Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[TG Remix]

11 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

"Varying levels of success" in that case still being single digit numbers of one-off test units that never made it to mass production.  I think the single largest lot mentioned was the six Zeta Plus A1s that were delivered to Karaba, and most of those were subsequently converted into one-offs.

The Model Graphix issue of January 1989 seems to infer there was much more. Those six were from A2 types that were converted from A1 types, and twenty of those were said to be delivered to Karaba. Granted the few B types were also said to be converted from A types as well, but those aren't too bad numbers all things considered, especially when we don't know anything about how many C Types were built too.

 

11 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

(I think the only UC title where Gundams are truly mass-produced as a main MS is Victory... and even that is watered down a bit subsequently.)

If that's referring to the Victory Hexa the only difference it states is the head, otherwise it's almost identical to the original. The Victory MSV states that 20 of the original were built, but I'm assuming those are referring to the Core Fighters considering how much the limbs are considered expendable to Uso, lol.

 

11 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm not surprised we haven't gotten to see a stock VF-24 directly in the animation.  After all, the Central NUNS are basically the Biggest Stick.  Exactly what they get up to is never specified, but they apparently don't get involved in tiffs between emigrant governments because their bad behavior in the Second Unification Wars (Macross VF-X2) led to major reforms that put them on a much shorter leash and prevents them from interfering in politically difficult conflicts like that.  The few times we've seen representatives of a central New UN Forces unit they've basically been Power Overwhelming.  Colonel Todo's VF-X Special Forces unit more or less took over an entire planet with a single squadron and an extremely well-executed Bavarian fire drill.  Cromwell went off the radar with a single Battle-class and, after picking up some next-gen unmanned fighters, essentially took over an entire star cluster in just days with a single ship.

Considering the last time we saw them in animation was in Plus with their massive orbital defense, it's a amazing if not too surprising thing to consider that Earth and the Central UN as a whole are kinda broken in terms of military prowess. If not a stock VF-24, then it's more likely to see more detuned ones that were made from the YF-24 Evolution data that was sent to the colony fleets, to begin with. Though considering Cromwell's Battle Astresea, makes me wonder if a NUNS force can have a Macross-type carrier be built not tied to an emigration fleet as a flagship or something of the likes of that.

 

11 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Quite a few of the parts are said to have been custom-machined to Mylene's request by the an ultra-high end luxury car company.

Would make sense. Pretty much every other instance of a VF-11 having a pinpoint barrier (like the Jamming Bird's VF-11D Customs and VF-11C Thunderbolt Interceptor) seems to be custom fitted instead of any standard upgrade. Though personally, it would complement its relatively large shield a bit if implemented in a life extension program.

 

10 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Right? The "super enhancement" on those mechs are the ones in the pilot's seat.

I like your thinking, although we need to be careful else the Macross Galaxy takes that too literally!

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, TG Remix said:

The Model Graphix issue of January 1989 seems to infer there was much more. Those six were from A2 types that were converted from A1 types, and twenty of those were said to be delivered to Karaba. Granted the few B types were also said to be converted from A types as well, but those aren't too bad numbers all things considered, especially when we don't know anything about how many C Types were built too.

From what I can see in newer sources (e.g. Master Archive), the ~20 trial production Zeta Plus units that were delivered to Karaba make up the majority of the production volume and several of those units were broken up for parts instead of being used due to lack of spares.

(Considering how often its many configurations are said to have been unsuitable for mass production for cost reasons, or SO unsuitable for mass production due to cost that they were never actually built... it seems unlikely that it was ever truly a production model until the simplified ReGZ and ReZEL.)

 

2 hours ago, TG Remix said:

If that's referring to the Victory Hexa the only difference it states is the head, otherwise it's almost identical to the original. The Victory MSV states that 20 of the original were built, but I'm assuming those are referring to the Core Fighters considering how much the limbs are considered expendable to Uso, lol.

I was actually thinking of the simplified GUN-EZ mass production model... I completely forgot the Hexa exists.

 

2 hours ago, TG Remix said:

Considering the last time we saw them in animation was in Plus with their massive orbital defense, it's a amazing if not too surprising thing to consider that Earth and the Central UN as a whole are kinda broken in terms of military prowess. If not a stock VF-24, then it's more likely to see more detuned ones that were made from the YF-24 Evolution data that was sent to the colony fleets, to begin with. Though considering Cromwell's Battle Astresea, makes me wonder if a NUNS force can have a Macross-type carrier be built not tied to an emigration fleet as a flagship or something of the likes of that.

Earth's substantial military prowess owes a lot to Earth's massive technological and industrial base.

Not only is Earth home to the headquarters/head offices of many of the megacorporations on the bleeding edge of military and civilian technological development, it possesses (as far as we know) the single greatest concentration of manufacturing capacity anywhere outside of a Zentradi main fleet.  The Sol system is home to more than twenty factory satellites seized from the Zentradi Boddole Zer main fleet in 2010-2011.  Even one factory satellite is a gargantuan amount of manufacturing power, and most emigrant planets and fleets don't even have that and make do with Human-built automated or conventional factories.  It's how they were able to build these massive emigrant fleets so fast.

