Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[Sir Galahad®]

The Messiah and the Kairos use the same engine (Or maybe my source material is wrong), but does that mean the VF-25 can be equipped with a beam gunpod as well?

[Seto Kaiba]

  On 2/11/2020 at 6:43 AM, Sir Galahad® said:

The Messiah and the Kairos use the same engine (Or maybe my source material is wrong), but does that mean the VF-25 can be equipped with a beam gunpod as well?

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Yeah, the production-intent Surya Aerospace VF-31 Kairos uses the same FF-3001A Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines that were used by Shinsei and LAI's VF-25.

They're tuned slightly differently, so the FF-3001A engines used by the VF-31 produce slightly more thrust (1,645kN vs 1,620kN), but otherwise they're the same.

So... theoretically, the VF-25 should be able to operate the VF-31's LU-18A heavy quantum beam gunpod.  It probably helps that the LU-18A seems to lack the high-powered "beam grenade" mode that previous models of heavy quantum beam gunpod had.

 

[twich]

So here is something that I was thinking about, the NUNS fleet that we see destroyed by the knights of Windermere that were coming to use dimensional weapons on Windermere. What was the origin of that fleet? Was it the local Brisingr cluster fleet or one from earth? If from earth, wouldn’t they have the infamous VF-24?

Twich

[Master Dex]

I'm pretty confident they were a Brisingr NUNS Fleet. Perhaps the only proper one in the otherwise poorly operated cluster.

They almost certainly had VF-171s, but considering how they were defeated, it might not have mattered.

[twich]

My curiosity stemmed from the supposed Uber stats of the VF-24 and how even a SV-262 would be little match for it

[Seto Kaiba]

  On 2/17/2020 at 3:00 AM, twich said:

So here is something that I was thinking about, the NUNS fleet that we see destroyed by the knights of Windermere that were coming to use dimensional weapons on Windermere. What was the origin of that fleet? Was it the local Brisingr cluster fleet or one from earth? If from earth, wouldn’t they have the infamous VF-24?

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That fleet was from the Brisingr Alliance NUNS.  Its commander was the same guy who visited Xaos repping the local NUNS Staff Office earlier in the series.

[Sildani]

Depending on priorities, retraining, and need, it’s entirely possible that particular NUNS fleet hadn’t transitioned yet. 

[Valkyrie Driver]

I was actually curious about the Arm cannon from Macross Plus that had all of a 2 second appearance; The recent Bandai YF-19 toy has it designed to fold up and stow in fighter mode, is there any evidence to support that it was designed to do that, or was that Bandai catering to toy collectors?

Another question about it, what role was it supposed to fulfill? I kinda tend to think about it being included with the FAST pack system, since it is an add on weapons package, even if it could only be used in battroid or gerwalk modes (other FAST Packs were multimode use).

[Seto Kaiba]

  On 3/1/2020 at 6:49 PM, Valkyrie Driver said:

I was actually curious about the Arm cannon from Macross Plus that had all of a 2 second appearance; The recent Bandai YF-19 toy has it designed to fold up and stow in fighter mode, is there any evidence to support that it was designed to do that, or was that Bandai catering to toy collectors?

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So, the only source I have that talks about what this thing was intended to be packaged with is Macross Chronicle Macross Plus Mechanic Sheet 01B.

The little sidebar on the left has a caption on the picture of that pack deploying that asserts that it was an option not normally included in the FAST Pack.  To me, that implies that this WAS something that could be taken with the YF-19's FAST Packs.

 

  5 hours ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

Another question about it, what role was it supposed to fulfill? I kinda tend to think about it being included with the FAST pack system, since it is an add on weapons package, even if it could only be used in battroid or gerwalk modes (other FAST Packs were multimode use).

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Hell if we know.  There's basically no proper documentation of this thing.

Given that Isamu one-shots one of the notoriously heavily-armored Destroid Monsters with the big cannon in that pack, it seems likely to be a firepower enhancement intended for use on hard-armored targets.

[Bolt]

  On 3/2/2020 at 12:25 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Given that Isamu one-shots one of the notoriously heavily-armored Destroid Monsters with the big cannon in that pack, it seems likely to be a firepower enhancement intended for use on hard-armored targets

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Ship buster!

[Seto Kaiba]

  On 3/2/2020 at 4:31 AM, Bolt said:

Ship buster!

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It doesn't really seem powerful enough to inflict meaningful damage on a ship... my guess is it's meant for dealing with things like Armoreds.

[JB0]

My guess is that it wasn't really thought out farther than "wouldn't this look cool?", which is kind of surprising for the franchise with an essay on overtechnology screws and bolts.

[pengbuzz]

  On 3/2/2020 at 2:11 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

It doesn't really seem powerful enough to inflict meaningful damage on a ship... my guess is it's meant for dealing with things like Armoreds.

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Predecessor of the Heavy Laser Module Gamlin uses in Macross 7, perhaps (the red pack he would put into his gunpod and wreck whatever mech that the Protodevil known as Gavil was using at that point.)?

[Seto Kaiba]

  On 3/2/2020 at 11:39 PM, JB0 said:

My guess is that it wasn't really thought out farther than "wouldn't this look cool?", which is kind of surprising for the franchise with an essay on overtechnology screws and bolts.

