The Newbie and Short Questions thread

[JB0]

I remember that one of the many bugs in Robotech: Battlecry allowed you to keep the Super Pack for ground levels if you completed a space level without losing it.

I was sad at how limiting that bug is. It only works if you continue straight from the mission you completed to the next one without hitting the menu. So it only works on a first playthrough, since only on first clear of a stage do you get the option to continue without returning to menu.

Also, I might've spent too much time in one stage headshotting Minmei, just because I could.

[hulagu]

Yeah, barring a few exceptions where FAST pack models were developed with the specific goal of being operated in the atmosphere (e.g. the ones on the VF-11, VF-17, and VF-19 near the end of Macross 7) they're generally meant to be used in space only. However, since Macross 30's one and only space level is the supposed-to-lose fight at the very beginning of the game, that's kind of gone out the window for gameplay's sake so you can equip pretty much any FAST pack in atmosphere.

Yeah, they enforced the FAST pack limitation in the PSP games.

[anime52k8]

I was sad at how limiting that bug is. It only works if you continue straight from the mission you completed to the next one without hitting the menu. So it only works on a first playthrough, since only on first clear of a stage do you get the option to continue without returning to menu.

Also, I might've spent too much time in one stage headshotting Minmei, just because I could.

I vaguely remember being able to make the bug work from the mission select screen, but I forget how. it's been a LONG time since I've played battlecry.

[kajnrig]

I vaguely remember being able to make the bug work from the mission select screen, but I forget how. it's been a LONG time since I've played battlecry.

You can still Continue from any mission, even completed ones. So pick a space mission, pick the Super Valk, and Continue at the end of the mission. It'll start you up on the next mission with Super parts. Source: Emulating the Gamecube version on Dolphin yesterday and today . I think it starts you from the earliest available incomplete mission, though I never tried that. So it's possible to use the cheat codes to unlock all levels and all Valks, beat the first space mission (chapter 1, mission 3) with Super Valk, then "Continue" to start from the very beginning.

Now all I need is AR codes to force the Super parts for any mission. Or the Armored Valk. Or even the Q-Rau, god willing.

I've never played the game without using the weapon reload cheats. I did for about three missions and got bored with how much downtime I had to sit through. Faster missile and gun reloads allows for some actual Macross-style circus-ing.

What a fun game. (Though jesus, there really were a whole lot of escort/tower defense/"protect the thing" missions, weren't there? A direct sequel - not that Mospeada-era one - with some more polish and variety would have been awesome.)

EDIT:

So nope, it doesn't start you at the earliest available incomplete mission. I beat chapter 1 mission 3 and continued and went straight onto chapter 2 mission 1. Wah wah waaaah.

Edited April 12, 2016 by kajnrig

[Mit]

Interestingly, while the inhabitants of Laguna / Ragna a local race or genetic modificants Oceanic cultures?

[Seto Kaiba]

Interestingly, while the inhabitants of Laguna / Ragna a local race or genetic modificants Oceanic cultures?

Seems like a safe bet that planet Ragna's natives are yet another humanoid species engineered by the Protoculture the same way Humanity was...

[kajnrig]

What are the VF-11 variants, and which of these were in the M+ movie? And in the M+ OVA (since I don't remember much of it)? Which variant is most associated with the Armored pack (and that big gatling)?

Edited April 17, 2016 by kajnrig

[Seto Kaiba]

What are the VF-11 variants, and which of these were in the M+ movie? And in the M+ OVA (since I don't remember much of it)? Which variant is most associated with the Armored pack (and that big gatling)?

Thus far? We've seen five variants of the VF-11... the VF-11A, -B, -C, -D, and -MAXL, and various customizations thereof.

The two most common variants are the VF-11B and VF-11C, the former being the variant that Isamu flew in Macross Plus and the latter being the cannon fodder fighter for the Macross 7 series that occasionally equipped the Protect Armor pack.

The Macross Plus OVA/movie also showed some unmanned VF-11A units that had been converted into target drones for testing the Ghost X-9 (painted in high visibility orange).

Edited April 17, 2016 by Seto Kaiba

[kajnrig]

The -D is a two-seat trainer, right? (Basing this on the Hasegawa "The Ride" kit. I'm also guessing it first appears in Macross The Ride.) And the -MAXL the pink feminine one from M7?

