Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[aurance]

I’ve been inspired with so many questions.

What used to be in the giant leg cavities in SDF-1 where Macross city ended up? I assumed they would have been filled with rather necessary engine parts and not just an empty space ready for an ad hoc city. Where did those parts go?

[Seto Kaiba]

52 minutes ago, aurance said:

What used to be in the giant leg cavities in SDF-1 where Macross city ended up? I assumed they would have been filled with rather necessary engine parts and not just an empty space ready for an ad hoc city. Where did those parts go?

Y'know, I have no idea... I don't recall it ever being mentioned.

Most of the Macross's original alien hardware survived its crash landing intact and was restored to working condition by humans... so presumably that space was similarly empty in the ship's original operating context.  We have no way to know for certain.  Maybe it was a cargo bay, or a hangar space?

[Sildani]

Dumb thought, but didn’t the super dimensional drive vanish after use? Could that have been where it was?

[JB0]

20 minutes ago, Sildani said:

Dumb thought, but didn’t the super dimensional drive vanish after use? Could that have been where it was?

Not likely, as the reason for transformation was that the removal of the fold generator also removed the connection between the generators and the main cannon. Seems like if it was way at the back like that, it woulda disconnected a lot more of the ship from power.

[Seto Kaiba]

35 minutes ago, Sildani said:

Dumb thought, but didn’t the super dimensional drive vanish after use? Could that have been where it was?

From the diagram shown in the original series, the fold system was located in the central module of the ship.

[sketchley]

6 hours ago, aurance said:

I’ve been inspired with so many questions.

What used to be in the giant leg cavities in SDF-1 where Macross city ended up? I assumed they would have been filled with rather necessary engine parts and not just an empty space ready for an ad hoc city. Where did those parts go?

I think it was just empty space to begin with—most Zentradi/Supervision ships tend to be shells with large internal spaces for... stuff.

My best guess is that there were initially some bulkheads and levels/floors, but those were either not repaired or cut out to open the space up for buildings.  There was probably a fair bit of recycling (of those cut out parts), as all they had to build the city was what they brought with them—though I doubt much of the remains of the buildings, etc. that came with South Ataria Island could be salvaged.  Especially as their priorities were on salvaging stuff much more vital to their immediate survival and the trip back to Earth.

[ErikElvis]

Do you think the sdf-1 ever carried zentradi in the vast expanse of the legs?

[Falcon]

Curious about missile ranges- with so many different types of missiles for VF's to use, what were the maxiumum and standard ranges of the missiles used in a VF?

[sketchley]

15 hours ago, ErikElvis said:

Do you think the sdf-1 ever carried zentradi in the vast expanse of the legs?

Yes.  This is evidenced in the size of the airlock Hikaru used when he went on his tuna-catching expedition.

 

25 minutes ago, Falcon said:

Curious about missile ranges- with so many different types of missiles for VF's to use, what were the maxiumum and standard ranges of the missiles used in a VF?

Alas, that information is virtually nonexistent.  In general, we usually only get ① the type of missile and ② the name & manufacturer of the missile.  (E.g.: Bifors HMM-01 micro-missile).  In some cases we get additional things like the seeker head type and the diameter, but that's much less common.

Sources like Variable Fighter Master File (VFMF, semi official) have indicated that the VF-0 and VF-1 can use real world missiles.  However, we run into the roadblock of countries not wanting to go into too much detail about their defensive capabilities. 

 

In a way I've indirectly answered your question in these linked stats for RPGing Macross.  The real world stuff is as accurate as possible at the time of creation (so NATO stuff like that GBU-10C bomb travelling up to 14.8 km after being dropped or the AIM-9M Sidewinder speeding at Mach 2.7 out to 35.4 km is factual.  However, the Russian stuff is more along the lines of educated guesses, as they're much less inclined to reveal the capabilities of their munitions.)

This particular set is for the Macross Zero—SDFM era: http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/Stats/Statistics/Missiles/missilesFCS00.php

Remember: green = official, blue = semi-official (the aforementioned VFMF series, etc.)

Edited April 25, 2020 by sketchley

[Seto Kaiba]

On 4/25/2020 at 9:17 AM, Falcon said:

Curious about missile ranges- with so many different types of missiles for VF's to use, what were the maxiumum and standard ranges of the missiles used in a VF?

As @sketchley has indicated, that kind of information is extremely rare in Macross publications.