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Most unusually for Macross, it does seem like a throwaway design.  There's no line art for it in This is Animation Special: Macross Plus or This is Animation: the Select Macross Plus Movie Edition and it's not covered even in technical publications like Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur.

 

  On 3/2/2020 at 11:52 PM, pengbuzz said:

Predecessor of the Heavy Laser Module Gamlin uses in Macross 7, perhaps (the red pack he would put into his gunpod and wreck whatever mech that the Protodevil known as Gavil was using at that point.)?

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Unlikely, IMO... the VF-17 Nightmare was already in its third year of frontline service when Project Super Nova was going on.  If anything, it'd probably have had to be developed from the VF-17's beam adapter.

[pengbuzz]

  On 3/3/2020 at 1:00 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Most unusually for Macross, it does seem like a throwaway design.  There's no line art for it in This is Animation Special: Macross Plus or This is Animation: the Select Macross Plus Movie Edition and it's not covered even in technical publications like Variable Fighter Master File: VF-19 Excalibur.

 

Unlikely, IMO... the VF-17 Nightmare was already in its third year of frontline service when Project Super Nova was going on.  If anything, it'd probably have had to be developed from the VF-17's beam adapter.

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Ah... yeah, aside from it's brief cameo in M+ and what we know from M7, I haven't really run into much concerning the VF-17 info-wise.

[Seto Kaiba]

  On 3/8/2020 at 7:33 PM, pengbuzz said:

Ah... yeah, aside from it's brief cameo in M+ and what we know from M7, I haven't really run into much concerning the VF-17 info-wise.

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Being a dedicated special forces VF, it's not altogether surprising that it didn't have many appearances.

Apart from the few units sitting out on the tarmac at New Edwards in Macross Plus, Diamond Force's three units in Macross 7, and the handful of VF-17s being sold on the black market to whale poachers in Macross Dynamite 7, the only significant appearances I recall the VF-17 having were as playable mecha in Macross Digital Mission VF-X and Macross VF-X2, being a background character's racing mecha in Macross the Ride, and being used by the Macross Galaxy Corporate Army in the novelization of Macross Frontier.  General Galaxy only built 718 of them, so that they're THAT widespread is actually kind of surprising.

[pengbuzz]

  On 3/8/2020 at 8:13 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Being a dedicated special forces VF, it's not altogether surprising that it didn't have many appearances.

Apart from the few units sitting out on the tarmac at New Edwards in Macross Plus, Diamond Force's three units in Macross 7, and the handful of VF-17s being sold on the black market to whale poachers in Macross Dynamite 7, the only significant appearances I recall the VF-17 having were as playable mecha in Macross Digital Mission VF-X and Macross VF-X2, being a background character's racing mecha in Macross the Ride, and being used by the Macross Galaxy Corporate Army in the novelization of Macross Frontier.  General Galaxy only built 718 of them, so that they're THAT widespread is actually kind of surprising.

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Right? With that in mind, that the whale poachers in Dynamite 7 actually managed to get their hands on one is a bit surprising. Any info on it I know is either from the RPG stats (admittedly arbitrary) posted online years ago at steelfalcon.com or the very concise work at macross2.net

https://web.archive.org/web/20120705001022/http://www.steelfalcon.com/macrossmecha.html

(had to go hunt for that one)

on that note:

  

  

  On 3/2/2020 at 11:52 PM, pengbuzz said:

Predecessor of the Heavy Laser Module Gamlin uses in Macross 7, perhaps (the red pack he would put into his gunpod and wreck whatever mech that the Protodevil known as Gavil was using at that point.)?

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  On 3/3/2020 at 1:00 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Unlikely, IMO... the VF-17 Nightmare was already in its third year of frontline service when Project Super Nova was going on.  If anything, it'd probably have had to be developed from the VF-17's beam adapter.

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I just realized that  the pack Gamlin puts into his gunpod is the gun pod beam adaptor (the steel falcon specs called it a "Heavy Laser Module".)

At any rate: the module the YF-19 had certainly seemed like overkill; I wonder what power source it had (like a pre-charged one time use capacitor that had to be recharged/ refurbished at base)?

Edited March 9, 2020 by pengbuzz

[Seto Kaiba]

  On 3/9/2020 at 9:04 AM, pengbuzz said:

Right? With that in mind, that the whale poachers in Dynamite 7 actually managed to get their hands on one is a bit surprising. Any info on it I know is either from the RPG stats (admittedly arbitrary) posted online years ago at steelfalcon.com or the very concise work at macross2.net

https://web.archive.org/web/20120705001022/http://www.steelfalcon.com/macrossmecha.html

(had to go hunt for that one)

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Oh man, I had forgotten about SteelFalcon.  So much outdated info, lol.

That whale poaching outfit in Dynamite 7 was suspiciously well-equipped... like, they had a fold-capable ship, a bunch of VA-3s, and were buying all kinds of black market weaponry like a thermonuclear reaction warhead.  They were never entirely clear on how galactic whale carcasses are used, but the implication was that they could be easily made into materials for a fold system.  I suspect they're a source of high-purity fold carbon, which would be very valuable in a pre-fold quartz galaxy.

 

 

  On 3/9/2020 at 5:04 AM, pengbuzz said:

I just realized that  the pack Gamlin puts into his gunpod is the gun pod beam adaptor (the steel falcon specs called it a "Heavy Laser Module".)

