Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[Seto Kaiba]

11 hours ago, sketchley said:

No worries.  I couldn't be bothered to look up the correct spelling is all. 

It's just something that's bugged me ever since I noticed it was wrong in the Manga Entertainment DVD release of Macross Plus.

They incorrectly translated his name as "Yang".  I'm not sure what made them assume he was Chinese... maybe just the fact that he's a short guy with glasses?

 

11 hours ago, sketchley said:

The only problem, however, with the VF-14 Spiritia Dreaming type is that it was written somewhere (Macross Chronicle?) that it was a local or unit specific modification of the VF-14 Vampire by the Blue Rhino (is that the right name?  can't be bothered to look it up) squad that we saw in that M7+ episode.

Blue Rhinoceros Corps was a ground combat unit, according to dialog in Macross 7 PLUS "Spiritia Dreaming".

Macross Chronicle's two brief discussions of the Spiritia Dreaming VF-14 stop just short of calling it a Special Forces version, though I know there have also been some vague remarks that suggest it was either a Zentradi-use derivative model or the mentioned-but-never-seen VA-14.

 

11 hours ago, sketchley said:

I'm not saying that the hypothesis is wrong—Kawamori-san is known to change his opinions, and publications aren't infallible.

That's one reason I tend not to take Kawamori's views too seriously unless they're actually corroborated somewhere.

 

3 hours ago, jeniusornome said:

I mean, production-wise, they could have just said “hey we need to put some neat planes in the background of a few of these shots and we don’t want them to just be old vf-1s, what’s in your sketchbook?”

if he had been toying with designs for the vf-4/vf-14, vf-17 and whatever else, they might have just whipped something up based on whatever quick sketches we had. 

That's one of the main reasons people suspect it's the VF-14 Vampire "Spiritia Dreaming type"... Macross Plus and Macross 7 were developed and produced concurrently, so designs in the background of Macross Plus are mainly things that were developed for Macross 7.  The VF-14 was designed as the originating model for the Fz-109, and debuted in the Macross 7 PLUS episode "Spiritia Dreaming" in the October 1995 release of Macross 7 Vol.8.  It would've been on the drawing board right around the time that Macross Plus episode was being produced.

[sketchley]

As I've recently mentioned in MW, I'm currently poking around in and translating parts of (the dojinshi group) Taiyou-teikoku's "Ships of the Galaxy Vol. 3: Zentrādi Ships".  While most of the stuff is logical or thought provoking extrapolations (E.g. turning the Kirutora Keruēru into the predecessor to MF's Environment Ships), the following highlighted part in the caption for the Picket Ship has me scratching my head:
 

Quote

"Scout Ship 209,465". Even though it was a campaign warship, it is very famous as the first ship to be shot down by the Earth's human race. That's because it was one of the two ships that took a direct hit in the accidental firing of the Macross's main gun, and a vivid video record of it being shot down was unexpectedly recorded.

Intrinsically an undesirable recording, it is without mistake a recording of first contact, and a commemorative satellite was placed in the sector (of space) that corresponds to that first contact.

Does a commemorative satellite strike anyone else as odd?

(The Japanese original is: 記念碑の人工衛星)

Edited March 30, 2020 by sketchley

[Sildani]

It reminds me of a combination of a buoy in the ocean to track location and beam it to passing ships, and one of those roadside historical plaques we have in the US to mark a battlefield or a historic place. You can see them all over, I have one near me commemorating an old Nike-Hercules SAM site. This would be similar. “Hey, passing starship, think about this for a moment.”

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, sketchley said:

Does a commemorative satellite strike anyone else as odd?

(The Japanese original is: 記念碑の人工衛星)

Not entirely... it sounds vaguely like the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor.  

That said, I think "commemorative" probably strikes slightly the wrong context in English.  Kinenhi would normally mean a stone monument bearing an inscription or a plaque with an inscription, wouldn't it?  Maybe "Satellite Monument"?

