Macross Δ (Delta) Mecha/Technology Thread - READ 1st POST

[Seto Kaiba]

Interesting. Where were they immigrating to? And why?

They don't say... but then, the emigrant fleets in Macross aren't launched with a fixed destination in mind. That's why emigrant ships are designed to support and sustain an emigrant population for years or even decades, and basically ended up as space-going municipalities. It's a big galaxy, and worlds that either naturally support humanoid life or can be terraformed to support humanoid life aren't exactly common.

[Zinjo]

We get our first look at a PC SDF. A little too ornate for my tastes and by its size I suspect it was a CnC ship for a long gone fleet or perhaps a remnant of a long gone PC fleet battling the Zentradi. It was hidden underground, suggesting to me it was hidden on purpose.

I am leaning very strongly that this region was one of the PC outposts we heard about in the chronology. I am doubtful the Windermere are direct decendants though.

The PC SDF is a beast! She has to be at least 5km long!

Edited June 15, 2016 by Zinjo

[guyxxed]

I'm interested to learn more about the PC ship and what it can do.

One question: as the Sigur Valens is launching, it appears the king is giving his speech from the bridge of the ship. Heinz is standing next to him during that scene, so also on the bridge. A little later, when Heinz starts singing, is he still on board? Does that mean that the relics and the chamber he's been seen in so many times is actually part of the ship? It appeared to be a stone chamber, so I would think not (plus, with the PC ruins connecting and all, one would think the 'activation point' that Heinz sings from would need to be in a specific spot and not roaming around the sector on a ship, but overtechnology may have other ideas). It's possible he just took a shuttle back to the castle after the speech, I suppose, but the episode flow makes it seem otherwise. The bridge where the king gave his speech looked like the same place Roid was giving commands from in episode 1, so maybe.

[eko.prasetiyo]

perhaps it look like stone cause it already fossilized. the ship buried for centuries right?

I think heinz on that ship unless there some sort stargate / foldgate (?) that connected the ship with winderemere ruins so heinz can come and go as needed

[This Confuses Gamlin]

If humans could use 20th-century technology to cram a city into the SDF-1 (especially after accidentally Folding an island with them), the Protoculture can build a stone room inside the SV.

We need more scale references for the SV. Right now all I can guess is "pretty big but not huge big."

[Seto Kaiba]

We get our first look at a PC SDF. A little too ornate for my tastes and by its size I suspect it was a CnC ship for a long gone fleet or perhaps a remnant of a long gone PC fleet battling the Zentradi. It was hidden underground, suggesting to me it was hidden on purpose.

I am leaning very strongly that this region was one of the PC outposts we heard about in the chronology. I am doubtful the Windermere are direct decendants though.

I'm inclined to suspect that the Sigur Valens is not a Protoculture warship... mostly because the ancient Protoculture had the Zentradi for that, and portions of the Fulbtzs-Berrentzs-class fleet motherships contain habitat blocks dedicated to replicating the ecology of the Protoculture homeworld. It's odds-on that any Protoculture directly commanding a Zentradi fleet would be headquartered on the mothership itself in those areas specifically designed for their use.

What I suspect is that the Sigur Valens is actually an ancient Protoculture survey ship like the one that supposedly visited Earth in prehistory and genetically re-engineered Earth's early homonids into humanity. It will still likely be incredibly powerful, because the Protoculture never did anything halfway, but we'll probably find out that the Windermereans and Epsilon Corporation have only scratched the surface of what it can do and there'll be a terraforming or gene lab somewhere in the ship that'll give clues to the origins of the Windermereans themselves. The ship was probably abandoned on Windermere, either because they didn't have time to activate it before fleeing as the fighting between the Zentradi and Supervision Army remnants drew near the Windermere system or because they died out at some point after colonizing the planet and never bothered to dispose of the ship. I guess there's a third potential explanation in that it could be a "come find me when you're grown up" like what the Protoculture programmed the Birdman to do if the human race had passed its test.

Actually, as I was writing this, an interesting theory occurred to me...

What if the ruins in the Brisingr cluster are intended to do the polar opposite of what King Gramia is using them for? What if the reason the Protoculture apparently died out in the Brisingr cluster is that they also contracted Var syndrome from mixing Windermere apples with the local water supply, and built the now-ruined structures throughout the cluster in an effort to protect the entire cluster from the pandemic? That'd explain why the ruins are apparently perfectly situated to project their effects across the entire cluster, and why there's a race apparently purpose-built for fold song squatting on one of those worlds alongside an ancient fold-capable transport.