To date, I believe we've had mention of two independent Battle-class ships used by the Earth and/or central New UN Forces.  The Macross 13/Battle 13 that appears in Macross Frontier's novelizations as a not-so-secret defense flagship of the Earth New UN Forces under the command of General Kim Kabirov, and the Battle Astraea that belonged to the NUNS 7th Fleet before its commander (Cromwell) went rogue and disguised the theft of the ship as a fold accident.  Battle-class ships are rare, with most fleets having only the one, and independent Battle-class ships seem to be a recent introduction in the 2050s.  (Esp. given some accounts like the non-official Spica Shock where the central NUNS had borrowed the newly completed Battle 7 instead.)

 

2 hours ago, TG Remix said:

Would make sense. Pretty much every other instance of a VF-11 having a pinpoint barrier (like the Jamming Bird's VF-11D Customs and VF-11C Thunderbolt Interceptor) seems to be custom fitted instead of any standard upgrade. Though personally, it would complement its relatively large shield a bit if implemented in a life extension program.

It'd mean upgrading the VF-11's engines, since the thermonuclear reaction burst turbine's greater output seems to be required to meet the power demand of the barrier.

 

2 hours ago, TG Remix said:

I like your thinking, although we need to be careful else the Macross Galaxy takes that too literally!

Wouldn't be the first time... after all, the ancient Protoculture's solution to the Zentradi struggling with the Queadluun-series battle suits wasn't to scale down the suit's performance, it was to build a better pilot!

[DownIsUp]

Do we know if any Sv-51s or -52s sortied against Vf-1 Valkyries? I assume most of them had been packed up by UNS forces prior to the Vf-1's rollout but I wasn't sure

[Uxi]

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

 

To date, I believe we've had mention of two independent Battle-class ships used by the Earth and/or central New UN Forces.  The Macross 13/Battle 13 that appears in Macross Frontier's novelizations as a not-so-secret defense flagship of the Earth New UN Forces under the command of General Kim Kabirov, and the Battle Astraea that belonged to the NUNS 7th Fleet before its commander (Cromwell) went rogue and disguised the theft of the ship as a fold accident.  Battle-class ships are rare, with most fleets having only the one, and independent Battle-class ships seem to be a recent introduction in the 2050s.  (Esp. given some accounts like the non-official Spica Shock where the central NUNS had borrowed the newly completed Battle 7 instead.)

Wasn't I reading somewhere that Battle Astrea was thought to be salvaged from Battle 21 aka Battle Galaxy after it was destroyed by either Battle 25 Frontier (Mac Frontier series) or the Vajra (movie version)? 

[Seto Kaiba]

11 minutes ago, Uxi said:

Wasn't I reading somewhere that Battle Astrea was thought to be salvaged from Battle 21 aka Battle Galaxy after it was destroyed by either Battle 25 Frontier (Mac Frontier series) or the Vajra (movie version)? 

Oh, yeah... that was a theory about the Battle Astraea that was discussed here and elsewhere when promotional material for the movie gave us our first look the film's mechanical designs.  Since it was obvious at a glance that the Battle Astraea was a reuse of the Battle Galaxy CG model from Macross Frontier's TV series with fairly minimal modifications, a bit of pre-release speculation was that the anti-government organization Heimdall might've taken the wreck of the Battle Galaxy and restored it to use as their flagship.

When the film came out, that theory was jossed and we learned that Battle Astraea was a completely separate and unrelated ship that Cromwell commanded in the NUNS 7th Fleet before he went rogue to hunt Lady M.  He and his crew disappeared with the ship and its disappearance was eventually written off as a fold accident before she reappeared with a bunch of new upgrades as the flagship of the anti-government organization Heimdall.

 

 

2 hours ago, DownIsUp said:

Do we know if any Sv-51s or -52s sortied against Vf-1 Valkyries? I assume most of them had been packed up by UNS forces prior to the Vf-1's rollout but I wasn't sure

The first VF-1 Valkyries entered military service at the very end of November 2008.  They effectively missed the "official" end of the Unification Wars in 2007 and the de facto end of the Unification Wars in 2008.  

Outside of video games like Macross 30 where much of the franchise's "back catalog" of mecha are up for grabs, I can think of two very specific cases where a VF-1 is said to have encountered a SV-51 in combat:

The first is in the sixth and final volume of the incomplete manga Macross the First.  The flashback arc of the manga depicts a never-before-mentioned fourth defensive battle of South Ataria Island on Christmas Eve 2008.  Anti-Unification Alliance remnants basically carried out a suicide attack on the island as a distraction for an experimental unmanned SV-51 to take out the SDF-1 Macross and the island itself with a thermonuclear reaction bomb.  Most of the VFs used in that battle were VF-0's from the Asuka II's sister ship Graf Zeppelin II, but partway through the battle Roy sorties in his newly issued VF-1 to intercept the enemy leader.

The second is a passing mention in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-0 Phoenix that completely ignores the above.  In the story section SV-51's Final Air Battle starting on page 107, the final paragraphs describe a "distant finale" in the following year where an Alliance pilot named Kilis Dakurd who'd defected to the UN Forces after being defeated in the battle in the main section of the narrative scored the last known confirmed kill of an SV-51 in air combat.  He had been assigned to a VF-1 squadron based at Grand Cannon III in Africa and in June 2009 a badly maintained SV-51 attacked his unit and was easily shot down by Dakurd.  His after-action report noted that the SV-51 was in no shape to sustain combat and looked like it was looking for a place to die.  Dakurd is noted to be one of the few pilots to have scored against both a VF-0 and a SV-51.  

