The Newbie and Short Questions thread

[azrael]

Okay the idea behind this thread is simple, users tend to ask questions that are, for better words, either easy to find common knowledge or sound pretty funny. You don't want to look stupid and we don't want to have mod a bunch of little topics.

Examples:

"Whose that green haired lady?"

"What happen to Rick hunter?"

"Did Minmay kiss her brother?"

"Is this video from this country a bootleg?"

"What's with the Zentradi elf-ears?"

"Is there an official answer to <insert story="" or="" production="" trivia="" here="">?"

"Where can I find a copy of this <insert product="" here="">?"

"When will we see <insert product="" here=""> come out?"

"What are this things?"/"Where are these things?"/"Who are these things?"

"What <insert show or episode> did <insert event or item> show up?"

and other newbie or short questions like these post them here.

Ground rules

• It's only for newbie-type and short question/answer type questions about Macross.
• When someone post a simple question here hopefully one the more experienced posters will tell the newbie the answer.
• It's Question & Answer-format only. Nothing more.
• Newbies tend to be lazy and ask questions about everything. If you can point the newbie to the source it's better than just telling them the answer straight.
• If you see a newbie question about Macross somewhere else direct them here and their other topic will be closed/deleted.
• Search is a great tool.
• Useful links
• The Macross Compendium
• Mr. March's Macross Mecha Manual
• Newbie's guide to the differences between Macross and Robotech
• The Newbie and Short questions thread - Toy Edition
• Newbie thread, episode 2
  Newbie thread, episode 1
  

[tn_prvteye]

Okay, I've been wondering this for a long time, but I've been too embarrassed to ask. I can't take it anymore...I have to know.

What in the blazes are those HUGE shoulder pads for on the flight-suits? You know, the Yellow and Black striped things? I come from an aviation background, and, for the life of me, can't come up with a reason. I thought they might be flotation devices, but in Macross Zero, you can clearly see those in addition to the shoulder pads. I thought maybe some sort of Ejection Seat protector...like they come down to cover the arms during an ejection. But the VF-11 has a capsule, and the pilot still wears the shoulder pads.

I know that part of the fun in any sci-fi 'verse (be it Star Trek, Star Wars, whatever) is coming up with "realistic" uses for things that are obviously just there to "look cool". But I can't come up with anything for the pads.

And yes, I realize the absurdity of arguing over shoulder pads in a world with jet fighters that turn into robots.

[Seto Kaiba]

Okay, I've been wondering this for a long time, but I've been too embarrassed to ask. I can't take it anymore...I have to know.

Newbie Questions thread merge, here we come...

What in the blazes are those HUGE shoulder pads for on the flight-suits? You know, the Yellow and Black striped things? I come from an aviation background, and, for the life of me, can't come up with a reason. I thought they might be flotation devices, but in Macross Zero, you can clearly see those in addition to the shoulder pads. I thought maybe some sort of Ejection Seat protector...like they come down to cover the arms during an ejection. But the VF-11 has a capsule, and the pilot still wears the shoulder pads.

That's a very good question though... one I don't think we have an answer for. I know in DYRL they're shown glowing in the dark, presumably as some kind of rescue beacon/"watch me for safety" light. On certain fighters (mostly the VF-22 and the Macross II ones) the shoulder pads are used as part of the pilot's restraints, but that doesn't seem to hold true for most designs. On some suits, like the Macross M3 one and the Macross Plus one, they seem to be practically cosmetic (though I would guess they still glow in the dark). I'd guess the small and flat ones on the 2050s era suit are probably attachment points for EX-Gear, but the rest is kind of a mystery... it's also worth nothing that not ever design has them. Most of the ones in Macross 7 don't, nor do the VF-22's suit, the Feios's suit, etc.

Edited December 26, 2010 by Seto Kaiba

[tn_prvteye]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that's stumped! It's funny, I can rationalize almost any aspect of Macross technology to some degree...GERWALK mode, missile spamming, even hand-to-hand combat with a Capital Ship. But I'm totally irritated that I can't rationalize shoulder pads.