Good to know, thanks for clarifying that.

[Seto Kaiba]

The -D is a two-seat trainer, right? (Basing this on the Hasegawa "The Ride" kit. I'm also guessing it first appears in Macross The Ride.) And the -MAXL the pink feminine one from M7?

Good to know, thanks for clarifying that.

Yeah, the VF-11D is the two-seater version... though it's worth noting that we've never seen an unmodified one.

The VF-11D units seen in Macross 7 as part of the Jamming Birds tactical sound unit's equipment were customized for increased performance and for spiritia warfare, and the one in Macross the Ride was similarly but less severely customized to help it keep up with the air racers it was filming.

Similarly, we've never seen an unmodified VF-11MAXL. Mylene's was heavily customized for Sound Force use, though the VF-11MAXL is a very rare, made-to-order unit built in vanishingly small numbers for ace pilots.

[Saruta]

In Macross 30 is Basara also transported through time like the others? Or is is 2060 Basara who, wandering the galaxy, happened to be around? Or is it never clear?

[ManhattanProject972]

In Macross 30 is Basara also transported through time like the others? Or is is 2060 Basara who, wandering the galaxy, happened to be around? Or is it never clear?

The way I see the events of Mac30 is that only Alto and Sheryl and possibly Basara who were transported through time. Alto and Sheryl after the Frontier movies and Basara sometime before the end of 7.

Although it is very much possible that Leon actually did meet 2060 Basara.

Two things are certain, Basara was most definitely there in one form or another because he was the one to push Leon and his YF-30 past the Fold barrier fault thing and Alto as seen in the picture of the two shaking hands.

Actually I have a question of my own regarding Macross 30. Since im not fluent in Japanese I was wondering who exactly is Mina Forte and where did she come from. I played through the game almost a dozen times and am still not sure.

Edited April 21, 2016 by ManhattanProject972

[RedWolf]

Has the ship above the Stealth Cruiser and Northamptons been seen before? Seems to be from modelling magazine.

[d3v]

Has the ship above the Stealth Cruiser and Northamptons been seen before? Seems to be from modelling magazine.

oFS2Zt6.jpg

Might that be the unnamed carriers seen in episode 1 of Plus (or were those supposed to be Gitmos)?

[Save]

Has the ship above the Stealth Cruiser and Northamptons been seen before? Seems to be from modelling magazine.

oFS2Zt6.jpg

That is just a fan produced doujin. Some details maybe based on Japanese production info the rest is just fan work.

[RedWolf]

Might that be the unnamed carriers seen in episode 1 of Plus (or were those supposed to be Gitmos)?

Those look like Uragas I think.

That is just a fan produced doujin. Some details maybe based on Japanese production info the rest is just fan work.

K Thanks.

[d3v]

Those look like Uragas I think.

I dunno, the markings never seemed to match anything else.

[Seto Kaiba]

In Macross 30 is Basara also transported through time like the others? Or is is 2060 Basara who, wandering the galaxy, happened to be around? Or is it never clear?

Yes, he's been transported through time like everyone else... it's Basara circa 2046-7, though unlike the rest of the cast he seems to care not at all about his predicament.

Although it is very much possible that Leon actually did meet 2060 Basara.

Nope, he's flying the Fire Valkyrie... Basara lost possession of that in 2047.

Has the ship above the Stealth Cruiser and Northamptons been seen before? Seems to be from modelling magazine.

oFS2Zt6.jpg

The ship in the top left of the dojinshi's front cover is a fan-made design called the Kaga-class, which is sort of jumbo version of the animation's Guantanamo-class with twelve catapults instead of eight and a Uraga-style bridge tower. The art on the cover is drawn to a consistent scale, so you can see how big it's supposed to be vs. the Guantanamo-class.

That dojinshi series has some interesting material, some of it mined from incredibly obscure sources, and a hearty helping of fan-made material. The Kaga-class is one of several fan-made designs in that volume, the others being mainly Northampton-class or Stealth Cruiser variants beyond the ones described in official material (like a carrier variant of the early Northampton-class, or a Stealth Cruiser with a keel-mounted quantum reaction cannon ala the Macross Quarter).

