JB0

Chek a car with an automatic transmission. There's a lock button to prevent accidentally jostling it out of position. I would assume that VFs have a similar locking mechanism.

It depends, do you mean the one based off a VF-1? Or do you mean the sketch for the VF-11 variant in Macross Design Works? So that's the plane under it! ... What? It's hard to tell when it's buried under guns larger than the plane... I shter ea pic of the VF-1 variant, or just descriptions?

Sounds like Basara's been talking to the fighter designers recently.

Yeah but lacking evidence, is it really any more logical that they would have enough of a vector to descend into the atmosphere instead of just saying in orbit (much less being blasted out of orbit)? And of the ones coming down to atmosphere shoudln't most of these have been in slow decaying orbits instead of meteoric descents? Logic dictates that if something explodes, fragments go in all directions. And logic also dicates that a LOT of those 1.8 million destroyed vessels exploded(about 1 million were vaporized by the grand cannon, leaving 800,000 to be blown up by less unbconventional means). Which means that a lot of fragments DID head towards Earth. And yes, most of them should've taken the long way to get there instead of coming in in a straight line. But then they hit the atmosphere and either burned up or hit something, depending on what angle they hit at and how large they were. Either way, they introduce debris into the air. If they hit the ground they knock dust into the air. If they burn up in the atmosphere, it just means they're now a cloud of dust floating in the air. And dust is our enemy in this scenario.

MORE EWOK CARTOONS!1111 ... Oh gods... what if they make GUNGAN cartoons?

I actually thought that went way too fast to really appreciate it. It is cool, though. I think Guld's eye squishing out is what leaves the lasting impression though. That's why there's a slow-mo button. ... And I HATED watching Guld's body fail.

Well I'm not sure exactly how the Grand Cannon (or the Macross operates) but its basic science that even being destroyed by them would just convert the mass of everything into another form (vapor, constituent molecules, etc)... which could be worse than debris that can be dealt with (pushed into the sun or out into space or on another, lifeless, planet/moon, etc). Do we really KNOW there were "thousands" of impacts from Zentraedi ships on the surface of the Earth? Why? I don't seem to remember lots of kamikazes on the ground bombarded surface (that wasn't that thorough it looks like...) Good thing that South Ataria island happened to be where the ASS landed. It's logical that there were thousands of impacts. You don't just destroy 1.8 million ships and not have debris, even if most if it's sent flying out of the system(my assumptions regarding the Grand Cannon involved imparted velocity from the beam impact to the vessels/debris/vapor). What we KNOW is that ... approximately 1.8 million Zentradi vessels were destroyed in Earth orbit; one battleship, one fighter pod(Quel-Quallie, I think's the right name), and one GERWALK crashed on the surface; all 3 were largely intact; the battleship and fighter pod both imbedded themselves well enough to stand vertically while all 3 hit lightly enough to not destroy themselves; and the surviving humans began an atmospheric purification operation within a month of victory.

But has there been enough bitching that he includes an option to see the original cut instead of just special edition? *not intended to start another flame war*

Well, most sites only keep the most recent ROM image set. And the MAME crew likes to change them around for seemingly no reason. 2 ways to fix it... Update your MAME, or open teh ZIP file and edit the filenames.

What would someone vote if they wanted a Stampede Valk? *cackles maniacally*

Yes. The Grand Cannon was a key component to victory, clearing a path to Bodolzaa's flagshipwith it's firing(Too bad he was out of the way of the beam. They probably would've gotten away with far less spatial debris, and certainly with far fewer casualties). Of course, it was sheer luck that the Macross was headed that direction. If they were looking for someone over south Africa, it wouldn't have been very useful. But it still had to hit hard enough to imbed itself in the ground. I put its survival up to advanced alloys. Asteroid. And the flip side is that it was just one impact. The Earth at the end of Space War 1 was peppered with thousands of impacts. Plus, you forget that each and every one of those objects is in freefall and accelerating at 9.8 meters per second per second, untill it hits either terminal velocity or the surface(likely the former). Whether it drifted out of the Kuiper Belt or was blasted off a giant space pickle is irrelevant. A lot of the damage was from the shockwave as it plowed through the atmosphere. And the impact damage was lessened by the low angle it came in at. If it'd come straight down, it would've been in much worse shape. As would the island it landed on. Yes. Pollution is the key. And always has been. The dinosaurs weren't killed by a giant wave of dirt that buried them alive. They died because pollution blotted the sun out, which stunted plant life, which stunted herbivores, which stunted carnivores. Add to that a rapidly cooling climate due to missing infrared radiation, and you have all the ingredients for a mass extinction. Whether it's one big impact, one million small impacts, or 1 billion objects vaporizing in the atmosphere is irrelevant, as long as enough dirt gets in the atmosphere(which doesn't take a titanic impact). The dirt thrown up by an individual impact may be trivial, but when you have a million such impacts it becomes signifigant.

