Seto Kaiba
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Apart from the Mistral in the foreground, there is no ID on those planes... just background filler, I'd guess.
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If I had to hazard a guess based on the "virtues" of the design mentioned in Macross Chronicle, it would be that it's a "heavy" VF because of the combination of the design's excellent defensive strength and payload capabilities.
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Source for that? I don't recall anything about the BDI system being Zentradi overtechnology... the only explicitly Zentradi system that's mentioned with the YF-21/VF-22 is the inertia vector control system, based on the one used in the Queadluun-Rau. I'm not finding anything that connects the YF-21's BDI to the DYRL?-only Meltrandi cybernetics. EDIT: I think you might be conflating the BDI and IVCS... the BDI wasn't used on the YF-24, but the ISC used on the YF-24 and its derivative designs is based on the IVCS used on the Q-Rau and YF-21/VF-22. Frontier's prohibition of implants is rare in 2059. Per Kawamori's interview in Otona Anime #9, that's a recent change.
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Remember, the material in the DYRL?-related entries may not necessarily be true for the stories of the main/ongoing Macross universe... as DYRL? itself is a movie within that Macross universe.
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Two in total, IIRC.
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It's not a factory satellite, it's just the "Macross Cannon base"... one of the orbital staging areas for the Sol system's six Macross Cannon-class gunships.
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None that I'm aware of, no.
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"Migg Pitt" is the name it's given.
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Well, the waste heat has to go somewhere... and in most cases the wing is the largest contiguous surface on a Valkyrie, and thus an ideal radiator surface for that waste heat when not in combat. (As noted on the VF-25.) Er... just because you don't know the answer doesn't mean it's an inconsistency, my friend. As noted in Macross Chronicle1, the VF-171 Nightmare Plus used by the Macross Frontier fleet were (effectively) detuned models operating at well below the airframe's design limit in the name of reducing costs and improving handling. It was designed with the structural strength to support a much more powerful engine, and is noted as being both more durable and having comprehensive performance superior to that of the VF-17. The (still comparatively detuned) FF-2550F engines the VF-171EX was fitted with are noted2 as having loaded the airframe right to the limits of its structural strength. By contrast, the VF-11 was designed in a much earlier era... when the kind of thrust even the detuned FF-2110A produces could only be achieved by a "brute force" approach of simply building bigger, thirstier engines. I'm certain the airframe was, like others, designed with leeway for reasonable improvements in engine technology like those seen on the VF-1 or VF-4... but they probably didn't anticipate that, a decade or so after finalizing the design, there'd be a quantum leap in engine technology that'd just about double the potential output of a thermonuclear reaction turbine. In short, the VF-171 didn't need reinforcement to adopt the more powerful engines because the airframe was designed to take a more powerful engine than it ended up using... while the VF-11 needed reinforcement because it was designed for the outputs of engines available when it was built, and used those engines to the max. As a point of order, there are already sensors all over the airframe on regular VF's... even moreso on AVFs. Yep... that's what we've been saying. On a thermonuclear reaction turbine engine, the production of thrust is a function of energy losses at the generator stage. Plasma, heat, and power are bled off the reactor to heat intake air and/or run the MHD plasma ion engine, which means less power is available for other systems. With FAST packs, it's also possible they could be utilizing the thermonuclear reaction turbines at a lower level and relying more on rocket boosters to provide more generator support for things like the capacitor banks in the APS-25 Armored Pack... though newer craft using Stage II reaction turbine engines have a greater energy surplus at maximum thrust than previous generations, which is responsible for their ability to use light energy conversion armor in fighter mode (and probably helps fill the demand for power from capacitor banks in FAST packs). So... using a detuned engine to preserve AVF technical functionality at lower levels of performance. That sounds very familiar. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Macross Chronicle Macross Frontier mechanic sheet NUNS 02A "VF-171 Nightmare Plus" 2. Macross Chronicle Macross Frontier mechanic sheet NUNS 03A "VF-171EX Nightmare Plus EX"
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All told, the available descriptions of the Macross universe's active stealth technology I've found point to it being an ECM-based active stealth system which uses destructive interference to mask the fighter's presence by zeroing the returning radar wave. Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie's second volume has some brief mentions of the UN Forces having to make post-war adjustments to the VF-1 active stealth system to improve its effectiveness against Zentradi radar systems, because they use different frequencies, modulations, and search patterns from what human-built radars do.
