The Newbie and Short Questions thread

[aurance]

On 10/23/2022 at 1:51 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Traveling by space fold doesn't entail any acceleration - or even movement - on the part of the folding ship.

Fold navigation is essentially a form of teleportation.  The fold system manipulates higher dimensional space using gravity control so that the volume of space containing the ship switches places with an equivalent volume of space at the destination.  Ships typically don't fold into or out of a planet's atmosphere because the gravity well of a planet can mess up the folding process and you're either teleporting a chunk of atmosphere into deep space or creating a massive region of vacuum that'll collapse inside the atmosphere with very destructive effect.)

Although it must be noted that this is depicted inconsistently; some episodes show teleportation, and others show fold space as almost a hyperspace-like phenomenon where they fly into the thing and out of the thing later.

[Seto Kaiba]

20 hours ago, RaisingCane said:

Interesting.  I wonder what niche it fills that isn't already occupied by the other known classes.

To be frank, I doubt the show's creators or the writers of Macross Chronicle thought it out even that far.

It's a background design, and most of those really aren't thought out in any detail at all.  They just are.  Many of them have no names, no description, no real known purpose aside from what they're shown to do in the series.

They're given boilerplate names on the rare occasion they appear in print material, unless they're part of some major merchandising push.  For instance, Isamu's VF-19 from the second Macross Frontier movie was originally just "VF-19 SMS Ver." in official materials until they decided to put it in greater prominence in the novelization and push a toy.  That got it promoted to having an actual backstory and designation.

 

20 hours ago, RaisingCane said:

Also interesting.  I wonder what they do have.

The 5th Generation Island Cluster-class emigrant ships are much larger than the previous generations of ship like the 3rd Generation City-class seen in Macross 7.  The many and varied support functions that previous generations of ship needed large auxiliary vessels for are built directly into the Island Cluster-class.

This is apparently a semi-new development at the time of Macross Frontier, since the 5th Generation ships themselves are relatively new and the Macross Galaxy fleet that has a 4th Generation Mainland ship still uses at least some auxiliary ships of the same types seen in Macross 7.  (Macross the Ride's final story arc kicks off with a raid on the Macross Galaxy fleet's Riviera-class resort ship, and it's mentioned in TV series material that they converted many of their auxiliary ships that previously made natural foods to factories to manufacture cheaper synthetic food.)

 

20 hours ago, aurance said:

Although it must be noted that this is depicted inconsistently; some episodes show teleportation, and others show fold space as almost a hyperspace-like phenomenon where they fly into the thing and out of the thing later.

It's worth noting that there is no actual change in how the mechanics of folding are described.

The visual effect for the ship's transition to higher dimensional space did change with newer animation tech, but the "gate" effect is shown to move along the length of the ship when the ship is stationary.  They're probably not actually "flying into" the gate so much as the gate is fixed relative to the ship and moving along its length, giving the appearance that the moving ship is flying into it.

[RaisingCane]

Didn't the ASS-1 crash because it was already careening forward when it de-folded?

[Master Dex]

12 minutes ago, RaisingCane said:

Didn't the ASS-1 crash because it was already careening forward when it de-folded?

There isn't a given reason for the crash but orbital dynamics can give us a guess.

We know the ship was damaged so likely it's sublight engines were dead already. It likely then defolded into an unstable orbit and gravity did the rest. I'd bet the crew was already dead and the ship has emergency folded right out from a battle with Zentradi.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, RaisingCane said:

Didn't the ASS-1 crash because it was already careening forward when it de-folded?

59 minutes ago, Master Dex said:

There isn't a given reason for the crash but orbital dynamics can give us a guess.

The ship is noted to have been approaching Earth at 5.88km/sec when it was detected by Space Station New Frontier, but whether that was because her engines were still lit or momentum that was conserved from before it folded out at lunar orbit is anyone's guess.

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The ship is noted to have been approaching Earth at 5.88km/sec when it was detected by Space Station New Frontier, but whether that was because her engines were still lit or momentum that was conserved from before it folded out at lunar orbit is anyone's guess.

Spoiler

So, if it crashed engines first into Earth, would have landed ASS-backwards?

 

[RaisingCane]

Did the ASS-1 have the "shoulders" before it crashed, or were they added later by the UN to give the ARMDs something to dock with?  The animation seems inconsistent.

