mechaninac

[attachmentid=40446] If you look at the neck on this picture, it looks like it is only able to rotate... no pitch allowance that I can discern since the helmet/upper neck look like a single molded piece. As this is a prototype, this may change and the head could get a ball joint (it works fine for the 3.75" clone trooper figures so there is no excuse for not having something similar here). [attachmentid=40447] On this picture, it appears that there may be some pivoting capability at the torso junction of the neck, but this would be a very odd place to have it articulate. In any case, it is still too early to make a definitive determination. I look forward to seeing more info on this line in the months to come.

I draw a distinction between science fictions as follows: "Realistic" scifi makes an attempt to ground the rules of their universes in known scientific facts, or at least try to couch their more fanciful aspects within some semblance of physical laws as we understand them today, or based on theories that make sence as intellectual exercises. Examples would be Blade Runner, B5, SAAB, BSG, SG1, UC Gundam, Macross. "Fantasy" scifi makes little to no attempt at maintaining a sense of reality with its technologies and physical laws, requiring a much greater suspension of disbelief, by trading believability for story telling convinience. Examples include Star Wars, Star Treck, and a host of others that escape right now.

The closest thing to a depiction of "real" flight dynamics in sci-fi were the Starfuries and Thunderbolts from Babylon 5. Space above and Beyond, and Battlestar Gallactica (TNS) are close, but B5 was the only one, IMO, that seemed to actually take into account vectors, momentum, yaw, pitch and bank of a spacecraft in zero-g, and how all of those would be affected by the selective application of thrust form its RCS. Gundam 0083 was also passable for the way the Mobile suits moved in reaction to short bursts from the RCS throughout the Robot's frames. As for the weapon's discharges, BSG (TNS) has them all beat, since all ordnance is ballistic in nature.

The Updates page states that Graham has confirmed that, starting with Shin's VF-0A, the breakage prone shoulder/elbow piece will be shot in POM for added resiliency... I hope Yamato will take the VF-0 and its arm problems as a lesson learned and incorporate the stronger material in the design and manufacture of the SV-51. I know this is one bird I'd like to get upon first release, but my cautious side still tells me to wait for reviews and/or a second edition.

The short nose isn't "ridiculous" per se; it's just not the SV-51, and since what everyone (almost) wants is a faithful (or as near as possible given the constraints of the medium and scale) representation of the Mech as seen in Macross Zero, the short nose is a non starter, and it just does not look right... much too tail heavy and stubby.

The Helldiver would be awesome. Also the Broken, and my personal favorite... the Hannibal. [attachmentid=39858][attachmentid=39859][attachmentid=39860]

I see what you mean. If the shield encapsulates a volume of charged particles it would indeed fry anyone within the ship, and short every piece of electronics aboard. The way I envisioned the shield, it would be primarily a toroidal magnetic shell a few microns thick, and the charged particles riding the field lines would be most abundant at the field "edge", becoming more rarefied as the distance to the effective "skin" increases, to either side of the "skin", so that by, say, 30 cm from the flow the particle density would drop drastically towards the equivalent of background radiation -- by about 1 m the density would be the same as interstellar space; this residual radiation would be absorbed by the ships polarized/ablative armor plating and pose no danger to the crew or ship's systems. There would be no shield intersection with the ship's personnel areas or electronic equipment, other than the generator itself, since the generator cylinder runs the entire draft of the ship, and the shield emitter ports are external... the field exits the positive pole projector outside the ship and returns to the negative pole collector outside the vessel. Firing missiles would definitely require either a delayed targeting sensor activation to avoid electronic failure (akin to how torpedoes are fired with their proximity fuses delayed so that they can't accidentally home in on the firing vessel), a heavily shielded missile (that causes problem because of the extra mass), or a shield flicker to coincide with the missile(s) passing across the shield wall. The only problem I see with your torus is that both its outer and inner diameters are entirely outside the ship, with no "logical" projection point; it looks like the shield just is, but a donut is an enclosed volume and if the ship is outside of any point of contact, how can it create the torus. In addition, if the torus exists only to provide a donut shaped plasma field around the ship without contacting same, there must be some form of magnetic manipulator inside the ship that projects the encapsulation field necessary to create the shield. This would bring you back to something similar to what I have, which would be okay; but if, as you've stated, the torus is rotated (spins), the controlling field must also shift directions, and this would bring it (not the torus) across the ships major axis, thereby frying anything in it's path... unless, the projector(s) do not reside inside the ship, but are housed in satellites that orbit the ship. Isn't it amazing how far one can take this theoretical/sci-fi stuff? As soon as you think you have everything figured out, and making sense, another monkey wrench is thrown in to muck up the works. I'm by no means saying that my idea makes any sense either... I'm sure it has as many logic holes as any of a thousand other concepts. In the end it may be better to just come up with something cool and skirt around the technical stuff and just take it for granted that it works as advertised.