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Yeah, it's a surprisingly small module for the kind of firepower Gamlin gets out of it... though IIRC we never see one fire twice, so it may be one-and-done.

 

 

  On 3/9/2020 at 5:04 AM, pengbuzz said:

At any rate: the module the YF-19 had certainly seemed like overkill; I wonder what power source it had (like a pre-charged one time use capacitor that had to be recharged/ refurbished at base)?

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They go back and forth on how FAST Pack-mounted energy weapons are powered.  

Some, like the VF-1's Strike Pack, are indicated to be powered by the VF's own reactors or running off a rechargeable battery/capacitor that is constantly trickle-charging off the VF's reactors.  Others, like the VF-11's Armored Pack or VF-25's Armored Pack, are supposedly running off internal capacitors only.  

With stopping power like that, I'd assume it's probably powered by the VF's reactors given how small it seems to be.

[pengbuzz]

  On 3/10/2020 at 4:58 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Oh man, I had forgotten about SteelFalcon.  So much outdated info, lol.

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Yeah...seems like a thousand years ago that went up, doesn't it? lol

  

  On 3/10/2020 at 4:58 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

That whale poaching outfit in Dynamite 7 was suspiciously well-equipped... like, they had a fold-capable ship, a bunch of VA-3s, and were buying all kinds of black market weaponry like a thermonuclear reaction warhead.  They were never entirely clear on how galactic whale carcasses are used, but the implication was that they could be easily made into materials for a fold system.  I suspect they're a source of high-purity fold carbon, which would be very valuable in a pre-fold quartz galaxy.

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Right? lol My, how time flies...

I recall reading somewhere about them being used for "starship engines"; seeing as the Unity Government wouldn't openly do that, i suspect private ventures and "fringe-edgers" would consider it. Fold materials would certainly work into that equation.

And yeah: pretty high-end for a bunch of poachers. Makes me wonder if they were "privateers" of some type who were contracted "under the table" by a planetary government or corporation in some manner.

  

  On 3/10/2020 at 4:58 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, it's a surprisingly small module for the kind of firepower Gamlin gets out of it... though IIRC we never see one fire twice, so it may be one-and-done.

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Yeah...the RPG I used to play in, my character flew a VF-17 and I used the Beam Adaptor. The specs were indeed a "one and done", at least according to the RPG stats, as it was a one-charge capacitor powering it. you essentially traded an entire magazine of ammo for the opportunity to get a "one shot kill" on something (stats indicated it could be used on small starships! lol ). We called it "The One-Shot Deal" in the game as a joke.

 

  On 3/10/2020 at 4:58 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

They go back and forth on how FAST Pack-mounted energy weapons are powered.  

Some, like the VF-1's Strike Pack, are indicated to be powered by the VF's own reactors or running off a rechargeable battery/capacitor that is constantly trickle-charging off the VF's reactors.  Others, like the VF-11's Armored Pack or VF-25's Armored Pack, are supposedly running off internal capacitors only.  

With stopping power like that, I'd assume it's probably powered by the VF's reactors given how small it seems to be.

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I'd have to agree, given the raw power that one shot we saw delivered. Makes me wonder if they had a "siphon" that allowed beam weapon shots to the Valk to be absorbed and directed to internal capacitors in the module?

At any rate, my vote is definitely valk-reactor basedtrickle charge. That, or a really long extention cord ("Hey Shinji! Plug me in!!")

Edited March 10, 2020 by pengbuzz

[Seto Kaiba]

  On 3/10/2020 at 6:25 PM, pengbuzz said:

Yeah...seems like a thousand years ago that went up, doesn't it? lol

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Yeah, lol... I think I was still in high school when that site was at the apex of its popularity.

 

 

  5 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

I recall reading somewhere about them being used for "starship engines"; seeing as the Unity Government wouldn't openly do that, i suspect private ventures and "fringe-edgers" would consider it. Fold materials would certainly work into that equation.

And yeah: pretty high-end for a bunch of poachers. Makes me wonder if they were "privateers" of some type who were contracted "under the table" by a planetary government or corporation in some manner.

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The timeframe of Macross Dynamite 7 is about right for the discovery, in-setting, that there were biological lifeforms that possessed more advanced and powerful fold abilities than a manufactured starship.  First contact with the Vajra had been around seven years ago, and the 117th Research Fleet's great expedition to Vajra space was already well underway with Critical Path Corporation (pioneers in fold quartz tech) footing the bill.

Given that the Vahla Ena are a protected species, the likely client for whale carcasses is a private business interest with a vested interest in securing vast quantities of high purity fold crystals.  This train of thought can go in an uncomfortable direction when you realize that most of the likely buyers for those materials are "heroic" companies from later shows, with the most likely culprit being none other than SMS's parent company Bilra Transport.

 

 

  5 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Yeah...the RPG I used to play in, my character flew a VF-17 and I used the Beam Adaptor. The specs were indeed a "one and done", at least according to the RPG stats, as it was a one-charge capacitor powering it. you essentially traded an entire magazine of ammo for the opportunity to get a "one shot kill" on something (stats indicated it could be used on small starships! lol ). We called it "The One-Shot Deal" in the game as a joke.

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None of my players ever showed any interest in the VF-17... they were always about the VF-11 or the VF-19.  