[eugimon]

The giant pointy helmet that restricts the pilot's field of vision always bugged me far more. It like when it came to the pilots gear UN SPACEY just contracted the work out to Oakley.

[tn_prvteye]

Maybe those huge helmets are needed to house the eye-tracking gear and the HUD? Yes, I know, even the F-35 HMDS is smaller...

Or maybe the UN Spacey is generating income by selling Oakley advertisements? Military budget's gotta be pretty high.

[taksraven]

Some people try too hard to reconcile fiction with reality.

Who cares?

Edited December 26, 2010 by taksraven

[eugimon]

Some people try too hard to reconcile fiction with reality.

Who cares?

Merry Christmas to you too.

[EXO]

Okay, I've been wondering this for a long time, but I've been too embarrassed to ask. I can't take it anymore...I have to know.

It's funny but that's exactly what the n00b thread is for. BUT since you decided to start a whole seperate thread, try giving it a title where it tells us what the subject is about. vague titles are not allowed here.

As for the shoulder pads, it's the 80's. Everything had shoulder pads. If it didn't, you bought shoulder pads and some velcro and BAM... instant 80's fashion. But I think the shoulder pads make as much sense as the rest of the DYRL flightsuit (Huge helmet, hard arm and lower leg harnesses) and it just became a Macross staple. That's why while I hate Macross Zero, I feel like it has the best flightsuit design in all of the series. I just call it the Low Viz Pilot.

[David Hingtgen]

Well, the fact that "no one really knows" I think excuses it from being in the noob question thread. It's not an "FAQ" type issue that half of the members here know off the top of their head like most stuff in that thread.

But the non-descriptive thread title is certainly an issue. Fixed.

[Talos]

Funny you should ask about the shoulder pads. They are a design element of the flightsuit that I'm not a big fan of, but I've thought a lot about why they have them. None of it's been officially stated, so we are left to our own conclusions.

You can see the pads used as lighting in DYRL, when Hikaru and Minmay are in the bowels of the ship. It would be sensible for a spacesuit to have something like that to aid in SAR efforts. The flightsuit from FB2012 (Seto can fill in the names for me, I don't have them with me at the moment, I'm typing on a phone), has them too, but restricted to a single band over the shoulder, without the massive pads. Why the Zero flightsuit has them, on the other hand, I would guess it is purely aesthetics. The whole "Macross look".

One of the neat things about Macross the First is that the deck gang working on the Prometheus is shown with a new spacesuit that incorporates the glowing bits all over, for visibility on the flightdeck.

I kind of like the touch of the Macross Plus and 7 helmet taking the annoying pointed part on top and making it transparent.

[Seto Kaiba]

The giant pointy helmet that restricts the pilot's field of vision always bugged me far more. It like when it came to the pilots gear UN SPACEY just contracted the work out to Oakley.

Eh... they sorted that in later generation suits, where the beak of the visor was made from clear plastic or some kind of OTM analogue for same. Either way, the pointy beak of the helmet is supposedly where they house the sensors for the optically-cued targeting system.

On examination of a few other sources, I would hazard a guess that the enlarged shoulders and the bulky bits around the lower legs house some of the machinery for the powered motion assist system that the DYRL suit supposedly had, and that subsequent models presumably had as well. That's just me having a shot in the dark though...

Edited December 26, 2010 by Seto Kaiba

[azrael]

Some people try too hard to reconcile fiction with reality.

Who cares?

Apparently someone does....Don'cha you know? Sci-fi fans have a hard time separating reality and fiction these days. Such sad state....

I kind of like the touch of the Macross Plus and 7 helmet taking the annoying pointed part on top and making it transparent.

Yeah, well, they brought the non-clear head thingy back in Frontier. But at least they stuck the eye-tracker in there...at least they're visible in the NUNS flight suit lineart.

[Talos]

Yeah, well, they brought the non-clear head thingy back in Frontier. But at least they stuck the eye-tracker in there...at least they're visible in the NUNS flight suit lineart.