Edited October 26, 2022 by RaisingCane

[Bolt]

ASS-1 probably didn't have "shoulders " before it crashed. More like a human design for the ARMD's to dock onto. 
Theoretically, it had another design that would be loosely similar in overall look , but have an entirely different function. 
 

Edited October 26, 2022 by Bolt

[JB0]

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's worth noting that there is no actual change in how the mechanics of folding are described.

I'm actually curious where the first actual description of how a space fold works actually was, though I don't doubt you in the least. Given the amount of depth the series has had in background material over the years, it was probably well before Frontier made fold mechanics an actual plot point. That was just the point at which an anime-only audience was exposed to these mechanics.

 

To an audience without access to the voluminous supplementary material, a space fold usually appears to be flying through fold space.

Certainly, though, the name "space fold" implies more than that, and the infamous first fold did look like a portal, with the sunny sky over the ocean visible where the Macross defolded, as though sunlight was still pouring through. But on the other hand, we know that the trip (normally) takes measurable time to the passengers inside the fold, so it isn't just a portal(and travel within the fold is illustrated as chromatic aberration in the original series, and a trippy CG rainbow tunnel in Plus). Also, rather than a visible portal, we see a light show on most folds.
This creates the implication that there's actually different KINDS of fold. Or that the fold from Earth to Pluto was embellished for artistic effect, or that it behaved differently because it was a clear malfunction of the system, or...

 

Too many words starts now!

 

Ill-informed speculation:

The big problem, to me, is that the "exchange of a volume at each end" explanation doesn't work well when the defold is non-synchronous. It causes a problem in one of two ways.

1. The volume of space that a ship folded to will arrive at the place it left some time after the ship gets there. Best case, it arrives instantly whenever the ship defolds. So there's essentially an undetectable mine sitting there where the vessel launched from, just waiting to go off at some indeterminate point in the future(a very long time in the case of, say, the Megaroad). Admittedly, this is a really good reason to not do folds in atmosphere, in addition to "we're hauling a huge bubble of atmosphere, ocean, and island with us". You'll do a lot less damage if a block of mostly-empty space suddenly drops onto an innocent vessel cruising through a place you folded out of years ago.

...
2. If the volume at the defold location arrives instantaneously while the ship takes decades to defold, you've created a trivial time travel mechanism, as the volume from the destination will arrive when the fold is initiated rather than when it is completed. In an illustrative example, the Megaroad's "destination volume" has ALREADY arrived at Earth even though the Megaroad herself won't be swapped into that space for many decades. She has pulled a chunk of space from the future into the present at the instant of fold initiation.

Since a fold swaps equal volumes, the transit is obviously bidirectional. Some unfortunate soul caught without warning in a ship's defold location will find themselves flung backwards through time into the past. Figure out how to start yourself at the "defold" side and travel to the "fold" side, and you can go back in time at will.  This shouldn't actually be hard, since the same fold drive generates both openings, apparently simultaneously.

The protoculture were horrified enough by the prospect of time travel to cover an entire planet with self-replicating murderbots to make sure no one actually DID it after they built a time machine(as is typical of the protoculture, this was in lieu of converting the time machine into a black hole). It seems probable that they wouldn't leave everyone with a potential time machine just sitting in their ship's engine room.

 

 

Warning! Unfounded non-canon explanation! No one should take this as fact!

Personally, I think it can be cleaned up consistently, though I doubt anyone writing for the franchise cares what I think.

A fold opens a portal into fold space as a ship enters the fold, and a portal out of fold space as a ship leaves the fold. Within fold space, all matter moves at a constant velocity. For undisturbed fold space, that velocity is ∞(or so close it doesn't matter). A fold in such conditions is, in fact, instantaneous and the fold just looks like a portal from point A to point B.

When fold space is stressed, that speed goes down, and a ship spends a measurable time traveling through fold space before arriving at the destination. In those scenarios, a fold just looks like a portal into fold space, because both portals are not open simultaneously, so you just get the flashy light effect instead.
And from THAT perspective, a better fold drive works like an improved suspension on a car, in that it allows faster travel over worse conditions. And the "zero-time" fold drives are just an ideal suspension that allows travel at maximum speed under all road conditions(I believe such a car is called an airplane).

