No Love for Southern Cross?

[Podtastic]

4 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

You're reinstated.😄

[JB0]

24 minutes ago, Podtastic said:

You actually mean the Japanese audience doesn't give a toss.

Globally your statement isn't true. Its still a minority, but its not "nobody."

It isn't literally true in Japan, either. There's at least one person in Japan writing their fanfics into the Southern Cross Wikipedia article.

 

But both in Japan and globally, the Southern Cross fanbase is a rounding error. Too small to be statistically significant.

 

10 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Meantime: watching combat scenes in Southern Cross was almost as painful as passing a kidney stone. 

Good heavens. I've done one of those, and it was a very unfun night at the hospital.

[JB0]

16 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Same; I felt like I wanted to die, and the only thing that helped at home was sitting in a bath of very hot water.

I thought I genuinely WAS dying. Didn't know what the problem was, but I needed to pee and couldn't, had abdominal discomfort no matter how I sat or laid, and was throwing up sips of water. Southern Cross hits a body hard.

(Seriously, it came loose in the ER after the CT scan. But pissing out the backlog felt sooooo good.)

[Podtastic]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

eah, please do tell us all about the time Ray and Milene used the auricite to reignite City 7's sun and save Arkadia from the Protodevlin. Last I checked, Barara wasn't a member of Menudo, Gubaba didn't have a twin that he would do a stupid song and dance with about going to Arkadia, the Macross 7 wasn't a living ship shaped like a giant blue tortoise, and NO ONE had a bracer that deployed a crossbow on it in that series.

Watched the whole damn thing. But it was completely forgettable it was so crap.

There wasn't a single original character or mecha I wanted to collect.

47 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

eantime: watching combat scenes in Southern Cross was almost as painful as passing a kidney stone. Watching the Logan try to fight surpasses that pain by light-years, and watching Jeanne make a complete @$$ out of herself is enough to make one swear anime off forever.

I wasn't "watching the Logan try to fight", I was watching the Bioroids in action.

49 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Macross 7 is what brought me back into anime.

The worst Macross? Um...ok.

I absolutely hated it. Its not what I want to see in Macross, whereas the Frontier movies were.

13 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

So...maybe Southern Cross is the anime version of kidney stones?

Does someone on the Ammonite staff owe you money or something? Its not like Southern Cross is taking screen time from Macross or anything.

[Podtastic]

22 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

They lost against me in a Texas Hold'em Poker game.

Then you should love them.

You must mean they failed to pay up, in which case its completely understandable.😄

[CoryHolmes]

5 hours ago, Podtastic said:

You're reinstated.😄

[Seto Kaiba]

45 minutes ago, CoryHolmes said:

Off with your head. 😛 

We lost the axe, so we're gonna have to do this with dental floss.  Please hold VERY still.

 

11 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

In my head-canon, the Logan was designed exclusively to deal with the last few pockets of rogue Zentradi still around.  Given that their mecha are poorly maintained and very cheaply made, the Logan didn't need a lot of firepower.  It just needed speed and flexibility, which it had in spades while still being a relatively cheap mecha to produce.  Small, simple, and best suited for picking on targets that can't fight back as well.  It's just too bad that the Masters bioroids aren't as easily beaten

The Logan is about the worst thing you could possibly conceive of to fight the Zentradi.  It's smaller than they are by a good bit, it's like 80% cockpit so a center mass shot will kill the pilot dead, its weapons are too light to fight... well... anything, and the Zentradi rebels were wiped out in the early 2010s in Robotech and the rest shipped off into deep space in 2022.

 

11 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

As for the Hovertank, I've head-canoned that as being put into production before all the fancy 3D cockpits (a la YF-19) were finished.  Much like how the F-35 got put into production before that helmet was finished.  As a major assault mecha on a hopefully peaceful planet, getting that last kink straightened out seemed like a "we'll get to it" thing.  Remember the REF was supposed to neutralize threats before they got to Earth.  Again, the Masters kinda screwed that plan up

... wrap-around monitors weren't a thing in Robotech or Southern Cross though, and that doesn't really justify an armored fighting vehicle with a drivers compartment that's exposed to enemy fire from the front.  

