JB0

I still read it as less shock that it can exist and more shock that it's still moving after he emptied his gun into it. To me, a BULLETPROOF* giant alien is infinitely more scary than a giant alien that goes down easy. *Yes, I know he wasn't really, but that's not what it looked like.

The Saturn version had issues of it's own, though. It was a pretty bad port, even if they DID go in and add some things(including dash boots so Alucard can run in human form). At least with it running off a hard drive most of the load times should be gone... Besides, the 360 pad matches the PS layout. The control changes for the Saturn version would've made it play very odd. My bet is compression, and they decompress the disk image at run time. They COULD use synthesis(they have enough sample RAM that they could meet, or even exceed, the sound quality of the original music that way), but they'd have to rescore the game. Becomes a lot more work than it's worth. Especially given SotN has a pretty good soundtrack and people probably won't take kindly to a new one unless it matches the original so closely they can't tell the diffrence.

The old DOS shooter Tyrian had one too. One of the "secret ships" had a special weapon called the "SDF Main Gun." It was, predictably, an obscenely powerful beam(I think it was the strongest weapon in the game, actually).

Speaking of Yamato... Anyone remember the Toys R Us exclusive cannon fodder? That ceased being exclusive as soon as sales slacked off? I see no reason Starscream can't follow the same route. Sell all the "less desirable, but adequate" options that you can. Combined with a few "YEAH! THIS IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE DONE!" at a premium. Once sales of both slip, release the "Y!TITWISBD!" version as a mass-market product. Everyone's STILL pissed, and justifiably so(it's a major fan screwjob). But at least it becomes widely available... eventually.

But if it was a giant carbon molecule, it wouldn't be steel. It IS possible that it's an iron alloy with nanotube cables, mesh, or even a 3D web running through it. I'm not sure what sort of alloy you'd get from that, though(or anything, having no real metallurgical knowledge beyond what I've already said). Of course, there's so many possible alloys that it isn't hard to conceive overtech would supply new ones that outperform existing ones, even without elaborate molecular chains laced through them.

It could be detected if it wasn't focused enough. Sort of like a flashlight as opposed to a laser. I used waveform cancellation because there's actually a current theory for how it could work. It requires a much smaller leap in technology than a damping field does. It's still walking on it's exhaust nozzles, though. And hypercarbon steel could be a number of things, some of which are close to real-world materials. Real-world high-carbon steel's big problem is it's brittle. I imagine the big advantage of "hypercarbon" steel would be that it flexes like softer steels while retaining the durability of a harder steel. For the record, the Compendium entry about the similarly-aged VF-0 says "Space metal materials are used for the composition of the fuselage's frame, but titanium/carbon composite is used for the outer skin." Of course, several conditions could lead to diverging construction. The VF-0 wasn't intended for combat, so an "armored" skin might not have been desirable. Or in the other direction the space metal could've been considered too much of an unknown, so the VF-1 was constructed entirely with conventional alloys and only the testbed VF-0 got the new materials. Besides, you can never have too much durability. And the SWAG armor isn't conceptually similar to the barrier systems. Even in Macross Zero there's a lack of visible manifestation of it. It's either skintight and transparent(which the barrier wasn't) or a strengthening of existing material instead of a new layer.

No reason to keep space weapons a secret, they were quite open about those being to repel an alien invasion. From the Compendium's chronology: 2000 June The existence of aliens officially announced (except for their size and other details which are kept top secret). Following this, framing plan for Earth U.N. Government officially announced. 423404[/snapback] Ah. That makes things a lot simpler. Though one wonders why the size was classified in the first place. Guess because "HOLY CRAP GIANT ALIENS WANT TO KILL US!" might make for worse publicity than "HOLY CRAP ALIENS WANT TO KILL US!" Classifying "other details" at least lets you pretend you've developed equivalent weaponry. And given all we got was the Macross itself, which was pretty light on guns, we could even say it with a straight face. "Yeah, they have some huge slow guns, but not much else..." Magic's a bit unfair. If it's waveform cancellation, we know how to do it with modern technology. Just not how to do it practically. Big problems are that you have to calculate everything fast enough to send a properly-timed inverse wave back out, and you need a lot of power to get signifigant results(total RADAR invisibility, of course, requires power equal to whatever portion you're reflecting back at the source). And then you need antennae in the right places to broadcast your inverse wave at the origin antenna. Overtechnology would easily solve problem 2, and very likely 1 as well. Problem 3 might have just been ignored, but it's potentially conceivable that overtech could enable them to use a lot of microantennae imbedded in the plane's skin. Or even actually use portions the skin itself as antennae(they can make it stronger with the flick of a switch, why NOT make it radio-emissive too?). And as a side benefit, you probably get better radar-absorbant materials, which reduces the broadcast requirements. The exposed jet turbines are still an ugly design issue, though. Even if they're made out of some sort of extremely durable RAM, and have large dedicated anti-RADAR antennae around the intakes, it's still a waste of power.