The only source I know of that puts anything like an actual operational range on any OTM-based missile is the VERY old Sky Angels VF-1 tech manual doujinshi that Masahiro Chiba put together back in '84.  Prior to Macross Chronicle and Variable Fighter Master File picking it over for ideas and content, it was the sole source of a lot of esoteric information like the meaning of the acronym ARMD, specs for the SF-3A and QF-3000, fighter complements for various ships, and what the SDF-3 actually was.  Some of that info has been superseded by more modern, updated versions (e.g. what the SDF-3 is), while some got repeated very nearly whole cloth in those newer publications.

Missile ranges, unfortunately, are not one of those details that got cherrypicked and either updated or reprinted.

The AMM-1 Arrow (which this older book calls AAM-1 Arrow) is given an operational range of 50km... quite a bit better than the medium-ranged missiles that were public knowledge when the book was written, like the AIM-7E.

Bear in mind, this book was published in 1984 before Macross: Do You Remember Love? even came out, and some of the details it offers did not age well... like the VF-1 Valkyrie's then-bank-breaking $126 million price tag which is less than many 5th generation fighters today.  At the time, that would've made the VF-1 between three and five times as expensive as a normal fighter.

 

 

EDIT:  As an addendum to the above, while print sources like Macross Chronicle indicate the SDF-3 is now the Megaroad-02, Macross mechanical designer Kazutaka Miyatake is noted to support the older stance on the SDF-3 being Vrlitwhai's ship.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Seto Kaiba

[Bolt]

47 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

it was the sole source of a lot of esoteric information like the meaning of the acronym ARMD, specs for the SF-3A and QF-3000, fighter complements for various ships,

Ooo. Do tell!

[Seto Kaiba]

13 hours ago, Bolt said:

Ooo. Do tell!

 

 

Well, this old book predates Macross: Do You Remember Love? by a month and change... it was printed 27 May 1984, and DYRL? made its theatrical debut on 7 July 1984.  It was the first real in-depth Macross technical publication, and its take on various things hasn't exactly aged well since its non-fictional details are based on the current state of affairs in 1984 before a lot of the stuff surrounding the US Advanced Tactical Fighter program and almost a decade before the Joint Strike Fighter program.  For instance, the VF-1's bank breaking program price tag of $50 billion and flyaway cost of $126 million per aircraft - more than triple that of even the most expensive US fighters of the period - are now cheaper than US 5th Generation fighter programs (even the YF-22's development cost was $86.6 billion and the flyaway cost was $150 million).

It originated a few terms that didn't really gain widespread acceptance in Macross works until ~2011 like the name of the airframe control AI ANGIRAS that was finally brought into the official setting for good with Macross the Ride or ARMD being short for "Armaments Rigged-up Moving Deck" that finally made its way into Macross Chronicle.  There is also a reference to Gundam in the mention of the VF-1 having an AMBAC system.  It talks about later SDFs as well, specifically the SDF-2 as being a Macross-class ship (which it was until they made Macross: Flash Back 2012) and SDF-3 as being the designation given to Vrlitwhai's ship after it joined the UN Spacy fleet... which could've remained official until Macross Frontier identified SDF as the hull classification symbol of the Megaroad-class (meaning SDF-3 was Megaroad-02).

The book also has some brief asides about the QF-3000E Ghost, SF-3A Lancer II, and some of the ships involved in its operation like the ARMD-class, Daedalus, and Prometheus.  It's where we get the stuff about the Lancer II's weapons, the Ghost's AI, and it even mentions a replacement program for the badly depleted stock of Ghosts designed QF-5000.  

Edited April 26, 2020 by Seto Kaiba

[sketchley]

On 4/24/2020 at 1:35 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

How about "the Wayward Zentradi"?

My vote would otherwise be for "the Wandering Zentradi"... though IMO "Lost" can have connotations that better fit the fact that these Zentradi are not merely living nomadically, but are living a deprived life without culture.  They are lost in more senses than merely geographical/astrographical.

Thanks for the input!

I like wayward, too.  Interestingly, "wayward" in Japanese comes out as "stubborn, someone who doesn't listen, etc."!  https://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=wayward

 

However... I think I'm going to stick with "Lost".  While I don't like all the additional baggage the English term has accumulated, it's so much easier to just leave it as is (esp. compared to how many pages of html code I'd have to fix! )

[Bolt]

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's where we get the stuff about the Lancer II's weapons, the Ghost's AI, and it even mentions a replacement program for the badly depleted stock of Ghosts designed QF-5000.  

Lots of interesting stuff there, wow.  Is there an image of the QF-5000?

