theplasticwerks

So, who's next, Luca or Mikhail? Luca's fighter will have the most in common mold-wise with Alto and Ozma (as it comes with a standard gunpod), but a new head tooling will be needed, as well as the radar dish and whatever else is attached to that. Mikhail's fighter also has a new head, but his gunpod needs to be tooled up as well. I feel like Mikhail's '25 is going to take less work to tool up, and will be produced next (plus, he's the next-most popular character, IMO).

My ideas: -Append letter designations to each additional NMC (ie, Battle 25A, Battle 25B, etc.), or numbers (Battle Fronter II, Battle Frontier III). -Name all NMCs except for the "flag" NMC (which would bear the name of the fleet...so, Battle Frontier accompanied by the UNS Kakizaki, for example).

Perhaps it was just taken off. Doesn't appear to have a gunpod, either. Probably some kind of strict weapon policy in effect - the PPB knife is stored in the shield, so the shield had to go. And for fun, it seems to be a 25F (note the head lasers, which may fly against what I just typed).

Battlefield: Bad Company. Too funny. They even did a cinematic trailer for it:

Well, the 18th is the shelf date. One might assume that the various shops will get them in before the date and simply not put them out until then - that's how many releases work in the US, and why things also get released prematurely - occasionally you'll find things on the shelves a few weeks before they're supposed to be there, because someone didn't know about the release date and just put it out like so much product. Brush up on your Japanese and make friends with the hobby shop owners

That shoulder hinge looks absolutely frightening!

Since it was presumably taken by a human, that's not necessarily an exact front-on pic. A degree or two off on perspective makes all the difference.

Given that any Valk is no different from its peers until you put a major character in the cockpit, you're right. But since all four Skull Squadron '25s have different heads, it was plausible that there was a fifth head design out there to milk the toy sculpts (although thinking about it, it'd've been cheaper to recolor the 25G and stick it with a regular gunpod...). Steering us slightly back on-subject, I'm glad Mikhail didn't go out like a punk in his cockpit.

Well, now we know that there are '25G CFs.

Luca isn't a giant himself (although, in ep2, he only appears to be a few inches shorter than Mikhail, versus a full head or so for Klan). Perhaps the Ex-Gear can compensate - after all, it is most of the control interface. Worst case is that she might have a little trouble reaching some buttons, but again I believe the Ex-Gear should be able to compensate for the length of her arms while in command couch mode. The U.S. Army doesn't custom-tailor BDUs, so I don't see why SMS wouldn't have at least one small-size Ex-Gear sitting around (or if they were fully adjustable to the height of the wearer). But perhaps this is suited to the technology thread.

Until we pit them against each other in a video game, we'll never know about that...