While Robotech made it unambiguously canon that the Southern Cross Army was the military's dumping ground for incombustible garbage, I'd always privately suspected that the Spartas was literally designed to get its pilots killed or maimed in live fire exercises as a way of gently encouraging the worst offenders to leave the service voluntarily or in a free military issue permanent sleeping bag.

For Southern Cross, my assumption was more like that the Southern Cross Army was an all-flash no-substance chocolate box regiment meant to keep the bored colonist kids who would otherwise be causing trouble in one place and under adult supervision.  The series never really explains why the colonies bother to maintain armed forces at all, since there were no aliens in the setting and no known threats anywhere in the wake of humanity abandoning Earth after nuclear war ruined it.  Nor does it really offer a rational explanation - or any explanation at all - for why someone like Jeanne who all but lives in the stockade hasn't been punted out of the service on a bad conduct discharge. 

 

6 hours ago, Podtastic said:

You actually mean the Japanese audience doesn't give a toss.

Globally your statement isn't true. Its still a minority, but its not "nobody."

Considering how small the number is, even among people who like Southern Cross, it's statistically indistinguishable from zero.

 

6 hours ago, Podtastic said:

But I get the gist. Sadly there's too much obsession with earth humans in all of sci-fi fandom. By this I don't just mean the stories, I mean even when it comes to merchandise. Even if the alien figure comes with really stylish armour and the human only has a dirty sweatshirt, they still want the human.

It's almost like the audience are humans themselves and relate best to their own kind... who'da thunk it?

 

6 hours ago, Podtastic said:

I'm happy not to be a clone.😆

... there is some hilarious irony here in that you consistently agitate in favor of clones.

 

4 hours ago, Podtastic said:

The worst Macross? Um...ok.

... that's your opinion, let's not confuse it for fact or even fact-based.

[CoryHolmes]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Off with your head. 😛 

We lost the axe, so we're gonna have to do this with dental floss.  Please hold VERY still.

schiiiiiiiiing  THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

 

And I respectfully disagree with your assessment of the show.  You're allowed your version, Imma stick with mine.  Mine's better anyway

[Podtastic]

17 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's almost like the audience are humans themselves and relate best to their own kind... who'da thunk it?

Actually aliens (e.g. Protoss) are often presented as a more morally pure and relatable than many modern morally warped humans. 

17 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

.. that's your opinion, let's not confuse it for fact or even fact-based.

As is the opinion that Southern Cross isn't good. It does'nt matter how many tasteless fools hold an opinion, that's still all it is.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Podtastic

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, Podtastic said:

Actually aliens (e.g. Protoss) are often presented as a more morally pure and relatable than many modern morally warped humans. 

That's debatable, since many alien cultures in fiction tend not to share the same values, morals, and priorities as humans... which makes them less relatable to most audiences.

You could say that it boils down to moral "purity" and moral "relatability" not being the same thing... 

 

4 hours ago, Podtastic said:

As is the opinion that Southern Cross isn't good. It does'nt matter how many tasteless fools hold an opinion, that's still all it is.

No, I'm afraid not... because it is an objective matter of record that Southern Cross was a failure as a series.  Despite coming out at the height of the mecha genre's popularity and a favorable time slot previously held by highly successful shows, it bombed so hard and got such poor viewership numbers that its broadcast run was cut almost in half in mid-production, its merchandising partners abandoned it, and it failed to be vindicated by the reruns either in Japan or abroad.  Its reception abroad was only marginally better, and to be fair was mainly a result of association with better shows.  Even then, its reception as part of the Robotech series was still so overwhelmingly negative that merchandising for the Southern Cross portion was explicitly indicated to be not worth the effort by their licensees and it was even excluded from rebroadcast in some markets due to its poor ratings performance.

That's a pretty damned strong performance-based argument that it's not a good show.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Seto Kaiba

[JB0]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Even then, its reception as part of the Robotech series was still so overwhelmingly negative that ... it was even excluded from rebroadcast in some markets due to its poor ratings performance.

And then there was Cartoon Network's Mospeada-less run. Never figured that out.

[Seto Kaiba]

10 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

"Morally pure and relatable"? By whose "morals",  may I ask? If it's the audience's, then exactly how many planets have they destroyed right down to the biosphere? Or assimilated into a collective? Or captured and raise as food?