Yeah... I successfully resisted the Alternators for ages. Wasn't until I saw Shockwave on the shelves that I even cared. Once I had him, I started to realize exactly how awesome they were. Most of the ones I'd really like aren't in production anymore. Only one I've added to my collection so far is Jazz. He has addead appeal, what with Shockwave being his "evil twin" in the Alternators. And the stores in my area aren't big on Transformers to start with, much less Alternators. Makes picking one up a bit of effort. Still haven't seen Mirage, for the record.

Maybe. But I think it would send the people into a panic by letting them know you are up against giants. Hikaru was frightened like a little school girl at the sight of one. I bet people would start to ask questions like why did we spend all this money on such a stupid design when we have destroids! 20 times cheaper! In Hikaru's defense, he was frightened at the sight of a 30-foot tall man walking towards him with muderous intent after he'd just emptied an entire clip into the guy. This was, of course, on top of the initial attack, getting shot down in a dog fight, and crashing through a city block or 2 of buildings. He had every right to crap his pants and pass out right then and there. Also... That combination of comments(revealing battroid freaking people out, why buy VFs when we already have destroids) raises a major question. Were the destroids ever made public? Any conclusion you can reach from the battroid can also be reached from the Spartan. If they wanted to hide that they were building giant infantry, at least the Spartan should've been top-secret. They could make cases for the less humanoid mechs(Monster, Tomahawk, Defender), but once you get to the Spartan and VF battroid, questions arise. The existence of functional arms implies you consider melee a possibility, which is a joke for vehicular combat(the number of times a tank commander issued orders for ramming speed in actual combat can probably be counted on one hand). There's only 2 obvious conclusions: either the military's gone insane or you expect to see some really big infantry. Details of the space forces were likely kept secret for similar reasons. No reason to have guns in space unless someone else brings 'em up there. And Mars Base was an observation outpost. It wouldn't take a lot of effort to connect the dots from there. The existence of an extraterrestrial observation base implies you believe there's an extraterrestrial threat. Was probably all pitched as exploratory scientific endeavours until the Anti-UN stole an Oberth and attacked the Mars Base crew coming back to Earth. Then they can "retrofit" weapons onto the existing vehicles as "protection against the Anti-UN," who they probably claimed added weapons to the stolen Oberth in the first place. Even Roy didn't know what they were actually like, though. There's a line in that scene to the effect of "Even I didn't know they looked like us." All he knew was that they were big. But regardless of how secret it was, once Hikaru got up first priority was saving his bacon. So it makes sense to take a no-nonsense, do this and that approach. Explanations can come once he's tucked away safely in a shelter. They REALLY didn't want people thinking "Crap, there's giant aliens out there that want to kill us." But the relevant part was obvious once the fecal matter hit the air-circulation device. Everyone could guess it was an alien attack if they saw the mechs. No one knew it was a giant humanoid attack. I figure that once Hikaru was safe, it might've come out anyways. He'd already seen what was going on, so he could make a good guess.

I'm pretty sure only the plane mode was what the airshow was for. In episode 1: why is everyone (civilians) so surprised that the plane transforms into a robot? Thier reaction being like it is something new or unheard of? Hikaru didn't even know he was inside one until he got out and asked what it was he was standing on. But the launching ceremony was interrupted pretty badly when the zentradi defolded. It's possible that GERWALK and battroid were being saved to cap off the day's festivities. So Hikaru's flying a planet-destroying super weapon, and doesn't even know it? I guess that answers the Megaroad 1 question...

Ah, I see what you mean now. That makes sense. And I think the transformation capability was intended to be kept secret. Not sure, though. *nods* I was just thinking that if you want to keep it a secret, talking about your new bestest plane ever isn't the way to do it. But if they just wanted to keep the interesting parts secret after the launch ceremony, it works. Possibly incredibly well, given the plane doesn't even LOOK that futuristic. Who'd suspect it of being a robot in disguise?

There's nothing about CG that prevents vanishing parts. The robot and vehicle would be distinctly diffrent models, not manipulations of the same model. The transformation sequence can still bring the full might of anime magic to bear.

You know, I really SHOULD have a Saturn around here somewhere... I need to fix that omission from my collection. *laughs* I bought Gradius V because A. it was in the bargin-bin, and B. I was assured it was a lot less cheap than prior entries in the series. The people feeding me line B lied. Future World... ah, start of the Gallop line. That whole series was fun(So's the Gallop game, coincidentally). I usually mucked with the colors, so the default palletes meant little to me. Let's see... Ragnarok 1 left me cackling maniacally. I LOVED the hyper cannon in RType 3, and removing the overheat effect makes it more fun than should be legal, even if it's a tad lacking against bosses. And the Eclipse got flight time just for the effect where the ship reconfigured with your selected speed. I really liked the look of the OF series that came off of that one, too(the above-mentioned Image Fight planes). Speaking of Delta, I liked the Cerberus too. Yes. Of course, it was a while back now.

