Seto Kaiba

"Everyone knows RGB lighting effects make your PC faster... so we added RGB effects to our new unmanned Valkyrie to make it faster." "Oh, that explains the massive invoice from Corsair."

The general vibe I get from Disney's Star Wars is that there's a room of suits somewhere who are just completely bewildered and occasionally frustrated to tears trying to figure out what exactly Star Wars fans want from the franchise. First they tried giving fans more of what they loved with a nice, safe sequel based on A New Hope and got reamed for it. Then they did a side story that tied into A New Hope directly and audiences LOVED IT. Then they tried to go in an original direction with the story the way fans demanded and got reamed for it. Then they tried to go back and do another nice, safe side story tied into A New Hope and got reamed even harder. By that point, it's clear everyone was down on their knees weeping and begging the fans "Please, just tell us what you want" and then they tried to make EVERYONE happy and ultimately made nobody happy. It's the same deal with the TV shows. They did The Mandalorian as a fanservice extravaganza devoted to the culture of a fan favorite background character and fans loved it. Then they tried to expand on that with a spinoff featuring that fan favorite background character with similar quantities of fanservice in The Book of Boba Fett, and fans hated it. They tried appealing with a different fan favorite via Obi-Wan Kenobi and got torn to bits for it. Then they go completely off the rails and do a prequel story about a supporting character from the Rogue One movie fans loved and it ran away with the fanbase's hearts somehow. There's little apparent rhyme or reason to it if you're looking at it from a high level or an outsider's viewpoint. To me at least, their confusion is quite understandable. They're trying, but they don't seem to quite grasp what the fans want and many fans couldn't really explain it if asked. They're throwing EVERYTHING at the wall to see what sticks in the hope that they'll find a pattern somewhere.

In terms of its combat record, Master File had the following to say: The SV Works and Dian Cecht completed the Sv-303 shortly before the final battle of the war between the Kingdom of the Wind and the Brisingr Alliance. When they nevertheless got a request to manufacture and deliver 5 Sv-303s, 3 spares, maintenance parts, replacement engines, and 50 mini-Ghosts after the death of their client and his government's decision to pursue peace negotiations, Dian Cecht's corporate leadership became suspicious of the order and launched an inquiry into the legitimacy of the request. After receiving instruction to proceed as directed by the Epsilon Foundation, they proceeded with trial production and were informed by the Epsilon Foundation messenger who came to retrieve the aircraft that a plan to mass produce the Sv-303 had been formulated. These trial production Sv-303s were taken by Sydney Hunt and handed over to the anti-government organization Heimdall along with the cell samples from the Star Singer. Heimdall proceeded to construct the Siren Delta System by cloning the genetic material obtained by Sydney Hunt. The cloned Star Singer cells were used to generate the Siren Delta System's biological fold waves, while amplification, tuning, and processing of the fold waves produced by the cloned cells was carried out by the Sharon Apple-derived quantum AI system. The Siren Delta System's basic personality was modeled on Walkure's Mikumo Guynemer using data recorded by Roid Brehm after her capture during the war. The system's fold wave output was exceptionally powerful, and it was capable of erecting a dimensional fault barrier large enough to protect a Battle-class Macross. By studying the bio-fold wave patterns and behavior of Walkure's members, the Siren Delta System created independent pseudo-personalities "Yami Q Ray" which would operate five Sv-303s and fight against the five members of Delta Flight. There's also a brief section that attempts to explain Star Singers. They're described therein as artificial life forms that were able (created to) connect to the Vajra's intergalactic zero time fold wave network. Since they were designed from the genetic level up to incorporate the Vajra factor, it's possible for star singers to convert thoughts into fold waves directly. It's hypothesized that this may have been done in an attempt to communicate with the Vajra in a way the Vajra would understand. The book assumes that, since the Frontier fleet's population were attacked, that the Protoculture either failed or aborted their attempt to communicate. It goes on to remark that later analysis revealed the genes of singers and singing priestesses like Lynn Minmay and Sara Nome bore some similarities to the Vajra factor used in star singers. ... and that's basically the end of it, except for a few marginal notes near the picture of the Sv-303 battroid that reiterate points from earlier, with the only new noteworthy item being that the "Charya" mini-Ghost being similar to the Sv-262's Lilldraken.