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Actually, that has a relatively straightforward explanation. Because development was being pursued in the immediate aftermath of the first space war, the VF-X-4 prototypes were assembled using large (but diminishing) amounts of existing VF-1 hardware. The version (a model of which is) seen in the series was 35% VF-1 Valkyrie parts, and by the start of trial production, they'd whittled the percentage of shared parts to 25% on the VF-4A-0.
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It's one of the acknowledged advantages of the delta wing configuration used on the VF-0C/D, VF-11MAXL, etc... you have more internal capacity for fuel and, if what's said about cooling on other models holds true, room for a larger coolant loop to dissipate heat from engine components that isn't being used to produce power. There are a couple examples of engines made by Daimler and RR, or LAI, but yeah... Shinnakasu Heavy Industry seems to have a lock on the military's thermonuclear reaction engine contracts. Conformal tanks on their own would probably be cheaper, yes... though the simplest way to go about it would be just enlarge the airframe for better internal tank capacity (e.g. the VF-11MAXL). That's because the improvements in armor strength are due to upgrades in the energy conversion armor system, not reinforcement of the airframe itself. I'm sure I could find worse among the stuff I've written on request for various RPGs and MUSHes. As the dethroned "next main fighter", the VF-19 tends to be the go-to source for AVF upgrade parts... though we know little about what the configuration of the VF-17's radar system is. The AVF-tier radars and other composite sensor systems we know about in official or semi-official sources suggest they probably wouldn't fit inside a smaller airframe without compromises elsewhere (like an elongated nose, e.g. the VF-171, which adversely affected stealth). Yes, the VF-171 Nightmare Plus uses a detuned version of the VF-17's burst turbine engines in its "stock" configuration for cost reduction, but as discussed earlier, that doesn't necessarily translate into reduced generator output. The engine may simply be design-limited to reserve more of its reactor output for onboard systems instead of thrust production. Either way, it's still using the more efficient thermonuclear reaction burst turbine technology... so it's at least in the same category, power-wise, as the VF-19 or VF-22's engines. (Also remember that, with its coolant limitations on thrust production, the FF-2450 used on the VF-22 had comparable output to a FF-2110 but more than enough power for active stealth and a pinpoint barrier as well.) The difference should be fairly significant... the VF-19 is said to have needed structural reinforcement to use the GU-17, and it was much more robust than the VF-1 or VF-3000. (If we look to Master File, the difference isn't just 3mm in shell diameter... 58mm vs 55mm... it's also 2km/s in muzzle velocity.)
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Well... the obvious, non-story reason for it is that Kawamori wanted something less main character-y for the Macross Frontier fleet's grunts than the VF-19 Excalibur, and settled on a simplified VF-17. The in-story reason is vague and nebulous to say the least. I suppose if you wanted to point to a distinct advantage of the VF-17 in-setting, it'd have to be that General Galaxy's VF-17 is on the low end of the AVF performance "band" without actually being an AVF itself. Its performance pushes the limit of human endurance without actually exceeding what a well-trained pilot can take... whereas the VF-19 and VF-22 both went so far that their excessively high performance caused the pilots to lose control of the aircraft. It also had respectable defensive capability without a barrier, and respectable stealth capability without the 3rd Generation active stealth of the first AVF generation. In short, it's because the VF-17 might as well be sold as "I can't believe it's not AVF!". During the Macross 7 series' second half, Gamlin was still leading Diamond Force... and the trial lot of AVF's built by Three Star for the Macross-7 fleet was three VF-19's (Emerald Force) and two VF-22's (Max and Milia's). Not enough free planes to upgrade the entirety of Diamond Force, so they got to keep their VF-17's until a year or so later in Dynamite 7, when Gamlin finally got his VF-22S. (Diamond Force was probably low-priority for upgrades after being seconded to the City-7 defenses.) The Nightmare Plus had the Aegis Pack for the RVF-171, but yes... the VF-171 doesn't seem to have actually had a Super Pack of its own until the decision was made to enhance them for anti-Vajra use. With both internalized armaments AND wing-mounted ordinance, the VF-171 probably shouldn't have needed a Super Pack in the normal course of affairs. It's already got the more efficient FF-2110A engines, so its need for additional propellant is minimal. It's also probably scaled back a bit because, at the time, the AIF-7S/QF-4000 Ghost was gradually taking over for manned fighters. By all accounts, the VF-171 was a highly versatile design that could easily be adapted to different operational roles with little in the way of modification... and that probably played a role in the absence of FAST packs.