We had a similar situation in the Macross II game I used to run, with my players referring to the big damn railgun on the VF-2SS's Super Armed Pack as the "F-You Button" since using it for a called shot on an enemy mecha was basically a one-hit kill on any particularly frustrating enemy.  (Justified, in that we see them splashing Gigameshes with the railgun in the OVA itself, and they're basically the heaviest-armored thing the Mardook have.)

 

  5 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

I'd have to agree, given the raw power that one shot we saw delivered. Makes me wonder if they had a "siphon" that allowed beam weapon shots to the Valk to be absorbed and directed to internal capacitors in the module?

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There are a few mentions of an electrical connection in the hand that provides power and data connections to the gunpod of some of the earlier model of VF.  I'd assume that that didn't go away in later models.  I doubt they'd have something like the G-Self's reflector pack from Reconguista in G though... damage from beam weapons was mostly dealt with using ablative anti-beam coatings and good old fashioned getting out of the way.

[pengbuzz]

  On 3/10/2020 at 6:46 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, lol... I think I was still in high school when that site was at the apex of its popularity.

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I think I was a few years out of high school by then, to be honest. It was about 1998 or so (if my memory serves correctly but don't hold em to that!) that my GM came across the stats.

  

  On 3/10/2020 at 6:46 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

The timeframe of Macross Dynamite 7 is about right for the discovery, in-setting, that there were biological lifeforms that possessed more advanced and powerful fold abilities than a manufactured starship.  First contact with the Vajra had been around seven years ago, and the 117th Research Fleet's great expedition to Vajra space was already well underway with Critical Path Corporation (pioneers in fold quartz tech) footing the bill.

Given that the Vahla Ena are a protected species, the likely client for whale carcasses is a private business interest with a vested interest in securing vast quantities of high purity fold crystals.  This train of thought can go in an uncomfortable direction when you realize that most of the likely buyers for those materials are "heroic" companies from later shows, with the most likely culprit being none other than SMS's parent company Bilra Transport.

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It's that "uncomfortable direction" that I was getting at; borrowing from Star Trek Again for a moment, I think some of those "heroic companies'" research  hit dead ends that could not be surmounted without extraordinary means (ala Dr. David Marcus' use of Protomatter in the Genesis Device).

 

  On 3/10/2020 at 6:46 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

None of my players ever showed any interest in the VF-17... they were always about the VF-11 or the VF-19. 

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I loved the Nightmare: it had more beam weaponry than most other mechs (no need to worry about running out of ammo), could not have its' stealth depleted by MDC damage (unlike the other fighters that would lose it when 50 percent of their MDC was lost), and the bonus to spaceflight was a nice boost.

  

  On 3/10/2020 at 6:46 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

We had a similar situation in the Macross II game I used to run, with my players referring to the big damn railgun on the VF-2SS's Super Armed Pack as the "F-You Button" since using it for a called shot on an enemy mecha was basically a one-hit kill on any particularly frustrating enemy.  (Justified, in that we see them splashing Gigameshes with the railgun in the OVA itself, and they're basically the heaviest-armored thing the Mardook have.)

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Ah yes: the VF-2SS SAP. When we first began our Macross campaign, it was set in the Macross II modules; later we would work in the colony fleet from Macross 7 and "take the show on the road" (there was a conspiracy on Earth and after uncovering it, my character became unpopular there!).  That railgun was certainly a show stopper, although half the time in a fight against the Gilgameshes, they would rip mine off the armor!!! Our GM had enemies for us that were smart and pretty cunning, to the point that if you did somethign really stupid in front of them, you were pretty much assured of needing to draw up a new character that session!

  

  On 3/10/2020 at 6:46 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

There are a few mentions of an electrical connection in the hand that provides power and data connections to the gunpod of some of the earlier model of VF.  I'd assume that that didn't go away in later models.  I doubt they'd have something like the G-Self's reflector pack from Reconguista in G though... damage from beam weapons was mostly dealt with using ablative anti-beam coatings and good old fashioned getting out of the way.

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Gotcha. Thinking about it: if UN Spacy could think of that, the enemies would definitely have it as well.

 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

  On 3/11/2020 at 6:47 PM, pengbuzz said:

It's that "uncomfortable direction" that I was getting at; borrowing from Star Trek Again for a moment, I think some of those "heroic companies'" research  hit dead ends that could not be surmounted without extraordinary means (ala Dr. David Marcus' use of Protomatter in the Genesis Device).

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The novelization of the Macross Frontier TV series was the first to make something like that explicit, by revealing that the 117th Research Fleet's disastrous mission to Vajra space was at least partly instigated by the Critical Path corporation as part of their research into fold quartz and its potential military applications.

Richard Bilra, the owner of Bilra Transport and its subsidiary Strategic Military Services, went to some pretty extreme lengths in his quest to overcome the obstacle fold faults posed to interstellar travel and commerce.  He commissioned an entire emigrant fleet to go gallivanting off into Vajra space in search of a stable supply of fold quartz, established the pseudo-covert fold dimensional resonance program on the isolated emigrant planet Uroboros to develop a method to reliably penetrate fold faults without having to disclose the technology to the New UN Government, and sank a lot of cash into fold quartz research.  It wouldn't be at all surprising if he also bought black market fold carbon from galactic whale carcasses in the hopes that it'd be more potent than the advanced synthetic fold carbon used in fold drives or thermonuclear reactor GICs.

