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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    I wouldn't be too sure of that... As far as official sources go, the only VFs that've been described as being able to fully utilize their energy conversion armor and/or pin-point barrier system in all modes are those equipped with variants of the fold wave system... the YF-29 and YF-30. The VF-25's FF-3001 Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines had just enough surplus power to run dedicated light energy conversion armor around vital areas (cockpit and engines) in fighter mode1, and the VF-27 needed the surplus from FOUR Stage II engines to get whole-airframe ECA and/or pin-point barrier working in fighter mode. The YF-30 can only achieve that because its Fold Dimension Resonance system, an improved version of the fold wave system on the YF-29. The material requirements to build one seem to be pretty expensive... the YF-29's needed 1,000 carats of fold quartz. Well, yes and no... the SV-51 had a couple of advantages over the VF-0, principally because it was intended for combat use from its inception, where the VF-0 was a technology evaluation and demonstration craft hastily pressed into training and combat service. It's said that it had greater stability in actual combat, and that its active stealth system was more powerful than the VF-0's, but it also had the drawback of being slower to transform and a shorter sortie range. Not quite? The VF-171EX is using the FF-2550F, apparently detuned to 67,500kg-f. The other plane that uses the FF-2550F is the VF-19 Custom, which had an output of 82,500kg-f (probably overtuned). The detuning of the FF-2550F for the VF-171EX is likely a constraint imposed by its airframe design tolerances, as the Nightmare Plus EX is said to be tuned all the way to the design limit. The VF-19 engine numbers in Chronicle are all messed up... but there's a FAQ for that. Well... there's something to this effect in Macross Chronicle's Technology Sheets... but only for the VF-25 and VF-27, IIRC.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    Depends, are you asking for screen captures from the movie, or other art? I've only got a few publications that talk about the other Macross Quarter-type ships, and IIRC they all use the same pictures that are in the movie art book you've got there... just at different sizes.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Your wife got you a DX Konig Monster for your birthday? Darn right she's wonderful, you lucky bugger. No, the cockpit sinks down into the torso and ends up under the head as it moves forward into the space the cockpit previously was in. (Per the description in Macross Chronicle.) Canaria's VB-6 was customized with an EX-Gear cockpit system, permitting a single pilot of exceptional skill to operate the VB-6 on their own. (Per Macross Chronicle mechanic sheet Frontier SMS 06A.) According to Macross Chronicle, the Konig Monster CAN fire its railguns in Destroid mode, and handles posture control with the engines in the legs. How exactly it aims is not explained, though I have a mental picture of it taking a knee and leaning forward. The mechanic sheet for the movie version of the Konig Monster mentions that the missile launchers in the arms are unavailable in Destroid mode. No word on if it can use the hands in Heavy GERWALK mode. The Destroid mode is described in Macross Chronicle (the movie sheet again) as being "a form that mainly considers close-range combat", rather than the bombardment and bombing the other two modes are used for. The series mechanic sheet for same has corroborated the "it's for close combat" thing too. So, on balance, looks like Destroid mode is for when the pilot wants to engage in fisticuffs on a nearly unprecedented scale.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    Well, if we really wanted to furiously pick nits with all the zeal of an amphetamine-fueled monkey... the old Sky Angels book is a doujinshi, while Variable Fighter Master File is at least an official licensed product even though it's not canon, and was supervised by Kawamori. Theoretically, VFMF should be more reliable (to the point that that matters in non-canon material) than the old doujinshi... esp. since the initial VF-1 Master File is, in many ways, a modernized version of what's there in Sky Angels. Nope. Depends what it's being used for... and it doesn't always hold true that the larger round should have the lower muzzle velocity. The GAU-8/A's muzzle velocity for its 30mm rounds is marginally faster than the M61's for 20mm, for instance. Since ballistics plays by slightly different rules in space, and overtechnology-based armor materials are terrifying stuff, I'd say it's more a question of maximizing stopping power and ensuring a hit on a highly agile target rather than striking from the farthest distance possible when it comes to muzzle velocity. Not in terms of "this is what makes up that weight", AFAIK.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    As the man says, GuardianGrey, M3 is Mr March's project. He does all the front-end stuff like the beautiful art, the elegant and finely crafted stats pages, and the layouts. I help out here and there doing the back-end administrative stuff that keeps the server running, chase new publications, and function as an "in-house" researcher/translator when the need arises. (That he manages to get anything useful out of my foamy-mouthed rantings is a thing of wonder all on its own...) Yes, you're thinking of the VF-4S(P/T) Siren that Masaya and the Macross II mechanical design staff did for one of Macross II's two video game prequels... Macross: Eternal Love Song for the PC Engine. It had a more VF-1-esque transformation (and four coaxial lasers on its monitor turret). It also had a beam rifle longer than the fighter itself, and funnels. Personally, I'd say the usage of 可変戦闘機 (Kahen Sentoki, lit. "Variable Fighter") in the art caption and/or description tends to be a "smoking gun"... to say nothing of the VF-# designation. Also, the VF-4 had already been depicted as a fully transformation-capable main character craft in 1992. The term "Variable Fighter" has nothing to do with their operating environment though... and there's no shortage of variable fighters optimized for performance in one regime or other. (They would've known that, since the idea really got crammed into the limelight via Macross II, and never really went away thereafter.)