Lookin' at more Sv-303... The airframe overview reiterates a few points previously expressed or otherwise obvious... like that the unmanned Sv-303 lacks any pilot safety systems, EX-Gear, and ISC. Curiously, it's also described as having done away with a lot of other operational safety features like IFF, conventional communications systems, and conventional sensors. All of the omitted systems make the Sv-303 extremely lightweight as a fighter. The space vacated by these systems has either been used to reduce the size of the aircraft or repurposed as fuel storage. The so-called "Mirage Package" system seems to border on a "does-anything" system in this description. Not only does it function as the Sv-303's energy conversion armor and a bio-fold wave transmitter/receiver/amplifier distributed across the entire surface of the airframe that allows it to be controlled remotely by the biological fold waves broadcast by the Siren Delta System, it also: Allows the entire surface of the aircraft to serve as a multidimensional sensor system. Functions as a point-to-point communications system allowing Sv-303s to communicate with each other. Produces an active stealth effect by phase shifting it slightly from normal space using amplified fold waves, making it difficult to detect with radar and laser detection systems. Illuminates the surface of the aircraft. The weirdly multifunctional nature of the Mirage Package is noted to come with a significant drawback. In operation, the Sv-303 is constantly emitting fold waves. The same fold wave energy that conceals it from radar and laser/LIDAR systems makes it paradoxically high visibility to anyone looking with fold wave sensors. The only reason this is not considered to be significantly disadvantageous is that aircraft-mounted fold wave sensors were relatively rare at the time it was developed. Another mentioned drawback of the Sv-303's design is that the excessive power of its four engines and the support needs of its six attendant "Charya" mini-Ghosts means it can only carry enough fuel for about 20-25 minutes of combat maneuvers against an enemy aircraft with similar performance. It's noted that it has the ability to refuel and recharge the mini-Ghosts from its own generators and fuel tanks, though this reduces its operating time accordingly. The control AI system is stored where the cockpit would have otherwise been. It lacks a canopy because the Mirage Package functions as an integrated multidimensional sensor, but when in Battroid mode a fold wave focusing array sensor stored in the cockpit area unfolds as a "mono-eye" that can be used for precision scanning. To conceal its true nature as an unmanned aircraft, the Sv-303 was outfitted with a dummy cockpit for part of the manufacturing process. The cockpit block would later be removed and replaced with the quantum AI system. The main quantum AI system is supported by a pair of Brunhilde II airframe control AI systems, an improved version of the Brunhilde+ on the Sv-262, which performs the normal airframe control AI functions (with the quantum AI as a "pilot") and also coordinates the operation of the Charya mini-Ghosts. The two main engines are reiterated to be the same FF-2999 series engine as the one planned for adoption on the Sv-300 (an improved version of the Sv-262's engine), performance boosted by the twin quartz drive system. The two sub engines are noted to be the same as the YF-29's auxiliary engine (meaning the 1,970kN is almost certainly incorrect since the correct figure s 1,470kN). The transformation can deploy the engines in an X-shape, and the main engine can rotate 360 degrees, dramatically improving maneuverability in space. The wing area is small, to the point that they can be thought of more as a support frame for the engines and a place to hang weapons. The engines themselves have been reinforced to better withstand the increased output, but the additional strain on the engines imposed by constant operation of the twin quartz drive for combat maneuvers means the operational lifespan of the engines is only a few sorties. As such, the engines were designed to be quickly removed and replaced. Armaments-wise, the Sv-303 is also a rather bizarre aircraft. It has no internal missile bays or micro-missile launchers to speak of. Just a pair of 25mm beam machine guns on the sides of its nose and a build-under-license version of the YF-29's TW2-MDE/M25 MDE twin beam cannon mounted dorsally. It has four underwing pylon stations for high-speed small reaction missiles (variable yields of between 25Kt and 100Kt) and a General Galaxy-designed 35mm beam gunpod outfitted with Mirage Package armor by Dian Cecht. The mini-Ghosts it supports (six in total) function as support beam guns and micro-missile launchers when docked, being armed with two small micro-missile launchers (each holding six micro-missiles) and a 30mm beam cannon. The mini-Ghosts have no reaction engine of their own, and are powered by a high-energy capacitor recharged off the Sv-303's generators and can be refueled by tapping into the Sv-303's internal fuel stores. The Sv-303 can control up to twelve mini-Ghosts at a time, and can take over control of mini-Ghosts from destroyed Sv-303s to keep them in the fight. Communication between the mini-Ghosts and Sv-303 is carried out via fold waves. They have energy conversion armor, which can be externally powered by the Sv-303 when docked. Because the mini-Ghosts have no independent generator and run on a capacitor only, their operating time is very limited (assumed 5-6 minutes). Its reaction weapons are noted to be low powered ones with less stopping power than the VF-1's RMS-1, but compensate by being very small and difficult to intercept.