[Big s]

23 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The only one to actually reach true mass production was, IIRC, the ReZEL... which is not even really a Zeta Gundam derivative.  It's a tarted up ReGZ, which was another overpriced flop that saw only a tiny number of demonstrators produced despite basically being the GM version of the Zeta 1.

I always thought it was a production version of the Methus. They both have a lot of similarities and both transform into piles of crap

[aurance]

Pretty much any transforming in Gundam is half-assed.

[pengbuzz]

5 hours ago, aurance said:

Pretty much any transforming in Gundam is half-assed.

With all respect, the Zeta would hand most valks a butt-whooping unequalled in mech combat.

[Seto Kaiba]

14 hours ago, Big s said:

I always thought it was a production version of the Methus. They both have a lot of similarities and both transform into piles of crap

Kinda... according to Yutaka Izubuchi, who based the ReGZ on Koichi Ohata's earlier designs for a mass produced Zeta Gundam, the ReGZ is a simplified Zeta Gundam with the transformation system cut out, and the ReZEL developed from it is basically the ReGZ plus the Methuss's transformation system.

 

8 hours ago, aurance said:

Pretty much any transforming in Gundam is half-assed.

I dunno, I think the Zeta's transformation is pretty good... and it was heavily inspired by Macross's VF-1 Valkyrie.

A lot of the other transformations are pretty underwhelming, true.  Transformation design is hard, and there aren't many designers who can really do it well like Kawamori.

It really is impressive just how influential the VF-1 Valkyrie proved to be.  The 10th Anniversary feature in B-Club that talks about all the different mecha anime that credit Macross as an inspiration is basically a who's who of late 80's and early 90's mecha anime.

[Big s]

8 hours ago, aurance said:

Pretty much any transforming in Gundam is half-assed.

Sometimes they’re full assed, like the lower part of the ZZ

 

3 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

With all respect, the Zeta would hand most valks a butt-whooping unequalled in mech combat.

I do like the zeta and its lineage for the most part. It is tough for me to think of other great examples.

as far as a fight against a Valkyrie, that’s a bit tough since the zeta had a newtype pilot, but if you got the right A-hole pilot in a well armed Valkyrie he’d just have to keep reminding the Zeta’s pilot that he’s named after a girl and then unleash a barrage of reaction missiles 

[Big s]

3 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Kinda... according to Yutaka Izubuchi, who based the ReGZ on Koichi Ohata's earlier designs for a mass produced Zeta Gundam, the ReGZ is a simplified Zeta Gundam with the transformation system cut out, and the ReZEL developed from it is basically the ReGZ plus the Methuss's transformation system.

I still don’t see really anything from the ReGZ in the ReZel design at all. 

[azrael]

48 minutes ago, Big s said:

I still don’t see really anything from the ReGZ in the ReZel design at all. 

Think of it as if ReGZ and Methuss had a kid. ReZEL (Which literally stands for Refine Zeta Gundam Escort Leader) has all the refinements of ReGZ (weapons loadout plus a fully laid out MS vs Methuss's janky MS design) married to Methuss' transformation.

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

With all respect, the Zeta would hand most valks a butt-whooping unequalled in mech combat.

Of course, one always has to be careful drawing comparisons between different fictional settings because so much is often left deliberately vague and subjective assessments of performance depend heavily on the quality of the enemies in the series and their tech level.  Valid comparisons can only really be drawn where there are objective measures of any given design's capabilities... and there are certain settings that are simply SO over-the-top that any comparison becomes a bit silly.

I will explain in detail why this is silly in a spoiler tag so nobody has to wade through my ranting if they don't explicitly make a choice to do so.

Spoiler

Macross is one of those settings, TBH.  It's a near-future setting like many other mecha anime titles and it certainly looks like it's "15 minutes into the future" most of the time, but Humanity skipped centuries if not millennia of technological progress thanks to the overtechnology of Alien Starship-1 and the many other examples of Zentradi and Protoculture technology they've acquired since.  In the space of just a few years, Macross's Earth went from flying the occasional combustion rocket up to a space station in orbit for scientific research to having permanent bases on the Moon and Mars and over a hundred interplanetary spaceships with artificial gravity, energy weapons, and all kinds of other sci-fi tech.  It operates on a frankly bonkers level of power compared to most other "real robot" type mecha anime.

Gundam in general, and especially its Universal Century timeline, is a lot more grounded and near-future technologically because Humanity didn't have any shortcuts or cheats to obtain the technology to build things like space colonies, permanent settlements on the moon, and giant robots.  That was the product of literal decades of patient research and innovation, so despite being set much farther into the future than Macross was the technology is much less advanced because it's a logical extension of real world tech.  They're building real world space habitat concepts like the Stanford Torus and O'Neill Cylinder space colonies instead of sci-fi space stations with artificial gravity.  They're using various forms of thermonuclear propulsion, but it's a mix of Project Orion-esque pulsed nuclear thrusters and reactor-heated thermal rockets instead of something like an impulse drive.  The easiest place to spot it is in energy outputs, though... 