I do agree that it's unlikely the Windermereans are descended directly from the Protoculture... even they themselves seem to believe that they were another one of the Protoculture's creations, like the Voldorans, Ragnans, Humans, Zolans, etc.

I'm interested to learn more about the PC ship and what it can do.

One question: as the Sigur Valens is launching, it appears the king is giving his speech from the bridge of the ship. Heinz is standing next to him during that scene, so also on the bridge. A little later, when Heinz starts singing, is he still on board? Does that mean that the relics and the chamber he's been seen in so many times is actually part of the ship? It appeared to be a stone chamber, so I would think not (plus, with the PC ruins connecting and all, one would think the 'activation point' that Heinz sings from would need to be in a specific spot and not roaming around the sector on a ship, but overtechnology may have other ideas). It's possible he just took a shuttle back to the castle after the speech, I suppose, but the episode flow makes it seem otherwise. The bridge where the king gave his speech looked like the same place Roid was giving commands from in episode 1, so maybe.

The relic that Heinz was using doesn't appear to be fixed to anything... it's sitting in an armature in a chamber that may always have been inside the buried Sigur Valens, or may have been relocated there before launch.

perhaps it look like stone cause it already fossilized. the ship buried for centuries right?

Only organic material can fossilize... that relic appears to have always been made from "stone".

[grigolosi]

Even the temple on Rax was built of stone.If you want something to last especially for the purpose of passing on information stone works very well. As advance as the PC were I imagine they could construct most anything using what materials they wanted.

The ornate organic look the SV has is in my mind what a PC vessel would look like. You can see the organic influence in PC design just by looking at the Zentraedi ships and equipment and in the Bird Human design. They valued life very highly and it influenced their designs.

Edited June 16, 2016 by grigolosi

[Saruta]

My 11yo son has watched Delta ep1. His reaction - looks like the Walkure are protected more than a Valkyrie.

Those rockets (he does not know the words "Itano circus" yet) would have destroyed a Valk, right? Even with the energy conversion armour? Or could something like a VF-31 take that much?

[guyxxed]

Very perceptive kid! :-)

I think the pinpoint barrier system could have handled it (which is really what the drones are using), but if the shields weren't up, the missiles would be enough to blow one away.

[Graham]

Very perceptive kid! :-)

I think the pinpoint barrier system could have handled it (which is really what the drones are using), but if the shields weren't up, the missiles would be enough to blow one away.

Actually, micro-missiles in Macross have been on my mind a lot recently.

Honestly, I can't remember the last time we saw a VF vs VF combat missile kill in Macross, maybe it was all the way back in Macross 7 with micro-missiles from the Diamond Force VF-17's destroying Varauta Fz-109s.

It seems to me that missiles in Macross are now used more as a distraction than anything else, usually to cause an opponent to break off his attack by making him have to dodge, outrun or shoot down your missiles.

The only other time we really see missiles used is for long range barrages, where both sides launch missiles, which mostly just result in missiles killing other missiles, but not destroying the opposing sides VF's. The main purpose of these long range missile barrage seems to be more as a screen to allow you to get closer to the enemy.

I think since Frontier the vast majority of kills we see are all gun kills, plus the occasional rare melee kill.

I think from a technology standpoint VF thermonuclear turbine engines, thrust to weight ratio and VF maneuverability have advanced so much, that combined with the ICS (Inertia Store Convertor) of modern Valks, there is no way a small micro-missile presumably fueled by some sort of solid or liquid propellant can match the performance of a top of the line VF flown by a good pilot. I mean time and time again, we see modern VFs either dodging, outrunning or shooting down multiple micro-missiles.

Not to mention that even with advanced overtechnology warheads, a micro-missile is only so big and thus has a pretty small payload and with modern top of the line Valks with pin-point barrier systems and energy conversion armour active in all three modes (for some VFs with Fold Wave systems), a single micro-missiles if it hits is unlikely to destroy a VF unless it gets a lucky hit on a more vulnerable area, such as the cockpit.

I guess what I'm saying is it doesn't seem like micro-missile technology has kept pace with VF technology and these days micro-missiles are pretty much relegated to use as distraction devices. By swarming the enemy with micro-missiles, it forces him/her to take some sort of evasive action, either allowing you to either escape from the enemy or allowing you to try to get into a better position for a gun kill.

Sure if a VF was on the ground in Battroid mode and didn't have time to transform to Fighter mode, you might be able to overwhelm it's defenses and take it down with micro-missiles, but was in the air (or space) in fighter mode, the humble micro-missile doesn't seem to have much chance of achieving a kill these days.

[Graham]

No opinions either refuting or agreeing yet.

Buncha slackers

[Master Dex]

No opinions either refuting or agreeing yet.