A fold fault in this analogy is just an extreme stress in fold space.

 

 

 

Completely pointless sidenote:

I find it interesting that fold faults and fold-based time travel both wound up being present in the Robotech novelization years and years ago. I am pretty sure it was wild coincidence, but it is interesting nonetheless.

[Seto Kaiba]

14 hours ago, JB0 said:

I'm actually curious where the first actual description of how a space fold works actually was, though I don't doubt you in the least. Given the amount of depth the series has had in background material over the years, it was probably well before Frontier made fold mechanics an actual plot point. That was just the point at which an anime-only audience was exposed to these mechanics.

Yeah, the first descriptions of how fold navigation work go back to the original series-era materials.

The creators of Macross were sci-fi fans and didn't hesitate to throw in the occasional nod here and there to their other favorites like Star Trek, Star Wars, Gundam, Yamato, etc.  Its choice of FTL mechanics seems to be based on the Holtzman drives of Dune, which either originated or at least popularized the idea of folded-space teleportation using a higher dimension as a means of getting about the universe quickly.  Terms like "Fold space" and so on were coined there.

 

14 hours ago, JB0 said:

To an audience without access to the voluminous supplementary material, a space fold usually appears to be flying through fold space.

Sort of... the ships usually aren't actually drawn moving... we just see a lot of fancy lighting effects surrounding it on almost every occasion.

One of the few occasions where a folding ship was depicted as actually moving in some way during a fold jump was the zero-time fold jump Michael Blanc took to get to Gallia IV.

 

14 hours ago, JB0 said:

Certainly, though, the name "space fold" implies more than that, and the infamous first fold did look like a portal, with the sunny sky over the ocean visible where the Macross defolded, as though sunlight was still pouring through. But on the other hand, we know that the trip (normally) takes measurable time to the passengers inside the fold, so it isn't just a portal(and travel within the fold is illustrated as chromatic aberration in the original series, and a trippy CG rainbow tunnel in Plus). Also, rather than a visible portal, we see a light show on most folds.
This creates the implication that there's actually different KINDS of fold. Or that the fold from Earth to Pluto was embellished for artistic effect, or that it behaved differently because it was a clear malfunction of the system, or...

In practice, it's art evolution... the light show has changed as animation technology has improved and allowed for more impressive visual effects.  Even the new versions do carry over the traits of the old ones, like the ships glowing as they enter fold space (though they do so gradually instead of all at once now) or the fold effect going beyond the physical bounds of the ship itself and being able to carry objects outside the ship along with it that becomes a plot point in both Macross 7 and Macross Frontier.  

Of course, you could say that that first and most bombastic space fold is an example of those traits being taken to the extreme since the Macross's first and only fold jump saw it take a chunk of atmosphere, ocean, and planetary crust with it.  EVERYTHING in the bounds of the fold effect gets taken along for the ride... even the photons making up the light moving through that region of space.  Mind you, it is also slowed down for drama's sake.

 

14 hours ago, JB0 said:

The big problem, to me, is that the "exchange of a volume at each end" explanation doesn't work well when the defold is non-synchronous. It causes a problem in one of two ways.

Much like the space folds in Dune, fold accidents are a thing in Macross complete with a similar remark about early fold systems being unreliable enough that ships tended to go missing every so often.  Of course, we also know from a few isolated incidents that when something does go horribly awry the folding ship is usually either destroyed (which, I'd assume, probably undoes the fold) or is knocked out of fold space which somehow resolves the fold jump.

 

14 hours ago, JB0 said:

The protoculture were horrified enough by the prospect of time travel to cover an entire planet with self-replicating murderbots to make sure no one actually DID it after they built a time machine(as is typical of the protoculture, this was in lieu of converting the time machine into a black hole). It seems probable that they wouldn't leave everyone with a potential time machine just sitting in their ship's engine room.

Mind you, the possibility of using a fold system to accomplish time travel is implied to be possible in Macross Zero... though it may require fold quartz and some special changes to the fold system or at least the math it's operating on.  The Protoculture don't seem to have realized it could do that until their civilization was on its last legs though, by which point the ship had long since sailed regarding widespread adoption of fold technology.

