Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, guyxxed said:

Interesting, and very helpful, thank you!  I think it still raises an issue, though, in that the thermonuclear reactor is, well, reacting to produce the plasma, and that plasma still needs to be exhausted even if the turbines aren't blasting it out, correct?  Maybe the transducers are so efficient that it can be radically throttled down when not actively flying and still have enough power to run the whole thing in a combat situation, but there will still be some super hot gases spewing out of the nozzles the whole time.  Only other option I can think of is that they have a way to close off the expansion chamber after the reactor and run off the "bottled" plasma for awhile, but that raises the problem of being able to flip a thermonuclear reactor on and off at will (maybe not too big an issue since it is fuel injected and gravity powered instead of needing neutron dampening).

I'm still having images of valkyries stomping around sandblasting everything within a dozen meters and setting things on fire wherever they go.  Entertaining, but not practical.  😉 

I think there are a couple reasons we don't see that happening.

First, the amount of plasma in the engine at any one time is actually quite small.  Official setting resources like Macross Chronicle describe OTM thermonuclear reactors like the ones found in a VF's engines as extremely high-efficiency due to the use of Gravity and Inertia Control systems for fuel compression and plasma confinement.  The reactors can run on less fuel, and run much hotter, than a modern/conventional fusion reactor that relies on lasers and electromagnets.  The system used in thermonuclear reaction turbines has such high efficiency that VFs are said to have effectively unlimited range in atmospheric flight due to using intake air as propellant.  A few sources say the VF-1 has enough internally-carried reactant to operate for up to 700 hours between refuelings, which means the amount of reactant consumed (and plasma produced) must be very small.

Master File gives some directional guidance as to how small.  Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie describes the VF-1 reactant storage as being a pair of 150 liter capacity slush tanks, one in each engine nacelle.  That suggests the fuel consumption rate in normal operation is a hair under 0.06ml/s, or about 214ml/hour.  In more visual terms, eight hours of continuous operation would consume a bit less than five soda cans worth of reactant per engine.  With such a small quantity of plasma inside the engine at any given time, the amount of exhaust is almost certainly trivial unless the turbine is actively generating thrust.

 

Second, the usage of the plasma varies depending on mode and engine demand.  The reason that many energy-intensive technologies like energy conversion armor and pinpoint barriers are not available in Fighter mode is because the heat from the plasma is also used to heat propellant (be it intake air or internally stored liquid) in order to produce thrust for flight.  The Fighter-mode VF is essentially "wasting" most of the energy-generation potential of that hot plasma in order to use it to generate more thrust.  Battroid mode is the opposite, prioritizing energy generation over thrust production and wringing every last bit of usable heat out of the GIC-confined plasma for that purpose.  By the time the plasma held in the engine for electricity generation purposes is released, it has cooled considerably and the relatively small quantity being released at any given time is unlikely to kick up any significant debris.  With just 0.06ml/s of reactant going into the engine, the volume of exhaust gas coming out is likely around 500-600ml/s... about the same as an average adult's normal exhalation.

[guyxxed]

Fair enough.  The engineer in me is still raising an eyebrow that you could get enough thrust out of that small an amount of reactant to move a multi-ton air/spacecraft at the speeds we see, but there are certainly crazier things to accept and at least there's a thought through rationale behind it.  Works for me, and thank you for pulling those together. I'm always a bit impressed at the depth of world building Macross has accumulated over the years, whether it's "official" or otherwise, it's all fun to read through. 

[Master Dex]

37 minutes ago, guyxxed said:

Fair enough.  The engineer in me is still raising an eyebrow that you could get enough thrust out of that small an amount of reactant to move a multi-ton air/spacecraft at the speeds we see, but there are certainly crazier things to accept and at least there's a thought through rationale behind it.  Works for me, and thank you for pulling those together. I'm always a bit impressed at the depth of world building Macross has accumulated over the years, whether it's "official" or otherwise, it's all fun to read through. 

As another engineer, an aerospace one even, I understand your disbelief. 

I think we have to consider just how efficient and hot this reaction is, it's more than we're imagining for sure. And like Seto said it's based on advanced alien tech we can't replicate with real world analogues. This is a classic unobtanium situation, in the literary sense. It's something that physics says is completely doable but the capability is entirely outside of reality as we know it, but not as they in the continuity know it. 

That's always my preferred kind of sci-fi tech, rather than technobabble that means nothing.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 3/27/2025 at 8:15 PM, guyxxed said:

Fair enough.  The engineer in me is still raising an eyebrow that you could get enough thrust out of that small an amount of reactant to move a multi-ton air/spacecraft at the speeds we see, but there are certainly crazier things to accept and at least there's a thought through rationale behind it.  Works for me, and thank you for pulling those together. I'm always a bit impressed at the depth of world building Macross has accumulated over the years, whether it's "official" or otherwise, it's all fun to read through. 

