscreen. (Though I suppose, as an essentially defenseless training ship, some holographic camouflage ala YF-27-5 might not be an entirely bad idea for ships operating as part of emigrant fleets...) EDIT: Come to think of it... why isn't this used to protect Island ships when they're operating independently of their docked carrier? Throw a barrier up, then turn that sucker invisible. "Target? What target? We're just some empty space, yo."
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Well, the franchise owner certainly seems to care... but then, they really ought to start keeping Kawamori on a shorter leash. Well, they're still doing it in-universe in 2059... using real Variable Fighters for motion capture in battle sequences. Make of it what you will, but there has to be some practical or pragmatic reason they're paying for real variable fighters and helicopters and so on for their movies instead of using CG.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    More like anime's Gene Roddenberry... he's a good idea and concept man who's entirely dependent on others to turn his broad, sometimes absurd concepts into reality with varying degrees of success. Delta is his equivalent of Star Trek: the Next Generation season 1: all the pieces are there, but they've been put together wrong into something absolutely abhorrent. Anime's George Lucas is probably Yoshiyuki Tomino, whose ups and downs led to some legendary (Zeta Gundam, Char's Counterattack) and legendarily bad (ZZ Gundam, Reconguista in G) installments where the quality was largely dependent on how short a leash the producers kept on him during development. After ten years mostly spent watching Macross II get bagged on for NOT having Kawamori at the helm... I'm really, REALLY fighting the temptation to laugh at how a Kawamori-concept series has turned into such a train wreck that fans are looking back fondly on Macross II.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    A good while before that, actually... if you remember, Hikaru VTOL's a VT-1 Super Ostrich with just the ventral verniers in order to get enough ground clearance to transform to GERWALK in Macross: Do You Remember Love?.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    We'll probably have to wait until the Variable Fighter Master File: VF-31 Siegfried book comes out to know for sure, since Macross Delta is apparently incredibly determined to neglect the mecha of the series like the proverbial redheaded stepchild.It doesn't look like the VF-31's beam gun pod is set up for beam grenade mode, but it's gotta be generating some serious juice to use the regular mode, and a railgun isn't exactly light on energy consumption either and it's got two of those... You do realize the MC-17C and GU-14B are almost the exact same gun pod, right?The only appreciable differences between the two are the caliber of ammunition and the placement of the removable magazine. Other than that, the two are more or less identical. The CG model even preserved the surface detail of the MC-17 folding stock. That the most common variable fighter in the galaxy and the de facto Special Forces VF both use caseless ammo would suggest that they do, in fact, have the problems inherent in modern caseless ammo quite thoroughly licked. The pamphlet for the 1/72 scale VF-31J model kit had a line in there about the VF-31 being unable to fly in Battroid mode... citing that it could only hover.Based on what we saw last time the show's cast went to Voldor, that's clearly bunk. Hayate's VF-31J was shown flying in Battroid mode as he charged Keith's Sv-262Hs to stop him from one-upping Bogue by gunning down Walkure. Also, VFs with a fraction of the VF-31's engine power have been shown to be easily able to fly in Battroid mode in previous shows. No they weren't, they're still there... just better integrated into the body of the fighter. You can clearly see them being used to provide forward thrust for the VF-25's GERWALK mode in Ep2 of Frontier, and they're very much present in the line art and visible on some of the toys as well.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Much the same as the regular mode... "Blowing crap up with extreme prejudice".As far as I know, the closest any official source has come to identifying a concrete design intent for the beam grenade mode on the VF-27's gun pod was that it had firepower enough to penetrate the armor of the larger types of Vajra. It wouldn't be a stretch, based on what's shown in the series, to say it's an effective analog for a Strike Pack's anti-ship cannon.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Or maybe... or better yet...
  16. 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.)
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. 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!
  21. 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.
  22. 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.)
  23. 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.
  24. 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.
  25. 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.
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