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I'm not aware of anything that describes how exactly a thermonuclear reaction burst turbine is different from a regular one, just that the burst turbines were used on the VF-16, VF-17 from the D variant on, and the first AVF generation, and that their key advantages were significant gains in fuel efficiency, improved heat exchange systems, and nearly double the thrust. Combined, that's apparently responsible for the ability to reach orbit unassisted.
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Energy Conversion Armor (ECA), some gathered trivia
Seto Kaiba replied to Mr March's topic in Movies and TV Series
Macross Chronicle sort of beats around the bush about how exactly the Vajra get their energy... but between the series' mention of a "fold reactor" in the Vajra's Knight-class ship and the Queen Frontier's "fold quartz dimensional energy conversion" power source, that tidbit sounds like the Vajra are using the fold carbon they naturally produce to extract energy from super dimension space to run the energy-intensive technorganic traits like gravity control flight, their energy conversion armor, beam weapons, etc. What makes energy conversion armor work is supposedly electromagnetic pulses... -
That's a good question... in Macross Plus and Macross 7, it seems like the pinpoint barriers are turned off (or at least on hot standby) until they're needed, and then they just appear where they're needed. Usually it's centered on the shield or over a fist. If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably semi-autonomous operation (because the pilot's frankly got enough going on as it is). IINM (and it has been a while, so I may very well be), the only time we see fighter-scale pinpoint barriers represented as the original series-style discs was in the Macross 7 series. I believe it was either 2 or 3 discs.
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As far as my views go, it's principally because what little official information exists on the practice of upgrading older designs to use AVF-level hardware suggests the end result for all but the most minimal changes is usually an unstable and/or unreliable plane the likes of which would potentially be beyond even the skills of an ace pilot to manage... and are thus unsuitable for mass production. It's not just a matter of raw thrust... but a matter of fuel efficiency. The thing that pushed the VF-17 Nightmare to the level of being able to launch into satellite orbit unassisted was the adoption of a new version of thermonuclear reaction engine technology. It got the FF-2100 thermonuclear reaction burst turbine, which had greatly improved output and, more importantly, fuel efficiency. One of the key design features of the VF-11MAXL was its delta wing, which offered more room for fuel storage... that probably was as much a factor in its orbital capabilities as the new engines. One also has to wonder if the stock VF-11 could meet the cooling requirements of a more potent engine... because even AVFs are struggling with that on their own. They're vague on that subject in general... another instance of it being mentioned but not described in any detail would be on the VF-19EF Caliburn, which had to be reinforced to use the GU-17. Minor upgrades are... you don't usually drop a next-generation avionics package into the fighter and call it a block upgrade. That takes a lot of adaptation. Whether next-generation sensor systems would even fit is a whole other kettle of fish... the VF-19 radar, for instance, is QUITE large and the VF-25's is actually dependent on the shape and composition of the nosecone. WRT the active stealth system, that's probably more a case of sufficient generator output than anything else... you need to throw more power behind the active cancellation to defeat more powerful radars. Electrical output... it's not at all clear what the exact relationship between a reaction engine's generator output and thrust output is. It's not helping that we only have generator outputs for two VF's... the VF-1 Valkyrie and VF-2SS Valkyrie II. For those, the output power to engine thrust relationship seems to be a linear progression, and if we knew the efficiency of the MHD systems in the engines it'd be possible to backtrack from maximum instantaneous output in space to a ballpark figure for generator output for the others if it's still linear for VF's in the main timeline. We're still talking enormous amounts of power here... gigawatts, easily.