[sketchley]

1 hour ago, Sildani said:

It reminds me of a combination of a buoy in the ocean to track location and beam it to passing ships, and one of those roadside historical plaques we have in the US to mark a battlefield or a historic place. You can see them all over, I have one near me commemorating an old Nike-Hercules SAM site. This would be similar. “Hey, passing starship, think about this for a moment.”

The problem is that satellites are in orbit.  So, unlike a buoy, they'd be constantly moving.  Nevermind that satellites are inherently fragile, and any old passing micrometeorite has a good chance of knocking it out of its orbit, or destroying it outright.

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Not entirely... it sounds vaguely like the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. 

It wouldn't feel so wrong to me if it were a commemorative plaque on the ruined hull.  However, the Macross Cannon made sure there wasn't any of that left.  (^_-)

 

Quote

That said, I think "commemorative" probably strikes slightly the wrong context in English.  Kinenhi would normally mean a stone monument bearing an inscription or a plaque with an inscription, wouldn't it?  Maybe "Satellite Monument"?

I'm basing it on "Commemorative plaque" being the first usable definition my dictionary pops up (the alternative is "stone monument", which doesn't work in the context at all).  The more wordy alternative I considered is "satellite with commemorative plaque", but that's not what the Japanese states.

"Satellite Monument" doesn't work because it's changing the noun (in Japanese) into an adjective (in English), and can be misread as "a monument for satellites".

Based on Weblio*, "Memorial Satellite" is another possibility.  However, that changes the emphasis from "commemorating first contact" to "memorializing the victims of first contact".

 

* https://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=記念碑

[Seto Kaiba]

4 minutes ago, sketchley said:

The problem is that satellites are in orbit.  So, unlike a buoy, they'd be constantly moving.  Nevermind that satellites are inherently fragile, and any old passing micrometeorite has a good chance of knocking it out of its orbit, or destroying it outright.

Modern satellites, sure... satellites made with OTM though?

 

4 minutes ago, sketchley said:

Based on Weblio*, "Memorial Satellite" is another possibility.  However, that changes the emphasis from "commemorating first contact" to "memorializing the victims of first contact".

All things considered, that seems rather appropriate given that First Contact was in this case two Zentradi picket ships being destroyed by an autonomous firing of the Macross's main gun and then the Zentradi counterattack on South Ataria island.

[pengbuzz]

4 hours ago, Sildani said:

It reminds me of a combination of a buoy in the ocean to track location and beam it to passing ships, and one of those roadside historical plaques we have in the US to mark a battlefield or a historic place. You can see them all over, I have one near me commemorating an old Nike-Hercules SAM site. This would be similar. “Hey, passing starship, think about this for a moment.”

"On this date in 1999, we ****ed up and doomed Mankind. Have a Nice Day."

[Lexomatic]

3 hours ago, sketchley said:

I'm basing it on "Commemorative plaque" being the first usable definition my dictionary pops up [...] The more wordy alternative I considered is "satellite with commemorative plaque", but that's not what the Japanese states. [...] "Satellite Monument" doesn't work because it's changing the noun (in Japanese) into an adjective (in English), and can be misread as "a monument for satellites". [...] Based on Weblio*, "Memorial Satellite" is another possibility.  However, that changes the emphasis from "commemorating first contact" to "memorializing the victims of first contact".

Given that orbiting monuments aren't a thing that exists, no reader in any language will immediately recognize the concept if it's named concisely, IMHO. If your priority is congruence with the original Japanese, I suggest appending a bracketed explanation, i.e., a gloss.

Scout Ship 209,465 ... a commemorative satellite was placed in that sector of space [i.e., a monument in an appropriate Earth orbit to memorialize the Zentraedi crew]

Of course, anybody who understands orbits and rotating celestial reference frames is going to quirk an eyebrow and wonder how that works. When zapped, the two scout ships were on some kind of trajectory from near Luna (not necessarily orbiting Luna) to near Earth. The point in the sky relative to South Ataria Island when the shot was fired would seem to be relevant. Even with OTEC, you can't permanently hang in an arbitrary spot above a planet; you'd either need to thrust continuously, and refuel regularly, or maybe antigravity would work? The "cheapest" solution would be a satellite in an inclined circular orbit that intersects that point in space (in Earth's coordinates), and when it does it does so, it broadcasts a radio ping. "The event happened HERE ... not at these other points in my orbit." The ping would also make it relevant to anybody in the vicinity at the time, because near-Earth space isn't like a harbor approach passage; most vessels will have no reason to be in visual range of the memorial.