Credit where credit is due, they're trying and they're putting in some serious effort and doing a fair amount of innovating. It surely does not help that their audience is infamously difficult to please... or that they're competing against decades of rose-tinted memories and fevered imaginings. I'd definitely like to see The Mandalorian go less hard on the fanservice, but it does offer some good hefty action sequences if nothing else.

The bugs didn't start packing heat until partway through the MOSPEADA/New Generation storyline tho. Mind you, the whole scale problem rears its ugly head again there because the bugs being able to shoot you at a distance of a few hundred yards isn't especially threatening if you can flatten the entire continent they're on from hundreds or hundreds of thousands of kilometers away. (And that isn't even unique to the Zentradi, it was Humanity's fallback plan in the original MOSPEADA too and the attempt alone was enough to convince the bugs to get out of Dodge.) As with most things with that property, the longer you look at it the more you notice how threadbare and full of holes it is... and as admirable as it is to see fans attempting to paper over the worst holes, a lot of the time the fix is every bit as ugly as the problem. Like how the explanation that was settled on (and later became official) for the odd design choices made in Southern Cross's mecha was "corruption, incompetence, and administrative butthurt"... which didn't go over well with the minority of Southern Cross fans for some reason.

For the record, the Kingdom of the Wind didn't develop the weapons its Aerial Knights use. Their ships, their Valkyries, and presumably the rest of their military hardware is all purchased from the Epsilon Foundation's many subsidiary corporations. A lot of their ships seem to be build-under-license versions of General Galaxy warship designs (modified reuses of the Dulfim and Kaitos classes). All of the Sv-# Valkyries were/are developed by the design lab called SV Works* and manufactured by an Epsilon Foundation subsidiary company called Dian Cecht. Official materials had previously suggested that the Kingdom of the Wind (and more specifically, its royal family) had provided essential materials (read: "fold quartz") to support Dian Cecht's manufacture of the Sv-262 for their forces. Master File seems to be suggesting that the Royal Aviation Factory on Windermere IV was more involved than previously believed, and that some of the more exotic systems used in the Sv-262 and Sv-303 were developed locally by Windermere IV's Royal Aviation Factory and then provided to Dian Cecht and the SV Works for inclusion in the final design. That list seems to be limited entirely to systems based on Roid's research into fold quartz resonance effects like the fold reheat system used on the Sv-262 and the Sv-303's twin quartz drive and bio-fold wave communications system. As explained above, Windermere IV didn't develop any of their VFs... but they did provide requirements to the team that developed them. The Sv-300 seems to have been a fairly traditional 5th Generation VF that simply aimed to exceed the performance of the Brisingr Alliance's next main fighter. Somewhere along the way, Chancellor Roid Brehm seems to have decided that an unmanned fighter operated by bio-fold wave remote control was a better way to counter the numerical superiority of the New UN Forces. (It may have been motivated by Prince Heinz's failing health.) * Established within General Galaxy by one of its cofounders that worked on the SV-51 program before defecting to the UN Government, and apparently later either spun off and sold to the Epsilon Foundation or operated as a joint venture with them as Epsilon's Dian Cecht seems to be responsible for manufacturing the SV Works designs.