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Structurally, yeah... the VF-11C is an economized model, but according to Chronicle its performance limits are pretty much identical to the earlier -B variant. 's hard to say... since the VF-11D Custom "Jamming Birds" type, MAXL, MAXL Custom, and VF-11 Thunderbolt Interceptor are all one-off or limited production craft that either belong to civilians or special forces, they're likely getting more intensive maintenance than a normal fighter would get. Well... that's kind of a slippery-slope problem. Once you've replaced the engines, upgraded the airframe and armor materials, put new actuators and verniers in, and installed the AVF-tier avionics and sensor packages, you've basically put most or all of the cost involved in just building a new AVF from scratch into your upgrade program... but with less endurance. Well, yes... but to be fair, actual compatibility with a fold booster was never exclusive to AVF-level craft. Native support for the fold booster was an AVF goal, but even that was kind of low-hanging fruit. A pinpoint barrier system requires an obscene amount of power to operate... even an AVF needs to throw more than half its power output into the barrier to keep it running. So, IMO, it's likely that the VF-11D Custom and VF-11MAXL have similar "Cheats" to get pinpoint barriers working with substantially less engine. The Interceptor model's probably leaning more heavily on the battery than most because it's a air racing plane, and thus needs to preserve engine output. I doubt being factory-installed would make much difference... Yeah, fold communications systems in Macross can be made pretty darn small... every fold-capable ship has at least one, and the military-grade fold communication (left) and relay pod (right) systems are barely the size of missiles, and the relay at least has an interstellar range. Nah... the human-built fold systems in Macross seem to use human-coded software for their operation, which likely varies between models and manufacturers. They're probably a bit gunshy about using alien software after what happened the first time... what with the accidentally starting an interstellar war that nearly wiped out humanity and all. The ones we know about seem to fall into two groups: Anti-government groups which wanted more autonomy for the emigrant planets and fleets. (This group got exactly what it wanted when the government reorganized.) Groups which want to increase the power of the military OVER the government in the name of protecting humanity from extinction (e.g. Latence, FASCES). Actually, that seems to be true for pretty much all FAST packs except the special-use types like the Armored or Tornado packs... Well, yes... because those aren't really FAST packs. It's basically the same arrangement as the VF-0A's Ghost Booster or VF-27's Super configuration from the second Macross Frontier movie... except, unlike the VF-0A, the drone and the aircraft carrying it have thermonuclear reaction engines. (Based on the visual similarity, I can't help but suspect the VF-27's QF-5100 Goblin II drone is a relative of whatever drone formed the basis for Basara's sound booster.) Yep... the boosters in conventional FAST packs are of the rocket variety. Probably still hybrid rockets like the original generation of FAST packs. Well, they're likely charged off the reaction furnaces of the ship before launch... and then kept topped off by the reaction engines of the fighter they're mounted to when not in use. I doubt it. If these were thermonuclear reaction turbines, they'd be described as such... the descriptions given for them make them out to be high-powered rocket motors like those of pretty much every FAST pack save for the Tornado Pack. The answer is almost certainly "because it'd be obscenely expensive". On its own, the APS-25A Armored Pack is so prohibitively expensive that it's restricted to platoon leader-use only. The VF-25's TW1 Tornado Pack is the only one known to have internal thermonuclear reaction engines, and it's said to be even more expensive than the VF-25's Armored Pack. On paper, a FAST Pack is supposed to be a space augmentation system that boosts performance and armament while remaining cheap enough to technically be disposable.
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It's legit... part of her Glossary entry in Macross Chronicle. See Glossary Sheet 24.