I wonder if there's a matching memorial at the site of the former South Ataria Island? Which may or may not still be covered with ocean.

[sketchley]

19 hours ago, Lexomatic said:

Of course, anybody who understands orbits and rotating celestial reference frames is going to quirk an eyebrow and wonder how that works. When zapped, the two scout ships were on some kind of trajectory from near Luna (not necessarily orbiting Luna) to near Earth. The point in the sky relative to South Ataria Island when the shot was fired would seem to be relevant. Even with OTEC, you can't permanently hang in an arbitrary spot above a planet; you'd either need to thrust continuously, and refuel regularly, or maybe antigravity would work? The "cheapest" solution would be a satellite in an inclined circular orbit that intersects that point in space (in Earth's coordinates), and when it does it does so, it broadcasts a radio ping. "The event happened HERE ... not at these other points in my orbit." The ping would also make it relevant to anybody in the vicinity at the time, because near-Earth space isn't like a harbor approach passage; most vessels will have no reason to be in visual range of the memorial.

Yes!  That sums up why it feels so odd to me.

I like the idea of a "pinging" satellite.  However... the whole satellite thing is odd.

 

Quote

I wonder if there's a matching memorial at the site of the former South Ataria Island? Which may or may not still be covered with ocean.

This makes much more sense to me.  For starters, it's where first contact (not necessarily with living beings) happened with the fall of the SDF.  In addition, any buoys moored there to mark the spot would be more or less fixed (though, it might be better to place a plaque on the seafloor, like the plaques for the Titanic).

[slide]

On 3/30/2020 at 12:45 PM, pengbuzz said:

"On this date in 1999, we ****ed up and doomed Mankind. Have a Nice Day."

I feel like we should be churning out said plaques, with differing dates, like license plates...

[Valkyrie Driver]

On 3/29/2020 at 8:26 AM, jeniusornome said:

I assumed since it was a test flight center they were all various prototype designs or modified production vehicles though. Like how NASA keeps weird things around like the F-15 ACTIVE or the F-16XL, and the yf-23.

That's probably as good a hypothesis as any.

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, Valkyrie Driver said:

That's probably as good a hypothesis as any.

Seems sensible enough, yeah.

[Sildani]

I was trolling the internets today and found a discussion on space fighter fuel sources; e.g. reaction mass. Somebody mentioned slush argon would be good for limited spaces/capacity, and I wondered f that would work in Valkyries. 

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, Sildani said:

I was trolling the internets today and found a discussion on space fighter fuel sources; e.g. reaction mass. Somebody mentioned slush argon would be good for limited spaces/capacity, and I wondered f that would work in Valkyries. 

Valkyries use the compact thermonuclear reactor inside their engines in order to run their engines as thermonuclear fusion rockets in space flight.  

While the VF's engines are not very efficient while operating like this, the main advantage to doing it is that you only need to carry one fuel material because the reaction mass is plasma produced in the same thermonuclear reaction that's also generating your electrical power.  Internal space in a VF's fuselage is already at a premium, so a fuel system that makes optimal use of that internal space was a priority.  An alternative method that is used extensively in Gundam's Universal Century is the nuclear thermal rocket, which uses heat from the reactor to explosively flash-heat an otherwise-inert propellant to generate thrust.  That, of course, requires multiple fuel systems that are easier to pull off in a non-transforming mecha.

Argon slush is a fuel intended for use in ion thrusters, which are a lot less powerful but a LOT more fuel-efficient... usually run off low-output power sources like batteries or radioisotope thermoelectric generators.

 

[aurance]

Couple things.