In the parts I have read thus far, they don't say. It is simply noted that the other two engines were omitted when the VF-31X conversion/upgrade parts the Macross Gigasion was carrying were hastily adapted to repair Delta Flight's badly damaged VF-31 Siegfrieds after the retreat from Windermere IV. Not a clue. If I were to guess wildly based on nothing but vague intuition, I'd assume it was so that the VF-31X could accommodate the same FF-3001/FC3 engines mounted inside of the legs in the wing mounts. I do appreciate the beautiful irony of Master File's development history for the Sv-303. Windermere IV put a tremendous amount of time, effort, resources, and energy into betraying their former allies in the New UN Government and developing weapons to conquer their territory only for their new ally to betray them and for them to wind up conquered by a new enemy with designs on their territory using the weapon that was meant to be their trump card. It couldn't have happened to a nicer pack of xenophobic arseholes.

Huh... what a conundrum. Do I mock this obviously half-arsed PV for the unasked-for TNG cast reunion Picard was never supposed to become? Or do I praise the Paramount marketing team for putting the absolute minimum amount of effort into trying to polish this already-cancelled turd propping up the bottom of Star Trek's franchise page on Rotten Tomatoes? Worf is the character with the most appearances of any character in all of Star Trek (272 and counting!) and they promote his return with that?

None that I can see... the publisher hasn't accessed Kickstarter since mid-December and hasn't posted an update since October, when they announced a 6+ week schedule slip due to the game's art and a tentative plan to release to backers in Q1 2023. Mentions of the game seem conspicuously absent from the publisher's Facebook page, and the page devoted to the book on the publisher's website is just a plug for the Kickstarter. Kinda, yeah. None of the three shows used in Robotech's haphazard creation worked on the same scale. It didn't pose much of an issue for the TV series because the three "sagas" all were kept segregated with no crossover, but it started to become quite silly in original materials when you had things like the Invid posing an actual threat to the Zentradi.

The VF-31AW in the first image is a one-off test aircraft built to evaluate the VF-31X's proposed four engine configuration, which simply replaced the outer wing with the YF-29's. The VF-31X4 in the second image is an artist's impression/conception of, and informal/unofficial name for, the latest VF-31X development type assumed to correspond to the VF-31X's final and intended design from the development planning phase. (As in, the writers of the book in-universe are presenting their impression of what the final form of the VF-31X would look like, presumably based on the remarks earlier in the book about the design intent being for a four-engine VF and that the second set of engines were omitted when adapting the Delta Flight Siegfrieds into the AX type.)

Yeah, but the basic transformation of the YF-24 wasn't one of the redacted bits. Structurally, it looks to be almost a VF-25 with a delta wing. Presumably the Sv-303 was also based on those redacted specs. The VF-27 was based primarily upon the redacted YF-24 Evolution specs but was completed using leaked development data from the Frontier fleet's YF-29 program.

Remember, that's the same info the VF-25, VF-27, YF-29, et. al. are based on.