 

 

14 hours ago, JB0 said:

I find it interesting that fold faults and fold-based time travel both wound up being present in the Robotech novelization years and years ago. I am pretty sure it was wild coincidence, but it is interesting nonetheless.

Probably a product of Luceno and Daley borrowing heavily from Star Wars and Dune in that particular set of novels.

[Seto Kaiba]

Of course, when it comes to space folds the sticky wicket is that we know in general terms how it works and we know the "why" of various things like the difference in how much time passes aboard ship vs. in realspace during fold navigation, but the exact mechanism by how they exchance the two different sets of coordinates in higher dimensional space is never described in any detail.

I'm sure if someone were to ask how it works, we'd get a nonanswer like "it works very well".

My best guess, based on the onscreen depictions, is that the higher dimension space the relative coordinates of the destination are either pulled all the way back to overlap the ship's relative coordinates and it then rides that space as it springs back into place or that there's an accordion-like motion going on where the ship is repeatedly smashing two sets of fold space coordinates into each other and riding the exchange from one end to the other as the points overlap.  The latter would explain how it's possible to run into a fold fault mid-fold without seeing the spike in energy requirement at the start.

[pengbuzz]

8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Sort of... the ships usually aren't actually drawn moving... we just see a lot of fancy lighting effects surrounding it on almost every occasion.

One of the few occasions where a folding ship was depicted as actually moving in some way during a fold jump was the zero-time fold jump Michael Blanc took to get to Gallia IV.

I remember in Macross Plus when Isamu took the YF-19 into fold to get to earth, the craft looked like it was moving in foldspace:

At 32:13 in this video shows what I mean. Not trying to debate you on this Seto, but I'd like your opinion on that part.

[JB0]

Space folds: they work like they need to.

[RaisingCane]

I'm still unclear on what fold faults are and what fold quartz is for.  I've seen Frontier and Delta and I still don't entirely get it.

[Seto Kaiba]

8 hours ago, JB0 said:

Space folds: they work like they need to.

Like tachyons and reversing the polarity!

 

3 hours ago, RaisingCane said:

I'm still unclear on what fold faults are and what fold quartz is for.  I've seen Frontier and Delta and I still don't entirely get it.

Fold faults are a kind of anomaly found in higher dimension space (AKA "fold space").  They're regions of distorted/discontinuous higher dimension spacetime that interfere with fold navigation and fold communications.  You could say they're the higher-dimension equivalent of a reef or a pothole in terms of navigational hazards.  In principle, they're quite similar to the distorted spacetime that barrier systems produce for defensive purposes, but (mostly) naturally-occurring and entirely confined to higher dimensions.  Exactly what causes them is unclear, but they were/are a major obstacle to creating an interstellar civilization because of the challenges they pose for maintaining communications and travel between star systems.  

Fold communications can be delayed, distorted, or totally disrupted depending on the size and severity of the fold fault(s) in the path of the transmission.  The New UN Gov't tries to work around this problem by outfitting emigrant fleets with extremely powerful fold wave communications systems and having them deploy relay pods to route signals around areas with intense fold faults.  Fold navigation across a fold fault has its own, much worse, problems.  The least of a ship's worries when trying to cross a fold fault during a fold jump is that, if the fault is mild enough to cross, the fold jump will take longer and the error in time measurement between the ship and clocks in realspace greatly increases.  For instance, on Sheryl and Alto's trip to Gallia IV in Macross Frontier, a fold jump that Leon notes would have been almost instantaneous in favorable conditions instead takes hours (from the ship's perspective) and the faults add over a week to the time that passed in realspace during the jump.  Other potential complications are more life-threatening.  Fold faults require a great deal more energy to cross (when they can be crossed at all), which can lead to ships running out of power and becoming trapped in fold space.  Crossing a severe fold fault can damage or even destroy the folding ship.  Lucky ones might be able to drop back into realspace heavily damaged like Megaroad-04 did when it hit the faults surrounding Windermere IV.  Unlucky ones... well... they're simply never heard from again.

The safest way to deal with fold faults is to simply avoid them, either by calculating a jump that doesn't cross any or multiple jumps that use the downtime between jumps to cut across the fault's equivalent coordinates in realspace.