Last I checked, planetary genocide, the elimination of a species by transforming them into cybernetic grotesques, and relegating to the status of livestock are not morals normally held by humans.

Precisely.  Morality is fundamentally subjective, and varies from culture to culture... and fictional cultures are no exception to that.

What's more, the morality of fictional cultures is also under no obligation to even necessarily make sense to humans in-universe or out.  It only has to make sense to the characters following it in-universe.  Like, for instance, the Klingons in Star Trek.  Their definition of "honor" doesn't always line up with what humans consider "honor" or "honorable behavior" in many situations.  Or the Covenant in Halo, who follow an entertainingly wrong moral code derived from the hilarious misunderstandings of their cargo cult religion that doesn't see anything in particular wrong with genocide.

The one really distinctive thing Southern Cross's story had going for it was how utterly bizarre Zor society and culture is, and it's actually kind of a shame that the series never got to explore it in any depth.  (Assuming, of course, that Tatsunoko bothered to think about the implications when they based Zor society on the Ammonite staff's team structure.)

As a race of human-all-along "aliens", the Zor's culture is quite alien.  The trauma of the nuclear holocaust that sent Glorie into a nuclear winter and forced them to abandon it for Phi Eridani for centuries also compelled them to reengineer their entire society in distinctly inhuman ways.  They rewrote the entire concept of the individual in their society into a tripartite existence of identical triplets who constitute a single being, each dedicated to a separate part of rational thought (information, decision, and action).  Exactly how they arrived at that would've been a very interesting story to tell.  Their nominal pacifism is more explicable, as refugee survivors of a planetary apocalypse caused by war (twice over, considering they're descendants of colonial pioneers sent from Earth), though their hypocrisy in brainwashing people to fight on their behalf is less so.

[CoryHolmes]

On 4/7/2022 at 9:32 PM, pengbuzz said:

GIMME THE PRIZE!!!!

Maybe it's a kind of magic?

 

Argh, this is making me want to dust off my old Highlander fanfic and give it another go.

Edited April 9, 2022 by CoryHolmes
I'm dumdum.

[Podtastic]

An interesting fan design appearing in the upcoming Homefront RPG, posted on FB.

The Stealth Bioroid. Not sure about a giant mecha being stealthy, and dont care for the primitive claws, but I do like the look of ithe precision gunpod.

Seeing some of the new Invid and Bioroid variants they come up with will be interesting. With all the work the artist has to do I'm not realistically expecting the book to come out before August/September.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Podtastic said:

An interesting fan design appearing in the upcoming Homefront RPG, posted on FB.

The Stealth Bioroid. Not sure about a giant mecha being stealthy, and dont care for the primitive claws, but I do like the look of ithe precision gunpod.

That's not peak fanfic cringe, but it's up there.

Painting a 6m tall robot dark gray doesn't make it stealthy.  Nor does painting it black, or slathering radar-absorbent coatings onto a fundamentally unstealthy design.  You see this kinda thing a lot in fanmade designs, inevitably made by people who don't have a freaking clue how stealth works.

Stealth variant = dark paintjob seems to be a trope HG is really fond of, I guess.  They approved a "Stealth" paintjob for Battlecry that was just black, they had a "stealth" VF-1 toy that was also just a regular VF-1 painted black, and they tried to present the Alpha as a passively stealthy aircraft to the amused derision of almost everyone.

[pengbuzz]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's not peak fanfic cringe, but it's up there.

Painting a 6m tall robot dark gray doesn't make it stealthy.  Nor does painting it black, or slathering radar-absorbent coatings onto a fundamentally unstealthy design.  You see this kinda thing a lot in fanmade designs, inevitably made by people who don't have a freaking clue how stealth works.

Stealth variant = dark paintjob seems to be a trope HG is really fond of, I guess.  They approved a "Stealth" paintjob for Battlecry that was just black, they had a "stealth" VF-1 toy that was also just a regular VF-1 painted black, and they tried to present the Alpha as a passively stealthy aircraft to the amused derision of almost everyone.

As I recall, stealth also includes shapes that allow the craft to deflect radar back at an angle that doesn't allow the correct radar return to happen. An example is the F-17 Nighthawk, that had a faceted design with a tail section that took advantage of how radar works. The F-22 Raptor also has stealth tech and much of the craft's internal design is still classified.