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Well, that depends on the nature of the upgrade... if upgrading an existing design results in increased maintenance downtime and cost as a result of pushing an older design past its limits or including new capabilities it wasn't designed to support, it could end up more expensive to maintain the fleet of older aircraft than to replace them with a newer design that requires less maintenance. Pretty much, yeah... the same basic arrangement as most other tandem cockpit Valkyries. My point is that there really isn't a way to achieve that result without effectively destroying the colony... which takes the "long term" portion out of the equation. This isn't a single-point-of-failure system. An emigrant fleet is one or more emigrant ships and a military escort detail with anywhere from dozens to hundreds of fold-capable warships. Each and every one of those fold-capable ships has at least one fold communications system. So your typical planet on the frontier could have anywhere from 70 to 500 ships chilling out in orbit... assuming they don't also have a factory satellite or two kicking around the Lagrange points the way several are known to. To lose contact with the greater galaxy, you'd need all of those fold communications systems to fail simultaneously... dozens, or hundreds, at once. Even if there's a fold fault or something that's interfering, you just send a ship back to drop relay satellites like we see in Frontier... or just send a ship or two out as messengers requesting assistance the way Macross Galaxy did. Anti-government groups haven't exactly gone away in the aftermath of the government reorganizing (in which many of them got exactly what they were after), but in the 2050s they seem to be less of an issue... and as many of them seem to be content with using existing hardware. A custom Super Pack, yeah... because the Thunder Focus is equipped with a pair of stock VF-11 Thunderbolt engines (FF-2025G), and almost every racer has twice that or better in engine output. Difficult to say, but my suspicion would be "probably not"... at least, not for more than a couple minutes. FAST packs aren't really meant for continuous burn... they've only got enough fuel to yield maximum thrust for a couple minutes. I believe the VF-11's are rated for 5 minutes at full power. The capacitors that drive the VF-25's Armored and Paladin pack equipment might work short-term. We don't know anything about their endurance, but if they're anything like the ones in the VF-11's Armored Pack, then their endurance without being recharged in flight by the fighter's engines would probably be pretty short.
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In a VERY limited fashion, yes... the VF-11D Custom's only real AVF-tier modifications were the installation of the same verniers the VF-19 uses, and a pinpoint barrier system. Otherwise, the modifications were relatively minor... like enlarged canards and uptuned (11%) versions of the VF-11's regular engines. Normally, AVF level technology only finds its way into 3rd Generation or older VF's on a one-off basis. Personally, I don't think that scenario is at all likely... even fold faults can't completely obstruct communications between fleets, and with the galaxy network playing a significant part in inter-fleet and inter-world commerce (cultural exports and so on), the complete loss of communication is likely to raise some eyebrows sooner rather than later and prompt an investigation. Every ship with a fold system has fold communications capability... so losing ALL long-range communication would generally mean you've misplaced the entire fleet (and therefore they're probably dead) or some malicious third party is interfering (which is likely to end with either losing the fleet or the enemy losing theirs, which likewise isn't likely to last all that long). Developing a new fighter takes a significant input of capital and an awful lot of time... there are a few cases where anti-government groups or criminals have obtained AVF-level craft, but they don't seem to go in for modification. Obtaining the UN Forces' fighters through illegitimate channels seems to be easier by far (e.g. the poachers in Macross Dynamite 7, who were able to obtain VF-17 Nightmares and reaction weaponry through intermediaries). On the rare occasion where they've had original mecha, they've had help from crooked defense contractors... but developing all-new craft seems to be easier.
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Yeah, one lot of 20 craft... a special run for the Jamming Birds unit the Macross 7 fleet garrison established. That's because they didn't change a hell of a lot about them... most of the alterations, barring the engine change, had little or no effect on performance. That's... not really ambiguous. That's explicitly confirmed by the very first sentence of Macross Chronicle's description of the YF-29. Possibly... though that only really seems to have become a factor in the 2050s and on, after the core (New) Unified Forces stopped sharing the latest toys in an unaltered form. It's probably more likely to occur in fleets or emigrant planets that are more distant from Earth... like Frontier and Galaxy, which were basically a galactic radius away from home. On that level, the fleets that had a population of ~1 million of less seem to have favored breaking out support functions into other ships like those seen in Macross 7. It seems like, as time went on, more and more of those functions were incorporated into the central colony ship itself as the ships and their populations got larger. So, for this very specific purpose, I guess you could say that a "small" fleet is maybe 1 million or fewer emigrants and ~200 ships... while a "large" fleet is multiple millions of emigrants (like Frontier's 10 million) and more ships. Well, the SDF-1's situation was unique in that it wasn't really launched for exploration or emigration (in practice). It had to make do with the modest factory it had aboard. I would assume that the Macross-class SDFN's would have a more advanced and robust factory in response to the needs of operating further from Earth, advances in technology, and having less than 1/5th the number of people aboard.