1) I think the YF-29 has been described as an example of “crippling overspecialization” elsewhere on the topic. But not knowing exactly which of its enhancements are conducive to fighting vajra and how, can we really say that definitively? At first glance its specs and weapons make it just fine for killing VFs and most other roles.

2) YF-30 is described as “lightly armed.” But is that really the case comparatively? Even without the ordinance container it had a heavy quantum beam gun and head lasers, which seems like fairly normal equipment for a lot of “standard” valks.

[Master Dex]

I think crippling overspecification doesn't fit the YF-29. It is definitely an over expensive powerhouse that isn't economical in the slightest, but it certainly pays its debts... If it could be used more than once without Alto wrecking it. 

If anything deserves the term crippling overspecification, it's the Sv-262, which pretty much only works well in atmosphere cause it's users are so gung ho about the wind and having the most ornate and cool looking transformation they have no fuel storage. 

My two cents, I'll leave the rest for the people with the data. 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Master Dex

[aurance]

1 hour ago, Master Dex said:

I think crippling overspecification doesn't fit the YF-29. It is definitely an over expensive powerhouse that isn't economical in the slightest, but it certainly pays its debts... If it could be used more than once without Alto wrecking it. 

If anything deserves the term crippling overspecification, it's the Sv-262, which pretty much only works well in atmosphere cause it's users are so gung ho about the wind and having the most ornate and cool long transformation they have no fuel storage. 

My two cents, I'll leave the rest for the people with the data. 

Yeah, it definitely helps to know *how* a certain VF is specialized for something. The Sv-262 thing is logical. Did they think there was some combat advantage to that weird transformation, or was it just aesthetics (in-universe of course)?

[Sanity is Optional]

Since it's a different lineage it has a different transformation. SV vs VF.

My personal headcannon is that the company didn't have the IP rights to VF transformation schemes and had to do something different.

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, aurance said:

1) I think the YF-29 has been described as an example of “crippling overspecialization” elsewhere on the topic. But not knowing exactly which of its enhancements are conducive to fighting vajra and how, can we really say that definitively? At first glance its specs and weapons make it just fine for killing VFs and most other roles.

It's not hard to pick out which of its design features are intended for anti-Vajra use and why... though the reason I've argued that the YF-29 suffers from crippling overspecialization is that it has no real operational versatility.  Its weapons are exclusively short-range, intended for visual range dogfighting.  It has no pylons, and no optional gear that would let it mount any weapons that would give it medium- or long-range offensive capabilities.  Its anti-Vajra focus also makes it impractically expensive to actually use becuase at least half of its armaments require fold quartz to operate, as does its all-important fold wave system.

 

4 hours ago, aurance said:

2) YF-30 is described as “lightly armed.” But is that really the case comparatively? Even without the ordinance container it had a heavy quantum beam gun and head lasers, which seems like fairly normal equipment for a lot of “standard” valks.

By the standards of 5th Generation VFs so far?  Kinda, yeah.

The YF-30 Chronos has a heavy quantum beam gunpod and a pair of coaxial 12.7mm beam machineguns, but other than that its armament is all tied up in the ordnance container.  If it takes the beam turret container from the novel, then it's got no missiles.  It lacks a built-in fixed-forward gun (a design standard since the 4th Generation and a common feature since the 2nd), wing pylons, and internal ordnance bays or micro-missile launcher systems.

If you look at its military spec derivative, the VF-31 Kairos, you'll see all those features present.  It has fixed-forward railguns, six internal micro-missile launchers, two internal ordnance bays, and wing pylons.  It also lacks the 5th Gen's standard close combat blade.

Compared to its facing competition, the YF-29B Perceival, the YF-30 REALLY seems under-armed since the YF-29B has a hundred internally-carried micro-missiles, multiple built-in beam cannons, an almost identical gunpod, a bayonet and an assault knife, and Ghost support.

 

4 hours ago, Master Dex said:

If anything deserves the term crippling overspecification, it's the Sv-262, which pretty much only works well in atmosphere cause it's users are so gung ho about the wind and having the most ornate and cool looking transformation they have no fuel storage. 