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, Bolt said:

Lots of interesting stuff there, wow.  Is there an image of the QF-5000?

Alas, no... it's mentioned only in passing, as a forthcoming next-generation unmanned fighter tipped to replace the QF-3000 series that took such heavy losses in the First Space War.

Variable Fighter Master File mentions a similar postwar upgrade to the Ghost that was designated QF-3100.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Seto Kaiba

[Seto Kaiba]

Added a note to my remarks on the SDF-3.  

While the Macross Frontier animation and print sources like Macross Chronicle have taken the stance that SDF-3 was Megaroad-02, Kazutaka Miyatake has privately expressed support for the idea that the SDF-3 is Vrlitwhai's ship and that particular detail from Sky Angels is also referenced in Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.1 on page 120 in the entry for SVF-789. 

[Seto Kaiba]

So... as long as I'm adding notes to things, I found another one.

Turns out there's a typo in the Macross the Ride coverage of Hakuna Aoba's mid-story upgrade, the VF-0改.

The Macross the Ride Visual Book Vol.2 romanizes its name as "Zeak"... but it's actually supposed to be "Zeke", a reference to the Allied reporting name for the Imperial Japanese Navy's famous/infamous Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter.

[Gerli]

Can we discuss this video here or we should make another thread?

 

[sketchley]

Apparently it is part of the footage used in the 2019 Macross Crossover Live (from the poster's Youtube description): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRgdDU9pD4U

 

The poster has also put up:

『マクロス』35周年アニメーション『Meets of The SuperDimension』: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ3VfAdOcks

Described as "video used in part of Macross Crossover Live.  Footage shown at the round theater".

 

... and they've also posted:

『ワルキューレ 3rd LIVE』 オープニングCG『Walkure Launch!!!!!』 - Complete Version:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ilY08jufTA

Described as "Macross Δ “Walkure 3rd LIVE.  Opening CG 'Walkure Launch'".

 

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Gerli said:

Can we discuss this video here or we should make another thread?

 

I must admit, I'm a bit disappointed... you'd think they'd at least put in enough effort to come up with some original combat choreography or something.  The VF-1 launch sequence is just a reanimation of the launch sequence from the Sega Saturn Macross: Do You Remember Love? game, minus the carrier getting torched from orbit by a Zentradi ship, and a lot of the rest is borrowed from the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross OP.

When or where is this even supposed to be?  You've got a place that looks like it's supposed to be the Middle East and fighters like the F-22 that were only used before the First Space War, but also Regults and Valkyries?

[Bolt]

I've been waiting to see this for sometime. Very enjoyable, even though many sequences are obviously borrowed and some of the animation isn't great.  

35 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

When or where is this even supposed to be?  You've got a place that looks like it's supposed to be the Middle East and fighters like the F-22 that were only used before the First Space War, but also Regults and Valkyries?

There was some discussion about this on the speaker pod cast ( what are Regults doing under tarps?) but I don't recall if it was made clear. 

[jeniusornome]

Wondered the same - I hadn't seen it before and my initial thought was it was something set in the end of the unification wars, but then you had Excaliburs (I think? Didn't look like Cheyennes) firing at F-22s and Regult pods fighting a VF-1.

Seemed more like a "this looks cool let's animate it" then anything intended to be coherent.

[Seto Kaiba]

34 minutes ago, Bolt said:

There was some discussion about this on the speaker pod cast ( what are Regults doing under tarps?) but I don't recall if it was made clear. 

Ah.  I've never been the podcast-listening type, so that slipped right past me.

 

29 minutes ago, jeniusornome said:

Wondered the same - I hadn't seen it before and my initial thought was it was something set in the end of the unification wars, but then you had Excaliburs (I think? Didn't look like Cheyennes) firing at F-22s and Regult pods fighting a VF-1.

Seemed more like a "this looks cool let's animate it" then anything intended to be coherent.

Yeah, it's a weird set of anachronisms...

 

So, from the profile, this is obviously a Prometheus-class aircraft carrier. 

As far as we know, the Earth Unification Government only completed one of those: CVS-101 Prometheus.  The old Sky Angels technical manual and Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.1 have both suggested the UN Government had at least two more pairs of Prometheus-class carriers and Daedalus-class assault ships under construction at the outset of the First Space War, but those ship were not set to be completed and delivered until late 2009 or early 2010 and were presumably destroyed before or shortly after completion when the Zentradi bombarded Earth's surface.