 

In Gundam, and particularly the Universal Century, a megawatt (1,000 kilowatts) is a LOT of energy.  It's a lot of energy by modern standards too.  750W is a reasonable idle power draw for a residential home in the American midwest this time of year.  It can spike as high as 3-4,000W if you're running your dishwasher and washing machine and air conditioner all at once.  The MS-06C/F Zaku II's compact thermonuclear reactor produces 976kW, or enough electricity to power about 244 houses that are all running their most energy-intensive appliances simultaneously or around 1,300 homes at the idle level.  The RX-78-2 Gundam's compact thermonuclear reactor was rated for a lot more power at 1,380kW.  The MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam's tops out at 2,020kW... enough to power almost 2,700 homes at idle or over 500 at peak.

In Macross, a megawatt is not very much power at all.  Each of the VF-1 Valkyrie's two compact thermonuclear reactors is rated for 650,000kW (650 megawatts), for a total output of 1,300,000kW (1,300 megawatts, or 1.3 gigawatts).  That's 1,332x the output of the MS-06C/F Zaku II, 942x the output of the RX-78-2 Gundam, and 643x the output of the MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam.  That's enough juice to power 1.733 million homes at idle or 325,000 homes at peak demand as above.

You see this same dichotomy in energy weapons.  The original beam rifle used by the RX-78-2 Gundam has an output of 1,900kW (1.9MW), and the beam spray guns which were built for the GM are rated for between 1,400kW and 1,500kW depending on model.  This is explicitly and repeatedly said to be capital ship-grade firepower.  The Zeta Gundam's beam rifle is rated for 5,700kW.  

The VF-1 Valkyrie's coaxial laser cannons, which depending on variant it can have anywhere from one to four of on the monitor turret, have a rated output of 5,000kW each.  The lightest, lowest-output energy weapon the VF-1 can carry has 2.5x the peak output of the original Gundam's heaviest weapon and only slightly less than the Zeta's own heavy beam rifle.  The SF-3A Lancer II carries a pair of beam cannons rated for 750,000kW each... around 131x the firepower of the Zeta Gundam's boomstick per cannon, and it's got two.  Later beam weapons in Macross like the VF-1's Strike pack cannon are said to have outputs of tens or dozens of megawatts and the later beam gunpods likely cross the line into hundreds considering the first few examples require dedicated reactors to operate.

Drawing comparisons between different franchises with vastly different worldviews and concepts of scale is going to yield pretty silly and often one-sided results even when there's objective data for comparison.

(Thankfully it's not as bad as, say, trying to compare to Five Star Stories where the tech level is bonkers enough to have semi-perpetual motion generators producing petawatt-levels of power and beam weapons able to destroy planets carried by regular mecha.)

Edited September 18 by Seto Kaiba

[aurance]

7 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

With all respect, the Zeta would hand most valks a butt-whooping unequalled in mech combat.

I have no idea how they would perform against each other - it's not particularly relevant or interesting. I was referring to design: how good-looking both forms are, and the smoothness of the transformation process.

[aurance]

3 hours ago, Big s said:

Sometimes they’re full assed, like the lower part of the ZZ

Kinda. It's a lot of engineering for a pair of legs to turn into a different looking blob.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, aurance said:

I have no idea how they would perform against each other - it's not particularly relevant or interesting. I was referring to design: how good-looking both forms are, and the smoothness of the transformation process.

Ah, okay.

[Big s]

3 hours ago, azrael said:

Think of it as if ReGZ and Methuss had a kid. ReZEL (Which literally stands for Refine Zeta Gundam Escort Leader) has all the refinements of ReGZ (weapons loadout plus a fully laid out MS vs Methuss's janky MS design) married to Methuss' transformation

If not for this discussion, I wouldn’t have known what the name meant. I really hadn’t cared about the naming in U.C. Gundam stuff since most were from awkward sound effects, like the Zaku or Dom. Or they’re some odd German translation or just named after flowers or something else of equal silliness.

 I just went with the assumption that in Unicorn, that the kid who first identified the ReZel as a zeta type transformable suit just was referring to project Zeta. And if I remember that included happy accidents like the Hyaku Shiki, the Methus and eventually the Zeta and a few other oddballs

[Big s]

2 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Ah, okay.

Personally I don’t mind the odd performance comparison in an oddball thread. Kind like the Enterprise vs Macross discussions. They’re all equally ridiculous, but an entertaining distraction 

[azrael]

51 minutes ago, Big s said:

And if I remember that included happy accidents like the Hyaku Shiki, the Methus and eventually the Zeta and a few other oddballs

Yes, we'll save that discussion for a Gundam forum or Gundam mech thread. But yes, Project Zeta produced many "happy little accidents" for Anaheim.

[Seto Kaiba]

So... I was laid up in bed with a nasty migraine today and ended up going down another overtechnology rabbit hole when left to my own devices.

In this case, laser weaponry.

Master File initially doesn't have a lot to say about OTM laser weapons, but some of the later volumes like the ones for the VF-19 and VF-25 drop some details about the specific laser technology being used.  