Yeah, the Sv-262 Draken III arguably has an even better claim to suffering from crippling overspecialization since the design is SO overoptimized as an atmospheric dogfighter that it has to resort to FAST Packs to have any missiles at all and its transformation left it with too little internal fuel to be an effective space fighter.  It theoretically could counter one of the YF-29's shortcomings by having a FAST Pack with long-range or medium-range missiles instead of micro-missiles.

 

3 hours ago, aurance said:

Yeah, it definitely helps to know *how* a certain VF is specialized for something. The Sv-262 thing is logical. Did they think there was some combat advantage to that weird transformation, or was it just aesthetics (in-universe of course)?

With what little's been said about the Draken III, the transformation design seems to have been a deliberate choice to misdirect the enemy about the VF's design and capabilities.

 

33 minutes ago, Sanity is Optional said:

Since it's a different lineage it has a different transformation. SV vs VF.

My personal headcannon is that the company didn't have the IP rights to VF transformation schemes and had to do something different.

The Sv-262 was developed by a design group that, until recently, had been an operating unit of General Galaxy before it was sold to the Epsilon Foundation subsidiary Dian Cecht.

The Sv-262's transformation is modeled closely on that of General Galaxy's first big seller, the VF-9 Cutlass.

[aurance]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

By the standards of 5th Generation VFs so far?  Kinda, yeah.

The YF-30 Chronos has a heavy quantum beam gunpod and a pair of coaxial 12.7mm beam machineguns, but other than that its armament is all tied up in the ordnance container.  If it takes the beam turret container from the novel, then it's got no missiles.  It lacks a built-in fixed-forward gun (a design standard since the 4th Generation and a common feature since the 2nd), wing pylons, and internal ordnance bays or micro-missile launcher systems.

If you look at its military spec derivative, the VF-31 Kairos, you'll see all those features present.  It has fixed-forward railguns, six internal micro-missile launchers, two internal ordnance bays, and wing pylons.  It also lacks the 5th Gen's standard close combat blade.

Compared to its facing competition, the YF-29B Perceival, the YF-30 REALLY seems under-armed since the YF-29B has a hundred internally-carried micro-missiles, multiple built-in beam cannons, an almost identical gunpod, a bayonet and an assault knife, and Ghost support.

I suppose so, but compared to, say a VF-25 it's between its hip guns vs the extra power of a heavy quantum beam rifle. Seems kind of like a wash to me. I guess I always forget about the knife.

[Seto Kaiba]

13 minutes ago, aurance said:

I suppose so, but compared to, say a VF-25 it's between its hip guns vs the extra power of a heavy quantum beam rifle. Seems kind of like a wash to me. I guess I always forget about the knife.

I'd look at it more in terms of the difference between the firepower the heavy quantum beam rifle or heavy quantum beam cannon turret container put out vs. the firepower of the eight or so thermonuclear reaction warheads the VF-25 can carry.

[aurance]

12 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'd look at it more in terms of the difference between the firepower the heavy quantum beam rifle or heavy quantum beam cannon turret container put out vs. the firepower of the eight or so thermonuclear reaction warheads the VF-25 can carry.

Ahh, hard points. Gotcha.

[sketchley]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The Sv-262's transformation is modeled closely on that of General Galaxy's first big seller, the VF-9 Cutlass.

I get what you're trying to say in a general sense (in that the arms/shoulders are on a swing-bar), but I disagree that it is closely modelled on the VF-9.  In short:

• wings:  VF-9 wrap around to form the torso.  Sv-262: hanging off the back
• legs/engine nacelles: VF-9 under the fuselage.  Sv-262 on the sides (forming the wing roots/part of the lifting body)
• arms: VF-9 has them folded up in-line under the fuselage (between the engine nacelles).  Sv-262: folded up 3/4 in-line, 1/4 in parallel, above and below the central fuselage (between the engine nacelles).  In addition: while the components of the right arm remain straight in Fighter, the left forearm folds in-half above and below the fuselage centre line (while shoulders are on opposite ends on the VF-9 [fist to fist], on the Sv-262 it's essentially the opposite [shoulders to shoulder]).
• nose: becomes the groin in the VF-9.  Becomes the head turret in the Sv-262.
• engine intakes: become the upper legs in the VF-9.  Become the chest in the Sv-262.