 

Fold quartz is an improved/purer form of fold carbon that the Vajra synthesize biologically and the Protoculture later learned how to create synthetically.  You could say that it's the key to perfecting fold technology.

Fold carbon is an exotic material that is essential for technologies that interface with higher dimensional spacetime (fold space).  It occurs in nature as a byproduct of supernovae and as a biological product of certain life forms that have evolved to be capable of fold navigation like galactic whales and the Vajra.  Most of the fold carbon in technological use is synthetic.  It serves two main purposes: it's the fold wave equivalent of a radio crystal and it's also used as a catalyst to produce a type of ultra-high mass exotic matter referred to as "heavy quantum" that is used for gravity manipulation in things like gravity control systems, thermonuclear reactors, thermonuclear weapons, fold systems, and dimensional beam weaponry.  The purity of the fold carbon affects the quality of the fold waves and heavy quantum it can produce.

Fold quartz, as an ultra-pure form of fold carbon, produces fold waves that are unimpeded by fold faults and other distortions of higher dimensional spacetime and also produces heavy quantum that exerts MUCH more force than the kind produced by fold carbon.  Enough so that a fold system outfitted with fold quartz can cross fold faults without risk and without any disparity between ship time and realspace time, and applying the heavy quantum it produces to a reaction warhead or dimensional beam weapon produces black hole-like gravitational effects that pull matter into fold space (the "dimension eater" and "MDE" weapons of Frontier.)

[JB0]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Like tachyons and reversing the polarity!

Ayup!

[TG Remix]

Something I've always been confused about is the notion that Gerwalks are pretty much useless in space. Granted in the TV series itseld they don't do much, but I like how they're used in DYRL, where it's more or less used as anchors for the Valkyrie to stop itself since there's no wind resistance in space. Maybe it's one of those technical movie-only things like how the VT-1 could land in water with no issue, but the Gerwalk is honestly a unsung/overlooked iconic part of the issue and it's mildly annoying when they pass it off. 

 

And speaking of the VF-1, I don't know if I missed something, but it seems like they're one of, if not the only Valkyrie model that has it's head turrets be able to turn instead of being fixed, much less being the turret under the canopy in Fighter Mode. I get the ones from the VF-11-onwards are useful for its blind spots, but at the same time it probably could also be useful as a quick-thinking weapon if a gun pod isn't available

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, TG Remix said:

Something I've always been confused about is the notion that Gerwalks are pretty much useless in space. Granted in the TV series itseld they don't do much, but I like how they're used in DYRL, where it's more or less used as anchors for the Valkyrie to stop itself since there's no wind resistance in space. Maybe it's one of those technical movie-only things like how the VT-1 could land in water with no issue, but the Gerwalk is honestly a unsung/overlooked iconic part of the issue and it's mildly annoying when they pass it off. 

To be fair, they actually have a pretty good point when they say GERWALK mode has very limited utility in space.

VFs have high-thrust verniers and/or thrust reversers that can do the same job of rapidly decelerating the aircraft much more efficiently than changing to GERWALK mode.

 

3 hours ago, TG Remix said:

And speaking of the VF-1, I don't know if I missed something, but it seems like they're one of, if not the only Valkyrie model that has it's head turrets be able to turn instead of being fixed, much less being the turret under the canopy in Fighter Mode. I get the ones from the VF-11-onwards are useful for its blind spots, but at the same time it probably could also be useful as a quick-thinking weapon if a gun pod isn't available

Pretty much.

The Macross II timeline's VF-4 Siren was eventually upgraded with a monitor turret similar to the VF-1S's, but it's one of the few examples with a monitor turret like that outside of the VF-1 and models directly related to its development like the VF-0 and VF-3000.

On the occasions the topic is discussed, books like Macross Chronicle and Variable Fighter Master File suggest that the VF-1's single 5,000kW laser cannon was considered to be insufficiently powerful as an offensive weapon.  2nd Generation VFs either went with fixed-forward lasers and particle beam guns (e.g. the VF-4, VF-9) or a single rear-facing laser gun for blind spot coverage (e.g. the VF-5000).  That trend continued into the 3rd Generation main fighter designs until the late 3rd Gen VF-17 opted to have both rear-facing laser guns and fixed-forward guns at the same time.  That approach became the standard in the 4th Generation and forward, though even then the gunpod remains the most powerful gun and thus the option with the highest probability of scoring a kill esp. against well-armored foes.

