JB0

Does it matter what weapons they use? I mean if the movie follows the TV series, they'll never hit anything anyway. Graham 412028[/snapback] But if it follows the original movie, every last one will hit it's mark. ... Oh dear... please! No Rodimus! I BEG OF YOU!

Subs were just fine for me. Personal opinion: Closed space is a lot less imposing in the anime. This is admittedly due in part to inherent difficulties in capturing the exact nature of it. It would be very hard even with a huge budget in a good movie theater. It's far harder to demonstrate the absence of something than it is to show the presence of something, especially when a lot of what's missing usually isn't included in the production to start with. And closed space is defined largely by what's not there. Even in the book, they spend a lot of time just establishing the strangeness of the scene and getting the reader's imagination engaged. In a TV series, you don't have the luxury of spending as much time as you want setting up. As far as improving it... leaving out the background music would've done a lot for it. Emphasizing the life in the world around them before transitioning to closed space instead of ignoring it like usual would have helped even more. They made a little effort right as they entered closed space with a quick crowd shot and then a few quick pictures of the empty city sandwiched the actual transition, but overall it just felt like a gray version of the "real world." Adding some background noise to the "real world" side would have helped a lot, even though it's generally the LAST thing you want. Whereas it's usually just a distraction, in this case the noise would've provided a strong contrast when it suddenly stopped. As-is, the addition of background music after the transition from a dead-silent scene makes closed space feel MORE alive than the "real world." Adding a few lines to Kyon's thoughts would help a lot too. Let HIM emphasize it. All in all, it's a shame that part is signifigant, because it really feels like they didn't try very hard. The Haruhi half of the episode works quite nicely, though. Maybe they just don't care about Koizumi. </critic> If my bet on the reasoning behind the chaotic episode order is correct, we are indeed just days away from the final epispode. It's been a fun ride, and I really hope it gets some more episodes pinned on. If nothing else, they really ought to include the production of the "movie"(maybe it's been saved for season 2?).

I thought that was the intent. To send it out into the galaxy and see what we could see. The fact that Global was explicitly ordered not to fire first if they encountered an alien intelligence means that they were going to be out there in the stars and WEREN'T going to be picking fights. Essentially, Star Trek anime-style. Not that it worked that way(even in Star Trek). But to go out there unarmed would just be begging for trouble, and removing the main cannon would be more effort than it was really worth unless you wanted poeple to think you were easy pickings. All we knew at that point was that there were aliens out there, and they were hostile. We didn't know where they were, so we couldn't just avoid them. And yet, we actually DID threaten them, and even beat them(admittedly through dumb luck, but still...). Seriously, they were probably hoping that the ASS was one of their best ships, not indicative of the whole. And the ARMD-01 and -02 DID make a good showing against the initial zentradi assault(in that they smashed anything at all before being riddled with laser fire). Nukes don't really care how advanced you are, as long as you don't have good anti-missile systems(which the zentradi apparently lacked). We just had an overwhelming hardware deficit. 2 ARMDs, some number of Oberths(there were 125 in service for the final battle), and 1 untested alien gunboat. Exactly what it was... an exploration vessel with a really big gun.

Speaking of stuff we acquired before we got bored... I have a complete "Good"NES collection that I've never used.

Yeh he was...but that was just a passing thought. To him, it was still a SA gunboat, which carried 20,000 + 58,000 pieces of live and useful cargo. 411879[/snapback] Ya know, now that I think of it, it's no diffrent than me being surprised if a bunch of iron age people had rebuilt a corvette that someone rammed into their barn.

Doubly ironic since Hiro is probably the flattest, most emotionless, WORST example of "protoculture" in the game. Indeed.