I've found it to be a fantastic resource for fleshing out stats sheets for Macross RPGs, but as a reference work it has little value...

[JB0]

Yes, he's been transported through time like everyone else... it's Basara circa 2046-7, though unlike the rest of the cast he seems to care not at all about his predicament.

That's our Basara!

(The new sitcom premiering fall 2067 on Galaxy Network 7. Don't miss it!)

[Saruta]

Yes, he's been transported through time like everyone else... it's Basara circa 2046-7, though unlike the rest of the cast he seems to care not at all about his predicament.

So looks like we still won't know what happened to him after the presumed final concert after events in Dynamite (the one shown in the opening). Is it another Macross tradition to disappear lead characters by this point? Minmay, Basara, Movie!Alto.

[Seto Kaiba]

That's our Basara!

(The new sitcom premiering fall 2067 on Galaxy Network 7. Don't miss it!)

Isn't that just Big Bang Theory with musician jokes and Basara playing the role of Sheldon?

So looks like we still won't know what happened to him after the presumed final concert after events in Dynamite (the one shown in the opening). Is it another Macross tradition to disappear lead characters by this point? Minmay, Basara, Movie!Alto.

Well, yes and no... we know that he continued to bum around the galaxy until at least 2060, when he recorded his tracks for Re:Fire! and sent them to the rest of the band via the Galaxy Network. So he didn't really disappear, he just chose to stay out of the spotlight.

Very few of Macross's protagonists have out-and-out vanished... but there does seem to be a laudable tradition of having them get out of the way once their stories have reached a natural conclusion so they aren't bumming around the periphery distracting people from the main cast of the next series. If you don't push characters whose relevance expired with the previous series offstage when you're developing a new story, you end up with a shameful mess like the Star Wars expanded universe, revolving forever around the same handful of holdovers with progressively weaker excuses to make them the center of events.

Edited April 22, 2016 by Seto Kaiba

[Rbstr]

Pretty much.

It's clearly intentional having the generational and physical distance gaps have tended to refocus things. Lots of stuff going on in the galaxy can't have a few people be there for all of it.

Though I do really love hearing about or seeing what old main characters have been up to. Like if we don't hear a bit about what the Jeniuses have been up to in the last couple decades I will be sad.

Edited April 22, 2016 by Rbstr

[ManhattanProject972]

I just want Aisha's name to be mentioned somewhere in Delta like on a file of the VF-31's development in the background or something she is its grandmother after all.

[JB0]

Isn't that just Big Bang Theory with musician jokes and Basara playing the role of Sheldon?

Pretty much, yeah. Everything old enough is new again.

Well, yes and no... we know that he continued to bum around the galaxy until at least 2060, when he recorded his tracks for Re:Fire! and sent them to the rest of the band via the Galaxy Network. So he didn't really disappear, he just chose to stay out of the spotlight.

Very few of Macross's protagonists have out-and-out vanished... but there does seem to be a laudable tradition of having them get out of the way once their stories have reached a natural conclusion so they aren't bumming around the periphery distracting people from the main cast of the next series. If you don't push characters whose relevance expired with the previous series offstage when you're developing a new story, you end up with a shameful mess like the Star Wars expanded universe, revolving forever around the same handful of holdovers with progressively weaker excuses to make them the center of events.

Star Trek: Next Generation forced the same style.

It was an ironclad rule for several seasons that no one be written as descended from the original cast, no one written as having connections to the original cast, and no script could so much as namedrop the original cast after McCoy's handoff in the pilot. They didn't bend that rule for several years, and when they did it had already served it's purpose. The crew of the 1701-D wound up being stars in their own right, not defined by the shadows of their predecessors.

It's a good rule to have if you don't want the entire franchise to be about a handful of ever-older characters.

It also has the side effect of making any callback to the predecessors a major event, precisely because they're so infrequent. Spock and Scotty showing up in Next Gen were huge deals, as was that DS9 tribble episode.

And I think most of us remember how crazy things were in here when Frontier ended an episode with what appeared to be the SDF Macross while playing the DYRL song. (For those that don't remember: It was SUPER crazy.)