 

There are other differences, too (and I'm sure one could rewrite what I described more accurately, too).  Nevertheless, while the transformation mechanism shares some common characteristics, they are fundamentally different.

 

 

Edited April 11, 2020 by sketchley

[aurance]

 

On 4/10/2020 at 10:31 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

I'd look at it more in terms of the difference between the firepower the heavy quantum beam rifle or heavy quantum beam cannon turret container put out vs. the firepower of the eight or so thermonuclear reaction warheads the VF-25 can carry.

Actually looking at my YF-30 toy it seems like it has the hard points to carry those missiles just as easily...

[Sildani]

I think the YF-29 has provision for two hardpoints, one under each inner wing. You can see in the panel lining some marks that are longitudinally arranged, in line with each other, and symmetrical with each wing, and aren’t repeated anywhere else on the Valkyrie. 
 

As for a specialized Valkyrie: is the VF-27 Lucifer qualified?

[Bolt]

VF-27=Sexy replicant ride.

YF-29 =Sexy blade runner ride.

[Falcon]

How much range to the micromissiles have compared to the medium and longer ranged missiles? Wonder if it's decisive considering the fact that they do also have active stealth capabilities as well? That said, can never go wrong with extra range... 

[aurance]

So in Macross 30 the YF-30 sometimes appears to shoot missiles from around its legs(?) without deploying its container, and they seem a different type ( https://youtu.be/yUiwsQrb-Vk 5:00 as an example). Does it have another missile bay, or is it just video game artistic license?

 

[Seto Kaiba]

On 4/12/2020 at 1:34 AM, aurance said:

Actually looking at my YF-30 toy it seems like it has the hard points to carry those missiles just as easily...

I'm not sure a toy is a good representative sample?  Sadly, there isn't much art of the YF-30 Chronos to get a proper look at the underside of the CG model's wings.

 

 

20 hours ago, Sildani said:

I think the YF-29 has provision for two hardpoints, one under each inner wing. You can see in the panel lining some marks that are longitudinally arranged, in line with each other, and symmetrical with each wing, and aren’t repeated anywhere else on the Valkyrie. 

All I see on the CG model there is the seam where the wings fold for storage.

 

20 hours ago, Sildani said:

As for a specialized Valkyrie: is the VF-27 Lucifer qualified?

Oh, handily... it's an ultra-high speed dogfighter with exclusively short-ranged armaments.  Kinda what you'd expect given that it was built pretty much exclusively to fight the Vajra and Macross Galaxy completed it using development data from the YF-29 that was leaked to them by LAI.

 

 

6 hours ago, Falcon said:

How much range to the micromissiles have compared to the medium and longer ranged missiles? Wonder if it's decisive considering the fact that they do also have active stealth capabilities as well? That said, can never go wrong with extra range... 

It varies by missile, and Macross's creators are usually quite vague about it for obvious reasons... the one time I recall seeing ranges stated explicitly was in the old Sky Angels book, for the ones used by the GBP-1S Armored Pack which are between 2km and 5km.

 

 

2 hours ago, aurance said:

So in Macross 30 the YF-30 sometimes appears to shoot missiles from around its legs(?) without deploying its container, and they seem a different type ( https://youtu.be/yUiwsQrb-Vk 5:00 as an example). Does it have another missile bay, or is it just video game artistic license?

Those missiles appear to be coming from the ordnance container.

In GERWALK mode, if the ordnance container isn't deployed the launchers are facing left and right, parallel to the wing surface.  That looks like missiles firing from the container on a trajectory to ensure they clear the wing and limbs.

[aurance]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm not sure a toy is a good representative sample?  Sadly, there isn't much art of the YF-30 Chronos to get a proper look at the underside of the CG model's wings.

Sure, but it doesn't really conclusively support your assertion either that the thing is comparatively lightly armed.

