Hiriyu

You know, I never played SHII... My last sub sim was the original 688 Attack Sub back in '89 - CGA all the way . I hear that SHIII compares favorably to II, but this is heresay on my own part. The interface is great, perhaps excepting some of the key assignments, and German (as well as English) is available for both ingame audio and text, and may be mixed & matched. I use English text with German audio myself. You can add your own music files to the "grammophone" folder in .mp3 format, and have your radio man DJ for you, no mods required. A kind of nifty feature is that the interior, exterior and crew of your sub are rendered in full 3D, allowing you to move from station to station without taking shortcuts, although you can do that too. If you want to use the periscope, you walk up to it and click it. If you want to visit the Nav station or Sonar station, you do the same. If you want to take over on any of these stations yourself, you right-click the crewman manning it. It's a far cry from the sims of old where you were lucky to have perhaps two or three static stations to switch between. Besides all of that, the gameplay is fantastic IMHO, and the graphics are quite nice too. I think you'd dig it. ...And now back to our scheduled programming.

Looks interesting. I will have to check that out soon. Right now I'm engrossed in Silent Hunter III... If you enjoy WWII naval conflict, you'll love SHIII.

I would be interested in at least 2 or 3. This project has definite merit

I think that you are right... it must be your coloration that reminds me of him (the green and blue especially). Peter Maxx was not particularly known for his psychedelic mecha, after all

Very cool. That Inbit's got a very Peter Maxx/Terry Gilliam thing going.

Looks like an ARII 1/100 2-type. They're actually neat little kits

Side view...

With Stick and Houquet...

Nice pics Shiyao Here's a couple I just took:

Last NFS game I played was II, years ago, and the original before that. Having since done numerous real-life track events, autocross and timetrials, the arcade racing genre just doesn't do it for me anymore, though they can be good for just some plain fun with friends. Word to the wise, kids, real cars don't handle anything like the ones in these games Fans of simulation racing games should look out for Simbin's GTR FIA GT sim coming out stateside in the next few months

Winner

The VF-19Kai/F/S/P does not even feature those pipes on the underside of the chest. They are specific to the YF-19/VF-19A. Graham Correct, as they were found after extensive testing to emit lameness at such an extraordinary level that even Basara's singing would be lost in the noise .

Hey Haterist, Takatoys used to make the stickers you're after, dunno if you can still find them anywhere. I have some leftover red, black, green and blue Skull stickers if all else fails - maybe we could work out a small trade deal or sth .

chrono, amazingly beautiful work! I checked all of my books and materials (including the TIAS books) for any sort of trench detail to scan, but can find nothing of relevance. Your 'fabricated' trench looks good enough to suffice though. Please don't hesitate to ask if you need any other visual samples - I'm sure that we would all be more than happy to help. Keep up the excellent work!

Here's my routine for collapsing the MPC's arms together, which seems to work pretty well when transforming back to fighter mode - my blue, red and green versions all respond identically. Open forearm covers ~ 45 degrees (don't want to scratch the paint at the upper end of the forearm cover). Leave hands deployed. Collapse forearm/shoulder assembly - Make sure the two horizontal tabs are engaged into the shoulder unit. Squeeze them together slightly if needed, but be careful. Upper and lower arm sections should fit together pretty cleanly at this stage. As Lynx suggested, make sure that hip joints are in proper lower position. Then compress both legs simultaneously about half way. Engage the locking tab and hole that keep legs locked together in fighter mode. Then finish compressing the legs and make sure that the inner tabs locking the lower legs to the body are engaged. Eyeball the distance required for the tabs at the tip of the forearms to fit cleanly into the mating hole on the upper surface of the legs. When all is right, fit the tabs to the holes, making sure that the arms stay cleanly compressed. Deploy the tail fins, and then fold the hands into the forearms. Lastly, shut the forearm covers*. Rejoice in your alpha's clean lines (well, as viewed from the top at least ). *If the hands are fitted incorrectly, you will simply not be able to close the covers, and will not likely damage the hands in doing so. If the hands are folded in first, they can [and will] obstruct the mid-arm sections from collapsing into the forearms, resulting in unnecessary stress to the hands and failure of the arm units to close completely.

Cue: 'Blue Danube'

Yep Jenius, the diecast 2-changers and the very slightly smaller 3-mode toys are the ones I am referring to as 1/55-ish (not those horrid 1/72 cheapos, although they are marginally cool in that they are the only ones ever produced with the option for a Beta linkup, impossibly pricey though they may be). I too think that the original 1/35 are in a class of their own (I've got one too), but are not really directly comparable to the Toynami pieces either. Rated by size/scale, I stand by my comment

I think that Opus is on to something, with regard to one of his earlier posts in this thread. I believe that the leading cause for damage to the hands is peoples' tendency to try to compress the arms with the hands already folded up inside - the inner arm is pretty crowded, and this may lead to breakage. I've had good luck with compressing the arm first, and then folding the hand in last. None of mine have broken yet, at any rate. Good luck to the original poster on obtaining a replacement!

Owning all 3 of the released versions, I'd say that #2 is closer to the mark. To me, there is no discernable difference in construction or engineering between any of the available models. I think that the "quality" of one or another seems to depend largely upon luck of the draw. That said, I've been lucky with each of mine (all low production numbers), while others seem to have been less lucky. I still think these are a damn sight better than the next most comparable Legioss', those being the Gakken 2 and 3-mode 1/55-ish toys.

Hey TOONZ, Barring sending it in for replacement, you could use a very fine drill (say .090" - .100") and insert a small rod with a suitable interference fit to allow for rotation, without ungluing anything. Good Luck!

Actually, had the Macross not crashed, humankind would still have the Birdman to deal with at some point (whenever humans became a legitimate spacefaring species). No escaping the PC legacy... LMAO zentrandude

I did... Back on page 1

The real issue that most have with the Bangle/BMW relationship, myself included, does not necessarily lie with his overall designs, which would be fine for most any other marque (In fact, I rather liked his controversial early '90s Coupe Fiat design). The real issue for purists is his complete departure from BMWs well founded and traditional simplicity and subtlety in design, in favor of designs which would be perfectly acceptable were they installed on a new Pontiac (which ironically now shares almost the same corporate grille as the newer, morphed BMW fascias). No offense is intended or implied for enthusiasts of classic Pontiacs, which I regard as being quite cool .

YLM, too funny, that's Steve Kupper - I know him too Small world indeed.

I agree completely about Bangle, A7, though he was not directly responsible for the new 6's styling (though he was responsible for the IMHO ghastly looking E65/E66 and E60 cars). He's been bumped up the corporate ladder a bit, so his own "handiwork" may be a thing of BMWs past - though he will still have control over the direction of BMW styling. Not to defend the new Six, but the grille treatment in that picture was perpetrated after the fact . I'll happily keep my grey-market '79 635CSi, thank you very much. I've also got a few 2002s, and a couple E21 323i cars, one of which is a very rare Baur TC Cabrio. I don't need no stinkin' Bangles