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Just gonna throw this out there, but that article in V-Max is riddled with inaccuracies to the extent of being pretty much useless, so citing it as evidence of anything would be a bad idea. The VF-5 was... well... a VF. That the author immediately says it's non-transformable should be a clue as to how (un)reliable the article as a whole is. As with the VF-5 mentioned above, the VF-4 was always a transformable fighter... I mean, it's right there in the designation. It's also marked as transformable on the VF-X-4 line art. The stealth technology in Macross is passive stealth (via radar or fold wave-absorbent materials and airframe shaping) or active stealth (via active cancellation). While the presence of one does not imply the presence of the other, the answer to your question is still "Yes". No. The active stealth systems used in Macross are described as being of the "active cancellation" type, which uses its own small radar transmitters to neutralize their radar return through destructive interference. A new generation of active stealth technology, combined with low-observable passive stealth design, made the Project Super Nova fighters effectively invisible to previous-generation VF radar systems even at point-blank range... as seen in Macross Plus. I vaguely recall seeing a few references to Destroids having energy conversion armor technology, yes... EDIT: Yes, according to Macross Chronicle, destroids with thermonuclear reaction power systems can (and do!) employ energy conversion armor to bolster their defenses. It doesn't make up nearly as much of the total defensive ability on a destroid as it does on a VF though, as the less potent reactors used in destroids can't support it (and the less strict weight tolerances and mobility requirements mean that they're able to more than make up the difference with thicker armor plating instead).
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Ah, good catch. Dunno where my brain was that day. The gist of it is that the sound energy/spiritia is a kind of fold wave... and from the sound of it, the sentient mind has some kind of low-level connection to super dimension space that can reflect/affect the emotional/mental state of the person. Kinda like the warp in Warhammer 40,000, but without the extradimensional horrors that want to eat your soul.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    Nope... I've never seen anything on it, and to be honest I'd never thought it was an official in-universe thing. The VF-25 Master File has a paint scheme for a unit that sounds roughly analogous to the Minmay Guard's theoretical purpose on page 125. It's a VF-25F from the "Queen's Knights", which has some Sheryl Nome-specific iconography painted on it.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    You'd probably find the explanations in Macross Chronicle fairly satisfying then... I know I did. Eh... I wouldn't bank on that. Thus far, SoftBank seems to be largely trying to stay away from locations and events that are prominently featured in the existing body of Macross animation. We get the occasional nod to things from the shows in the squadron paint schemes and so on, but on balance they're sticking with events that AREN'T part of existing Macross stories. The VF-25 book, for instance, was written from the perspective of a fleet that wasn't involved in any of the events of the Macross Frontier series. The Episode Archive book sort of glosses over the events of the Macross Plus OVA, but puts more emphasis on the period of testing before Isamu got involved (the fatalities and smash-ups Jan alludes to), and the second half is completely out in left field.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Not up on paper sizes, myself... but it's the same size as the other VFMF books.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    Well, part of that might be because the Independent Special Command units aren't really squadrons, per se... whereas the special operations teams like Diamond and Emerald Force are. The VF-22 book does something bizarre here... they show a Uraga-class carrier with the Saratoga II's hull number (565) circa 2044, but it's a normal Uraga-class carrier attached to the Macross-7 fleet instead of the Macross-13 fleet variant that actually appeared in the Macross VF-X2 game. There IS a VF-X Ravens VF-22 in the book on page 111... with special commemorative markings for "Holtzand 10th Anniversary"? Well, they sometimes reprint squadrons from other VFMF books... but that's kind of rare.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    The ejection diagram in the old Sky Angels VF-1 tech manual (penned shortly after the series) shows the parachute is in the seatback.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    That's one possibility... I'll know for sure once my copy rolls in in a few days, but "Sewell Independent Space Force" almost sounds like it could be the local military (not NUNS) of some emigrant planet.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Hmm... now I am doubly curious.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Very curious what that X-like symbol on Charlotte Grace's pilot suit and that VF-25 is... can't make out what's written on the plane, but it's "_____ Independent Space Force?" This is gonna drive me nuts while I wait for the EMS package with my copy.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    You're off a bit there... The old Sky Angels book puts forth equivalent armor values for the overtechnology materials used on the VF-1 that put their durability (or damage resistance) at 100 times that of a comparable thickness of rolled homogeneous steel armor. It was explosives that got a 10x improvement (in yield for weight, the AMM-1's 20kg warhead being equivalent to 200kg of TNT).