You've said in ALL situations, a Valkyrie is better. The real-world utility of strafing is far diffrent than the video-game utility of strafing. In that it isn't all that useful. And not only can you strafe without hovering, you don't need to hover to move. In fact, hovering while firing makes you less accurate. The GBP also highlights the fact that there are many situations heavy armor is more valuable than speed and variability. Even with a GBP, a Valk is still lightly armored in the thighs and head. The head especially is a big easy to hit target that seriously cripples the mech. The Spartan's sensors are recessed and their locations aren't obvious. It's head is much smaller and only serves as a turret for a pair of anti-aircraft lasers. Have you ever heard the phrase "Jack of all trades, master of none?" It could have been written about a Valk. That's called realism. Specialized equipment does the job far better than slapping expansions onto another piece of equipment that was never intended to do the job. Hence, real militaries use specialized equipment. That's not the Valkyrie. There's a good reason that real-world forces are made up of lots of specialized vehicles instead of tons of helicopters and a few tanks and jets. The main purpose Bretaii stayed (strongly implied of course) was for the "Long lost Reaction Weapons". I don't recall as much of a reaction given to the microns ability to repair their ship. 411814[/snapback] I remember he was shocked that they managed to rebuild it. I may just be overemphasizing it in my head.

Hey! I've submitted that last one. 411780[/snapback] Then you, sir, are awesome. And the Wing Zero Custom in DYRL is just WRONG.

The Macross sent a message to humanity. Not in the literal sense(this isn't a Robotech novel), but it's design spoke volumes. It said "Yes, there ARE other species out there. They are far more advanced than you. They stand 30 feet tall. They can travel faster than light. And BTW, they like to blow the crap out of stuff." To rebuild the ASS-1 as a purely exploratory vessel would not only have required the removal of an entire third of the ship, it would've ignored everything we knew about aliens. To go into the unknown without defenses is suicidal. Especially when the only thing you DO know about the unknown is that it bites. Exedol mentions there's a legend to that effect. But it's AFTER the video from the landing party comes back. The war has already begun at that point. It wasn't really an order. Was an ancient zentradi legend. And there's a lot of reasons Britai wanted to stick around. We had the amazing ability to repair heavily-damaged ships, and the legendary reaction weaponry. Either one alone would've been VERY interesting, but both of them in one place? It was like finding Excaliber next to the Holy Grail. And for comic relief, we have LowVis' silly paragraph of the day... The QRau looks cooler, therefore it is better? Are you serious? The fact that it's rounded and skinny has no relevance whatsoever on actual performance. The QRau has horrid aerodynamics. Probably better than the Spartan, but Spartans don't care because it matters a lot less to ground units than aerial ones. QRaus don't really care because they have big engines. And the zentradi usually fight in space anyways. The big-ass backpack is a missile launcher and fusion reactor, BTW. AKA a giant sci-fi powder keg. IF the machine carrying the armor is underpowered. Do you really believe that the Spartan design team said "Yeah, we know that this thing is intended for melee combat and that agility is the single most important design goal here, but we put more armor on it than the mechanisms can handle anyways"? That works for the Monster, as durability was more important than mobility. But the Spartan is NOTHING without mobility. I guarantee that it has enough power to move everything on it rapidly and accurately. And that's what really matters, being a big cool-looking target . Being taller isn't a good thing. All it does is compound the Valk's armor deficiency by making it easier to hit. Your assertion, unbacked by any sort of evidence. Or take a hit in the back before the pilot even realizes he's been jumped, and go down for the count because there's no armor over even the most vital of components? The thing uses it's exhaust nozzles as FEET, for pete's sake. Every leg motion a grounded battroid makes smashes the delicate thrust-vectoring mechanisms under the world's biggest hammer. It's actually designed to destroy itself FOR the enemy! Ultimately, however, all arguments that the destroid is inherently inferior must answer one question: Why did they design and produce the GBP-1 to make the Valkyrie into a fixed-mode vehicle with heavy armor if such things serve no useful purpose?

What a tease! Of course, now I'm REALLY curious about this clip... 411479[/snapback] He's right. There's no video clip in this thread. 411496[/snapback] I can't stand it, what is in the video!? 411595[/snapback] Maybe it's some sort of zen thing. You know, like "what is the sound of one hand on a Valkyrie clapping?"

Humans can do it too if they prepare properly. The common belief that your blood pressure will make you explode and die is a myth. You won't last very long, and you'll probably spend a good deal of time recovering, but you CAN survive in a vacuum briefly. According to the liner notes, that sequence was inserted partially to remind people that it wasn't impossible. ( http://www.animeigo.com/Liner/MACROSS.t and scroll down to episode 10 entry). It actually goes into a bit of detail on what actually happens, too. Says you only have a few seconds before blackout, but it's unclear how long Britai was actually exposed. In the end, the dialouge undermined the point by emphasizing how freakish it was that Britai survived being spaced.