 

These, on the other hand, are obviously Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptors... and it obviously doesn't belong where it is, for several different reasons.

First and foremost, the Lockheed Martin F-22A can't operate from aircraft carriers.  They were designed for Air Force use only, and lack the necessary hardware for CATOBAR, like the launch bar on the front landing gear and tailhooks for arrested recovery.  There was originally a proposal for a Navy variant, but that proposal was scrapped in 1991 and these lack a key design feature that was unique to the F-22 Navy variant proposal... variable-sweep wings.  Hypothesis: some schmuck animating this on the cheap appropriated an existing F-22 CG model and threw it in without even bothering to consider whether this was a naval aircraft.

Secondly, the F-22 would have been obsolete before it ever had a chance to enter military service.  The real world F-22A entered service in December 2005, but in Macross's timeline OTM-enhanced fighter designs like the McNell Douglar F203 Dragon II would've been in service for two years already by the time December 2005 rolled around.  That's why the UN Forces were using things like F203s and OTM-enhanced F-14s instead of F-22s or F-35s.  The 5th Generation jet fighters had their thunder stolen by the 1st Generation Variable Fighters.

 

Tanks are not my forte, but this thing appears to be a UralVagonZavod T-90 main battle tank... the standard MBT of the Russian Army since 1992.  I may be wrong in this identification though, so if someone out there really knows their tanks please chime in with your expertise.

 

That's a Stonewell/Bellcom VF-1A Valkyrie.  Those didn't enter service until December 2008, after the end of the Unification Wars... why is he here?

 

... well that's a Viggers/Chrauler MBR-04-Mk.VI Destroid Tomahawk.

Not an initial trial production model either, its visor appears to be green instead of red.

The first Mk.VI units didn't come off the line until November 2007.

 

... but this guy's wearing a Unification Wars-era pilot suit model that was designed for use on the F-14++ and VF-0 and flying what looks to be a VF-1A-4.

 

... then there's this a-hole, who shouldn't be here at all.  Why are you here, Regult-san?  Your presence is an anachronism.

 

Hotboxing in your Valkyrie's cockpit is, of course, unsafe and probably a violation of regulations.

 

 

They say something at the end about the end of this century... but, Regults aside, this would have to be occurring in December 2008, eight years after the last century ended.  Having Regults present just doesn't work with everything else, chronologically.

[Gerli]

The Animation Studio that made this short is well know in Japan... maybe it's just a low-budget animation made only for the concert, but they are not by any means amateurs...

http://www.graphinica.com/

 

I think they use a lot of common available assets from other 3D projects... they had done a lot of works for all kinds of anime.

Maybe they are fans of "Proyecto Valkyria"?

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Gerli

[Captain Global]

I found it Pretty cool, animation is a bit lackluster, however more effort seems to have been put into this one than the other clips for the concerts. The plus OST is as wonderful as ever and some vakyrie porn is welcome from time to time, overall, the grittier tone reminded me of Zero. 

The best part is the photography, the shots of the f22 with the itano circus, the small t90 in comparison to the deltoids, the remake of the SDF opening shots, all are amazing. It's anachronistic as hell but it is not the first macross production with conflicting canon XD. 

However, with the character modeling I'm a little bit divided on one had it looks ps3 as hell on the other, the recent GITS sac 45 looks also PS3 ish.

Overall, I hope Graphinica and Itano become more involved with macross, with some changes here and there It could have been more than just cool action. 

 

PD: Is it me or the uploads of the Blu Ray special videos of this guy have strange frame rate issues?

 

[Seto Kaiba]

9 minutes ago, Gerli said:

I think they use a lot of common available assets from other 3D projects... they had done a lot of works for all kinds of anime.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at... asset reuse is a pretty common, widely accepted, and usually-effective way to save money on a production that uses computer animation.

Whatever overworked, underpaid animator did that scene grabbed an existing art asset without even taking the thirty seconds to see if this was an aircraft that was even designed to be launched from an aircraft carrier.

Macross has been reusing art assets wherever they can get away with it to save money since the switch to computer animation.  Macross Frontier reused the Cheyenne CG model with a few tweaks as the Cheyenne II which was then reused unaltered in Macross Delta.  Macross Delta also reused the Island-1 CG model from Macross Frontier for the much smaller cityship on Ragna, and reused the NUNS ships essentially unaltered, while putting some minor repaints and cosmetic alterations on the Macross Galaxy fleet's ships for Windermere IV's use.  The best cases of art asset reuse are the ones that make perfect sense in context, like the reuse of those ship designs.  The Cheyenne II required some mental calisthenics for Frontier's creators to explain its existence, but a lot of the other stuff just works.