Yeah, I know.

It wasn't one of the main characters using it (Isamu and Gamlin respectively), so I didn't mention it with the other.

[eugimon]

Eh... they sorted that in later generation suits, where the beak of the visor was made from clear plastic or some kind of OTM analogue for same. Either way, the pointy beak of the helmet is supposedly where they house the sensors for the optically-cued targeting system.

On examination of a few other sources, I would hazard a guess that the enlarged shoulders and the bulky bits around the lower legs house some of the machinery for the powered motion assist system that the DYRL suit supposedly had, and that subsequent models presumably had as well. That's just me having a shot in the dark though...

Yeah, I know it eventually got retconned into being something other than just a huge pointy helmet. I'm just talking about SDF:M and watching it waaaaay back in the day before any of that and thinking: no wonder they get shot down so much, they can hardly see anything that's not directly in front of them...

[frothymug]

Since nobody knows for sure, perhaps we can come up with some possibilities, just for the fun of it. How about the shoulders housing some sort of propellant for the pilot to be able to move him or herself in a certain direction while floating around in space after ejection.

[coreblocksystem]

Just finished watching SDF Macross and I realised that VF-1J (Hikaru) with the Super pack does not appear at all. Did I miss something?! I only noticed VF-1S, VF-1J (Max & Milla) and VF-1A with the Super pack in the TV series. Have I been misled by the various toy manufacturers all time?

This was only my 2nd viewing of the entire TV series. My 1st viewing was back when I was a kid so it was good to see heaps of little details that I never remembered or noticed.

[Gubaba]

Just finished watching SDF Macross and I realised that VF-1J (Hikaru) with the Super pack does not appear at all. Did I miss something?! I only noticed VF-1S, VF-1J (Max & Milla) and VF-1A with the Super pack in the TV series. Have I been misled by the various toy manufacturers all time?

This was only my 2nd viewing of the entire TV series. My 1st viewing was back when I was a kid so it was good to see heaps of little details that I never remembered or noticed.

Pretty much. The FAST Packs don't get introduced until after Hikaru gets the VF-1S.

[SkullLeaderVF-X]

I have a question. What is the theory behind Ex Gears, how do they supposedly work, effectiveness in atmosphere and the vacuum of space? Also if Guild had one on when he took the limiter of the YF-21, would it have lessened the G's, to were he could have possibly survived?

[azrael]

I have a question. What is the theory behind Ex Gears, how do they supposedly work, effectiveness in atmosphere and the vacuum of space?

Combination of manual controls, BDI, and AI. It's simply a powered armor that suppose to help the pilot survive a little longer than if he/she were in an escape pod or in a chair. It has a battery and chemical rockets so it will work fine in space.

Also if Guild had one on when he took the limiter of the YF-21, would it have lessened the G's, to were he could have possibly survived?

No. You're thinking of ISC. And the YF-21's inertia vector control system proved to be too costly and not very efficient which is why they built ISC.

[Seto Kaiba]

I have a question. What is the theory behind Ex Gears, how do they supposedly work, effectiveness in atmosphere and the vacuum of space? Also if Guild had one on when he took the limiter of the YF-21, would it have lessened the G's, to were he could have possibly survived?

's far as I'm aware, the EX-Gear doesn't actually play any (direct) role in the reduction of g-force loads. It's just a more advanced and precise control system that works by a mixture of conventional controls and monitoring nerve impulses in the pilot's muscles, and combines that with an advanced self-learning feature to memorize the user's habits for precision control. All in all, it's supposed to provide the sensation of "wearing" a variable fighter, while also doubling as an ejection seat and powered suit/EVA equipment. To put it succinctly, if Gundam's your thing it might be easier to think of the military version of EX-Gear as a core fighter you can wear. The only mention of it helping to reduce g loads I can find is that it supposedly automatically changes the angle of the seat to optimize the pilot's g-force resistance.