I have to disagree with that point. The graphis are pretty standard fare, quality-wise. The PS1 just sucks at 3D, especially where texture maps are concerned.

What a tease! Of course, now I'm REALLY curious about this clip... 411479[/snapback] He's right. There's no video clip in this thread.

I don't get why, but commanders seem to be built tougher. When Britai's guys ask if he's okay, he says something to the effect of "I'm not built like you." We also know Britai and Bodolzaa were very large for zentradi. Or we can go to Britai's bio on the Compendium. "As a commander type Zentradi, he possesses greater strength and endurance than the other two types, as well as the ability to survive short periods in space." Best argument I can think of is that a commander's accumulated tactical knowledge makes them more valuable, so they're built tougher to improve survivability if their ship comes under attack. No one CARES if the cannon fodder grunt dies, they can just pop out a new clone. But a commander with years of experience is a valuable asset. Like everything else about humanity, the zentradi were likely completely baffled at our command structure. We had a seasoned veteran as the captain of the ship, and the rest of his bridge crew were rookies fresh out of training(Claudia excepted). Almost no one on the bridge had any prior experience, and this was our primary ship.

Lurker: Allow me to draw a video game analogy. Your version of military strategy = "ZERG RUSH KEKEKE!!!!" War doesn't actually work that way. There's a reason that modern military forces haven't replaced all their tanks with faster, smaller, and nimbler Jeeps, or phased their entire ground force out for a larger air force. It's because what a tank does is useful. Yes a Spartan COULD be made into something faster and lighter. But it would be like replacing a tank with a Jeep. You could even make it a 3-mode variable mess(I think they did, and called it a Valkyrie). Then you'd be replacing a tank with a helicopter. Helicopters sure are neat, and serve many useful purposes, but I'd hate to live in a nation that used them as their sole means of defense. So your main force will engage the defenses, enabling your faster guys to sneak in before the main force engages the defenses? And why do you think destroid pilots are stupid enough to ignore someone running straight at them? Get in your car. Turn it on. Don't touch the controls. What happens? Machines aren't like people. They don't just move for no reason. They can be incredibly precise at incredibly long ranges. As for the movie... You're saying that because DYRL didn't show a destroid with a zoom function that all weapons are restricted by the limitations of human sight? Dedicated gunner ring a bell? Also, battle machines are not held to the same restrictions as first-person shooters. They can have seperate targeting screens. Video game = Silent Scope arcade machine. Ummmm... what exactly is the REST of the platoon doing while this one guy is being gang-raped by a half-dozen enemies? You're right, that's a silly claim. If it was Max in a locked battroid VS Kakizaki in a Spartan, the smart money would be on Max. But it DOES mean that the Spartan is BETTER at the job. Max in a locked battroid VS Max in a Spartan will result in the Spartan winning. The VF has to make compromises because it fills multiple roles. The Spartan doesn't. Every feature of the Spartan is a feature that is optimum for it's designed task. If a trade-off has to be made on a VF(and boy, do they have to be...), fighter mode gets the benefits. I never said ANYTHING about a multi-purpose device having no advantages. In fact, I EXPLICTLY acknowledge the advantage of rapid deployment present in the variable Monster and the general versatility of the VF series. I just think that, given it's poor armor and weaponry, the VF makes a lousy replacement for a Spartan, which is the only destroid it even comes close to matching the capabilities of. It can't even PRETEND to replace a Tomahawk, Defender, or Monster, even with add-on modules. And you ignore my continuation of the analogy, that the clockradio never replaced dedicated radios because it sucks as a radio. The clockradio is a clock first and a radio second. The VF is a jet first and a robot second. Can you see where I'm going with this? Hint: If radio = robot and clock = jet, clockradio = good clock and bad radio, and clockradio = valkyrie, then Valkyrie = good jet and bad _____. You assume that's a weakness, because you assume that if a feature is on the VF-1 it is inherently useful, and that if a VF-1 lacks a feature it is because it is not needed. Not everything needs to fly. Especially when it comes at the cost of primary design goals. The POINT of anti-air weaponry is to kill an