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JB0

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Everything posted by JB0

  1. JB0
    FedEx x Sheryl!
  2. JB0
    I... don't know why I expected a thread about the hazards of entering the interstellar freight-carrying business.
  3. JB0
    Low-tech is the best way sometimes. Glad to know it's comparing well. As a personal opinion, I'd keep the chiptunes as an option. (That's actually how I play Ys. Modern release, high-resolution, full-color... original PC88 soundtrack) Awesome!
  4. JB0
    I will accept that he knew his men well enough to trust them to take over while he berated Hikaru from a different jeep, but... no, standing up in the driver seat and facing backwards with no hand on the wheel is not "in complete control" ... Basically, Focker was awesome and the world is a darker place without him.
  5. JB0
    Sorry, I was going a different direction. The point was not that the VF-4 is comparable to the Starfighter, but that basing a VF off an ineffective real-world fighter doesn't stop it from being an effective Macross fighter. It seems based (at least partially) on the Blackbird to me, and as far as real-world combat effectiveness goes... Blackbirds didn't even have weapons except for the three YF-12s. They also had exceptionally broad turning radiuses and leaked fuel like mad until wind resistance warmed the plane up and everything expanded. I think it's fair to say the F-12 Blackbird would've sucked in a dogfight, if only because you can't make sharp turns at mach 3 (without overtechnology).
  6. JB0
    While the F-104 had problems as a fighter, many of them can be fixed in a variable fighter "because overtech". I mean, it worked for the VF-4. And I think you guys are underestimating the value of a VF with a high LCF*. *Look-Cool Factor.
  7. JB0
    That was my thought. He knew he was already dead, and he'd rather not spend his last hours in a hospital bed. Though safety was not his number one priority. He drove like a madman. Safety was like, priority four at best.
  8. JB0
    Waaaay more time, depending. Distances that'd be over the horizon on Earth are still line-of-sight in space. Didm't realize the gunpod's range, though. I guess it's more useful in space!
  9. JB0
    Macross isn't a documentary? I THOUGHT orbital bombardment day seemed pretty mild. I guess it was just unusually sunny.
  10. JB0
    I think Roy was being macho, sort of. He knew he was dying, and decided to spend his final hours with the woman he loved.
  11. JB0
    Oh, hell yes! That show's fun as a really fun thing.
  12. JB0
    Also worth noting that practical engagement ranges planetside are much shorter due to visibility. There's no clouds in space, no atmospheric distortion. It skews the practical value of the gunpod lower, because you have more time to get out of the way of the bullets. I was actually careful to note it wasn't a canon interpretation for just that reason. I'm being responsible with my wild speculation! Granted, but the FAST packs are usually proportionally smaller and less featureful(A VF-11 has half as many additional verniers and a lot less fuel. The -19 and -22 add no thrusters or fuel.) Most future VFs have fixed wings(though I grant that "future" real-world jets do as well), with SOME flavors of VF-19 being a notable exception(and others reworked to have fixed wings) This seems to speak to a defocusing of atmospheric performance(since the real-world weight and maintenance penalties of the mechanism are obviously not a concern on a VF). And again, proportionally smaller. The -14's wings are exceptionally stunted... and ADORABLE. ... Tangentally, I'd like to see a VF inspired by the F-104 Starfighter. I was thinking of amphibious cars, actually. But the point was more that it's two environments with VERY different optimal designs, and you can't make one vehicle that does both well. I grant that "because overtechnology" can partially alleviate the situation, but it still requires knowledge and experience to apply properly, and at the time the VF-1 was designed, humanity knew very little about space warfare OR overtechnology. That might be a bit of a confirmation bias there, since the only VF-1 era space combat we've seen was from a ship that had few options available. The Macross crew were limited in their ability to construct new vehicles, and had no other vessels on-hand that COULD be used as space fightercraft. The VF-1 HAD to do the job, whether it was excellent, adequate, or marginal at the task(and my take skews more towards adequate, maybe even above-adequate. It's the "good enough" fighter). Even were it a dedicated space fighter, I'd expect it to be somewhat less than exceptional, just from the lack of space warfare data available to it's designers. Which makes that it performed acceptably even more impressive. And the continued existence of the variable fighter really makes me wonder about the economics of overtechnology vehicle manufacture. One would think a dedicated fighter could be produced cheaper and be more effective. "Because overtechnology" doesn't really answer the question so much as sweep it under the rug. I hate to say it, but the Robotech novels' "magic battery" treatment at least made the variable fighter a logical design. They explicitly stated that