[d3v]

Pretty much, yeah. Everything old enough is new again.

Star Trek: Next Generation forced the same style.

It was an ironclad rule for several seasons that no one be written as descended from the original cast, no one written as having connections to the original cast, and no script could so much as namedrop the original cast after McCoy's handoff in the pilot. They didn't bend that rule for several years, and when they did it had already served it's purpose. The crew of the 1701-D wound up being stars in their own right, not defined by the shadows of their predecessors.

It's a good rule to have if you don't want the entire franchise to be about a handful of ever-older characters.

It also has the side effect of making any callback to the predecessors a major event, precisely because they're so infrequent. Spock and Scotty showing up in Next Gen were huge deals, as was that DS9 tribble episode.

And I think most of us remember how crazy things were in here when Frontier ended an episode with what appeared to be the SDF Macross while playing the DYRL song. (For those that don't remember: It was SUPER crazy.)

Many a crazy theory about Gallia 4 being Earth, time travel and even Megaroad 1 were birthed on that day.

[JB0]

Many a crazy theory about Gallia 4 being Earth, time travel and even Megaroad 1 were birthed on that day.

It was epic.

Which just made the SDF Global that much more disappointing. Impossible to live up to the hype, but the truth was just so... mundane.

[sketchley]

Many a crazy theory about Gallia 4 being Earth, time travel and even Megaroad 1 were birthed on that day.

Re: Gaul 4

Interesting that you're using the Latin transliteration, not the English one.

[d3v]

Re: Gaul 4

Interesting that you're using the Latin transliteration, not the English one.

Because that's what I remember seeing in the subs I used.

[RedWolf]

Many a crazy theory about Gallia 4 being Earth, time travel and even Megaroad 1 were birthed on that day.

Alto: You Maniacs! You blew it up! Again! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

[Seto Kaiba]

I just want Aisha's name to be mentioned somewhere in Delta like on a file of the VF-31's development in the background or something she is its grandmother after all.

The animated installments of Macross almost never delve into the backstories of the mecha themselves, though it would not surprise me if the almost-inevitable novelization of Macross Delta does mention Major Blanchett's role in the fighter's development.

Star Trek: Next Generation forced the same style.

It was an ironclad rule for several seasons that no one be written as descended from the original cast, no one written as having connections to the original cast, and no script could so much as namedrop the original cast after McCoy's handoff in the pilot. They didn't bend that rule for several years, and when they did it had already served it's purpose. The crew of the 1701-D wound up being stars in their own right, not defined by the shadows of their predecessors.

It's a good rule to have if you don't want the entire franchise to be about a handful of ever-older characters.

's good writing practice to move on after a character's arc has exhausted itself... we've seen what happens when a Macross-derivative doesn't move on from the old characters in the strangled, increasingly fanfic-ish efforts of The Show That Must Not Be Named.

Re: Gaul 4

Interesting that you're using the Latin transliteration, not the English one.

A lot of the Macross Frontier fansubs went with "Gallia" or "Galia"... presumably because that's closest to the pronunciation of ガリア.

If they'd wanted it to be read "Gaul" wouldn't they have spelled it ゴール?

(My suspicion is that the use of "Gallia" instead of "Gaul" was a historical in-joke, referencing its status both as "the frontier" and garrisoned territory... which the conquered territory of Gallia was to the Roman empire.)

[abbadon]

Re: Gaul 4

Interesting that you're using the Latin transliteration, not the English one.

Because that's what I remember seeing in the subs I used.

The animated installments of Macross almost never delve into the backstories of the mecha themselves, though it would not surprise me if the almost-inevitable novelization of Macross Delta does mention Major Blanchett's role in the fighter's development.

's good writing practice to move on after a character's arc has exhausted itself... we've seen what happens when a Macross-derivative doesn't move on from the old characters in the strangled, increasingly fanfic-ish efforts of The Show That Must Not Be Named.

A lot of the Macross Frontier fansubs went with "Gallia" or "Galia"... presumably because that's closest to the pronunciation of ガリア.

If they'd wanted it to be read "Gaul" wouldn't they have spelled it ゴール?

(My suspicion is that the use of "Gallia" instead of "Gaul" was a historical in-joke, referencing its status both as "the frontier" and garrisoned territory... which the conquered territory of Gallia was to the Roman empire.)