So... lookin' at the Sv-303 Vivasvat section of the VF-31AX Master File, and the first couple pages are kind of inconsequential outside of the specs for the Sv-303. It starts with a bit about the culture and history of the planet Windermere IV. It's noted at length that Windermere IV is rich in fold quartz presumably created by the Protoculture, and that the native Windermereans have been actively mining fold quartz for use in jewelry for many centuries. The Kingdom of the Wind's royal family is said to make fairly regular use of fold quartz jewelry in everyday life, while normal civilians tend to only wear them as decorations for bridal gowns at weddings and much of it is usually stored in the temple. It's said in the text that the Windermereans have known for a very long time about fold quartz's power to amplify their songs via resonance, and that their artisans actively applied that in cutting them as gemstones to create resonant effects similar to those used in the Fold Wave System. Prior to humanity injecting science into the proceedings, fold quartz was assumed to be magic and one of the royal family's most treasured heirlooms is an ancient heirloom sword supposedly wielded by the founder of the Aerial Knights to defeat a giant dragon without fighting it directly... making it Windermere IV's version of the Japanese Imperial family's heirloom sword kusanagi-no-tsurugi. On the following page it finally gets into the actual details about the Sv-303's development. Master File's version of the Sv-303's development history - the only version we currently have - claims that the Sv-303's development actually began as a manned fighter program for the Kingdom of the Wind's Aerial Knights. The Sv-300 program was commissioned by Chancellor Roid Brehm. It was to be a manned variable fighter loosely based on the VF-24 and VF-27, though without the VF-27's BDI cybernetic interface and with performance roughly comparable to the VF-31. The design would adopt improved versions of the Sv-262's own FF-2999/FC2 engines with boosted output and responsiveness as well as an improved Fold Reheat system called the Twin Quartz Drive that was developed by Windermere IV's Royal Aviation Factory. It was believed that the Sv-300 would exceed the performance of the VF-31. Shortly before the first Sv-300 prototype was to be delivered, the SV Works received a change in requirements from Roid Brehm via Epsilon Foundation rep. Sydney Hunt. The new requirements radically changed the entire concept of the aircraft. Instead of being the manned, multirole variable fighter originally called for, the new requirements demanded an unmanned variable fighter that could be remotely operated using newly developed bio-fold wave communications technology. The SV Works tossed the existing Sv-300 plan and started over. There's a brief passing mention of a Sv-301 that was apparently a manned fighter very similar to the VF-31 that also used a Twin Quartz Drive and a Sv-302 (not described). Roid's new plan called for a specialized, high-performance unmanned variable fighter that would maximize its performance at the expense of literally everything else. Designated as Sv-303, the new design retained much of the YF-24 Evolution's transformation and basic structure but reintroduced the VF-27's BDI cybernetic interface and tied it into the bio-fold wave communications system developed by Windermere IV so that it could be remotely operated by the Quantum AI computer of the Siren Delta System. To reduce the burden on the Siren Delta System, a new "black box" fully autonomous air combat AI bearing a curious resemblance to the one used on the X-9 Ghost Bird was also installed. The fact that the Sv-303 was an unmanned fighter was kept secret during development. By combining semi-autonomous remote operation by a central AI and lagless faster-than-light communications using fold quartz-amplified bio-fold waves, the result was a remotely commanded unmanned fighter that could fight independently or seamlessly coordinate huge numbers of aircraft in real time using the lagless bio-fold data link across an area that's measured in light years. More to follow in a bit.

The Epyon was a Gundam, though? All in all, it seems likely that the VF-24 and YF-29 have probably squared off in simulated air combat at some point or another. The NUNS VF-X Special Forces have been known to use the YF-29B, and in Master File it's been said that the Apollo Base Test Flight Center has a number of Earth-built YF-29s at its disposal for evaluation purposes. It's likely the YF-29 was put through the same paces they put the YF-24 through, in simulated combat with previous-gen VFs and Ghosts.

I know, I have a couple copies of the Macross Model Hobby Handbook kicking around... though that's not technically itasha, that's nose art or tail art. Adjacent, but not quite the same thing. I'm talking about models where the whole damn plane is covered in character decals... like the Bandai Macross Frontier "Marking Version" kits for the VF-25F and VF-25G that had huge Sheryl, Ranka, and Klan decals, or the "Deculture Version" kits for the VF-31 Siegfrieds and Sv-262Hs Draken III that had massive idol decals splashed across the entire airframe. https://www.hlj.com/1-72-scale-vf-25f-messiah-valkyrie-alto-custom-ranka-deculture-decal-ver-ban960420 https://www.hlj.com/1-72-scale-sv-262-hs-draken-iii-roid-brehm-custom-deculture-ver-bann19757 https://www.hlj.com/1-72-scale-vf-25g-messiah-valkyrie-michael-custom-klan-deculture-decal-ver-ban960419 https://www.hlj.com/1-72-scale-vf-31j-c-siegfried-hayate-immelman-deculture-ver-bann12960 If you take Master File at face value, they even exist in-setting... like the one in the VF-25 Master File commemorating Ranka's visit to planet Sagares that's liberally covered in carrots and pictures of Ranka in a Superman pose.