The VF-0 volume actually has something VERY interesting to say about what they replaced.  Official setting materials have said for a long time that the UN Forces originally wanted a conventional cannon for the Variable Fighter's coaxial gunmount, but that they couldn't find a way to make it work with the aggressively limited space inside the monitor turret of the VF-1.  As you know, the fictional company Mauler that makes laser and beam weapons in Macross is the setting's version of real world firearms manufacturer Mauser (now a division of Rheinmetall).  The VF-0 Master File names a very real Mauser product as the original planned weapon for the VF-0's monitor turret: the Mauser BK-27 revolver cannon.  It's said that the VF-0's RoV-15 laser cannon was designed to be as close to the stopping power of the BK-27 it replaced as possible.

The lasers that replaced the Mauser/Mauler BK-27 27mm cannon are multi-wavelength fiber lasers that combine up to six separate laser wavelengths into a single beam using a doped fiber optic cable as the gain medium.  They apparently lack a final focusing lens or a proper cooling system to allow them to operate with maximum flexibility in space and atmosphere at the expense of range... which at least neatly explains why laser weapons, which should be the most accurate and longest-ranged of all the weapons on offer, are typically only used at short ranges.

Edited September 21 by Seto Kaiba

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

So... I was laid up in bed with a nasty migraine today and ended up going down another overtechnology rabbit hole when left to my own devices.

In this case, laser weaponry.

Master File initially doesn't have a lot to say about OTM laser weapons, but some of the later volumes like the ones for the VF-19 and VF-25 drop some details about the specific laser technology being used.  

The VF-0 volume actually has something VERY interesting to say about what they replaced.  Official setting materials have said for a long time that the UN Forces originally wanted a conventional cannon for the Variable Fighter's coaxial gunmount, but that they couldn't find a way to make it work with the aggressively limited space inside the monitor turret of the VF-1.  As you know, the fictional company Mauler that makes laser and beam weapons in Macross is the setting's version of real world firearms manufacturer Mauser (now a division of Rheinmetall).  The VF-0 Master File names a very real Mauser product as the original planned weapon for the VF-0's monitor turret: the Mauser BK-27 revolver cannon.  It's said that the VF-0's RoV-15 laser cannon was designed to be as close to the stopping power of the BK-27 it replaced as possible.

The lasers that replaced the Mauser/Mauler BK-27 27mm cannon are multi-wavelength fiber lasers that combine up to six separate laser wavelengths into a single beam using a doped fiber optic cable as the gain medium.  They apparently lack a final focusing lens or a proper cooling system to allow them to operate with maximum flexibility in space and atmosphere at the expense of range... which at least neatly explains why laser weapons, which should be the most accurate and longest-ranged of all the weapons on offer, are typically only used at short ranges.

Hoping you feel better Seto; I suffer migraines as well and know exactly what you mean.

And that's very interesting about the lasers: I hadn't considered that fiber optics could be used in lasers, let alone without a final collimating lens. O.o Something for me to consider in the design of my transforming fighter.

[Seto Kaiba]

18 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Hoping you feel better Seto; I suffer migraines as well and know exactly what you mean.

Feelin' much better today, thanks. 😁

I've heard that you can mitigate migraine symptoms with potassium and salt supplements (or potato chips and bananas), so I've been experimenting with that a bit.

 

18 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

And that's very interesting about the lasers: I hadn't considered that fiber optics could be used in lasers, let alone without a final collimating lens. O.o Something for me to consider in the design of my transforming fighter.

Oh yeah, the technology was invented in 1961.  It's basically the same principle at work in lasers using crystal gain mediums applied to fiber-optic filaments.

By treating an optical-quality crystal like an optical fiber with laser-reactive compounds like neodymium and yttrium ions you can shoot a laser beam from a solid state laser diode down the fiber where it will excite those compounds to the point that they release photons, increasing the intensity of the beam.  They use a type of dielectric mirror called a fiber Bragg grating to confine the beam and amplify the output.

Essentially, it's a laser system where you can have a focusing/amplification barrel that is many MANY times longer than the actual physical length of the laser device because the optical fiber can be coiled, spooled, etc. to reduce the system's size instead of having to be laid out in a straight line.  This also allows the final emitter to move and rotate without having to physically move most of the actual components because the actual gain medium is a flexible cable connected to a laser diode on one end.

I did find one more interesting remark about VF-mounted laser weapons in the VF-22 Master File.  The VF-22's rear-facing laser is said to be a lower-powered setup (8,000kW instead of the VF-19's 9,500kW) but what they sacrifice in power they make up for in extra range by being variable frequency lasers that can be tuned to compensate for power loss by switching to frequencies that are not absorbed by atmospheric gases and achieve ranges of up to 15km.  It also mentions the use of free-electron lasers for the bidirectional laser cannons.  Presumably the same tech is used in the VF-17.

[DownIsUp]

How much info is there about the Feios Valkyrie? It seems like an independently developed 4th gen fighter like that should probably be a bigger deal than it is, considering how difficult it would later prove to be for fully fledged colony fleets to develop their own proprietary fighter designs. I'm especially curious about the Avionics system. Macross mecha Manual mentions an Updated version of the Queadluun-Rau avionics was used; was its implementation in any way similar to the Yf-21's usage of Queadluun-Rau derived technology?

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, DownIsUp said:

How much info is there about the Feios Valkyrie?

Very little, admittedly.

Like the Variable Glaug, we know almost nothing about its development because it was developed in secret by anti-government forces using technology from a stolen New UN Forces VF.  All we have beyond that is some information about encounters with it in game stories and some basic physical and performance data.