 

  34 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

I loved the Nightmare: it had more beam weaponry than most other mechs (no need to worry about running out of ammo), could not have its' stealth depleted by MDC damage (unlike the other fighters that would lose it when 50 percent of their MDC was lost), and the bonus to spaceflight was a nice boost.

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The Nightmare was an unusual one, for sure... very little payload versatility, but a surprising amount of integrated beam weaponry and nearly three times as tough as the VF-1.  By the RPG stats I've written for it, it would've been one hell of a brawler.  My current game's players are more about the VF-171.  They've discovered that, thanks to its heavy modularity, it's basically a Swiss Army VF.  All it's really missing is an Armored Pack.

 

  34 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

 Gotcha. Thinking about it: if UN Spacy could think of that, the enemies would definitely have it as well.

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It'd be a hell of a thing if they came up with something like the Reflector Pack, since VF gunpods seem to be moving away from hard rounds to heavy quantum beam weapons... that would, durability aside, effectively make a fighter invulnerable to everything but missiles.

[pengbuzz]

  On 3/11/2020 at 7:41 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

The novelization of the Macross Frontier TV series was the first to make something like that explicit, by revealing that the 117th Research Fleet's disastrous mission to Vajra space was at least partly instigated by the Critical Path corporation as part of their research into fold quartz and its potential military applications.

Richard Bilra, the owner of Bilra Transport and its subsidiary Strategic Military Services, went to some pretty extreme lengths in his quest to overcome the obstacle fold faults posed to interstellar travel and commerce.  He commissioned an entire emigrant fleet to go gallivanting off into Vajra space in search of a stable supply of fold quartz, established the pseudo-covert fold dimensional resonance program on the isolated emigrant planet Uroboros to develop a method to reliably penetrate fold faults without having to disclose the technology to the New UN Government, and sank a lot of cash into fold quartz research.  It wouldn't be at all surprising if he also bought black market fold carbon from galactic whale carcasses in the hopes that it'd be more potent than the advanced synthetic fold carbon used in fold drives or thermonuclear reactor GICs.

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Makes sense; especially when the Unity Government decentralized (Per Macross Delta), being able to reach all colonies, fleets and member planets without hindrance from fold limitations becomes a big priority. And seeing that Bilra invested so much big cash into it, him not wanting to lose that to the Government or NUNS becomes critical.

  

  On 3/11/2020 at 7:41 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

The Nightmare was an unusual one, for sure... very little payload versatility, but a surprising amount of integrated beam weaponry and nearly three times as tough as the VF-1.  By the RPG stats I've written for it, it would've been one hell of a brawler.  My current game's players are more about the VF-171.  They've discovered that, thanks to its heavy modularity, it's basically a Swiss Army VF.  All it's really missing is an Armored Pack.

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  It definitely was! Yeah, missile ordnance reeked heavily, but it had fast packs that attached to it:

(About 1/3 down the page are the pics of the fast packs)

I wonder if the fast packs would be compatible with the VF-171? It doesn't look like where they would mount has changed...

  On 3/11/2020 at 7:41 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

It'd be a hell of a thing if they came up with something like the Reflector Pack, since VF gunpods seem to be moving away from hard rounds to heavy quantum beam weapons... that would, durability aside, effectively make a fighter invulnerable to everything but missiles.

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Right?

Silly thought: trying to defeat the SDF-1's main gun using thousands of ships/ mechs armed with reflector packs. :P Not so silly thought: UN Spacy developing that and arming the Grand Cannon with it, so instead of the Zentran Armada pulverizing Earth in Space War One, all they managed to do was power up the gun! o.o

[JB0]

  On 3/11/2020 at 11:41 PM, pengbuzz said:

Silly thought: trying to defeat the SDF-1's main gun using thousands of ships/ mechs armed with reflector packs. :P Not so silly thought: UN Spacy developing that and arming the Grand Cannon with it, so instead of the Zentran Armada pulverizing Earth in Space War One, all they managed to do was power up the gun! o.o

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Remember the omnidirectional barrier incident?

Not too hard to imagine an upgraded barrier that allows the excess stored energy to be siphoned off for use in other systems(instead of being released in a devastating unfocused wave). 

[sketchley]

  On 3/11/2020 at 7:41 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

The Nightmare was an unusual one, for sure... very little payload versatility, but a surprising amount of integrated beam weaponry and nearly three times as tough as the VF-1. (...)

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Wait a sec... is that based on the Steel Falcon stats for it?

Makes me glad that I tweaked the stats with Official Setting info.  Check out the leg internal pallets for your payload versatility needs!  http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/Stats/Statistics/VF-17/VF17.php

(I'll prolly have to revisit those 'pallets', as they're based off of the ones used in the 19 and 21, and the Internal Weapon Bays in the 17's engine nacelles are substantially... more voluminous.  )

[Seto Kaiba]

  On 3/11/2020 at 11:41 PM, pengbuzz said:

Makes sense; especially when the Unity Government decentralized (Per Macross Delta), being able to reach all colonies, fleets and member planets without hindrance from fold limitations becomes a big priority. And seeing that Bilra invested so much big cash into it, him not wanting to lose that to the Government or NUNS becomes critical.