Itasha versions with the members of Walkure and/or Yami-q-Ray, naturally. (After all, they DID do that one with Macross Delta's TV series Valks.)

It helps a bit that both Macross Delta and Master File are leaning heavily into the idea that the YF-29 and YF-30 were/are actually proof-of-concept designs for 6th Generation VFs that were built using parts diverted from production-intent 5th Generation VFs. The VF-24 is, in all likelihood, the most powerful production Valkyrie (5th Generation and overall) thanks to Earth's dominant position in the realms of politics and technology while the unviable super prototype YF-29 is The Strongest Valkyrie in absolute terms. The YF-29 is to Valkyries what a Gundam is to regular Mobile Suits: a one-off super prototype far too expensive and impractical to ever be mass produced that nevertheless is so high spec it can utterly dominate the battlefield in small engagements through its overwhelming performance. (In that sense, the VF-31 and Master File's YF-29C are essentially GMs... what you get when you scale the super prototype's performance and price back to a level where production is actually feasible.)

Really, they should have more mass... the heaviest single component of any Valkyrie is the engine, and these have four instead of two. Take, for instance, the VF-25 and VF-27. Both are approximately the same size and both are derived from the YF-24 Evolution platform... but the VF-27 weighs 3,600kg more thanks in no small part to its adoption of two extra engines. So... the remark we often come back to concerning the Earth/Central New UN Forces YF-24 Evolution and VF-24A and its performance relative to the YF-29 is the statement that the YF-29 was "developed in secret to exceed the YF-24". Now, we should note carefully that there are no official specs for Earth's YF-24 Evolution that was demonstrated to the New UN Forces in 2057 or the production VF-24 which would have entered service several years after the New UN Forces decided to adopt the YF-24 Evolution as the Next Main Fighter. Under the New UN Government's laws governing newly developed technologies and restrictions on arms exports, Earth provided a redacted version of the final YF-24 Evolution specification to emigrant governments across the galaxy so that they could either fill in the gaps with their own locally-developed solutions or use it as a starting point to develop their own original 5th Generation Valkyries as happened with the VF-25, VF-27, YF-29, YF-30, and VF-31. We can reasonably infer that the VF-24 is more advanced and powerful than any other production 5th Generation Valkyrie given that it's well-established Earth's technological prowess and resources far exceed that of any other planet or emigrant fleet. This is further supported by the notion in Frontier materials that the most over-the-top, expensive, and impossible to mass-produce Valkyrie ever conceived was put together in an effort to exceed the YF-24. Given that materials published for Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!! describe the YF-29 as The Strongest Valkyrie (capital emphasis intended), we can reasonably surmise the Frontier fleet succeeded in its goal of developing the YF-29 as a variable fighter that exceeded the YF-24. That performance came at a cost, though. Master File confirms what we'd already concluded based on remarks in materials published for Macross Frontier: the Wings of Goodbye and Macross Delta's TV anime: the exceptional size and purity of the fold quartz that is required to build the YF-29's Fold Wave System makes it - and any other 6th Generation VF design - nearly impossible to produce. So the described distinction between the Frontier fleet's YF-29[A], the NUNS's YF-29B, and the Master File-original YF-29C serves as a way to explain all the obstacles preventing a 6th Generation Valkyrie from entering production. Fold quartz of the requisite size and purity to reproduce the YF-29's Fold Wave System at its full potential is so rare that it might as well not exist at all. The YF-29B exists to establish that, while you CAN make a Fold Wave System with smaller and less pure fold quartz the requisite purity and size to achieve a reduced-capacity FWS is still so rare as to make even limited production all but impossible and the system's performance is lower. The YF-29C essentially establishes that even the very finest synthetic alternative (fold carbon) humanity can produce in tiny batches is not equal to the task and that using it results in a FWS that can do barely 1% of what the full spec FWS can do. The brief description provided indicates that it's a VF-31X test type that was produced using some YF-29 parts. Only one unit manufactured. It's baffling to me too, which is why I'm kind of expecting the Sv-303's mass is somewhere around that of the YF-29, bringing that value down to 50 or so where it's on par with or slightly bettered by the VF-31AX. Kind of a waste, IMO... esp. since the writers of the film don't seem to have ever bothered to come up for a reason to justify why Private Citizen Maximilian Jenius who now works a dozy retirement gig for a second-tier PMC in a backwater star system would have access to The Strongest Valkyrie that is so high spec it's almost impossible to produce at all.