[aurance]

On 10/27/2022 at 4:58 AM, pengbuzz said:

I remember in Macross Plus when Isamu took the YF-19 into fold to get to earth, the craft looked like it was moving in foldspace:

At 32:13 in this video shows what I mean. Not trying to debate you on this Seto, but I'd like your opinion on that part.

They do move all “hyperspacy” plenty of other times on screen as well. Yes I know Seto, documentation says teleport yada yada. 😉

[RaisingCane]

Anyone else ever noticed that the VT-1 doesn't fold its vertical stabilizers in GERWALK or battroid mode?

[SebastianP]

3 hours ago, aurance said:

They do move all “hyperspacy” plenty of other times on screen as well. Yes I know Seto, documentation says teleport yada yada. 😉

It wouldn't be the first time that the footage directly contradicts the documentation. 

Of the fold operations where we see it from "within" so to speak, we have:

SDFM: SDF-1's fold to Pluto - took a few seconds, but it's like the second shortest fold trip shown.

SDFM: Britai's flagship folding to wherever Bodolza was - this took long enough for Misa and Hikaru to comment on how far they must be going because of how long they were in fold space. IIRC they were in fold space for *hours*?

MAC+: The YF-19 folding from Eden to Earth - took at least several minutes.

MAC7: I don't remember if we're shown any onboards during the fold ops in the show, it's been so long since I watched it.

MACF: All the Folds appear to take at least some time, except for when someone is tagging along with the Vajra folding as they appear to be teleporting. There's even a scene during the long range fold with an updated version of the superimposed image effect applied when Canaria is talking about them being in fold space during the long range fold after they blast the Vajra with Battle Frontier's main gun.

MACD: We're repeatedly shown folding takes some time, as ships enter fold space.... then there's a scene either elsewhere or on board... and then they exit fold space. Except the super fold gates generated by the Brisingr Cluster portal network used by Windermere and the 2nd movie people. 

 

 

[JB0]

4 hours ago, RaisingCane said:

Anyone else ever noticed that the VT-1 doesn't fold its vertical stabilizers in GERWALK or battroid mode?

I think I DID notice that before! It actually bugged the heck outta me.

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

It wouldn't be the first time that the footage directly contradicts the documentation. 

Of the fold operations where we see it from "within" so to speak, we have:

SDFM: SDF-1's fold to Pluto - took a few seconds, but it's like the second shortest fold trip shown.

SDFM: Britai's flagship folding to wherever Bodolza was - this took long enough for Misa and Hikaru to comment on how far they must be going because of how long they were in fold space. IIRC they were in fold space for *hours*?

MAC+: The YF-19 folding from Eden to Earth - took at least several minutes.

MAC7: I don't remember if we're shown any onboards during the fold ops in the show, it's been so long since I watched it.

MACF: All the Folds appear to take at least some time, except for when someone is tagging along with the Vajra folding as they appear to be teleporting. There's even a scene during the long range fold with an updated version of the superimposed image effect applied when Canaria is talking about them being in fold space during the long range fold after they blast the Vajra with Battle Frontier's main gun.

MACD: We're repeatedly shown folding takes some time, as ships enter fold space.... then there's a scene either elsewhere or on board... and then they exit fold space. Except the super fold gates generated by the Brisingr Cluster portal network used by Windermere and the 2nd movie people. 

None of that actually contradicts the documentation.

It's said that in ideal conditions, short range fold navigation is nearly instantaneous... and the series franchise actually bears this out at several points (esp. Zomd and Goran using it to teleport around).

Vrlitwhai's ship folding to join the main fleet was a fold jump of several hundred to several thousand light years, which isn't short range and from what was added later likely passes through several areas of fold fault activity that make the trip take longer.

The fold booster used in Macross Plus is noted to be a very poor-quality fold system, all things considered, as it is designed to be one-way use and disposable.  Its performance is inferior by far to a shipboard fold system.

The titular emigrant ship in Macross Frontier undertakes only long-distance fold jumps in the series, and through areas of heavy fault activity.  It is also explicitly acknowledged in the series (by Leon) that folding short distances is nearly instantaneous without fold faults mucking it up (in reference to the trip to Gallia IV).