  17. Seto Kaiba
    Not quite... he said he wanted to get away from passively stealthy airframes, which is almost the same thing considering the focus of 5th Generation fighters. While Kawamori might've possibly used the T-50 PAK-FA as an inspiration, I think most of it actually comes from his VF-EXPERIMENT column... where he did a couple design studies in the vein of "How the VF-1 might've looked if I designed it in 2000".
  18. Seto Kaiba
    There are a bunch of little realistic touches like that scattered around here and there... though the solution is usually in the form of "because newer fighters were made with more advanced overtechnology materials than the previous generation". Technology in Macross isn't static... humanity's grasp of the various sciences involved marches ever onward, just like it does in the real world. Nah, there's always been a pretty definite set of limits on exactly what the material can take... particularly where g-force induced stresses are concerned. There are a bunch of things OTM can't cheat out of the way... but size constraints are one of the biggies when it comes to updating older airframes to the same technological standards as more modern ones. The airframes that are usually mentioned as having been relatively easy to modernize are the ones that have lots of free space in the design... most notably the VF-14.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    It was, briefly, but the hull breach they opened up with their missiles was sealed by an emergency bulkhead and (presumably) pressure was restored.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    That's a wide-open field of inquiry... because unfortunately the only VF engine we have a mass for is the FF-2001.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Sort of? From the sound of it, it's more focused on the circumstances of development than the technological nitty-gritty details of operation... the former bit definitely had overlap with the VF-19 Master File, in that it's talking about some of the pilots who got hurt testing YF-19 No.1 (the two deaths and two severe injuries Jan talks about).
  22. Seto Kaiba
    Pretty much, yeah... because the VF-19's performance makes it extremely difficult to control, even after the design was modified for easier use, and the VF-171 is pretty much the Goldilocks plane in that respect. Eh... I think a better comparison might be more like a family car vs. an Indy car. The Indy car is very, VERY fast but it's only really useful for going really fast and it's only really good for a few things... and if you lose control of it for a second, you're going to be in a bad place. The family car might not go as fast, but you COULD do most of the same things an Indy car does with it if you really wanted to, and it can do a lot of other things the Indy car can't Considering the YF-19 managed to maim two test pilots and KILL two more before Isamu got his hands on it, I think that's fair...
  23. Seto Kaiba
    This is explicitly correct for Macross... substantial airframe redesign and reinforcement were necessary to adapt older airframes to use newer, more powerful reaction engines. Otherwise you'd run the risk of the airframe simply flying to pieces.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Well... that's a question of how you want to define "better". On a lot of levels, the Shinsei Industry VF-19 Excalibur and General Galaxy VF-171 Nightmare Plus are comparable in performance... active stealth, pinpoint barrier, fold booster compatibility, etc. The key areas of difference and what made the Nightmare Plus a more attractive option than the Excalibur for a lot of local New UN Spacy forces, is in the engine output and ease of control. The VF-19 has substantially greater engine power and greater agility than the VF-171, but at the expense of pushing the limits of the human body's g-force tolerances and being very difficult to control for the average pilot. Even experienced pilots like Isamu had a hard time adapting to the VF-19's extreme maneuverability. That's why the Nightmare Plus became such an attractive option... it was much more stable, and that increase in stability combined with its detuned engines, meant that the Nightmare Plus was a much more forgiving aircraft for inexperienced and average pilots. Being easy on the pilot and highly versatile made the Nightmare Plus a very attractive prospect for next main fighter (and I'm sure its cost performance being better didn't hurt any feelings either). In terms of raw performance, the VF-19 is "better"... unless you intend to have pilots who are less than exceptional flying it, in which case the stability and ease of control of the Nightmare Plus arguably makes it the better aircraft.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Prior to Macross Frontier, my favorite Macross leading lady was Ishtar... Now, I have to admit, I'd hard a hard time choosing between Ishtar and Sheryl Nome.
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