One engineer to another, the raised eyebrow is completely understandable.  We're talking about weird sci-fi futuretech after all.

That said, Masahiro Chiba is a one thorough guy because he anticipated this concern too and prepared an explanation as far back as the original VF-1 tech manual in '84.  

His explanation actually starts with an acknowledgement of exactly the problem you're pointing out.  The plasma coming out of the reactor may be several hundred megakelvin, but the small quantity moment-by-moment and the relatively short length of the engine means that the plasma would not be able to transfer enough heat to the propellant flows moving through it without some assistance.  That assistance comes in the form of the same Gravity and Inertia Control systems inside the engine body that prevent the plasma from contacting the engine interior.  The GIC systems essentially create a small pocket of super-intense artificial gravity inside the engine that compresses the propellant flows while also holding the plasma inside the engine for longer, allowing a more uniform and complete heat transfer to take place and increasing the exhaust velocity when the now-superheated propellant is released.

It's described as essentially using a GIC to simulate having a larger thrust increase/burner section.

This is a large part of why advances in thermonuclear reaction engine technology are generally attributed to improvements in GIC technology, in both official media and in Master File.  The more precise and powerful the GIC systems in the engine, the hotter the reactor can run and the greater the compression they can exert inside the engine to increase the propellant flow's pressure and temperature.

 

(And yes, Chiba-san is well aware this is bullsh*t sci-fi spacemagic futuretech... as a little joke, the computer controlling all this is literally named MAGIC.  The Matrix of Gravity and Inertia Control.)

[guyxxed]

Okay, that works for me (the acknowledgement by Chiba), and I'll happily go back to suspending my disbelief.  Like I said, I really appreciate that there has been thought given to things like this, someone took the time to figure it all out and write it down, and that it's all there for us to puzzle through and absorb.  Thank you very much for pulling it together and sharing it, this is fun stuff. 

(And, as an engineer who can't let things go, I started doing some calculations on just how much acceleration you would need on those few milliliters of fuel to impart the kick we observe to an 18m long fighter plane, and...well, it's very big numbers.  Significant fractions of c.  Wild).

[JB0]

2 hours ago, guyxxed said:

(And, as an engineer who can't let things go, I started doing some calculations on just how much acceleration you would need on those few milliliters of fuel to impart the kick we observe to an 18m long fighter plane, and...well, it's very big numbers.  Significant fractions of c.  Wild).

Those few milliliters of fuel aren't all that gets thrown out. It's like a jet engine, the fuel is being used to heat air and the superheated air is doing the work.

Except in space, where extra tanks of reaction mass are installed to replace the air.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, guyxxed said:

Okay, that works for me (the acknowledgement by Chiba), and I'll happily go back to suspending my disbelief.  Like I said, I really appreciate that there has been thought given to things like this, someone took the time to figure it all out and write it down, and that it's all there for us to puzzle through and absorb.  Thank you very much for pulling it together and sharing it, this is fun stuff. 

One reason I enjoy doing these translations so much... Macross's tech is surprisingly well thought-out most of the time.  They put considerable effort into making most things seem fairly plausible.

 

1 hour ago, guyxxed said:

(And, as an engineer who can't let things go, I started doing some calculations on just how much acceleration you would need on those few milliliters of fuel to impart the kick we observe to an 18m long fighter plane, and...well, it's very big numbers.  Significant fractions of c.  Wild).

Like any jet engine, Macross's thermonuclear reaction turbine engines generate thrust from the thermal expansion of a high-pressure fluid heated inside the engine.

The plasma from the thermonuclear reactor is a heat source, not a thrust source.

In atmosphere, the thermonuclear reaction turbine engine uses the plasma from the compact thermonuclear reactor to flash-heat the highly-compressed air the superconducting ram-air pre-compressor and compressor fans are pushing into the engine.  

In the vacuum of space, the thermonuclear reaction turbine engine has no air flowing into it to generate thrust with... so it switches over to operating like a nuclear thermal rocket instead.  Propellant sourced from internal (or external) tanks elsewhere in the airframe is directly injected into the thrust increase section of the turbine where the plasma flow is.  The propellant, which is stored as a cryogenic liquid or slush, is flash-heated to a high temperature by the super-hot plasma and expands explosively out the engine nozzle.  That limited internal supply of propellant is the main reason that early models of VF were dependent on FAST Packs for extended operations in space.

[pengbuzz]

8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

One reason I enjoy doing these translations so much... Macross's tech is surprisingly well thought-out most of the time.  They put considerable effort into making most things seem fairly plausible.