RT-protoculture vehicles worked better if they were anthropomorphic, no matter how dumb it seemed. Well, the Reguld DOES apparently have swappable weapon packs, so saying it has no FAST packs might not be entirely true, depending on how you look at it. The zentradi forces ARE noted early on as performing better in space than they did on Earth(in dialog, it's pretty hard to tell from animation), which makes sense given both their machines and their presumed training. The regulds and glaugs were clearly not designed for atmospheric flight. But as far as performance-augmenting expansion units... why would you build booster packs to enhance a machine when you manufacture your hardware in a friggin' factory satellite? Design a completely new machine and then crank out six billion of them overnight and ship them to the most active front the next day. To heck with upgrading an existing machine. NO LIMITS! I don't really intend it to sound THAT negative. The VF-1 clearly acquitted itself well, just based on that anyone flying them lived to tell the tale. That there were shortcomings in the design was inevitable. No machine made by man has yet been perfect. I do think that, even as an air/space vehicle, even with identical technology, the VF-1 would've looked different had it been designed by people WITH extensive space warfare experience. It was better than could be expected, given it was a multi-role craft designed by people with limited space warfare experience. I was never intending to say "the VF-1 sux", just that... it could be a better spacecraft, with fairly minor changes. But if it helps, consider the VF-1 FAST packs not as bypassing a limitation of the design, but as converting it from a general-purpose machine to a dedicated space fighter. Or even as an application of acquired knowledge.
  13. JB0
    !!! <3 <3 <3 The existence of the FAST packs is evidence enough they were deficient. If they weren't, there would be no reason to make FAST packs. A quick look at the design strongly implies it. It's light on attitude thrusters in fighter mode, and it has wings. It's a jet plane with rocket engines strapped on. It also seems to me that wing-mounted ordinance is a bad idea, since the plane's center of mass shifts with weapon usage, and having the missiles hanging off booms amplifies the shift. This affects attitude thruster behavior as well as primary propulsion. Now, the wings COULD be useful in space flight. Wingtip vernier clusters would be a great idea, using the leverage afforded by the wing to get better performance. But to my recollection, there aren't any. GERWALK mode is a comically bad idea in space, with the primary engines directing thrust tangental to the intended direction of travel, but I grant it doesn't actually detract from the functionality of F and B modes in 0G while also being to be a highly useful feature in gravity. That was very much not what I meant. Just that it was not as good a space fighter as it could have been. That there was a lot of room for improvement, even. That would be expected just from it being one of humanity's first attempts at one, even without it being held back by the necessities of transformation(which, to be fair, never seems as much an impediment as it should be) and atmospheric flight. As I said, it acquits itself far better than one would expect it to, given it's air-first design and humanity's lack of space warfare experience. But it's a jack of all trades, master of none. And by appearances, where tradeoffs were made, they were done to the benefit of it's aerial capabilities. Maybe the GBP makes it the equal of a dedicated ground combat unit. Maybe the FAST packs make it the equal of a dedicated space combat unit. But without them, it falls short of a specialized machine. But it flies better in the air than any dedicated ground or space vehicle would. It depends on what you're doing, and how different these purposes are. In this case, yes. It's sort of like replacing a speed boat with an amphibious vehicle. Yes, it can go on land AND on water now, but it isn't really the best boat it could be, because there's wheels sticking out of it. My assumption has always been that the thrusters aren't in constant thrust, we just happen to be seeing exclusively shots where they're open full-throttle(or, you know, artistic license). Also, if the boosters are spent by the time they get where they're going, there's a problem. You still have to STOP once you get there, after all. Speaking of stopping, that's where the battroid shines in space. Your attack vector and thrust vector don't have to be aligned in battroid mode. You can thrust in the same direction you're firing, the opposite direction, or even an entirely unrelated direction. the side.
  14. JB0
    Yes! My hypothetical is mostly right! And lest anyone gets upset... I know it may seem like I'm being hard on the Valkyrie, but I'm not really. It acquits itself better in the vacuum of space than any aircraft has a right to. I'm just saying that it's operating outside it's designed optimum environment, and is in the realm where sacrifices were made(even ignoring humanity's general lack of space warfare experience when it was designed). ... Also, I think the Lancer looked awesome and I wish it had more than ten seconds of screen time in the history of the franchise.