Buncha slackers

Well I am at work, lol. I think missiles can make for good kills though, but you aren't wrong at the same time in many ways. Also there does exist MDE missiles I think but they are likely not standard. Micro missiles are just not for precision kills but for target suppression which may or may not cause legitimate damage.

This seems true in Macross 30 as I play. I make missile based kills but most of my kills were by gunpod. I use missiles to weaken. So in that Graham is on point.

[Graham]

Although Macross 30 is a great game and technically canon (I also loved playing it), I'm just basing my opinion on micro missiles and medium size anti VF missiles on what I observe in the various animes, not in games.

But just to be clear, I'm referring to short (WVR) and medium size (BVR) range anti VF missiles, not large reaction missiles or large MDE missiles which are designed more for use against large targets such as capitol ships, planets or Vajura Queens etc.

[Graham]

My view is that with modern Frontier and Delta era VFs, unless the Valk is stationary and NOT taking any defensive action, micro-missiles are pretty much ineffectual apart from for use as a distraction.

[squaresphere]

Hmm... I would say the missiles are more useful against slower, less maneuverable and/or larger targets in modern macross. I'm remembering the Vajara "micro missiles" being effective on the NUNs red shirts while someone like Alto or the Diamond force was able to shoot them down.

From a Delta stand point, the majority of missiles are shot down by pilots with only Keith launch bay attack in ep 1 as the only stand out use of them.

[frothymug]

Your point about the high performance of the modern engines is very applicable to the reason missiles are more of a distraction. I also think that the numerous countermeasures available to each pilot further reduce their effectiveness. There's always flares or chaff or lasers or gunpods or... Well, you get my point.

[Seto Kaiba]

My 11yo son has watched Delta ep1. His reaction - looks like the Walkure are protected more than a Valkyrie.

Those rockets (he does not know the words "Itano circus" yet) would have destroyed a Valk, right? Even with the energy conversion armour? Or could something like a VF-31 take that much?

Well... maybe. Walkure were protected by pin-point barriers, which is about the best defense you can get against pretty much anything short of a Macross Cannon.

It's safe to say, considering what just two of those micro-missiles do to a VF-171 Nightmare Plus, that being hit by them would be extremely hazardous to your health even in a VF. The fighter Hayate "borrows" is disabled by just two of them, which was enough to incapacitate the pilot and do some unspecified but not totally incapacitating damage to the fighter itself.

Actually, micro-missiles in Macross have been on my mind a lot recently.

Honestly, I can't remember the last time we saw a VF vs VF combat missile kill in Macross, maybe it was all the way back in Macross 7 with micro-missiles from the Diamond Force VF-17's destroying Varauta Fz-109s.

Technically... Macross Delta Ep.1 at 19:00 is the most recent time we saw a VF vs VF missile "kill". The Al Shahal VF-171 Nightmare Plus that Hayate later uses to rescue Freyja is taken out of the fight by just two micro-missiles from Bogue's fighter in Battroid mode. It doesn't kill the pilot or destroy the fighter, but it does injure the pilot badly enough that he needs medevac and the fighter is out of action. Presumably more hits would've seen them cleaning the fighter up with a dustpan and the pilot with a squeegee.

We also got several missile kills in Macross Frontier and its movies, though that was mainly against Vajra targets or Ghosts. I think they've been a bit thin on the ground since the last series didn't really focus on VF vs VF combat, and both Macross 7 and Macross Delta feature pilots who are more concerned with saving the lives of their brainwashed enemies, so they seem to focus more on guns than missiles for kills.

Macross Delta has more VF vs VF combat, but missiles are getting short-sold because the VF-31's design did away with the YF-30's missile container for that drone power system they've never used since the first episode.

I think from a technology standpoint VF thermonuclear turbine engines, thrust to weight ratio and VF maneuverability have advanced so much, that combined with the ICS (Inertia Store Convertor) of modern Valks, there is no way a small micro-missile presumably fueled by some sort of solid or liquid propellant can match the performance of a top of the line VF flown by a good pilot. I mean time and time again, we see modern VFs either dodging, outrunning or shooting down multiple micro-missiles.

Not to mention that even with advanced overtechnology warheads, a micro-missile is only so big and thus has a pretty small payload and with modern top of the line Valks with pin-point barrier systems and energy conversion armour active in all three modes (for some VFs with Fold Wave systems), a single micro-missiles if it hits is unlikely to destroy a VF unless it gets a lucky hit on a more vulnerable area, such as the cockpit.