 

9 hours ago, DownIsUp said:

It seems like an independently developed 4th gen fighter like that should probably be a bigger deal than it is, considering how difficult it would later prove to be for fully fledged colony fleets to develop their own proprietary fighter designs. I'm especially curious about the Avionics system. Macross mecha Manual mentions an Updated version of the Queadluun-Rau avionics was used; was its implementation in any way similar to the Yf-21's usage of Queadluun-Rau derived technology?

Yeah, you'd think a development like that would be a pretty huge deal in-story... but somehow it doesn't seem to have been.

If I were to speculate as to why, my hypothesis based on the current state of the Macross official setting would be that the Feios Valkyrie was probably every bit as Awesome But Impractical as the VF-19 and VF-22 were.  The New UN Forces ended up dropping their plans to adopt the VF-19 as a main Variable Fighter because its performance proved to be too much for most pilots to handle and it was too expensive to be practical in large numbers for most governments.  The VF-22 was just as bad, if not worse, thanks to the highly complex and difficult-to-manufacture Inertia Vector Control System and Brain-Direct Interface.  The Feios Valkyrie almost certainly has all the same problems, given it's a 4th Gen equivalent VF with even higher performance than the VF-19/VF-22, so it was likely only built in small numbers for the same reasons: too expensive, and too hard to find pilots for.

(Those anti-government groups don't have the financial resources or recruitment potential of the military either, so they probably felt those issues even more keenly.)

The remark about updated Queadluun-Rau systems comes from the Macross Digital Mission VF-X Official Program, but is not elaborated upon.  It seems rather likely that what it's referring to is an improved version of the Inertia Vector Control System that is basically the one distinctive/unique system of the Queadluun-Rau.

[TG Remix]

12 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The remark about updated Queadluun-Rau systems comes from the Macross Digital Mission VF-X Official Program, but is not elaborated upon.  It seems rather likely that what it's referring to is an improved version of the Inertia Vector Control System that is basically the one distinctive/unique system of the Queadluun-Rau.

It seems like that's the only book that really goes in detail about the unique enemy designs there. Guess it makes sense, since they only exist due to the modelers seemingly putting more emphasis on the variable fighters than making the battlepods in their more rounder, organic shapes. I do really like how the limitations caused the Stealth Regult, Stealth Fighter Pod, Glaug Kai, and Stealth Quel-Quallie to live up to their namesakes, so they could match how the VFs were leaning more into active stealth systems at the time. Just kinda wish they'd be more elaborated on then just being thrown away when VF-X2 had its massive graphical and gameplay upgrade.

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, TG Remix said:

It seems like that's the only book that really goes in detail about the unique enemy designs there.

Macross Chronicle does cover a selection of enemy mecha from the games... but its selections are a bit weird and inconsistent and heavily biased towards Macross VF-X2.

For example, it has the Variable Glaug from Macross M3 but not the Zentradi combining mecha from the same game.  It's got most of the boss or mission objective enemies from the Macross VF-X2 game (e.g. Macross 13, the Hatchet-class destroyer, the Rorqual-type unmanned sub, and Vandal-type gunship, and the Annabella Lasiodora and Gjagravan Va mobile weapons).  It's got the Meltrandi capture ship, Zentradi jamming station, and Queadluun-Nona from DYRL?'s game version.  VF-X itself is represented only by the Feios for some reason.

 

4 hours ago, TG Remix said:

Guess it makes sense, since they only exist due to the modelers seemingly putting more emphasis on the variable fighters than making the battlepods in their more rounder, organic shapes. I do really like how the limitations caused the Stealth Regult, Stealth Fighter Pod, Glaug Kai, and Stealth Quel-Quallie to live up to their namesakes, so they could match how the VFs were leaning more into active stealth systems at the time. Just kinda wish they'd be more elaborated on then just being thrown away when VF-X2 had its massive graphical and gameplay upgrade.

Early polygonal 3D was pretty rough, and they were working with the Playstation 1... it's not super surprising they had to compromise that way to get enough enemies onscreen.

 

[TG Remix]

On 9/25/2024 at 1:44 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Macross Chronicle does cover a selection of enemy mecha from the games... but its selections are a bit weird and inconsistent and heavily biased towards Macross VF-X2.

For example, it has the Variable Glaug from Macross M3 but not the Zentradi combining mecha from the same game.  It's got most of the boss or mission objective enemies from the Macross VF-X2 game (e.g. Macross 13, the Hatchet-class destroyer, the Rorqual-type unmanned sub, and Vandal-type gunship, and the Annabella Lasiodora and Gjagravan Va mobile weapons).  It's got the Meltrandi capture ship, Zentradi jamming station, and Queadluun-Nona from DYRL?'s game version.  VF-X itself is represented only by the Feios for some reason.

You know I get why, considering how tied to the lore VF-X2 is compared to the other video games, but considering how much the world makes a big deal about Zentradi building their own weapons through the Variable Glaug and Feios Valkyrie they wouldn't have the stepping stones to that, like the not-Getter Robo machine in M3 as previously mentioned.