Basara was the better pilot then. Not necessarily when Max was at his prime. Remember, he's just sitting in a chair by the time he meets Basara. Also, they have very different flying styles, right down to the control layout - Max flew to kill, Basara flew to...well, entertain, really. My list: First Bracket: The Legends Maximilian Jenius Milla Fallyna Jenius Isamu Dyson Ozma Lee D.D. Ivanov Roy Focker Guld Bowman Chlore Brera Sterne Basara Nekki Here we've got the best pilots as proven in their day, and some squad leaders. Max and Millia were, of course, the stars of their time, and I think these two will top any list that comes out of this thread - I hope someone proves me wrong. Isamu conquered a bird that had killed all of its previous test pilots, plus he paced Guld. Ozma is simply very good with the VF-25 - he takes more hits than Roy does, but you can't be a rockstar every day. Brera's part robot, so he has some kind of edge on normal pilots, and he's whooped SMS several times. D.D. is more or less on equal footing with Roy. Basara flies with his guitar while singing. I don't care what galaxy you're from, that takes skill. Second bracket: The Everypilot Nora Polyanski Gamlin Kizaki Hikaru Ichijo Klan Klan Michael Blanc Canaria Berstein Alto Saotome Shin Kudo Raramia Rerenia Nene Rora Quamzin Kravshera Docker Honestly, Basara aside, the main characters have always been rather mediocre pilots. At his peak in a VF Shin had literally lost his head to inattentiveness, gotten really close to an alien artifact, and would have pulled a slower version of a TV Kakizaki were he not abducted by the aliens (but I don't think the UNS was about to tell his next-of-kin that [if any were named], so he effectively pulled a Kakizai). Okay, the cobra vector was pretty slick, and there was that kick-off on Nora after that (the only real hit he got on her, which testifies to her #1 spot here), but even a broken clock is right twice a day. Pixie Squadron is supposed to be good. Alto did best them, and Raramia did bite it in Kakizaki fashion (wrong place at the wrong time), but I wouldn't throw any of them too far the list. It's hard to judge Mikhail against Alto, because they have specific combat roles that may or may not restrict their actual piloting skill - Max and Hikaru were regular front-line flyboys. Mikhail has only lost a fighter while unconscious, and if he's . Klan is probably on equal footing with Mikhail if not better. Ditto Canaria, because like Mikhail she flies support, and she's stuck in the slowest tactical-level gun platform. She might possibly be amazing in a Valk, but a K-Monster can only do so much before something catches up to it (man, now I want to see Canaria lose the Monster somehow and be stuck in a Valk with Ranka riding backseat). Third bracket: Just above the cut Kakizaki Hayao Kinryu Temjin Physica Fulcrum Luca Angeloni Emilia Jenius Ray Lovelock Mylene Jenius Quite a few civvy pilots here, all at the bottom (including Luca - he's good with intel work, but useless in a fight except as a distraction). And yes, Kakizaki is near the top of the list - he wasn't a fantastic pilot, but he was killed by a fluke (or sneak attack). He was at least good enough for the military to allow him to fly in combat (if we can ignore the Macross' situation at the time). I'd have put Sheryl on the list, but as far as we know she was still a student pilot (who may not have driven anything in her life), and I don't think she would have been training in a VF-25...

...So it IS like resizing in Photoshop! Do ya think everyone has their own macro/micro chamber (this seems to be the case aboard the Quarter) to reduce "contamination" or to preserve cellular matter (for lack of a better term)?

I'm glad all these Zent topics have been popping up, because I actually had a burning question that fits in here. What cellular level do macronized Zentradi exist at? Are their cells actually enlarged to 5x-6x their usual size (albeit still too small for the naked eye to see), or are macronization pods like Photoshop where it guesses at the appropriate filler "pixels" and simply adds them in? Or rather, since their are in their natural state when macronized, what happens to their cells when micronized? Do their cells simply shrink to 2 µm (conjectural number based on typical cell size) or, again with the Photoshop analogy, is information removed (which, in an extreme example, might explain Klan )? EDIT: Perhaps the Photoshop analogy might not work. We don't get distorted Zents after a few cycles of macronization...

Too bad about licensing and copyrights...we could sell some Macross paraphernalia to Japan for a change