I had to fudge quite a bit on my stealth valk design, as design considerations and design choices caused me to put some stuff that was not so stealthy, so I don't know it it truly qualifies. But at least I made some effort to try to get much of it to where it wasn't reflecting radar like a mirror ball!

That said though: paint job and coatings alone do not a stealth mech make.

[Seto Kaiba]

18 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

As I recall, stealth also includes shapes that allow the craft to deflect radar back at an angle that doesn't allow the correct radar return to happen. An example is the F-17 Nighthawk, that had a faceted design with a tail section that took advantage of how radar works. The F-22 Raptor also has stealth tech and much of the craft's internal design is still classified.

There are two basic kinds of stealth:

• Passive stealth, what most people think of when they think of "stealth technology", relies on a combination of specially-designing the shape of the craft so that as much of the energy from a radar wave is deflected away from the sending radar as possible and metallic powder-based paints that absorb electromagnetic waves in radar frequencies and convert them into heat.  It's absolutely not suitable for use on something like a giant robot, and is reaching the limits of its capabilities on conventional aircraft.
• Active stealth, which currently exists as an impractical experimental technology and in the realm of sci-fi, is a broad term for various technological macguffins that can be turned on or off that interfere with detection.  Macross's relatively realistic take involves active cancellation, the same basic principle used in noise cancelling headphones applied to radar waves.  More commonplace, but exotic, takes are things like cloaking devices, invisibility screens, thermoptic camouflage, and the like that render a craft invisible, warp space to make sensor beams pass around or through the craft, etc.

Basically, the entire idea of a "stealth" giant robot is pretty ridiculous on the face of it.  Giant robots are big, heavy things.  Even if you can literally turn one invisible like the Arm Slaves in Full Metal Panic!, it's still going to give its presence away the minute it moves because even if you discount motor noise a multi-tonne armored fighting vehicle walking, running, and jumping makes a LOT of noise.  Slathering one in radar-absorbent material won't do much because that's designed for active and semi-active anti-aircraft radars, which don't operate at altitudes of just a few meters, and it won't do a damn thing against beam-riding radar guided munitions launched by infantry.  There's no hiding a giant robot's approach either... a 6-18m tall man-shaped war machine walking around is going to be visible.  Over clear and level ground, visibility tops out at 4.5km for ground-level objects.  A giant robot is going to be visible much farther away to the naked eye at ground level, never mind elevated observers.  It's like having a building walk around, and painting it dark gray will only make it more conspicuous against the skyline and terrain.  A groundbound "stealth" giant robot like this supposed stealth Bioroid is like Grand Galactic Inquisitor from The Venture Bros... its approach to "stealth" is functionally equivalent to walking down the middle of the street screaming "IGNORE ME!" at everyone who looks at you.  Your at-best token attempt to be inconspicuous makes you MORE conspicuous, not less, y'know?

Then, of course, there's the problem that stealth technology wasn't a thing in Robotech until Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles when it was introduced as an ultra-advanced alien technology analogous to a REALLY limited cloaking device that didn't work in the visible spectrum.  Nobody had it except the Haydonites, who only shared it with humanity as a part of a secret test of character that humanity absolutely ****ing failed immediately, prompting the Haydonites to decide humanity had to go.

Throw-it-ins like this are basically telegraphing that the company making the new Robotech RPG is massively phoning it in.

[pengbuzz]

24 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

There are two basic kinds of stealth:

• Passive stealth, what most people think of when they think of "stealth technology", relies on a combination of specially-designing the shape of the craft so that as much of the energy from a radar wave is deflected away from the sending radar as possible and metallic powder-based paints that absorb electromagnetic waves in radar frequencies and convert them into heat.  It's absolutely not suitable for use on something like a giant robot, and is reaching the limits of its capabilities on conventional aircraft.
• Active stealth, which currently exists as an impractical experimental technology and in the realm of sci-fi, is a broad term for various technological macguffins that can be turned on or off that interfere with detection.  Macross's relatively realistic take involves active cancellation, the same basic principle used in noise cancelling headphones applied to radar waves.  More commonplace, but exotic, takes are things like cloaking devices, invisibility screens, thermoptic camouflage, and the like that render a craft invisible, warp space to make sensor beams pass around or through the craft, etc.