The civilian models (yes, plural) aren't nearly as full-featured, and presumably don't confer all of the benefits of military grade equipment (mostly notably lacking the self-learning function and having shorter operation times).

The system that's supposedly responsible for reducing the bulk of the g-force burden on the pilot and the airframe is the Inertia Store Converter, which apparently siphons off excess inertia beyond what the pilot and airframe can stand and converts it into "dimension distortion field energy" before slowly returning it to the plane at manageable (and survivable) levels. It's apparently the more capable cousin of the inertia vector control system used on the Q-Rau and YF-21/VF-22.

EX-Gear alone probably wouldn't have done anything for Guld...

Edited December 28, 2010 by Seto Kaiba

[SkullLeaderVF-X]

Combination of manual controls, BDI, and AI. It's simply a powered armor that suppose to help the pilot survive a little longer than if he/she were in an escape pod or in a chair. It has a battery and chemical rockets so it will work fine in space.

No. You're thinking of ISC. And the YF-21's inertia vector control system proved to be too costly and not very efficient which is why they built ISC.

The system that's supposedly responsible for reducing the bulk of the g-force burden on the pilot and the airframe is the Inertia Store Converter, which apparently siphons off excess inertia beyond what the pilot and airframe can stand and converts it into "dimension distortion field energy" before slowly returning it to the plane at manageable (and survivable) levels. It's apparently the more capable cousin of the inertia vector control system used on the Q-Rau and YF-21/VF-22.

EX-Gear alone probably wouldn't have done anything for Guld...

Ah thanks for the answers azrael and Seto. So the ISC is what protects pilots from the g forces. When did they start incorporating this into Valkyries? And what the heck is "dimension distortion field energy"? And is it known of how many g's a ISC can handle?

Edited December 28, 2010 by SkullLeaderVF-X

[Seto Kaiba]

Ah thanks for the answers azrael. So the ISC is what protects pilots from the g forces. When did they start incorporating this into Valkyries?

In the YF-24.

[azrael]

When did they start incorporating this into Valkyries?

They haven't. The VF-25 and VF-27 are the only ones that use it in production. However, current versions of ISC relies on fold quartz and fold quartz can only be, currently as of 2059, be produced and refined by Vajra, so widespread deployment has yet to appear.

[Seto Kaiba]

And what the heck is "dimension distortion field energy"?

Hell if I know... presumably something to do with fold waves or something like that, since fold quartz is what makes the ISC go.

And is it know how many g's a ISC can handle?

The early prototype handled 2G for ~5 seconds... the production model in the VF-25 apparently handles 27.5G for 120 seconds.

[SkullLeaderVF-X]

In the YF-24.

They haven't. The VF-25 and VF-27 are the only ones that use it in production. However, current versions of ISC relies on fold quartz and fold quartz can only be, currently as of 2059, be produced and refined by Vajra, so widespread deployment has yet to appear.

Thanks again both of you.

So then it's all still realitvity new. And since were freinds with the Vajra now, and it also appears they left the galaxy after MF. Is it safe to say that widespread deployment has been nixed?

[Seto Kaiba]

So then it's all still realitvity new. And since were freinds with the Vajra now, and it also appears they left the galaxy after MF. Is it safe to say that widespread deployment has been nixed?

Dunno... fold quartz is apparently something the Vajra mine from dead stars and process biomechanically using V-type bacteria. It's possible the New UN Spacy could find a way to refine the raw materials by themselves if they really wanted to.

[SkullLeaderVF-X]

Hell if I know... presumably something to do with fold waves or something like that, since fold quartz is what makes the ISC go.

The early prototype handled 2G for ~5 seconds... the production model in the VF-25 apparently handles 27.5G for 120 seconds.

I swear all this dimensional fold energy and fualts is getting too complicated. None of that in M+ or M7.

Still a 27.5 G is alot. Is that for both atmosphere and space?

Dunno... fold quartz is apparently something the Vajra mine from dead stars and process biomechanically using V-type bacteria. It's possible the New UN Spacy could find a way to refine the raw materials by themselves if they really wanted to.