Well, revolts aside, that's just a matter of practicality. Watch the Folmo Mall scenes in Frontier - there are human-scale amenities all over the place. Since humans are smaller than Zentradi, there's just a matter of adding walkways and watch-your-step signs for them to be able to coexist with Zents at their natural scale. You can keep a hamster in a cage in your room because it doesn't take up nearly as much space as someone five or six times your size. But can you live in a hamster cage at your natural size? Well, just because one is organic doesn't make one any less clumsy And if you're acting in an urban combat role, you should be thoroughly trained for it no matter what you're wearing or piloting. There are few instances of "clumsiness" in BattleTech (where the local mecha are the same scale as those from Macross) - the collateral damage usually only occurs when improper weapons are used (like missile launchers), if someone misses, or if someone takes a really bad hit and falls over. No one damages local property if it's avoidable. The only times we really see Valks causing property damage is when there is a total newbie behind the stick. There's a bit of the image factor. The Zentradi were once the enemies of the entire human race. Hell, they nearly annihilated the human race. There has to be a bunch of people bigoted against the big guys somewhere - there is still a lot of racism here in the United States, even some thirty-plus years after the Civil Rights Movement, and I don't expect that to change a lot in the next twenty years. We're talking about the race that nearly wiped us out. I'm surprised that coexistence was possible within a generation after the first Space War (although, given the choice, I'd rather attempt coexistence than piss 'em off and make them bombard us again) - the bigots probably aren't about to single out the ones that were actually responsible for that. How would it look if they were in control of security? Sure, the ones living with humanity have proven themselves trustworthy over the years, but when they show up every time something goes wrong, they become the face of martial law. Now, I'm thinking you're talking about internal security matters that require some military presence - IE, riots among the populace. If you mean internal security in a defensive posture, if they were fending off Vajra that got into the city, they'd be heroes. Exclusivity is not the way for any business, really. You start getting into issues of racial discrimination - why aren't they letting humans defend the cities? We're the ones who need a new home, not them! Et cetera, et cetera. I'm not saying there shouldn't be armored Zentradi working alongside military forces. There are probably tons of benefits to having infantry that can compete with something the size of a mecha. But having a Zentran-only MP force is not only pigeonholing yourself (flexbility is key!), it's alienating to the populace (pun not intended). I wouldn't be surprised if there was an off-screen all-Zent SWAT unit or something attached to a city defense command, because as I said there are probably benefits to having one (and it's being an equal-opportunity employer ), but the focus of any colony fleet is on humanity, and it's probably not helpful to morale if it looks like we're depending on aliens to keep us safe.

Although DYRL Kakizaki style would be hilariously shocking much like the Joker's pencil trick in Dark Knight. Suddenly...boom! Hah, got us again, Kawamori!

Well, how many times do you think that has happened to them? Mayhaps. One hell of a weapon to fire en masse like reaction warheads, though...(I wonder what happens when two detonations contact each other?).

Are we talking Shin-style, Roy-style, Guld-style, or Kakizaki-style?

Brera himself said that the Vajra could eventually evolve to resist his weapons. They probably just haven't figured out how yet. As to Mikhail's rifle, I would assume that he's firing a variant of the rounds that everyone else is using, or a round that is used in another NUNS weapon that the Vajra have immunized themselves against. The NUNS seems to be exclusively using anti-ECA rounds on them, so if they've figured out how to defeat one, they can apply that knowledge to any other caliber of anti-ECA they face. Or, regardless of what kind of round he's firing, the Vajra simply immunized themselves against it (after all, what does a reaction weapon have in common with an anti-ECA bullet?).

Interestingly enough, if you're streaming from anywhere west of that time zone, you're actually watching it as it takes place in the future But even being a day ahead won't make the episodes come to us any sooner or the animators work any faster. Patience, cannon fodder.

The first time I teared watching Frontier was seeing the VF-171s launch to Sheryl in the very first episode. Right from the start it felt like Macross was back. The next time was in episode 7, when the Quarter went Gerwalk to some pretty moving music, and immediately after that it was seeing the destroids for the first time, and knowing that even after all this time those humble warriors are still around and giving their all. I get that feeling even typing this out. That was powerful to watch. Whenever I watch Episode 7 I go to that scene and watch it over and over again. There's just something about that destroid scene. They look so determined, and you really feel for them when one blows up in their last second of screen time. An odder moment was watching the ending credits to episode 10, and seeing "Special Thanks MACROSS ZERO ALL STAFF." It really brought the entire Macross universe together for me, breaking the fourth wall as it is, but it made me well up with...something.

Is it just the decal paper that makes the decal? Because it just occurred to me that I might be able to simply silkscreen white ink onto a decal sheet and be good to go. This also looks a promising alternative: http://www.pulsarprofx.com/decalpro/index.html http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_4651483/.../tm.htm#4657420

Now, this is Ozma-flavored and not a straight Ozma. I was lazy and simply did a Replace Color on the original file with the addition of 1S heads in Battroid mode - the scheme isn't too hard to figure out on the head.

I'm still not seeing it. Sure you aren't mistaking it for the 21? It never appears again, and it just seems illogical for one to be there given the "hero" status of the other Valks we see.