Firing weapon's through the shield would be dependent on the type of weapon in question: Kinetic weapons would suffer no effect incoming or outgoing; light weapons would not be deterred by the EM field but would be vulnerable to the charged particles riding within it unless the frequency of the weapon's discharge is set to a one that is shield neutral (the particle within the field would have a known spectrum absorption signature that could be circumvented by setting your laser spectrum to one that is not absorbed by the shield); energy weapons would require a shield flicker in order to be fired (the shield is disengaged for the split second necessary for the charged energy bolt to clear the field effective area -- the energy weapons would be tied in to the shield systems to make the process automatic and seamless). There would be no problem with the shield intersecting the ship as the generator is fully shielded and positioned so that shielded access corridors connecting the prow and stern of the ship could ferry personnel to either side of the generator. These corridors would not even come into contact with the EM envelope since the part of the filed that intersects the ship is very small in diameter and fully encased within the confines of the shield generator itself (see attached). [attachmentid=39829]

The way I had the shield envisioned, the toroidal shape would not be all that vulnerable to a coaxial attack angle as the small ID of the torus would be very small and very hard to breach with anything but an attack from directly above/bellow the emitters. See attached image for a shield schematic. [attachmentid=39810]

I'd love to see the Valkyrie II in toy form, but I doubt Yamato will be touching anything from MII any time soon, if at all. The reason being that Macross II just isn't popular enough to warrant the investment on Yamato's part.

Kinetic weapons could be handled with ablative armor. This type of shield would be most effective against charged particle beams, plasma weapons, or anything that uses ions, electrons, positrons, etc. Anything with an inherent charge would be caught in the,and dissipated by, the magnetic field of the shield, creating an Aurora like effect at the shield's poles. Visible light should have no problem getting through this type of shield... it may be distorted by the lensing effect caused by the magnetic field, but that could be compensated by adaptive optics sensors. Consequently, light weapons, from IR to UV lasers would not be affected much by an electromagnetic shield unless the particles riding within the field are geared towards absorbing specific spectrums of light. Comm signals may be a bit more problematic; but since, like light, they consist of electromagnetic waves, they should be able to slip through, specially if they are modulated to a special shield neutral frequency. Sensor beams, other than electromagnetic (see comm signals), would be blocked by your own shield since anything that would cripple your opponents beams would also affect yours; unless, similarly to the comm frequency loophole, your sensor wavelength is neutral to the absorption properties of the particle stream within your barrier. Thinking about this stuff is beginning to give me a headache.

How about: A coherent energy field consisting of negatively (or positively) charged particles trapped within a magnetic field around the ship in the shape of a torus. This would be akin to Earth's own Van Allen's belt. If the magnetic field is strong enough, and the particles suspended within kept in a sufficiently energetic state (in constant motion around the field at near relativistic speed), than the shield would be capable of protecting the ship from most radiation and energy weapons, and would play havoc with the guidance systems of missiles and mines that get anywhere near it. However, this type of barrier would be near useless against kinetic weapons such as rail gun fired projectiles.

The only stuff you are likely to find in 1/60 scale are white metal gaming figurines; but those won't help with creating a flight deck diorama.