True, but still I would assume it would be hard for the UN Spacy to mine a dead star like a Vajra.

[Seto Kaiba]

I swear all this dimensional fold energy and fualts is getting too complicated. None of that in M+ or M7.

Still a 27.5 G is alot. Is that for both atmosphere and space?

I would assume so, since it doesn't mention regime-specific performance for the system.

[azrael]

I swear all this dimensional fold energy and fualts is getting too complicated. None of that in M+ or M7.

The farther human ventured, the more faults they ran into while trying to fold (they aren't folding all the time). The longer distances they traveled, the more complicated folding became because they had to calculate for traveling around fold faults.

[SkullLeaderVF-X]

The farther human ventured, the more faults they ran into while trying to fold (they aren't folding all the time). The longer distances they traveled, the more complicated folding became because they had to calculate for traveling around fold faults.

I would assume so, since it doesn't mention regime-specific performance for the system.

Thanks again Seto and azrael, both of you for clearing my questions up.

Edited December 28, 2010 by SkullLeaderVF-X

[RedWolf]

I swear all this dimensional fold energy and fualts is getting too complicated. None of that in M+ or M7.

As much as we want to rationalize continuity and such Shoji Kawamori said that Macross isn't real and treats it as meta-fiction.

When we found that out its like SK is the Joker and said to us "Why so Serious".

We expect the Macross franchise to be one big plan only there is no as fiction is made by the creative juices of the makers. So there is no plan but one big Indie Ploy.

[sketchley]

In the YF-24.

If memory serves, it was the YF-24 Evolution, not the YF-24 (which had it as an external system, if at all; if memory serves).

Also, the EX-Gear serves double duty - it enhances pilot survival, but while serving as the control seat, it allows the pilot to perform control actions at higher G-loads. In short, it's how the Frontier Fleet compensated for the reduced-performance ISC that the Unified Forces disseminated to non-Earth/central command forces.

[anime52k8]

If memory serves, it was the YF-24 Evolution, not the YF-24 (which had it as an external system, if at all; if memory serves).

Also, the EX-Gear serves double duty - it enhances pilot survival, but while serving as the control seat, it allows the pilot to perform control actions at higher G-loads. In short, it's how the Frontier Fleet compensated for the reduced-performance ISC that the Unified Forces disseminated to non-Earth/central command forces.

so wait, "Evolution" isn't the name of the fighter but a variant?

[sketchley]

so wait, "Evolution" isn't the name of the fighter but a variant?

Yup

http://www.macrossroleplay.org/forums/index.php?topic=2264.msg39797#msg39797

(slight rearrangement of info)

The YF-24 family:

YF-24

Start of the development plan in 2040.

Shinsei Industry / General Galaxy

YF-24 Evolution

Approval of the plan to prepare for the adoption of this configuration in 2057.

Shinsei Industry

VF-25 Messiah

Start of the test run in 2059.

Shinsei Industry / L.A.I.

VF-27 Lucifer

The maiden flight of the prototype on December 11, 2057.

Guld [Garudo] Works

That's a good 17 years of development between start and finish; not to mention the discovery of the Vajra, the Fold Quartz they produce, and the technologies developed from fold quartz.

Why evolution? In short, ISC - which allows pilots to exceed G-loads that would turn them into pizza on the back of the cockpit without ISC. The next evolutionary step is the Stage II thermonuclear engines (have to power these high-tech gizmos somehow); think of it as the output being increased by an order of magnitude. Lastly, the switch to linear actuators.

Basically an evolutionary step forward.

If you're wondering where EX-Gear and cyborg pilots fit into this: the core kept the best ISC for themselves, and militaries outside of the core developed technologies to try and achieve the same or similar level of performance. If Frontier is EX-Gear and Galaxy is cyborgization, what other heretofore unrevealed technologies are developed by the other 60+ Super Long Range Emigration Fleets and untold numbers of Emigrant Planets?

Edited December 29, 2010 by sketchley