Basically, the entire idea of a "stealth" giant robot is pretty ridiculous on the face of it.  Giant robots are big, heavy things.  Even if you can literally turn one invisible like the Arm Slaves in Full Metal Panic!, it's still going to give its presence away the minute it moves because even if you discount motor noise a multi-tonne armored fighting vehicle walking, running, and jumping makes a LOT of noise.  Slathering one in radar-absorbent material won't do much because that's designed for active and semi-active anti-aircraft radars, which don't operate at altitudes of just a few meters, and it won't do a damn thing against beam-riding radar guided munitions launched by infantry.  There's no hiding a giant robot's approach either... a 6-18m tall man-shaped war machine walking around is going to be visible.  Over clear and level ground, visibility tops out at 4.5km for ground-level objects.  A giant robot is going to be visible much farther away to the naked eye at ground level, never mind elevated observers.  It's like having a building walk around, and painting it dark gray will only make it more conspicuous against the skyline and terrain.  A groundbound "stealth" giant robot like this supposed stealth Bioroid is like Grand Galactic Inquisitor from The Venture Bros... its approach to "stealth" is functionally equivalent to walking down the middle of the street screaming "IGNORE ME!" at everyone who looks at you.  Your at-best token attempt to be inconspicuous makes you MORE conspicuous, not less, y'know?

Then, of course, there's the problem that stealth technology wasn't a thing in Robotech until Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles when it was introduced as an ultra-advanced alien technology analogous to a REALLY limited cloaking device that didn't work in the visible spectrum.  Nobody had it except the Haydonites, who only shared it with humanity as a part of a secret test of character that humanity absolutely ****ing failed immediately, prompting the Haydonites to decide humanity had to go.

Throw-it-ins like this are basically telegraphing that the company making the new Robotech RPG is massively phoning it in.

Well...we could just paint it like an ice cream truck, right? 

[jenius]

11 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's not peak fanfic cringe, but it's up there.

Painting a 6m tall robot dark gray doesn't make it stealthy.  Nor does painting it black, or slathering radar-absorbent coatings onto a fundamentally unstealthy design.  You see this kinda thing a lot in fanmade designs, inevitably made by people who don't have a freaking clue how stealth works.

Stealth variant = dark paintjob seems to be a trope HG is really fond of, I guess.  They approved a "Stealth" paintjob for Battlecry that was just black, they had a "stealth" VF-1 toy that was also just a regular VF-1 painted black, and they tried to present the Alpha as a passively stealthy aircraft to the amused derision of almost everyone.

In Robotech, stealth could just mean it doesn't have a big 'protoculture signature' like the very stealthy shadow fighter.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 minutes ago, jenius said:

In Robotech, stealth could just mean it doesn't have a big 'protoculture signature' like the very stealthy shadow fighter.

As I noted previously, that is basically all stealth means in Robotech.

The problem with that, as also noted previously, is that the technology to actually achieve that stealthiness was explicitly the exclusive domain of the Haydonites and not shared with any outside power until the 2040s.  Even then, it was beyond the understanding of the top Human and Tirolian engineers and they literally had to take it on faith that it would work as described when it was given to them by the Haydonites (both times).  It wasn't something the Masters had.

[CoryHolmes]

Engh, anytime "reality" tries to mesh with "giant robots" and "giant transforming robots" I immediately give it a ginormous grain of salt.  My suspension of disbelief is already maxed out, why not add a bit more?

[Seto Kaiba]

12 hours ago, CoryHolmes said:

Engh, anytime "reality" tries to mesh with "giant robots" and "giant transforming robots" I immediately give it a ginormous grain of salt.  My suspension of disbelief is already maxed out, why not add a bit more?

It's one thing for something to be unrealistic by real world standards... we're all used to that suspension of disbelief in ANY mecha anime.

It's another thing entirely if the fictional setting's own internal rules also rule it out like it does here.

Robotech had not one but two original story arcs in its official setting - Prelude and the aborted Shadow Saga - built on the premise that the only viable stealth technology available was developed by the highly secretive Haydonites, and that their technology was so far beyond what any other power had experience with that it was considered impossible and a black box by the best Human and Tirolian engineers.  