I thought Kamjin hated everyone anyways.

A good nudge is enough to bring it out of orbit. From there, gravity takes over and guides it in. An explosion would send things flying in diffrent directions. Some parts head away from the Earth, most stay in orbit or wind up in another orbit, and some start moving towards impact. Some parts came straight down and got there pretty fast, but others would still be falling years later without a cleanup effort(that was needed to clear the area for space travel anyways and is almost guaranteed to have happened during the 2 year intermission, if for no other reason than the debris would've posed a threat to the force sent to capture the factory satellite, if not the factory itself). The exact nature of this cleanup has never been stated to my knowledge, though I'd bet attempts were made to capture the larger scraps for construction resources. And a mostly intact vessel would be quite a prize for a government seeking to build a defense fleet in a hurry and with few signifigant shipyards with which to do so, so it's virtually guaranteed those were salvaged instead of destroyed(I assume some were still in orbit and that they didn't all fall). Well, on the flip side we know one buried itself far enough in the ground that it could stand slanted at an angle(like the Leaning Tower of Piza, only greener). That implies a signifigant impact. So we have conflicting evidence here.

Well, it IS two generations later...

You have to exit the ship before it blows up, i.e. before the time limit runs out. Not sure what the story behind this is supposed to be. Graham In the Saturn game it looked like they did an ARMD version of the Daedalus Attack.

It's not technically a spelling error. The episode really is called Pine Salad. At least, that's how it's pronounced on the next episode preview(I love those things) *edit* and how everyone keeps saying it throughout the episode.

Likely. You have to remember that a gunboat is basically just a floating cannon. The larger vessels weren't intended to be used solely as big guns. So they didn't carry a weapon as large proportionately as a gunboat would. The Macross is overpowered for it's size because that's what gunboats are.

Thin aluminum is almost universally used as an RF shield. I'd worry more about it interfering with your TV reception.

Ouch. Well you're really gonna want an animated gif to get the full effect of Lucy's... "bounce" The ending? Guld rams the Ghost but to do so, he has to do way more G's than his body is capable and he gets all twisted up in a rather gory manner. Ghost flames out and the YF-21 hulk coasts off. I don't think he actually rammed it in the movie. I think he just forced the Ghost to start moving fast enough that its hull failed from the heat generated. That becomes a very real problem as you get going fast. The modern-day Blackbird has some very unique engineering designs to keep its wings from warping due to the heat generated at a relatively mild mach 3/80,000 feet(corrugated wing surfaces spring to mind). While we don't actually know how fast Guld and hte Ghost were darting around, we know that the YF-21 was capable of hitting mach 25 in a straight run, since it's capable of achieving orbit under its own power and mach 25 is escape velocity. If I recall, the YF-21 actually DID slip back out into space at the end of the fight. I assume that whatver the YF-21 could do, the Ghost could too. They were hauling far more ass than is recommendable in an atmosphere, and they just danced in the flames untill one of them caught fire. And with the YF-21 being more aerodynamic, the Ghost went up first. Also possible is the Ghost just finally pulled more Gs than its frame could handle and it disentegrated. But all we KNOW on that end is that the YF-21 was pulling more Gs than its pilot could handle. And that's relatively low. Actually, he probably did ram it. That's why they show the BDI camera zooming so quickly in on the ghost right before you see the two little light trails "bounce" off each other with a shower of sparks. Ah. I missed that part. I blame the fact that UPS stuck my copy of the movie on a speaker or something. It's in pretty bad shape. It was a christmas gift, before you ask why I didn't return it. And it wasn't DVD because it was only VHS at the time.

I also recommend a new emulator. PSXeven is better than ePSXe.