Also, some of the Frontier products spelled it out that way.

[sketchley]

A lot of the Macross Frontier fansubs went with "Gallia" or "Galia"... presumably because that's closest to the pronunciation of ガリア.

If they'd wanted it to be read "Gaul" wouldn't they have spelled it ゴール?

(My suspicion is that the use of "Gallia" instead of "Gaul" was a historical in-joke, referencing its status both as "the frontier" and garrisoned territory... which the conquered territory of Gallia was to the Roman empire.)

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AC%E3%83%AA%E3%82%A2

Ref. the English linky and the Latin in the page. Using Gaul still retains the historical in-joke. We are translating from Japanese into English, after all (not Japanese into Latin )

Why not ゴール? That would be Goal/gall/ghoul.

Edited April 24, 2016 by sketchley

[sketchley]

Also, some of the Frontier products spelled it out that way.

This is harder to respond to - in the sense that it takes more time to explain.

I think the shortest explanation would be: many Japanese automatically assume that all borrowed words come from English. Most don't bother fact checking (ie: it's in Roman letters = it must be English).

The flip side is that there are also some English speaking Macross fans that automatically assume that if it's written in romaji, then it must be English, and don't bother fact checking (ie: making the assumption that Megazone 23 is 'correctly' read as two-three, based solely on the Japanese audio, while not considering that although many Japanese have studied English in school, many have forgotten (or never properly learned!) that the teens and tens (20, 30, etc) have a different reading).

Should it be Gallia 4 based on a Bandai release? The only way to answer that is to answer: should we expect the graphic designers at Bandai to have an appropriate understanding of English in order to use English on their products?

The only answers to that are ones that aren't clear cut.

Edited April 24, 2016 by sketchley

[Seto Kaiba]

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AC%E3%83%AA%E3%82%A2

Ref. the English linky and the Latin in the page. Using Gaul still retains the historical in-joke. We are translating from Japanese into English, after all (not Japanese into Latin )

Why not ゴール? That would be Goal/gall/ghoul.

Er... not trying to be a smartarse, but isn't ゴール used in the very first paragraph of that Wikipedia article as an explanation of precisely the difference that we're talking about? They note that it's "Gallia" (ガッリア or ガリア) for the classical Latin name of the region and "Gaule" (ゴール) for the (Old) French equivalent. The disambiguation page for ゴール also links back to that article.

On that basis, my gut instinct would be to go with the translation closest to the spoken/written pronunciation of the word... that being the Latin version (but I may be slightly biased toward the Latin as someone who wasted 3 years on classical Latin in school).

[sketchley]

Er... not trying to be a smartarse, but isn't ゴール used in the very first paragraph of that Wikipedia article as an explanation of precisely the difference that we're talking about?

You mean this: "フランス語では Gaule（ゴール）"?

The translation of that is: "It is Gaule (ゴール) in French".

They note that it's "Gallia" (ガッリア or ガリア) for the classical Latin name of the region and "Gaule" (ゴール) for the (Old) French equivalent. The disambiguation page for ゴール also links back to that article.

Are you using a machine translator? Some important things are missing from your translation.

As for the disambiguation page (this one, right? https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B4%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB )

It's only the place name (地名) for ゴール that links back, and even then, it says that the (modern?) French place name is Gaule, and the English name is Gaul.

Going back to the first paragraph, it says "the exact pronunciation of the classical Latin [Gallia] is ガッリア." Which puts a lot of weight on the side of the MF production team not using the phonetic reading, but the literal, or historical meaning of the name.

On that basis, my gut instinct would be to go with the translation closest to the spoken/written pronunciation of the word... that being the Latin version (but I may be slightly biased toward the Latin as someone who wasted 3 years on classical Latin in school).

There's nothing wrong with that bias. Classical Latin has its merits (above all else, it's not a currently spoken language. Making it extremely stable and unchanging).

However, as a translator, I have to always keep in mind that I'm translating Japanese to English (not Zentraadi or a different language). And even though Gallia is a possible translation of ガリア, its meaning in English isn't as well known as the more common Gaul.

Edited April 24, 2016 by sketchley