Here ya go... [attachmentid=39646]

As much as I'd like to get a YF-19 right now, I'll wait for the second issue which will be bundled with the fast-pack/fold-booster combo. It'll be pricier, but will be a complete package and the YF-19 itself should have any fixes for minor issues with the first release. After that, I will be sorely tempted to get the low-vis version... I'm a sucker for real world paint schemes on sci-fi aircraft.

SV-51 [attachmentid=39636]. I can't wait to see pictures of Yamato's version. As for the "other" mecha from an '80's anime: I highly doubt it will be anything from Mospeada, as HG owns all rights, domestic and international, to that license... same goes for Southern Cross; so, unless Toynami has been dropped and a deal struck to have Yamato produce their licensed property I don't see that happening. I'd love to see something from Orguss or the Motoslave from BGC, but I'm sure whatever it is will be, at the very least, interesting.

Draco was okay as anthropomorphic dragons go, but it still looked too cuddly; however, it, at least, had a leathery hide look. The one from Eragon has feathered wings, if I've interpreted what I've seen correctly from the clips, and that just looks wrong for a Wyrm... a giant eagle or Gryphon, fine, but not a Drake. IMHO, the best rendition of a Dragon ever to grace the big screen was Vermithrax Pejorative from Dragonslayer. That stop motion beat still gives me a chill up my spine every time I see that movie... it's just that impressive.

I'd pay to watch a well written movie trilogy adaptation of The Dragonriders of Pern... Aragon, I'll pass until I've exhausted all other personal choices at my local Blockbuster. Like JsARCLIGHT said, the commercials are too overbearing, overexposed, and, other than the smoke dragon, sort of unimpressive. @phenix01: ROTFLMAO! So true. Excellent observation.

The Buck Rogers Starfighter would be nice... the Monogram version, when it turns up, is too crappy and too expensive.

This one bugs me too. Although I don't think fixing it myself would be a problem, I would rather not have to...specially at its price range. <image removed> I think Graham did mention that there was no stop to prevent the wings from pivoting too far forward and that doing so could over-stress the wing gloves' pivot points. So, yes, the wings will be able to rotate just as you illustrated but I have no clue about potential floppiness. Not a deal breaker here, but some way to lock the torso would have been nice. I believe that these are not a gaps, but relieves to allow the shoulders to tilt up to replicate an accurate battroid stance. Yamato's solution was to tilt the shoulders at the rotator cuff point and not the fuselage's swing points. However, I could be wrong... someone with a YF-19 in hand would be better suited to verifying this. Hey, don't fret about nitpicking; it's the prerogative of any prospective consumer to point out the good and the bad, perceived or actual, of any product costing as much as this one does. And welcome aboard as a contributing member... and a very good first post.

Graham, thanks for the in-depth review; it is greatly informative and appreciated. As tempted as I am to get this toy right now, I think I'll wait for the second run version with all the fixes. It's not so much that the current release has flaws (compared to the VF-0S they look mild), but that, at around $200.00, I want to be more selective with my purchases and make sure that what I get for my money is as close to perfect as I can possibly get.

BINGO! But you do get the bubble bursting award.

I'm sure both the YF-21 and VF-11B are in varying stages of development right now. As to which one will be released first, or if any of the two will be released at all...[attachmentid=37882]

Saw it last night. Other than the farewell aspects of the program it was mostly a retread of a previous Modern Marvels; but it was still great. Saying goodbye to the F-14 is bittersweet since it is so iconic and has served admirably for over 35 years. However, the decision to retire it is sound: It is an aging airframe that requires more maintenance per flight hour than more modern fighters; the taxpayer in me can see the wisdom in it, but the enthusiast in me can't help but shed a tear seeing such a thoroughbred being relegated to the bone yard.

Wasn't there some concern about the round bases being less stable than the square ones, specially with 6" rods? But I too would like to get a few round ones as they display better due to the absence of corners. @chowyunskinny: Those are both great ideas (I think TMP did A La Carte rod selection when they carried these stands). I think that clear silicone end caps would be a great improvement too, since they would look nicer and completely eliminate the tendency for leaving a spot of residue that the black ones have.