[jenius]

You're buying into weak, easily abandoned canon in a genre known for abandoning canon way too much as a reason to dislike a drawing.

[DewPoint]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the association with the color black and stealth was caused by the Americans. I recall hearing back in the early 1990s that planes like the F117 and B2 were mandated to be black in color by Congress by way of budget approvals and the like. So in the following years, everytime hear about stealth planes and the like, we always see black painted vehicles associated with it.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, jenius said:

You're buying into weak, easily abandoned canon in a genre known for abandoning canon way too much as a reason to dislike a drawing.

Eh... it's not weak, easily abandoned canon so much as it is a difference in enforcement based on how much HG cares about the product's quality.

Back when HG was actually trying to be professional about it, their editorial policy towards the RPG license (then held by Palladium Books) bordered on draconian.  They were very strict about enforcing the canon on their licensees to the point that all of the "original" designs like this one, even ones Palladium created for the game's previous edition, ended up in the trash.  The reason it got a pass from the current publisher is they're not facing the same quality control measures now that HG's not trying to present the Robotech franchise as a viable property anymore.  If they ever decide to get serious again, you can bet your bottom dollar designs like that'll end up back in the trash for exactly the reasons I stated in previous posts.

(Expecting them to behave like the genre's professionals is... ah... asking a bit much of them.  Professionals have standards and behave predictably as a result.  These guys are ascended fanboy rank amateurs who desperately want to be mistaken for professionals and they're catering to a fanbase with more sacred cows than all of India.)

[Seto Kaiba]

4 minutes ago, DewPoint said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the association with the color black and stealth was caused by the Americans. I recall hearing back in the early 1990s that planes like the F117 and B2 were mandated to be black in color by Congress by way of budget approvals and the like. So in the following years, everytime hear about stealth planes and the like, we always see black painted vehicles associated with it.

The B-2's actually a low-reflectivity dark gray, though the F-117 was mandated to be painted black because it was intended for night flights only.  The F-117 being the world's first proper stealth aircraft, it kind of set the tone.  Many radar absorbent materials are dark gray because they contain, among other things, granulated iron.

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The B-2's actually a low-reflectivity dark gray, though the F-117 was mandated to be painted black because it was intended for night flights only.  The F-117 being the world's first proper stealth aircraft, it kind of set the tone.  Many radar absorbent materials are dark gray because they contain, among other things, granulated iron.

Not to mention it kinda helps if your stealth fighter isn't say white against a night backdrop. Still kinda dark, but tends to show up better, right?

[DewPoint]

True, but the the designers knew that black was not the best color for night operations. The Have Blue prototype was painted the way it was for a reason. It just doesn't have the same psychological effect.

[CoryHolmes]

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

These guys are ascended fanboy rank amateurs who desperately want to be mistaken for professionals and they're catering to a fanbase with more sacred cows than all of India.)

Hey!  I resemble that remark!

[JB0]

4 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Not to mention it kinda helps if your stealth fighter isn't say white against a night backdrop. Still kinda dark, but tends to show up better, right?

Story I heard is it was supposed to be painted kinda light-reddish, for low visibility during dawn and dusk operations. It wound up black due to statements that "real men don't fly pink jets."

[Big s]

4 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Story I heard is it was supposed to be painted kinda light-reddish, for low visibility during dawn and dusk operations. It wound up black due to statements that "real men don't fly pink jets."

No, light red is for extra speed, specifically 3x faster

[DewPoint]

So the "stealth" part happens because you end up leading the target far too much because it looks like it is going way faster than it is and thus end up missing?

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

No, light red is for extra speed, specifically 3x faster

And lots of windows?

[Big s]

23 minutes ago, DewPoint said:

So the "stealth" part happens because you end up leading the target far too much because it looks like it is going way faster than it is and thus end up missing?

The stealth ones are black, so you accidentally shoot it’s shadow 

[JB0]

19 hours ago, Big s said:

No, light red is for extra speed, specifically 3x faster

Ahhhh. Makes sense why they painted them black. Keeps them subsonic, since shockwaves are decidedly unstealthy.