I've got no horse in this race, but this popped on my YouTube subscriptions page and figured it was topical... especially since it lacks the hysterical hot takes of most coverage of the situation.

I'll be poking at it a fair bit over the long weekend. I'm blown away by how much better this book is than the previous VF-31 book... or, really, anything else Macross Delta. WHERE WAS THIS LOVE WHEN THE SHOWS WERE BEING MADE?! In an indirect manner, since the upgrades that went into the VF-31AX Kairos Plus from the Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!! movie were (in Master File's version) appropriated from the VF-31X parts that were in storage aboard the Macross Gigasion. From what I have read thus far - and this understanding may change as I translate more of the book - apart from the piecemeal application of the improved armor and other materials the key difference is the VF-31X has wingtip engines similar to the YF-29's. It was noted that, due to the difficulty of adjusting the airframe control AI, the Xaos crew omitted the extra engines in the upgrade process to get the job done faster. Unfortunately, we lack a critical factor to determine that... the stats provided lack the basic physical parameters like dimensions and weight. So we're missing a key piece of the whole equation... the mass in the thrust-to-weight ratio. ((2346kN*2)+(1970kN*2))/(? * 9.807m/s^2) If we were to plug in the masses of various 5th Gen Valkyries just for comparison's sake... this is a fighter with a T/W ratio potentially in excess of 100. With the VF-31J's mass it's 103. The Sv-262's mass would put it at 89.724. Even if we correct for the wrong output power on the FF-3003J/FC1, it's still almost 80! If we assume it weighs as much as the heaviest modern Valkyrie, it's just shy of 50 with the corrected-for engine output.

Yup. It's an Armored Pack... maximum overkill has been the rule for those since at least Macross 7. The VF-31's has more of an emphasis on guns than previous models, with the pair of 30mm rotary cannons and a beam gun turret similar to the YF-29's.

Dunno, Macross 30 ends with the whole timey-wimey mess getting straightened out. I honestly don't recall if the novel version says what happens to the new mecha given to the time displaced folks.

That's why I said it's probably a typo... the initial spec for the YF-29 had different engine outputs and a much heavier weight than the official spec that it eventually settled on. There've been a couple cases with Master File citing old/obsolete or just plain incorrect info by mistake... like the VF-19 engine outputs for the F/S type. The sticking point here would be that the 1,970kN listed is explicitly "maximum thrust in space" for the Sv-303. On the off chance it's not an error, then it'd almost certainly be the result of Dian Cecht's engineers tweaking the design of the FF-3003J/FC1 sub-engines the same way they did the FF-2999/FC2 main engines: increasing the maximum output to the point that it reduces the engine's operational lifespan.

As far as the contents of the Master File book go... this volume is the gift that unexpectedly keeps on giving in the weirdest places. Specs for the Kairos Plus and Vivasvat, explanations of their development, an actual explanation of 6th Generation VFs and why they aren't being mass produced...