In Macross Delta, we're also usually shown relatively long-distance fold jumps of hundreds of light years.  The short-distance ones we see are done offscreen, like the trip from Al Shahal to Ragna.  (The Brisingr cluster is also noted to be an area of heavy fault activity, esp. near Windermere IV.)

 

9 hours ago, RaisingCane said:

Anyone else ever noticed that the VT-1 doesn't fold its vertical stabilizers in GERWALK or battroid mode?

It's because of a change in the airframe shape in the VT-1 and VE-1 to accommodate the full tandem cockpit.

[RaisingCane]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's because of a change in the airframe shape in the VT-1 and VE-1 to accommodate the full tandem cockpit.

Didn't the VF-1D already have a full tandem cockpit?

[SebastianP]

34 minutes ago, RaisingCane said:

Didn't the VF-1D already have a full tandem cockpit?

The VF-1D did have a full tandem cockpit and a fat spine, and did have fins that folded... but I think the problem is that the tail can't fold down enough to accept the super parts while still looking decent unless you don't fold the fins. I can imagine this being caught when someone was playing around with kitbashing the 80s Takatoku toys to verify that the configurations designed for the movie worked, and then not being able o make the super parts look good on a twin seater unless the fins were unfolded. 

Notably, the spines are not the same on the VF-1D and VT-1, because entire sprue where the forward fuselage and top of the center fuselage is a different one in each kit (the VT-1/VE-1 kit also contains the wings, and does *not* contain a new bottom for the center fuselage. The scans at 1999.co.uk aren't good enough quality to figure out what the differences actually are on the parts though, except for the extra antenna blisters on the wingtips for the VT-1/VE-1. 

Basically, all the largest parts of the two kits are different. except the halves of the lower legs. 

(Edit: and on the Hasegawa kits, don't think you can put the VF-1 super parts on the VE-1/VT-1 anyway because the connectors are oriented differently as it *still* doesn't fold down the same amount. I'd have to check the actual kits which I don't own at present to verify though). 

Edited October 29, 2022 by SebastianP

[Seto Kaiba]

30 minutes ago, RaisingCane said:

Didn't the VF-1D already have a full tandem cockpit?

Sort of.  The VF-1D's tandem cockpit was an improvised design that made room for the second seat by removing a lot of the escape and survival equipment in the rear of the one-man cockpit block.  This made it unsafe to operate in space.

The VT-1 Ostrich has an enlarged cockpit space with an elevated second seat so the instructor has full visibility and the full suite of escape and survival options for both pilot and instructor.  Making this all fit required some changes to the shape of the nose block and lower chest plate, which in turn necessitated some changes to how the "backpack" folds.

[TehPW]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Sort of.  The VF-1D's tandem cockpit was an improvised design that made room for the second seat by removing a lot of the escape and survival equipment in the rear of the one-man cockpit block.  This made it unsafe to operate in space.

The VT-1 Ostrich has an enlarged cockpit space with an elevated second seat so the instructor has full visibility and the full suite of escape and survival options for both pilot and instructor.  Making this all fit required some changes to the shape of the nose block and lower chest plate, which in turn necessitated some changes to how the "backpack" folds.

and this *was* a IRL circumstance (how the super parts would not fit on a VT/E frame)? Because wouldn't it (IG) be easier ON the airframe to just change it (either enlarge or lengthen the front & back sections)?

[Seto Kaiba]

36 minutes ago, TehPW said:

and this *was* a IRL circumstance (how the super parts would not fit on a VT/E frame)? Because wouldn't it (IG) be easier ON the airframe to just change it (either enlarge or lengthen the front & back sections)?

The problem there lies with how the structure of the cockpit interfaces with the rest of the aircraft.  Lengthening the cockpit would make the Battroid mode taller and the midsection longer, because the "hips" are actually on the sides of the nosecone.

[kajnrig]

I'm pretty sure I've asked this before, but

Does the VF-1X Valkyrie Plus feature any external/visual differences from standard VF-1s? Or is it all internal?

[Seto Kaiba]

11 hours ago, kajnrig said:

I'm pretty sure I've asked this before, but

Does the VF-1X Valkyrie Plus feature any external/visual differences from standard VF-1s? Or is it all internal?