Ouch. Well you're really gonna want an animated gif to get the full effect of Lucy's... "bounce" The ending? Guld rams the Ghost but to do so, he has to do way more G's than his body is capable and he gets all twisted up in a rather gory manner. Ghost flames out and the YF-21 hulk coasts off. I don't think he actually rammed it in the movie. I think he just forced the Ghost to start moving fast enough that its hull failed from the heat generated. That becomes a very real problem as you get going fast. The modern-day Blackbird has some very unique engineering designs to keep its wings from warping due to the heat generated at a relatively mild mach 3/80,000 feet(corrugated wing surfaces spring to mind). While we don't actually know how fast Guld and hte Ghost were darting around, we know that the YF-21 was capable of hitting mach 25 in a straight run, since it's capable of achieving orbit under its own power and mach 25 is escape velocity. If I recall, the YF-21 actually DID slip back out into space at the end of the fight. I assume that whatver the YF-21 could do, the Ghost could too. They were hauling far more ass than is recommendable in an atmosphere, and they just danced in the flames untill one of them caught fire. And with the YF-21 being more aerodynamic, the Ghost went up first. Also possible is the Ghost just finally pulled more Gs than its frame could handle and it disentegrated. But all we KNOW on that end is that the YF-21 was pulling more Gs than its pilot could handle. And that's relatively low.

No doubt the debris in the atmosphere would be an issue, but its not like every hulk would be on trajectories to fall through. Some would "skip" off the atmosphere... some would stay in orbit, some could well be vaporized (though the vapor IS still an issue). Any guestimate on percentages would be a WAG, but it woudln't seem to be anything but a very small number of ships that would get through to impact. And then then, they're more likely to hit water than just about anything else... No doubt cleanup was an issue, though. Well, a small # of 2 million ships is still pretty signifigant. Especially when some of them are coming down intact. I figure a lot of them were blown up, though. Some junk headed towards the earth, some away, some stuck in orbit. Hmmm... The orbital defense grid may have actually started as a way to prevent straggler impacts. Get the world up and running again, then launch satellites into orbit to blast any large chunks into smaller chunks so they burn up in the atmosphere instead of knocking a hole in some poor sap's house. Or just deflect it so it's headed out of the system. Debris showers on Earth and the moon were likely a problem for a long time after the battle, and the orbital debris would cause major problems with space travel. Meteor defense would've become a very big priority.

Beat me to the punch Graham! Just wondering but do you have any news on any new Valkyries? Not that you have to tell us what yet, if you aren't allowed to. But, just to keep us bouncing off the walls in anticipation (like telling kids "Yeah, I got you a present" but not giving any more info). My sources* have told me that the Stampede Valkyrie is next up on the list. *(said sources being the voices in my head. They keep screaming something about a winged gundam. I think this is what they're talking about)

Yes, but everyone knows that when the heroes nuke a city it means the producers REALLY don't like you. All the debris from Bodolzaa's ship exploding probably landed in Canada just out of spite. ... Actually, debris from the battle is a pretty valid concern. We know that zentradi vessels crashed into the Earth, some of them largely intact . And large objects hitting the Earth is generally a Very Bad Thing. The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was 10 kilometers wide. We know zentradi ships tend to be about 2-4 kilometers long. Granted that asteroids are solid and spaceships are hollow, but the fact that we have 1.8 million ships' worth of debris should be more than enough to make up for it. The only way ANYTHING survived on Earth is if a lot of the debris was moving away from the Earth(easy to swallow with the .8 million vessels hit by the Grand Cannon, somewhat less with everything else). Say 300,000 ships' worth of debris made it to Earth(debris from Grand Cannon vessels was completely deflected out by the force of the beam, and around a third of the remaining debris made it to Earth). That's still a mind-bogglingly large amount of crap polluting your once-beautiful homeworld. Physical impacts likely make up a good portion of this. These impacts were probably largely in the northern hemisphere due to the line of the attack(straight up the corridor opened by the Grand Cannon), but would have far-reaching consequences for the entire world. And this is discounting stuff kicked up by weapons fire. Hence why an atmospheric purification operation and nature reclaimation project were needed. Without them, the Earth was, at best, plunged into another ice age. More likely, the air was becoming so choked with debris that it wouldn't be breathable without a serious cleanup effort.

From the sega-dreamcast DYRL game-intro that was in Macross 20th anniversary DVD, the Earth was attacked while the SDF-1 (and/or at least the Skull Team) was still on Earth. --treatment-- Saturn, not Dreamcast. It was also ported to the Playstation.