Thinking about SMS and Xaos's VFs, a part of me wonders before getting their own respective "hero Valks" I want to know what VFs they used beforehand in their timeframe of being active. SMS I know they had a Frontier local variant of the VF-19 through the VF-19EF, but since that was a joint development with LAI that was connected to the VF-25's development anyways, so did they use their own private aircraft before? And I'm not sure about Xaos except there was that VERY specialized VF-171EX piloted by Kite Kinjo from Macross E, but I wouldn't be surprised since they were stripped of cash as they were, they piloted the more conventional VF-171 units as well.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, TG Remix said:

You know I get why, considering how tied to the lore VF-X2 is compared to the other video games, but considering how much the world makes a big deal about Zentradi building their own weapons through the Variable Glaug and Feios Valkyrie they wouldn't have the stepping stones to that, like the not-Getter Robo machine in M3 as previously mentioned.

Part of the reason it's not as big a deal as it feels like it should be is that the Zentradi probably had a lot of help from unscrupulous defense corporations like Critical Path.

Critical Path in particular are so overtly villainous that not only were they apparently selling to all sides in the Second Unification War, their CEO manages to still be a minor villain active in the novelization of Macross Frontier despite having been dead for about eight years at that point.

Spoiler

Manfred Brando, a recurring boss in Macross VF-X2 who's fought in the game's 3rd, 7th, and 9th missions and dies in combat with the 727th Independent Squadron VF-X Ravens on 16 January 2051 continues to exist in the form of a disembodied consciousness ("electronic lifeform") after his physical death thanks to his company's research into brain uploading.  He ends up being one of the Galaxy fleet's executives "cyber nobles", is revealed to have been the sponsor of the 117th Research Fleet that was sent into Vajra space and the reason Ozma was drummed out of the NUNS (for assaulting him), and is ultimately defeated by Ozma in the final battle while operating a custom VF-22.

 

 

1 hour ago, TG Remix said:

Thinking about SMS and Xaos's VFs, a part of me wonders before getting their own respective "hero Valks" I want to know what VFs they used beforehand in their timeframe of being active. SMS I know they had a Frontier local variant of the VF-19 through the VF-19EF, but since that was a joint development with LAI that was connected to the VF-25's development anyways, so did they use their own private aircraft before? And I'm not sure about Xaos except there was that VERY specialized VF-171EX piloted by Kite Kinjo from Macross E, but I wouldn't be surprised since they were stripped of cash as they were, they piloted the more conventional VF-171 units as well.

It's hard to say, since we get few glimpses far enough into the past to see what these PMC units were previously using and we've only seen a few branches of each.

The novelization of Macross Frontier suggests that the Macross Frontier fleet's branch of SMS was outfitted with VF-19As and VF-22Ss before they transitioned to trial production VF-25s.  Macross the Ride instead says a fleet-specific VF-19E monkey model (the VF-19EF).  

We never get to see what SMS Sephira branch uses because the only aircraft of theirs that we see in Macross 30 is the YF-25 that Leon has been asked to deliver to SMS Uroboros branch (as a parts donor for the YF-30).  

The SMS Uroboros branch wasn't a proper branch so much as a clandestine research outpost and there doesn't seem to have been any consistency WRT what Valkyries it had.  It may have had the VF-11C as standard, since that's what they dig out of storage for Mina.

We never learn what Xaos's Ragna branch used before the VF-31.  Even in flashbacks, we see Arad using a VF-31A instead of his VF-31S.  I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they were using old VF-171s or even older models like aftermarket VF-17s or VF-14s.

Xaos's Pipure branch had the VF-171EX in the early 2060s, and one of them ended up customized after sustaining some damage.  One of their researchers had a privately owned VF-19.

[TG Remix]

On 9/26/2024 at 10:40 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

The novelization of Macross Frontier suggests that the Macross Frontier fleet's branch of SMS was outfitted with VF-19As and VF-22Ss before they transitioned to trial production VF-25s.  Macross the Ride instead says a fleet-specific VF-19E monkey model (the VF-19EF). 

Would make sense considering their high standards in terms of VFs (and admittedly brazen superiority complex) compared to the regular file NUNS.

 

On 9/26/2024 at 10:40 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

The SMS Uroboros branch wasn't a proper branch so much as a clandestine research outpost and there doesn't seem to have been any consistency WRT what Valkyries it had.  It may have had the VF-11C as standard, since that's what they dig out of storage for Mina.

It does make me wonder, have we ever gotten a full grasp on how many branches SMS and Xaos have all over the galaxy? Xaos seems more or less stuck in the Brisingr Globular Cluster, but considering SMS started as security for a transportation business I wouldn't be surprised if they're practically found on every corner.

 

On 9/26/2024 at 10:40 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Xaos's Pipure branch had the VF-171EX in the early 2060s, and one of them ended up customized after sustaining some damage.  One of their researchers had a privately owned VF-19.

How could I ever forget Elma and her own personal Fire Valkyrie lmao. Probably wouldn't be surprised if that was customized from a VF-19P.

 

On 9/26/2024 at 10:40 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

We never learn what Xaos's Ragna branch used before the VF-31.  Even in flashbacks, we see Arad using a VF-31A instead of his VF-31S.  I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they were using old VF-171s or even older models like aftermarket VF-17s or VF-14s.

Makes sense, though considering that I'm surprised they somehow had money to get multiple Macross-type carriers as their flagships. On that topic, it is kinda weird that the Aether and Hemera on the Elysion have a class name for their type of ship (The Enterprise-class to be specific) before their mothership. Honestly makes me wonder if they can operate on their own as "Variable Carriers" like the Valhalla III from Digital Mission VF-X.