But they were also making a big production out of how awesome the new Valkyrie fighters were at the Macross' launch ceremony. That'd seem to torpedo that theory. I always just figured the boxy airframe(which is definitely a major step backwards even in-continuity, given the Unification Wars flashbacks in Rainy Night) was a necessary sacrifice to accomodate the transformation mechanisms and robot parts. More modern VFs benefit from a better understanding of overtechnology, allowing more elaborate transformations. Hence they resemble later generations of fightercraft. And once you strip the need for a transformation away, you get something that looks more like it belongs in the setting it flies in. ... Except for the enhanced F-14s in Macross Zero.

It is a possibility that his VF-1 was placed in some sort of war museum back on Earth, thus not available for purchase. 423022[/snapback] Wouldn't Millia's be more historically signifigant, as she was the first alien in UN Spacy? And she was a civilian, to boot. I figure if she got to keep her's(and keep it ARMED, no less), Max definitely kept his. Policy for Space War veterans seems to be that your mech is one of the perks of the job. I don't even want to THINK about why they continue to supply ammo, though. He could've sold it to pay for his girls' college tuition or something, but I'd think a book/movie deal would probably be easier. Sure everyone and their uncle had Space War memoirs, but Max and Millia had by far the most interesting ones("Chapter 4: Arcades, Death Duels, and Marriage Proposals").

And a Snakes on a Plane sequel... C'mon, someone was gonna say it eventually.

I doubt Kawamori has anything to do with the paintjob. And I still don't see a good way to get a cartoon-accurate Starscream without part-swapping.

Ah, yeah... Final has a little of everything. The single tentacle laser(and variants of the concept) was probably the closest on that one. Honestly, I think irem just dragged out every idea they'd ever had and threw them all into that game. Game's full of homages to irem's other games(except Metal Storm. )and random gameplay concepts(some of which work better than others...). It makes ImageFight look like a good idea, too. The Daedalus series weren't the most powerful, but they were neat planes to fly. Pity they didn't play half as well in their own games as in RType Final. I handle straight mirroring really well already, so I'm reasonably good with the lock-on laser. I just never got a really good handle on "snake" weapons. True. It's just the first thing I could think of that did the "snake" behavior. ... If you're playing Gradius 3 with the charge laser, it even bears a bit of weapon similarity, now that I think of it. Man, I haven't played that in years...

Fair enough. And I admit I haven't played much Thunderforce(Thunderforce V is the only one I have, and I haven't spent much time on it), but RType's force units don't behave at all like Max's chain weapon. It reminds me more of Gradius' options. Not that I'm particularly GOOD at RType... it becomes pure level memorization after a few stages, and I vehemently detest memorization games. So me and irem have a very love/hate relationship. The first couple of levels are beautiful, and after that I just wish the entire dev team would die painfully. ... But that's another subject entirely. But it's so cool when it does go off! Provided you can get there. Max was almost unplayable in the tunnel stage, IMO. Each of the 3 definitely has stages they really shine on, and that they suck at. Hikaru just sucks less in his bad stages. Of course, Max never falls into ACTUALLY unplayable, which Millia DOES at a few points. I've never found a way to get through some parts of the game without just eating hits. The flooded zentradi ship springs to mind. ... I'm gonna have to fire the game up again soon.

Or worse, they'll change MP-04 to Pepsi Prime at the last minute and the one we've all seen so far will be a club exclusive.

But Millia has the coolest battroid weapon! Seriously, I place Hikaru as the easiest. Once he's powered up, he's pretty hard to stop. He's got by far the best penetrating weapon, and all 3 modes have a good fire area. Max's weapons are too weak except for the GERWALK's barrier chain(or whatever that thing is). Homing lasers are awesome, but puny. They're really easy to use, so he's a good "learner" Valk, but they lack the firepower needed for later levels. I seem to recall the spread gun being pretty weak too. The barrier chain is also awesome, and supremely powerful too, but hard to use. Also lacks a bit of reach for some of the places you really want a penetrating weapon for. But the chain IS the perfect Max weapon, since it requires fancy flying to use effectively. I always thought his spread gun and homing laser were just wrong for the character. Also gave him an odd mix of weapons, since fighter and battroid were insanely easy to use and GERWALK was very difficult. Millia is definitely the hardest to use, though. She's seriously hampered by the crappiest penetrating and spread weapon in the game. If she had ANYTHING else on GERWALK mode, she'd be a far more useful character. Her fighter and battroid modes pack some serious firepower. But as-is, if you actually need piercing or vertical fire you're screwed.

And I never forgave him for it. Stupid Gamlin.

*sees thread for first time* So they're finally doing a GitS movie that doesn't suck? It's about time.

I third the vote for Holy Lonely Night.

No codes that I know of.