aircraft BEFORE it starts unloading weaponry. If an anti-air weapon is firing at close range, it's ALREADY failed. ... Or it's attempting to shoot down a missile, like the (real-world, non-destroid) Phalanx. Note that the real-world Phalanx is intended to be the FINAL line of defense, not the ONLY line of defense. Actually, the variable Monster is every bit as slow, clumsy, and specialized as the regular one. You also greatly overestimate the need for mobility in an artillery piece. The Monster, variable or not, has a few major design goals. To run through the list... Major goal 1 is that it needs to fire big bullets. Toward that end, it was equipped with quad 40cm cannons. Major goal 2 is that it be stable enough to shoot accurately. While firing 40cm shells. That's a lot of recoil it has to steady. Major goal 3 is that it needs to withstand the recoil of said cannons. It has to be bulked-up enough that the guns don't rip loose from their mounts. Newton's third law says every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Every time it fires a shell, it tries to fire the back end of the mech in the other direction. A 40cm shell for the Iowa-class masses around a thousand kilograms. If we assume projectiles for the Monster are of similar mass, that means that the Monster tries to blast a thousand kg of metal off the back end at the same speed as the shell leaving the barrel. For comparison, the modern-day Abrams tank has a 120 MILLIMETER(12centimeter) cannon. The tank weighs almost 70 tons. It has a very low center of gravity. And it JUMPS BACKWARDS with every shot of the cannon. The Monster has cannons along the lines of an Iowa-class BATTLESHIP in terms of projectile size(the Monster's cannons are twice as long, and range is over 3x greater, indicating a larger projectile velocity, and thus greater recoil). And speaking of recoil... the Konig Monster uses it's railguns(an upgrade from the original Monster's conventional cannons) to expel plasma in shuttle mode as a form of propulsion. So apparently even at 102 thousand kilograms, an overglorified fart can send it flying through the air if not properly controlled. Major goal 4 is that it needs to be able to survive the blast from the nuclear warheads it's dropping on people. Not all shells are dropped 160 km away, and some will be dangerously close. This necessitated massive armor, further increasing mass. Major goal 5 is that it needs to be mobile, in the sense that it can walk from point A to point B. Points 1-4 made this a very difficult goal to attain, and the final product has very limited mobility, with even walking on irregular surfaces being "not recommended." Of course, the fact that the Monster made it into production with that fault shows that this was NOT considered a primary goal. Artillery doesn't need to be fast or nimble. It just needs to shoot stuff with big guns. Agility, speed, and defense never really even entered the equation. Nobody cared. They are useless attributes in an artillery piece. Heavy artillery costs a lot of mass, and mass is not good for speed and agility. No Monster will EVER be fast or nimble, just because it has such big guns. The Mk2 had missile launchers, and the variable Monster added a small anti-aircraft gun, but both are still essentially incapable of self-defense and REQUIRE escorts. And while the Konig is indeed lighter than the original Monster, it is still far more massive than any other human mecha, weighing in at 3x the next-highest destroid(the Phalanx, which likely owes much of it's mass to the large missile payload). I WAS mistaken about speed, though. The Konig can break mach 1. Again, you assume. And this time, you ignore evidence to the contrary to do so, not just logic. The Valk has been SHOWN to be a lousy close-combat vehicle. It can't even effectively fight a mech-less zentradi. No matter how skilled he was, or how superior his genetics, Britai was still flesh and blood. For him to best a Valk with nothing but a RUSTY PIPE and RIP IT APART WITH HIS BARE HANDS, and come out of it COMPLETELY UNINJURED showcases how painfully inadequate the Valkyrie is for melee combat. I'm out of this. I wasn't even going to bother, except you explicitly called me out, and basically accused me of stuffing my ears full of soggy Mac&Cheese while shouting "I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALA!" I heard you quite clearly. Your logic is just painfully flawed.

I'd pay money to see them forced to watch each others' movies. 411095[/snapback] Problem's that they might actually be immune to that. Perhaps they should be forced to watch this movie instead. 411100[/snapback] *laughs*That always crops up just as I've forgotten it existed again.

I'd pay money to see them forced to watch each others' movies.