 

On a separate note, I've heard some discussion on what Macross Delta was originally conceptualized before becoming what it was; specifically with a NUNS protagonist, no love triangle, and having its runtime cut in half so movies can continue where it left off, but I could never find a source on it. Would anyone happen to know where that information came from?

Edited October 10 by TG Remix

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, TG Remix said:

Would make sense considering their high standards in terms of VFs (and admittedly brazen superiority complex) compared to the regular file NUNS.

Not to mention that particular SMS branch is not only located in one of the wealthiest and most economically prosperous emigrant fleets... it's overseen directly by the founder of its parent company Bilra Transport.  Richard Bilra is a man with "sponsors an emigrant fleet's cross-galactic voyage to pursue his personal interests" irresponsible levels of literal and political capital.

 

2 hours ago, TG Remix said:

It does make me wonder, have we ever gotten a full grasp on how many branches SMS and Xaos have all over the galaxy? Xaos seems more or less stuck in the Brisingr Globular Cluster, but considering SMS started as security for a transportation business I wouldn't be surprised if they're practically found on every corner.

Nope.  They seem to exist wherever it's narratively convenient for them to do so... regardless of whether it makes sense or not.

One trend I've noticed in their appearances in various official media and Master File is that SMS seems to be almost anywhere that's reasonably well-established.  Their presences are all on major emigrant fleets like Frontier and Olympia and on emigrant planets that've established themselves pretty well already like Uroboros, Sephira, Eden, etc.  Xaos seems to operate in the more remote regions of the galaxy.  They have a major contract with the Brisingr Alliance, the mutual defense and economic pact in the remote and isolated stars of the Brisingr globular cluster, and their few other appearances are on remote and underdeveloped or sparsely populated worlds.

 

2 hours ago, TG Remix said:

Makes sense, though considering that I'm surprised they somehow had money to get multiple Macross-type carriers as their flagships. On that topic, it is kinda weird that the Aether and Hemera on the Elysion have a class name for their type of ship (The Enterprise-class to be specific) before their mothership. Honestly makes me wonder if they can operate on their own as "Variable Carriers" like the Valhalla III from Digital Mission VF-X.

We don't have enough information on the Elysion-type or its support carriers (semi-officially the Enterprise-class via Master File) to say for sure.

The popular hypothesis is that the Elysion-type is an older, transitional design between the "first generation" Macross-class and both the newer Battle-class and the bleeding-edge Macross Quarter-class being trialed in 2059.  Essentially, that the Elysion-type is an older, less advanced, and less expensive warship that was possibly either acquired secondhand from the NUNS or simply built to order using a large percentage of the company's funds.  (Xaos seems to be operating on a very tight budget, given that they're shown to be effectively out of cash and unable to afford fuel and ammunition within days of being chased out of the Brisingr cluster.  At one point in the TV series, they note that it'd take their entire yearly operating budget just to retrofit the Elysion to remove the Epsilon Foundation tech from it.)

 

2 hours ago, TG Remix said:

On a separate note, I've heard some discussion on what Macross Delta was originally conceptualized before becoming what it was; specifically with a NUNS protagonist, no love triangle, and having its runtime cut in half so movies can continue where it left off, but I could never find a source on it. Would anyone happen to know where that information came from?

I haven't heard the part about the NUNS protagonist, what I recall from the liner notes and a few interviews in publications like Great Mechanics was that the series was originally planned to be one cour plus a movie, and that it was expanded to two cour in development. 

[David Hingtgen]

Trying to avoid freeze-framing the entire series to check and not trusting my memory:

Did we ever actually see a VF-27 using the fold booster?   

[jenius]

I think that happens in the movies.

[snakerbot]

20 minutes ago, David Hingtgen said:

Trying to avoid freeze-framing the entire series to check and not trusting my memory:

Did we ever actually see a VF-27 using the fold booster?   

Not sure about a regular fold booster, but Brera has a super fold booster on his when he and Ranka run off near the end of the series.

[David Hingtgen]

Ok, specifically the "standard Frontier booster" we see the -25 use:

[Seto Kaiba]

39 minutes ago, David Hingtgen said:

Trying to avoid freeze-framing the entire series to check and not trusting my memory:

Did we ever actually see a VF-27 using the fold booster?   

Yes, in Ep21 "Azure Ether" and Ep22 "Northern Cross".

When Brera helps Ranka run away from the Macross Frontier fleet in search of the Vajra homeworld, his VF-27 Lucifer is shown to be equipped with one of LAI's prototype Super Fold Boosters.

 

14 minutes ago, David Hingtgen said:

Ok, specifically the "standard Frontier booster" we see the -25 use:

That's not the standard fold booster, which looks like this (the one Alto uses to get to Gallia IV) in Ep11:

 

The one in your screen captures is LAI's newly-developed "Super Fold Booster" prototype that was first used in Ep12 "Fastest Delivery".

What makes it so "Super" is that it uses fold quartz harvested from the Vajra instead of synthetic fold carbon.  This lets it produce a much more powerful fold effect that can cross fold faults unhindered and fully shields the ship from the different flow of time in higher dimensions.  So in practice, it's "faster" and immune to all the usual navigational issues a regular fold booster has to contend with.