 

Like any jet engine, Macross's thermonuclear reaction turbine engines generate thrust from the thermal expansion of a high-pressure fluid heated inside the engine.

The plasma from the thermonuclear reactor is a heat source, not a thrust source.

In atmosphere, the thermonuclear reaction turbine engine uses the plasma from the compact thermonuclear reactor to flash-heat the highly-compressed air the superconducting ram-air pre-compressor and compressor fans are pushing into the engine.  

In the vacuum of space, the thermonuclear reaction turbine engine has no air flowing into it to generate thrust with... so it switches over to operating like a nuclear thermal rocket instead.  Propellant sourced from internal (or external) tanks elsewhere in the airframe is directly injected into the thrust increase section of the turbine where the plasma flow is.  The propellant, which is stored as a cryogenic liquid or slush, is flash-heated to a high temperature by the super-hot plasma and expands explosively out the engine nozzle.  That limited internal supply of propellant is the main reason that early models of VF were dependent on FAST Packs for extended operations in space.

That makes me wonder...

Spoiler

What kind of fuel use we'd see if a VF had a system like the inertial control system the Queadluun-Rau Battle Suit had?

(Probably find valk bits and pilot bits all over the place!)

 

[Master Dex]

2 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

That makes me wonder...

  Hide contents

What kind of fuel use we'd see if a VF had a system like the inertial control system the Queadluun-Rau Battle Suit had?

(Probably find valk bits and pilot bits all over the place!)

 

Well... That's what all 5th Gen VFs have, so we know exactly what that looks like. It actually avoids causing bits because pilots can survive higher G-loads.

Technically the YF-21 and VF-22 had the tech from the Q-Rau but it was limited. 5th Gen like the VF-25 and up all have the Inertia Store Converter powered by fold quartz. I'll leave it to Seto to get into the technicals because he'll do it anyway regardless of what I say lol. Plus he has that information on hand and I don't.

[pengbuzz]

4 minutes ago, Master Dex said:

Well... That's what all 5th Gen VFs have, so we know exactly what that looks like. It actually avoids causing bits because pilots can survive higher G-loads.

Technically the YF-21 and VF-22 had the tech from the Q-Rau but it was limited. 5th Gen like the VF-25 and up all have the Inertia Store Converter powered by fold quartz. I'll leave it to Seto to get into the technicals because he'll do it anyway regardless of what I say lol. Plus he has that information on hand and I don't.

Ah; for some reason, I missed that detail!! Thanks for filling me in on that!

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

That makes me wonder...

  Hide contents

What kind of fuel use we'd see if a VF had a system like the inertial control system the Queadluun-Rau Battle Suit had?

(Probably find valk bits and pilot bits all over the place!)

 

I don't think the use of an Inertia Vector Control System would meaningfully affect the choice of fuel for the thermonuclear reactor or propellant for space flight.

It would enable the VF to make more efficient use of whatever propellant it was carrying and to accelerate and decelerate more forcefully.  This could potentially cause the VF to exceed the g-force tolerance of the pilot's body and/or the design limits of the aircraft itself, though the IVCS does partially shield the aircraft from this while in operation.

The YF-21 and VF-22 both successfully adopted the technology, though the difficulty of its manufacture was a signfiicant limiting factor in the ability to mass produce the aircraft itself.  (If you take Master File at face value, the IVCS was one of several systems that forced the YF-21/VF-22 to adopt a specially designed engine with more generator output to support those systems, increasing initial and operating costs and decreasing engine lifespan.)

 

1 hour ago, Master Dex said:

Well... That's what all 5th Gen VFs have, so we know exactly what that looks like. It actually avoids causing bits because pilots can survive higher G-loads.

Technically the YF-21 and VF-22 had the tech from the Q-Rau but it was limited. 5th Gen like the VF-25 and up all have the Inertia Store Converter powered by fold quartz. I'll leave it to Seto to get into the technicals because he'll do it anyway regardless of what I say lol. Plus he has that information on hand and I don't.

The Quimeliquola Inertia Vector Control System is a bit different from the Inertia Store Converter.

The Queadluun-series battle suits and the 4th Gen YF-21 and VF-22 had the Inertia Vector Control System, a particularly complicated bit of Protoculture technology which could manipulate the magnitude of acceleration vectors.  Basically, it could amplify or shrink any directional force pushing on the aircraft, from the thrust of its engines and verniers to aerodynamic pressures and even recoil.  As a side effect of its operation, it shielded the interior of the aircraft from the changes in the magnitude of acceleration forces that its operation created.  (So if the pilot's accelerating at 7G and the IVCS is boosting that to, say, 25G, the pilot's only feeling the 7G.)  The female Zentradi/Meltrandi are able to get the most out of the system because they also use a specially-engineered g-hardened pilot who can withstand higher g-loads.