  15. JB0
    Bingo. The first animated super Valk(codename: Booby Duck(irrelevant, but I wanted to type "Booby Duck)) deployment is the first super pack deployment in Macross. Whether they were invented on Earth or on the Macross, they were built on the Macross partway through the trip home(and personally, I believe that design didn't start until after the space fold incident). That's fair. Personally, I think they look pretty badass, but aesthetics are just that: personal. (I also think the closely-related strike packs are butt-ugly. People will fight me on this, but I stand by it.) Well, the design DOES feature concessions to the reality of physics. If you look, the main boosters on the FAST packs aren't pointed straight back. They're angled up, in acknowledgement that the boosters are off-axis and in a sub-optimal location. If they thrusted straight back, they'd send the Valk spinning instad of traveling forward in a straight line. But consequently, they lose performance because not all the thrust available is going into forward motion... which ties into my personal belief they were a kludge to fix the VF-1's deficiencies as a space fighter. Canon has nothing to say on the issue as far as I know, so what follows should be taken with a grain of salt. My personal take is this: The VF-1 is an all-environment fighter, yes, but it was an aircraft first and a spacecraft second, and it's consequently a much better aircraft than spacecraft. The poor, overlooked, unloved, neglected Lancer II was intended to be a dedicated space fighter, and is consequently studded with verniers and packed with internal missile launchers that the VF-1 simply doesn't have. When the Macross was unable to link up with ARMD-01 and -02, they lost their Lancer force. Unable to request a few hundred Lancers and trained pilots be transferred to Pluto, had to make do with what they had available, which was the VF-1s from the launch ceremony and Prometheus. So they flew VF-1s exclusively, and created the (relatively) simple Phalanx destroid to compensate for the loss of the ARMDs' defensive weaponry. As the VF-1's spaceworthiness was tested, it was found that it really needed more guided missiles and attitude thrusters, as well as just more thrust, if it was to be an effective space fighter. So they developed the FAST packs to augment the VF-1's space capabilities and provide it the features a dedicated space fighter should have. They rejiggered the transformation sequence a bit to make room for fuel tanks, built some rocket boosters and missile launchers, and strapped them on. And voila, a jack of all trades becomes a dedicated space superiority fighter. Anyways, I think the FAST packs make sense when contextualized in this manner. And, well, they DO add a lot of thrust, firepower, and attitude thrusters. There's a clear design goal there.
  16. JB0
    Tiny MP-2! Speaking of... Magnus armor on MP-2. You know you want it.
  17. JB0
    Drama like we haven't seen since MP Starscream.
  18. JB0
    Toys: serious business
  19. JB0
    You raise an excellent point. What if Kevin Bacon IS Luke Skywalker?!?!
  20. JB0
    It's totally Luke Skywalker. I mean, come on, it's OBVIOUS.
  21. JB0
    It does help! Given that one of the working hypotheses for why gravity is weaker, but farther reaching, than most of the basic forces is that gravitons wander through extra dimensions... Science nerd satisfied. ... Not that I would describe Macross as hard sci-fi yet(or ever). Oh, that's EXACTLY who you want to own a 20-gigaton bomb...
  22. JB0
    But he's STILL a better Magnus than the first MP Magnus was! Perhaps damning with faint praise, but...
  23. JB0
    That picture makes me so very sad. So I shall celebrate life with Nimoy driving cars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPkByAkAdZs
  24. JB0
    Finally! A philips that won't cam out and destroy the driver and screwhead both! Awww, coulomb force would've been so much cooler. I do, however, grant that for an accessible science-fiction franchise, gravity is the more reasonable force to tap. The two words have a lot of overlap in weapons design. That's a LOT better than my proposed super-fission bomb. The only good thing about THAT was that everything involved decayed so rapidly. That makes a lot of sense. Not only do they not have a big wad of uranium or plutonium sitting in the middle of things taking up space(plus all teh elaborate parts that go into making a fission weapon work), they ALSO have a device confining the fusible material, so it isn't already being distributed by the shock wave before the fusion reaction starts. So much more of the fuel goes into the actual explosion(and depending on how long the GIC survives, possibly the next round of fusible components too). That's... a really big bomb, though.
  25. JB0
    YES! Two things: 1. I's nice to see the characters grow up. They're adults with actual jobs and crap when the third arc starts. 2. I personally consider that show's subtitle to be "And then things get worse". Just as fair warning.
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