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The decentralization of the government wasn't something that happened all at once... it was a very gradual process caused by the logistical problems of trying to remotely govern emigrant planets and fleets that were months or even years distant from Earth via space fold.

Bilra owns an interstellar cargo service, so finding ways to overcome fold faults or even just making his fold systems more efficient and powerful would have been a HUGE draw for him.  What logistics/freight company doesn't want to be the fastest around when it comes to delivery?

 

  2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I wonder if the fast packs would be compatible with the VF-171? It doesn't look like where they would mount has changed...

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The transformation changed pretty extensively, so I'd suspect they wouldn't work.

 

  On 3/12/2020 at 2:18 AM, sketchley said:

Wait a sec... is that based on the Steel Falcon stats for it?

Makes me glad that I tweaked the stats with Official Setting info.  Check out the leg internal pallets for your payload versatility needs!  http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/Stats/Statistics/VF-17/VF17.php

(I'll prolly have to revisit those 'pallets', as they're based off of the ones used in the 19 and 21, and the Internal Weapon Bays in the 17's engine nacelles are substantially... more voluminous.  )

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Are you sure about some of the stuff on that page?  You've got the VF-17 listed with wing pylons... in green text no less... but official writeups like the one in Macross Chronicle say ALL of the production VF-17's armaments were internalized to preserve its passively stealthy performance.

Looking back at the official line art for the VF-17's bays, they don't seem all that capacious... certainly no more than the ones shown on the VF-11, VF-19, or VF-22.  The kind of payload space that'll get you one reaction missile, maybe two medium-range missiles, or a dozen micro-missiles.  The bays can't take up that much space because they're sharing space with the gunpod bay and things like the landing gear.  Between the leg bays holding maybe twelve micro-missiles and the ~3 per port on built-in launchers, that's just 36 missiles.  Not a huge sum compared to what you can get by using wing pylons to carry launcher pods.

[pengbuzz]

  On 3/12/2020 at 2:54 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

The decentralization of the government wasn't something that happened all at once... it was a very gradual process caused by the logistical problems of trying to remotely govern emigrant planets and fleets that were months or even years distant from Earth via space fold.

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Yeah...I probably didn't make mention of it, but I knew it wasn't "all at once". That would put increasing pressure to find a better fold method, rather than a "Project: Supernova" type of race for the next fold system.

  

  On 3/12/2020 at 2:54 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Bilra owns an interstellar cargo service, so finding ways to overcome fold faults or even just making his fold systems more efficient and powerful would have been a HUGE draw for him.  What logistics/freight company doesn't want to be the fastest around when it comes to delivery?

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Why is it now I'm imagining ARMD space platforms all painted in UPS and FEDEX colors? rofl

 

Seriously though: at the risk of sounding "out of the loop", does the quality of the fold carbon determine the speed of the fold process here? Is that overtly stated or just implied?

  

  On 3/12/2020 at 2:54 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

The transformation changed pretty extensively, so I'd suspect they wouldn't work.

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Since the Super Parts are on the arms and legs, I don't know if that would matter, unless the transform would cause those to collide with the main body somehow. (In that regard, I imagine the transform for the Super Valkyrie had to be tweaked, as the Super Packs for the legs required the leg to be bent rather than straight in fighter mode). I think someone would have to get the super parts for the VF-17 and see if the could fit on a VF-171 of the same scale and what the transform would involve.

On that note: I recall something stating that the Super Parts for the 17 had to be dropped when converting to Soldier mode (I really need to find where that is referenced).

 

  On 3/12/2020 at 2:54 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Are you sure about some of the stuff on that page?  You've got the VF-17 listed with wing pylons... in green text no less... but official writeups like the one in Macross Chronicle say ALL of the production VF-17's armaments were internalized to preserve its passively stealthy performance.

Looking back at the official line art for the VF-17's bays, they don't seem all that capacious... certainly no more than the ones shown on the VF-11, VF-19, or VF-22.  The kind of payload space that'll get you one reaction missile, maybe two medium-range missiles, or a dozen micro-missiles.  The bays can't take up that much space because they're sharing space with the gunpod bay and things like the landing gear.  Between the leg bays holding maybe twelve micro-missiles and the ~3 per port on built-in launchers, that's just 36 missiles.  Not a huge sum compared to what you can get by using wing pylons to carry launcher pods.

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I noted that as well; in fact, I always thought the gun pod would have taken space away, as it seems a stretch to cram it in with an engine.

 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

  On 3/12/2020 at 6:07 PM, pengbuzz said:

Yeah...I probably didn't make mention of it, but I knew it wasn't "all at once". That would put increasing pressure to find a better fold method, rather than a "Project: Supernova" type of race for the next fold system.

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There was likely a fairly brisk competition between the various emerging megacorps that would dominate the defense/technology industry to improve the capabilities and reliability of fold systems in the wake of the First Space War.

Improved reliability and efficiency aside, there doesn't seem to have been a real breakthrough until the Critical Path corporation discovered that fold quartz could be applied to fold technology to produce all kinds of improvements.

 

  3 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Why is it now I'm imagining ARMD space platforms all painted in UPS and FEDEX colors? rofl

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Macross Delta was the first look we actually got at an interstellar freighter... and it looks like the lovechild of an ARMD-class space carrier and a big rig truck.

 

  3 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Seriously though: at the risk of sounding "out of the loop", does the quality of the fold carbon determine the speed of the fold process here? Is that overtly stated or just implied?