Soundwave is indeed a clean transformation. No loose parts aside from the missiles(his gun becomes batteries, how clever is that?!), no goofy lumps, no nothing. His chest is a bit oddly-shaped, but that's the only gripe I have aside from articulation, and that hits almost every pre-BeastWars toy. I never got him, but he was high on my list of wants. I was also always a Shockwave fan. He was just so... he was Shockwave, for QBert's sake! How can anyone NOT like him? Seriously, between the fact that he made an awesome raygun and that he had some articulation(for the era, he was pretty much the pinnacle of good proportions and posabability), I think I was doomed from the moment I opened the box. If I recall, his scale is radically diffrent than Prime's precisely SO he can stand close to the same height as Prime. Jets are a lot bigger than semis, so if he was the same scale, he'd be able to stomp Prime .

I quit reading CAD. Guy's just not consistently funny. That strip being a case in point.

I'm obviously complaining about the kibble on the hips, the knees bent backwards (while he is standing), and the awkward feet. The feet were goofy in the first version, so that isn't my major complaint. 411001[/snapback] The knees are just a matter of bad posing, for what it's worth.

But he doesn't care. Bender said so. I loved that episode.

Yeah, that was Boll. On the upside, it comes with a free copy of the PC version of Bloodrayne 2, or at least the retail package does. So you might get some use out of it anyways. Sound of Thunder at least had potential. The original story is a classic. It just got messed up badly in the translation to film.

Depending on the equipment used, flourescent lighting isn't that great, gives a pale cast over everything, so a flash would give a better flesh tone. Since they're using a flash, then having a reflector would even out the background too. That makes sense. But will it really be effective with the sort of flash Haruhi's point/click digital camera has? She isn't using any external equipment that I see.

Meh, screw it...

It COULD, if it was a viable strategy. But there's usually anti-mecha defenses, and lacking the sensor-jamming magic of minovsky particles, rushing the bridge is pretty much suicide for the zentradi. The Phalanxes and Defenders aren't marched out onto the hull for fun. They exist solely to pick off anyone that gets too close. In fact, the anti-aircraft Defenders were the vast majority of the Macross' mecha compliment, outnumbering the Valks 2:1 and every other destroid by much larger margin. The Macross had no shortage of anti-mecha defenses, and rest assured they were concentrated around the ship's vital areas. The thing had roughly a square kilometer of surface area, and there were five hundred anti-aircraft turrets running around on it. While the shape of attack mode makes defense far more complicated(the bridge is no longer on a major face of the vessel), they DO make a point of showing destroids stationed around the bridge. So we know the defense of other areas of the ship was sacrificed for the bridge, as in attack mode bridge defenses aren't useful for other areas. http://macross.anime.net/mecha/united_nati...ross/index.html Indeed. But we didn't seem to be a serious issue at first. Do YOU regularly employ high-explosives against house flies? The main fleet wasn't considered a necessity until the defection of Britai's fleet. At which point we ceased to be an amusing prey and became a genuine threat. The VF-1 has a teleporter and drones now? Jets don't replace tanks. They fill completely diffrent roles. I would feel very insecure in a nation with you as head of defense. The QRau is quite likely better than any battroid or GERWALK. Fighter mode... the QRau seems to make up for it's fundamentally broken aerodynamics with raw engine power. It's weapons loadout is more omnidirectional. The missiles don't all point in one direction, nor do the forearm guns. A VF in GERWALK or battroid has similar versatility of the gunpod, but there's only one vs the QRau's 2 forearm guns, and it's very limited on ammo. And if you can point and laugh when they hit you, you can pummel them with impunity. That's the design principle behind both a tank and a front-line destroid. The fact is, in any crowded combat zone, you WILL get hit. People tend to forget this because the US military grossly outclasses every other military on Earth. More and better equipment means that we can pretty much strike with impunity until the time comes to send in the infantry. Effective in what way? It's very light on ammo and very light on armor. But it IS fast. You mean the ones firing at you from long range, with a far greater ammo capacity, while you pelt them with rounds designed to take out lightly-armored aircraft? Good luck with that. Again, the QRau has to deal with anti-aircraft fire as well as, well, aircraft. It does NOT have a straight run into the middle of the destroid formation. Your ENTIRE strategy assumes that the enemy has no defenses.