And wherever the information from Macross Mecha Manual came from, also says there are hardpoints.

I really appreciate your knowledge (I always look forward to reading your responses!) but sometimes I think you make some definitive statements based on suggestive evidence when the conclusions allow for a fair bit more leeway. 

Edited April 16, 2020 by aurance

[aurance]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Those missiles appear to be coming from the ordnance container.

In GERWALK mode, if the ordnance container isn't deployed the launchers are facing left and right, parallel to the wing surface.  That looks like missiles firing from the container on a trajectory to ensure they clear the wing and limbs.

I think you're right, I compared the game footage of GERWALK firing with the containers up, and container down, and both seem to be depleting from the same "gauge".

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, aurance said:

And wherever the information from Macross Mecha Manual came from, also says there are hardpoints.

I've gone back and reviewed the (paltry) official coverage of the YF-30, and I couldn't find any mention of pylon mounts for ordnance.  The only items listed under its armaments are its pair of 12.7mm beam machine guns, the heavy quantum beam gunpod, an assault knife (which is my bad, it does have one), and the ordnance container which contains all of its missile weapons in Macross 30 and in the novelization is later swapped out for a MDE beam cannon turret for the final battle.

The best quality art I could locate for the YF-30 is in the Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy Visual Complete Guide, and it does appear to have a pair of pylon mounting locations on the forearms like the VF-31 does, but it's not listed or mentioned or alluded to in any way.  The toy has four.

I think the Macross Mecha Manual's entry listing six underwing pylons is a copy-paste error from the VF-25 page... because this thing definitely doesn't have six.

 

 

2 hours ago, aurance said:

Sure, but it doesn't really conclusively support your assertion either that the thing is comparatively lightly armed.

The biggest sticking point there is the ordnance container itself.  It has 36 launchers, but we don't know how many missiles each launcher has.  For the sake of argument, let's assume that the armaments we can see in print or with our eyes on the toy exist... so the YF-30 has 36 micro-missiles and four underwing pylons.

The YF-30's direct derivative, the VF-31 Kairos, outguns it despite being an economy model.  The YF-30 has two beam machine guns to the VF-31's one, but the VF-31 makes up for it with two 27mm railguns.  The VF-31's got 36 micro-missiles carried internally and four underwing pylons, but it also has two internal ordnance bays in the legs for large munitions or racks of micro-missiles.  The VF-31's got a second assault knife.  They've both got heavy quantum beam gunpods.  The VF-31 does all that without its ordnance container, though, where the YF-30 has to sacrifice its missile payload to equip a radome or beam cannon.  Then, of course, there's the VF-31's Super and Armored Packs.

The YF-29, the YF-30's facing competition in ridiculously impractical technology demonstrator-ism, doesn't have any wing pylons to speak of but it has almost 3x as many internally-carried micro missiles (100 vs. 36) outfitted with the more deadly MDE warheads, its coaxial guns are firing MDE rounds, and it's got a built-in anti-warship grade MDE beam cannon turret.  The YF-30 can take a similar turret, but at the expense of its micro-missile container, giving the YF-29 a 100-0 advantage instead.

The VF-25, the VF-31's facing competition, has a pair of extra gun mounts on the hips for lasers or solid-ammo machine guns, six or eight underwing pylons (depending on which book you ask), an optional 55mm anti-armor railgun, and a multitude of FAST Pack choices including hundreds of missiles like the Super, Strike, Armored, Tornado, and Paladin packs.

 

(FWIW, the RPG stats I homebrewed for the YF-30 give its container 108 micro-missiles... partly because we usually expect a micro-missile launcher to hold 3 or more missiles, partly because it's more balanced vs. the YF-29 that way, and partly because 108 has a pleasing significance WRT the Chronos's time-related implications... 108 being the number of times the temple bells at Japanese Buddhist temples are rung at the end of the year to finish the old year and welcome the new.)

 

 

2 hours ago, aurance said:

I think you're right, I compared the game footage of GERWALK firing with the containers up, and container down, and both seem to be depleting from the same "gauge".