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A little from column A, a little from column B.

We know that the purity of fold quartz impacts the quality of the heavy quanta it produces when energized, and that in turn impacts the intensity of the gravitational effects that the heavy quanta can produce.  So the purer the fold quartz, the harder you can twist space and time.  When you get to fold quartz levels of purity, you can produce gravity so intense it can effectively create black hole-like effects (which is how MDE weapons work).

 

  3 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Since the Super Parts are on the arms and legs, I don't know if that would matter, unless the transform would cause those to collide with the main body somehow. (In that regard, I imagine the transform for the Super Valkyrie had to be tweaked, as the Super Packs for the legs required the leg to be bent rather than straight in fighter mode). I think someone would have to get the super parts for the VF-17 and see if the could fit on a VF-171 of the same scale and what the transform would involve.

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I think the biggest problem would be keeping the top packs with the beam guns aligned with the back, since the VF-171 has a much more VF-1-like transformation.

 

  3 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

On that note: I recall something stating that the Super Parts for the 17 had to be dropped when converting to Soldier mode (I really need to find where that is referenced).

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Probably some old RPG stats... I'm pretty sure that's not the case, but I can see how they might draw that conclusion since Gamlin dumps his Super Pack (after exhausting its missiles) before transforming in Macross 7 ep44.

[sketchley]

  On 3/12/2020 at 2:54 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Are you sure about some of the stuff on that page?  You've got the VF-17 listed with wing pylons... in green text no less... but official writeups like the one in Macross Chronicle say ALL of the production VF-17's armaments were internalized to preserve its passively stealthy performance.

Looking back at the official line art for the VF-17's bays, they don't seem all that capacious... certainly no more than the ones shown on the VF-11, VF-19, or VF-22.  The kind of payload space that'll get you one reaction missile, maybe two medium-range missiles, or a dozen micro-missiles.  The bays can't take up that much space because they're sharing space with the gunpod bay and things like the landing gear.  Between the leg bays holding maybe twelve micro-missiles and the ~3 per port on built-in launchers, that's just 36 missiles.  Not a huge sum compared to what you can get by using wing pylons to carry launcher pods.

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Fixed!  http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/Stats/Statistics/VF-17/VF17.php

(and the VF-17T Kai for good measure: http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/Stats/Statistics/VF-17/vf17kai.php )

 

The green (= official setting) formatting appears to have been a case of copy pasting from the VF-171.  ... and speaking of that, I've also back-extrapolating more wing ordinance! (However, it's in the unofficial formatting ).

I'd love to argue the point about VFs and hardpoints, but have neither the time or energy.  I think the solution I've adopted let's us both be happy (official vs unofficial markup).

 

As far as internal space goes... some quotes from Great Mechanics:

  Quote

Surplus Payload
The VF-17's load-ability is high because the fuselage has great volume and a tenacious structure, and the engine thrust is high.  The VF-17 can also be loaded with all sorts of things, such as special armaments and large sound boosters within that surplus.

Battroid has also Increased in Size
Probably because of the difference in the airframe concept, the size when in Battroid has also increased from the VF-11's 12 m class to the 15 m class.

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As the VF-17 is 25% larger than the VF-11, not to mention having more rectangular lower engine nacelles (compared to the squarish-shaped ones in the VF-11, 19, etc), it ought to have much more space—especially as the landing gear and gun pod are essentially in (or slide through) the shin.

 

 

Edited March 13, 2020 by sketchley

[Seto Kaiba]

  On 3/13/2020 at 3:09 AM, sketchley said:

Fixed!  http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/Stats/Statistics/VF-17/VF17.php

(and the VF-17T Kai for good measure: http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/Stats/Statistics/VF-17/vf17kai.php )

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Well, there is at least some evidence to suggest the VF-17T Kai may have had wing pylons or some special equipment attachment point added during customization... since IIRC we see Ray deploy a Speaker Pod Gamma that way.

 

  On 3/12/2020 at 11:09 PM, sketchley said:

The green (= official setting) formatting appears to have been a case of copy pasting from the VF-171.  ... and speaking of that, I've also back-extrapolating more wing ordinance! (However, it's in the unofficial formatting ).

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Ah, yeah... I figured it was probably copy-pasted from the VF-171 page.

 

 

  On 3/12/2020 at 11:09 PM, sketchley said:

I'd love to argue the point about VFs and hardpoints, but have neither the time or energy.  I think the solution I've adopted let's us both be happy (official vs unofficial markup).

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lol, I wasn't exactly intending to complain... just wondering if you knew something I didn't.

 

 

  On 3/13/2020 at 3:09 AM, sketchley said:

Surplus Payload
The VF-17's load-ability is high because the fuselage has great volume and a tenacious structure, and the engine thrust is high.  The VF-17 can also be loaded with all sorts of things, such as special armaments and large sound boosters within that surplus.

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My inclination would be to connect that to the remarks made in Macross Chronicle about the VF-17's armaments being heavily modularized and easily exchanged/customized with other optional hardware... a trait inherited by its successor/descendant, the VF-171 Nightmare Plus, which enabled it to be converted to other mission roles like the VB-171.