I guess what I'm saying is it doesn't seem like micro-missile technology has kept pace with VF technology and these days micro-missiles are pretty much relegated to use as distraction devices. By swarming the enemy with micro-missiles, it forces him/her to take some sort of evasive action, either allowing you to either escape from the enemy or allowing you to try to get into a better position for a gun kill.

Sure if a VF was on the ground in Battroid mode and didn't have time to transform to Fighter mode, you might be able to overwhelm it's defenses and take it down with micro-missiles, but was in the air (or space) in fighter mode, the humble micro-missile doesn't seem to have much chance of achieving a kill these days.

To a certain extent, I think the reason micro-missiles don't seem to be as effective is that we're almost invariably shown ace vs. ace combat when it's two VFs squaring off... and one thing Macross's creators love almost as much as Itano Circuses is showing fighters dramatically evading Itano Circuses. So much so, in fact, that it's usually the way they establish that someone is hot sh*t, like Guld in the YF-21 dodging all those high-maneuver missiles or Messer in the first episode dodging a huge swarm of missiles from Theo and Xao.

Missiles are still consistently presented as being incredibly deadly weapons, and when it's micro-missiles we're shown that a kill is simply a matter of getting enough of them on the target, but it's so much more dramatic for a pair of aces to square off at super-close quarters with guns.

No opinions either refuting or agreeing yet.

Buncha slackers

Some of us do sleep occasionally, lol.

[This Confuses Gamlin]

To a certain extent, I think the reason micro-missiles don't seem to be as effective is that we're almost invariably shown ace vs. ace combat when it's two VFs squaring off... and one thing Macross's creators love almost as much as Itano Circuses is showing fighters dramatically evading Itano Circuses.

IMO that about covers it; micro-missiles exist to splash mooks and make heroes look really cool because no hero ever gets killed by micro-missiles. And I'm sure that I stole that observation from some video review that I saw in the past month, but it's true, right?

[Seto Kaiba]

IMO that about covers it; micro-missiles exist to splash mooks and make heroes look really cool because no hero ever gets killed by micro-missiles. And I'm sure that I stole that observation from some video review that I saw in the past month, but it's true, right?

Well... no hero except Kakizaki, anyway...

[kalvasflam]

it depends on the yield of the micro missiles, they might be better used against ships like Guantanamo and Southamptons that we seen getting blown up on a regular basis.

[Seto Kaiba]

it depends on the yield of the micro missiles, they might be better used against ships like Guantanamo and Southamptons that we seen getting blown up on a regular basis.

All told, micro-missiles are described as being intended for short-range air-to-air use and saturation attacks... they're not really meant for anti-warship use.

It's only the very latest and most heavily armored Valkyries like the Armored VF-25 or YF-29 that have achieved defensive ability on par with an escort-type space warship, and they only achieved that by brute force means like doubling up the armor's thickness at the expense of airframe mass and using supplemental power systems to increase the armor's effectiveness. We don't know how the VF-31 or Sv-262 stack up on that front, but I doubt they're as overkill as the YF-29 was, since that was so prohibitively expensive and resource-intensive that it was pretty much doomed to never be mass-produced. A missile designed to destroy a 5th Generation VF should be capable of damaging a ship in sufficient numbers, but a missile capable of seriously damaging a ship should reduce even the the best-armored Valkyrie to a piece of abstract art.

The yields of those micro-missiles should be pretty terrifyingly high, all told, since there's not supposed to be that huge of a difference between the yields of micro-missiles and medium-range missiles... it's implied for a few models that they're close in yield, and the main difference is the size of the motor. (Mind you, all missile yields in Macross are terrifyingly high... the VF-1's AMM-1 medium-range missile's warhead had blast power roughly equivalent to a 1,000lb bomb.)

[sketchley]

Great Mechanics G: 2016 Summer has a bunch of *new* or revised names for some of the Macross Delta Valkyries:

Draken III
- Sv-262Hs (commander model)

- Sv-262Ba (standard production model)

- Sv-262Hs Draken III Lildraken equipment

Sv-154

The Windamia F-104 based Valkyrie. Doesn't look like it has a name. Scanlation: it mentions that it doesn't have a dogfighting ability - but that could be referencing the F-104 that it is based on.

VF-31 series

- VF-31 Siegfried (used by Chaos's Delta Platoon)

- VF-31A Kairos (used by Chaos's Alpha Platoon and others - interesting counterpoint to the YF-30 Chronos name, eh)

- VF-31 Super Pack (no specific name or numeric designation, yet)

Edited June 18, 2016 by sketchley

[RedWolf]

Interesting the Sv-262 took some inspiration from the VF-9. Macross Elysion is 828 meters in length.