The interface in Macross 30 is probably not helpful for these purposes either, since two of the three boxes on the vast majority of VFs in-game refer to the same missile system firing in two different modes... one being multiple lock-on missile spam, and the other being single lock-on high rate-of-fire missile spam.  The third Box is usually a built-in beam weapon of some description, most often the coaxial laser or beam guns, but sometimes another weapon like the VF-19's wing root/hip mounted guns or the YF-29's turret.

(This can get weird on a few VFs, like the VF-11, where missiles seem to sprout from nowhere because they're not modeled with pylons.)

[aurance]

Cool, thank you.

1) Is there any explanation in-universe for why they fire huge swarms of missiles? Is it because of shitty guidance systems or amazing missile countermeasures or both?

2) In a related vein to our discussion above, is there an in-universe explanation for why the base model VF-11 was so minimally armed vs. some of the others with more comprehensive weapons packages built in?

Edited April 16, 2020 by aurance

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, aurance said:

Is there any explanation in-universe for why they fire huge swarms of missiles? Is it because of shitty guidance systems or amazing missile countermeasures or both?

Macross Chronicle is firmly in the "amazing missile countermeasures" camp on this one.

Modern missiles already had to contend with a variety of countermeasures like lock-on detection and warning systems, chaff, flares, decoys, electronic countermeasures, and increasing adoption of passive stealth technology.  Even in the Vietnam War, it was standard practice to fire at least two missiles with different types of guidance systems to improve the likelihood of a kill because the agility of aircraft was such that at short ranges an enemy aircraft could simply steer out of the guide beam for a semi-active radar homing system so SARH missiles were often followed up by infrared seekers as a one-two punch.

The introduction of overtechnology made these problems substantially worse.  Variable Fighters were substantially more agile than modern conventional fighter aircraft, making it that much harder to actually score a kill on one with a missile at any range and making semi-active homing all but useless.  The real killer, however, was the quantum leap in ECM made by the invention of active stealth.  Now that fighters could be all but invisible to radar at range, active radar homing missiles needed powerful (and expensive) ECCM to be effective and it fell to short-range missiles using guidance systems that were unaffected by active stealth tech like laser, infrared, and TV homing to reliably engage aircraft with active stealth.  Firing a large number of small, short-ranged missiles in a saturation-type attack is a way to improve the odds of scoring a kill.

[Seto Kaiba]

51 minutes ago, aurance said:

2) In a related vein to our discussion above, is there an in-universe explanation for why the base model VF-11 was so minimally armed vs. some of the others with more comprehensive weapons packages built in?

Shinsei Industry's VF-11 Thunderbolt was actually pretty average for its time.

The (New) UN Forces were looking for an all-regime main variable fighter, a "true successor" to the VF-1 Valkyrie's all-purpose operating profile in the wake of the more specialized VF-4 and VF-5000.  It's got a gunpod, a rear-facing laser cannon to cover its blind spot, four underwing pylon stations, and it may or may not always have had a weapons bay in the side of its engine nacelles as seen in Macross 7.  For the time it was developed, that was a pretty respectable armament that was augmented further with a Super Pack and Armored Pack.  I think a big part of why it seems under-armed is that we never really get to see it using its wing pylons outside of Macross the Ride.  The all-regime focus meant that it was more dependent on the Super Pack for space operations like the VF-1 was, so most of what we see is the Super Thunderbolt spamming micro-missiles.  Master File has suggested the VF-11's Super Pack is heavily modularized, so that it can be reconfigured to accept different quantities of fuel and missiles depending on operational need, allowing it to potentially missile spam at almost a VF-25 level.

Its facing competition in Project Nova, the VF-14, was a much larger and more specialized variable fighter.  It got passed over for main fighter status because it didn't have the level of operational versatility the military was looking for... though it still got bought by a number of governments and enjoyed considerable popularity as a highly effective space fighter that was modification-friendly thanks to its roomy airframe.  Even the VF-14 wasn't really much better armed, it just kept its dangerous toys on the inside.