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Well, brace for a merge into the Newbie and Short Questions thread... Dunno! The most honest answer is "When (or if) Kawamori decides that the YF-29 should show up as a production aircraft in a future Macross title". As of 2060, it's still a YF. The YF-29B Percival is described as "a state-of-the-art aircraft which improves upon the YF-29 Durandal" in Macross Chronicle. It's said to be issued to Havamal ace pilots, which means it's probably technically in limited (but entirely off-the-books) production... so may fall under the same situation as the VF-27 technically did in Macross Frontier. (In which the Macross Galaxy fleet never disclosed the VF-27 plans to the New UN Gov't, so it's classified YF-27 by them.)
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Officially, the answer is "No"... in the 2050's. The UN Government doesn't seem to have been particularly troubled by emigrant fleets having the same level of military hardware as the core UN Forces until emigrant discontent with the government took a sharp uptick in the late 2040's and early 2050's, which culminated in some armed conflicts between the UN Forces and anti-government rebels equipped with AVF-level fighters. Beyond that point, we start to see a proliferation of "monkey model" specs and the UN Forces withholding details of newly developed tech from the emigrant fleets... leading to the VF-19EF, VF-19C/MG21, VF-25, VF-27, etc. As far as we know, yeah... though the modifications were almost entirely spiritia warfare-related. In other respects, the Jamming Birds were using mostly stock VF-11D's. Those, like the other Sound Force birds, were limited production aircraft too... practically one-offs built for special duty. Pretty much, yes... though it's worth noting that that appellation is actually used even for fighters that were (almost) entirely developed in the emigrant fleets... not just for locally produced monkey models or customized variants like the VF-19EF or VF-19C/MG21. In most cases, there's some kind of design firm or defense contractor with an office aboard the emigrant fleet or on the emigrant planet that handles the actual design and production. Macross Frontier had a local Shinsei office and LAI collaborating on design work for the VF-25 alongside the fleet arsenal. Macross Galaxy was already a subsidiary of General Galaxy. Not sure who was administrating the Macross-7 fleet's Three Star factory ship. The smaller emigrant fleets have separate factory ships like the Three Star-type, which are more or less a one-stop shop for the fabrication of anything from daily basic commodities to variable fighters and starships. They're basically agglomerations of both refineries and factories strapped haphazardly to a large central reaction furnace. If there's a need, odds are they've got at least one area to fill it. Larger emigrant ships apparently internalize their factories and so on, within the sublevels of the ship.
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The Real World capabilities of a VF-1 Valkyrie
Seto Kaiba replied to Valkyrie1981's topic in Movies and TV Series
Yep... heat from the thermonuclear reaction's plasma stream is used to provide propulsive force, replacing combustion for heating intake air. As Master File has it, the VF-1's engines can also be run as ramjets at high altitude, increasing the service ceiling before they need to cut over to pure space-based propulsion modes. 's more of an "Edge of space" thing... getting over 100km is possible with internal fuel, but if you want satellite orbit, you'd better be prepared to bring a booster. All told, there WERE supposedly limiters installed in the YF-19 and YF-21... it's just that, even with them preventing the pilots from pushing the airframe to the point where the g-forces could kill or incapacitate the pilot, it was still perfectly possible for the pilots to push the airframe to the point where they themselves could lose control of the plane and then crash from a loss of control on their part. Possibly... though he was probably operating with full knowledge that the updated controls would be swiftly adopted by the majority of VF-1 production blocks. Allegedly, many of the fold accidents had to do with mis-calculating the power requirements for a fold (and getting stuck in fold space as a result) or running into impassible fold faults.