The Inertia Store Converter is a rather different device.  Instead of manipulating the magnitude of acceleration vectors to boost the performance of engines and verniers, it uses more advanced applications of gravity control to temporarily displace acceleration forces on the aircraft itself into higher dimensions.  The aircraft has to generate the full force needed for those accelerations, meaning it doesn't get the propellant efficiency benefits, but it can largely shield itself and its operator from the g-forces incurred by pushing the energy into higher dimensions for a bit and then slowly returning that energy to the aircraft a little bit at a time over a longer period so that it never exceeds safe levels.

I guess I'm nothing if not predictable. 🤣

Edited yesterday at 05:16 AM by Seto Kaiba

[pengbuzz]

8 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I don't think the use of an Inertia Vector Control System would meaningfully affect the choice of fuel for the thermonuclear reactor or propellant for space flight.

It would enable the VF to make more efficient use of whatever propellant it was carrying and to accelerate and decelerate more forcefully.  This could potentially cause the VF to exceed the g-force tolerance of the pilot's body and/or the design limits of the aircraft itself, though the IVCS does partially shield the aircraft from this while in operation.

The YF-21 and VF-22 both successfully adopted the technology, though the difficulty of its manufacture was a signfiicant limiting factor in the ability to mass produce the aircraft itself.  (If you take Master File at face value, the IVCS was one of several systems that forced the YF-21/VF-22 to adopt a specially designed engine with more generator output to support those systems, increasing initial and operating costs and decreasing engine lifespan.)

Thanks; increased efficiency was something I was wondering about. I figured if software could throttle the system so the g's it produced did not exceed craft limits (If I understand correctly). This is a bit of research for the project.

 

8 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The Quimeliquola Inertia Vector Control System is a bit different from the Inertia Store Converter.

The Queadluun-series battle suits and the 4th Gen YF-21 and VF-22 had the Inertia Vector Control System, a particularly complicated bit of Protoculture technology which could manipulate the magnitude of acceleration vectors.  Basically, it could amplify or shrink any directional force pushing on the aircraft, from the thrust of its engines and verniers to aerodynamic pressures and even recoil.  As a side effect of its operation, it shielded the interior of the aircraft from the changes in the magnitude of acceleration forces that its operation created.  (So if the pilot's accelerating at 7G and the IVCS is boosting that to, say, 25G, the pilot's only feeling the 7G.)  The female Zentradi/Meltrandi are able to get the most out of the system because they also use a specially-engineered g-hardened pilot who can withstand higher g-loads.

The Inertia Store Converter is a rather different device.  Instead of manipulating the magnitude of acceleration vectors to boost the performance of engines and verniers, it uses more advanced applications of gravity control to temporarily displace acceleration forces on the aircraft itself into higher dimensions.  The aircraft has to generate the full force needed for those accelerations, meaning it doesn't get the propellant efficiency benefits, but it can largely shield itself and its operator from the g-forces incurred by pushing the energy into higher dimensions for a bit and then slowly returning that energy to the aircraft a little bit at a time over a longer period so that it never exceeds safe levels.

So a craft would not need both systems; am I correct?

8 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I guess I'm nothing if not predictable. 🤣

Yup.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 3/30/2025 at 1:31 AM, pengbuzz said:

Thanks; increased efficiency was something I was wondering about. I figured if software could throttle the system so the g's it produced did not exceed craft limits (If I understand correctly). This is a bit of research for the project.

As we saw in Macross Plus, the YF-21/VF-22's integrated airframe control AI (which Master File calls ANGIRAS-BRAIN) is designed to limit the performance of the VF to what the pilot's body and the airframe can safely withstand.  Guld had to disable the limiter function in order to draw out the YF-21's full performance to defeat the Ghost X-9, which is why the YF-21 was able to maneuver at a level that caused him mortal injury.

Master File talks a bit about how Project Super Nova was kind of the "Now what?" moment for airframe control AI technology, since there was now a pressing need to have the system prevent the VF itself from hurting or killing the pilot.  That led to the development of the next-gen control AI "ARIEL" that was adopted on the YF-19-3 and later.  The IVCS section in the VF-22 Master File also talks about a limiter being put on the system's operation to prevent it from exceeding the aircraft's g-force design limits and some general limits imposed by its excessive power draw.

 

On 3/30/2025 at 1:31 AM, pengbuzz said:

So a craft would not need both systems; am I correct?

The ISC system seems to be the more advantageous of the two in terms of its effects on performance, though also the more difficult of the two to manufacture due to Humanity's inability to synthesize fold quartz with its present technology.

Whether one could even use both at the same time is unknown, but it would likely require a phenomenal amount of energy.