Edited June 18, 2016 by RedWolf

[This Confuses Gamlin]

Interesting the Sv-262 took some inspiration from the VF-9. Macross Elysion is 828 meters in length.

Macross Half confirmed. (Or Macross Three-Quarters?)

Edited June 18, 2016 by This Confuses Gamlin

[Master Dex]

Macross Half confirmed. (Or Macross Three-Quarters?)

Macross Double Quarter Pounder (or Double Royale w/Cheese for non-Americans).

[Seto Kaiba]

Macross Half confirmed. (Or Macross Three-Quarters?)

Well, we already had the Macross One-Third in Master File...

[Kelsain]

Are we sure that Kairos is not a poorly romanized Kaos, indicating that the 31A is used by Kaos?

[UN Spacy]

VERY anxious to see if Chaos' reinforcements arrive in time.

[dialNforNinja]

Sv-154

The Windamia F-104 based Valkyrie. Doesn't look like it has a name. Scanlation: it mentions that it doesn't have a dogfighting ability - but that could be referencing the F-104 that it is based on.

I noticed that it looked very much like the jet form of the LV-7 from a tiny illustration in the interviews section of Macross Design Works, assuming that was the jet briefly shown in a Knight flashback. Both modes of that one are similar enough to the SV-262 aside from wing shape, where the intakes end up, and leg bulk that a connection seems rather likely.

And dammit, I was sure I'd edited this to fix that gremlin a few minutes ago.

Edited June 18, 2016 by dialNforNinja

[Seto Kaiba]

Are we sure that Kairos is not a poorly romanized Kaos, indicating that the 31A is used by Kaos?

Pretty safe bet that it's not... they'd be spelled differently in kana (カイロス vs ケイオス) and it fits only too well that a production model derived from the YF-30 Chronos would have as its name the other Greek word for "Time": Kairos.

It fits particularly well, since "Chronos" is sequential time or continuity and the YF-30 Chronos was used in a story about preventing someone from tampering with the continuity of time, while "Kairos" refers to a singular point in time when an event of great magnitude and significance occurs. The VF-31 Kairos is central to the events of a momentous conflict in the Brisingr cluster on the galactic frontier.

As significant naming goes, it's a LOT more subtle than what we got in Frontier. I guess this also makes the Delta Platoon units with different names a custom set of variants along the same lines as the VF-19EF Caliburn.

Edited June 18, 2016 by Seto Kaiba

[sketchley]

Are we sure that Kairos is not a poorly romanized Kaos, indicating that the 31A is used by Kaos?

Nope. Looked it up. Name of the Greek god.

I noticed that it looked very much like the jet form of the LV-7 from a tiny illustration in the interviews section of Macross Design Works, assuming that was the jet briefly shown in a Knight flashback. Both modes of that one are similar enough to the SV-262 aside from wing shape, where the intakes end up, and leg bulk that a connection seems rather likely.

If it is based on the LV-7, then quite a few of the details have been changed. The most obvious is the wing shape and the built-in (or conformal) pod in the middle of the wings.

[Kelsain]

Cool, thanks for learnin' me good!

I'm apparently severely lacking in my Greek mythos to catch these things in Delta.

[sketchley]

Macross Half confirmed. (Or Macross Three-Quarters?)

Where did you get that name from?

... I ask this, because it has now appeared on the Macross Compendium as an *official* name...

And before anyone goes citing more inaccurate facts - the magazine states that "ドバイのタワー（ブルジュ・ハリファ＝８２８ｍ）とほぼ同じ高さですね。

(the Macross Elysion is approximately the same size as Dubai Tower (Burj Khalifa = 828 m))".

[This Confuses Gamlin]

Where did you get that name from?

It was a joke I'd seen going around when people were trying to guess the size of the entire Elysion. The "half" part, anyway.

[kalvasflam]

I wish they would have a master file on the warships of Macross universe. I mean we have enough master files for fighters, even obscure ones like VF-4; surely we can come up with something.

The major types so far:

- Original Macross class: Combination carrier/gunship, not a true battle ship in my opinion.

- Battle class: Heavy carrier/gunship combo, again not a true battle ship, but certainly capable of fulfilling that role due to its huge size

- Macross Quarter: The closest analogy I can come up with is a heavy destroyer type ship, capable of going toe to toe with heavy warships, and carries some amount of fighters.

- Macross Elyison: Battleship analogue, with carrier type.

The major difference is that the first two types were not supposed to go into battle directly and were supposed to rely on other ships and carrier air wings, where as the latter two types seem to be more designed for close quarter combat with fighters acting as support.

Would love to see more stuff on the ships.