 

 

  On 3/12/2020 at 11:09 PM, sketchley said:

As the VF-17 is 25% larger than the VF-11, not to mention having more rectangular lower engine nacelles (compared to the squarish-shaped ones in the VF-11, 19, etc), it ought to have much more space—especially as the landing gear and gun pod are essentially in (or slide through) the shin.

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Granted... but it's packing more stuff in there too.  Not just the gunpod and beam adapter (or spare magazines), it also needs that space for things like fuel tanks that double as the reactor coolant in space operations.

[Valkyrie Driver]

I've been watching a lot of UC Gundam lately, and it got me thinking, are there any VF's which were either designed to kill ships or were there any which were particularly well suited for the task? I know that reaction missiles really make such a thing easy to do. Were there any large cannon equipped VF's?

[twich]

VF-27, YF-29, SV-262, and even VF-31.  The Special arm cannon on the YF-19 might have some anti-capital capability.  VB-6 definately shows on screen anti-capital ship capability

Twich

[camk4evr]

Also the Metal Siren from Macross II

[Seto Kaiba]

  On 3/16/2020 at 4:22 AM, Valkyrie Driver said:

I've been watching a lot of UC Gundam lately, and it got me thinking, are there any VF's which were either designed to kill ships or were there any which were particularly well suited for the task? I know that reaction missiles really make such a thing easy to do.

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Most VFs are, by their very nature, multirole strike fighter aircraft... but I'm not aware of any that are specifically intended for anti-warship use.  

The VF-17 Nightmare is noted in one or two sources to have been intended for long-range attack missions, and we know it's a space-optimized variable fighter, so it may technically fit the bill even if it would just be a stealthy method of deploying thermonuclear reaction missiles since it lacks any heavy offensive options besides its gunpod's beam adapter.

Outside of the obvious point that thermonuclear reaction munitions allow pretty much any VF to take the fight to enemy capital ships, any VF with heavy beam weaponry more or less fits the bill.  The VF-4 and VF-14, for instance, or anything with a FAST Pack that mounts heavy beam weaponry like the VF-1's Strike Pack, VF-1R's Attack Pack, VF-25's Strike Pack and Tornado Pack, VF-31's Super Pack, or the heavy quantum beam gunpods that have a "beam grenade" mode used by the YF-27, VF-27, YF-29, YF-30, and Sv-262.

 

  9 hours ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

Were there any large cannon equipped VF's?

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Define "large".  There were standard gunpods up to 60mm, but most of the really big guns on VFs are beam weapons.

The VB-6 Konig Monster obviously tops the charts with the biggest variable unit-mounted solid ammo cannon... but it's a bomber, not a fighter.

We've seen beam weapons with bores of anywhere from 11mm up to 180mm.

[Valkyrie Driver]

  On 3/16/2020 at 2:23 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Most VFs are, by their very nature, multirole strike fighter aircraft... but I'm not aware of any that are specifically intended for anti-warship use. 

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That's true, but even still a multi-role fighter is usually still a better fighter than it is anything else. You could dogfight with an F-105 or an F-4E, but those turned out to be better bombers than they were fighters, just as the F-16 is a better fighter than it is a bomber due to it's fairly limited payload compared to a B-1 or an A-10.

  On 3/16/2020 at 2:23 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

The VF-17 Nightmare is noted in one or two sources to have been intended for long-range attack missions, and we know it's a space-optimized variable fighter, so it may technically fit the bill even if it would just be a stealthy method of deploying thermonuclear reaction missiles since it lacks any heavy offensive options besides its gunpod's beam adapter.

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I mean, that's a very practical method of doing things. The beam adapter is a one shot wonder, and the times we see it used in animation, it's never used against a hard target like a ship, so it's hard to say if it's really that powerful.

  On 3/16/2020 at 2:23 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Outside of the obvious point that thermonuclear reaction munitions allow pretty much any VF to take the fight to enemy capital ships, any VF with heavy beam weaponry more or less fits the bill.  The VF-4 and VF-14, for instance, or anything with a FAST Pack that mounts heavy beam weaponry like the VF-1's Strike Pack, VF-1R's Attack Pack, VF-25's Strike Pack and Tornado Pack, VF-31's Super Pack, or the heavy quantum beam gunpods that have a "beam grenade" mode used by the YF-27, VF-27, YF-29, YF-30, and Sv-262.

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That's fair. It just doesn't seem like there's a lot of stand-off weapons used by VF's to accomplish missions like anti-ship attacks, in the way that we see more and more stand-off weapons being employed in real life. Every VF seems to be designed around close to medium range engagements.

  On 3/16/2020 at 2:23 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Define "large".  There were standard gunpods up to 60mm, but most of the really big guns on VFs are beam weapons.

The VB-6 Konig Monster obviously tops the charts with the biggest variable unit-mounted solid ammo cannon... but it's a bomber, not a fighter.

We've seen beam weapons with bores of anywhere from 11mm up to 180mm.

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I meant large, low rate of fire, cannons. Gunpods are a standard armament that are aircraft cannons, designed for high ROF to increase probability of hit and therefore increase probability of kill. I wasn't necessarily restricting it to solid projectile cannons, but asking about beam weapons as well. Most VF equipment seems geared towards taking out VF sized things, but we've seen examples in history where large guns are mounted on aircraft to take on targets which otherwise are too much for conventional aircraft armaments (37mm autocannons, 105mm howitzers, 75mm cannons). And I was wondering if there were parallels.