Depends who you ask... and whether you're counting the Double Plus version.

The VF-1X in Variable Fighter Master File does have some subtle structural and detail differences from the stock VF-1A Valkyrie (Block 6+ type), but most of the differences are "under the hood" so to speak.

Being primarily a video game design, the VF-1X in Macross Digital Mission VF-X and Macross VF-X2 isn't really rendered in enough detail to look noticeably different from a regular VF-1.  The VF-1X++ seen in Ranka's concert in the second Macross Frontier movie is only seen in Fighter mode but looks no different from a regular VF-1.

 

[RaisingCane]

If the VF-1 was already a match for any Zentradi mecha, the VF-31 must far outclass anything they can send against the NUNS now.  Right?

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, RaisingCane said:

If the VF-1 was already a match for any Zentradi mecha, the VF-31 must far outclass anything they can send against the NUNS now.  Right?

One on one, yes... but the reason the Zentradi remain an existential threat to Humanity is that they're practically never going to be fought on a level playing field. 

It's never just the one Zentradi soldier.  It's him and anywhere from several thousand to several billion of his best mates.

The VF-1 Valkyrie supposedly had an average K/D ratio of 12:1.  The (New) UN Forces could expect to lose one Valkyrie for every twelve Battle Pods or Battle Suits downed.  That ratio improved a bit after the First Space War as improvements were made to the VF-1's technology and armaments and grew at a more brisk rate as newer, more capable models were introduced.  In its discussion of the historical events leading up to Project Super Nova, Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur mentions that the VF-11A/B Thunderbolt had an expected K/D ratio of up to 25:1 against the Zentradi.  It's also noted therein that this was initially considered satisfactory until a run-in with a smallish Zentradi main fleet resulted in the total loss of a New UN Spacy defense force and the planet Spica III in 2037, prompting Project Super Nova.  Variable Fighter Master File: VF-25 Messiah relates an anecdote about a rescue mission to save a ship from the Macross Valiant fleet that accidentally defolded in the middle of a Zentradi main fleet during which a force of 37 NUNS VF-25s and 3 SMS VF-25s operating from a single carrier scored 482 kills in a six hour period without a single loss while providing cover for the rescue of 1,200 civilians and one dog.  (Yes, the dog is significant to the narrative.)

EDIT: It should also be noted that Master File asserts this was a new record for a single engagement at the time, that 27 of the 40 pilots had never seen live combat before, and that all 40 were subsequently decorated for their heroism.

Of course, even if you're capable of a 25+ to 1 kill ratio if your forces only have a few hundred to a few thousand Valkyries like most emigrant government forces you're still coming up quite short against a main fleet.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Seto Kaiba

[RaisingCane]

Did they broadcast Minmay during the battle?

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, RaisingCane said:

Did they broadcast Minmay during the battle?

The one in the VF-25 Master File?  No.  It was a rescue operation launched on the spur of the moment by a NUNS ship observing the Macross Valiant fleet's emergency fold away from a Zentradi main fleet it'd found in its immediate vicinity.  The carrier Barbarossa and its fighters were operating under ECM in an attempt to remain undetected by as much of the Zentradi main fleet as possible while carrying out the rescue of the environment ship Sentosa's 1,200 crew and passengers and the subsequent destruction of the Sentosa by MDE warhead to prevent any possibility of intel on humanity falling into Zentradi hands.

[TehPW]

On 10/31/2022 at 1:45 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

The one in the VF-25 Master File?  No.  It was a rescue operation launched on the spur of the moment by a NUNS ship observing the Macross Valiant fleet's emergency fold away from a Zentradi main fleet it'd found in its immediate vicinity.  The carrier Barbarossa and its fighters were operating under ECM in an attempt to remain undetected by as much of the Zentradi main fleet as possible while carrying out the rescue of the environment ship Sentosa's 1,200 crew and passengers and the subsequent destruction of the Sentosa by MDE warhead to prevent any possibility of intel on humanity falling into Zentradi hands.

So NOBODY even wants to try to change the Zentradi MO (aka Mission Statement: We get out of the anti-Supervision business and get into the Destroy really, really dangerous Protoculture stuff (to protect the galaxy)? Give them a new mission? There is no chance of diplomacy with the Badolzas that all run their fleets?