[Focslain]

I enjoyed this battle animation. I'm seeing the Zero influence as I started my watch of that OVA (3/5 eps in)

Something I did start noticing in Frontier and Zero is the heavy use of Cheyennes, which in Zero seems odd since I don't remember them at all in SDFM or 7.

I'm going to sit down and watch DYRL? this weekend and double check.

Did the Cheyenne appear somewhere pre-Zero and just have enough popularity that it was used as the default destroid since?

[Seto Kaiba]

12 minutes ago, Focslain said:

Did the Cheyenne appear somewhere pre-Zero and just have enough popularity that it was used as the default destroid since?

Nope, the ADR-03-Mk.III Cheyenne was an original design by Junya Ishigaki for Macross Zero... it had no prior appearances.

It became the "default" Destroid from Frontier onwards due to it having an existing CG model that could be reused instead of having to model a new Destroid from scratch.

EDIT: For the curious, Junya Ishigaki's sketches for the Cheyenne can be found on pages 93 and 94 of his artbook Junya Ishigaki: ROBO no ISHI.  The Cheyenne art is mostly dated February and March 2003.

Edited April 30, 2020 by Seto Kaiba

[azrael]

Looks ok, but good gawd, the stuttering....

[aurance]

Yeah it definitely doesn’t fit in with SDFM or DYRL, but weren’t we saying canon is fuzzy? Just look at it like another alt universe.

Edited April 30, 2020 by aurance

[Seto Kaiba]

33 minutes ago, aurance said:

Yeah it definitely doesn’t fit in with SDFM or DYRL, but weren’t we saying canon is fuzzy? Just look at it like another alt universe.

Well, sorta... Kawamori's official stance on canon is basically broad strokes continuity.

Except for the Regults and that bit at the end where they talk about "the end of this century", it theoretically fits the existing timeline... it just feels sloppily-made.  Say what you will about Kawamori's Schrodinger's canon, but when he does something it's usually tight and consistent within itself.

[Mazinger]

Orguss begins towards the end of the unification wars with the shock from space time bomb making it all the way out to humanity’s first long distance colonization ship near the world called Glory causing that ship and it’s inhabitants to be sent hundreds of year back in time.

Then ASS-1 crashes on Earth.

All in the same timeline and universe.

That’s the power of my head canon.

Try to convince me otherwise. 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Mazinger

[Knight26]

My thought on the video is this:
Ignore the "end of century stuff."
This could be while the SDF-1 is on its way back to Earth. 
The CVS-101 class are huge, 180 meters longer than an Nimitz.  It is possible (though highly unlikely) that a OTC enhance F-22 might be made operable from its decks since the longer takeoff distance would lower the nose gear load.  Also, given the timeline, it is possible that some F-22s might still be in limited service and that in the SDFM timeline a carrier variant was put to use.
The Regults could have been leftovers from the original attack on the SDF-1, hiding out and waging guerilla war on Earth.
The CVS-102 (rushed into service and barely operational) was sent to intercept with whatever they had on hand, the F-22s, Tomahawks, VF-1A-4.  The pilot's flight suit even works because if he was an atmo only pilot, why would he need the space suit?

It is also possible that this video takes place post Space War 1, the CVS-101 has been pulled from the rebuilt Macross and recommissioned.  The UN Spacy is putting so much into the Megaroad fleet that local defense is using older hardware, read whatever they can find and field.  Based on the look of the damaged area this takes place in, with multiple huge blast craters, that is actually more my bet, especially since the Tomahawks look like rebel units as well, since they are attacking the F-22s.

Another possibility.  Given that so many of the shots are familiar ones, maybe this was put together as a bid or attempt to convince SK/BW/Bandai to make a Macross the First Animation.  Even the Half Gerwalk pose as the end is reminiscent of pose of Skull-1 at the end of SW-1.

Edited May 1, 2020 by Knight26

[sketchley]

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, sorta... Kawamori's official stance on canon is basically broad strokes continuity.

Except for the Regults and that bit at the end where they talk about "the end of this century", it theoretically fits the existing timeline... it just feels sloppily-made.  Say what you will about Kawamori's Schrodinger's canon, but when he does something it's usually tight and consistent within itself.

Which reminds me... Kawamori-san's name isn't in the credits.  I see Ichiro Itano listed as a creative advisor, but no Kawamori (usually he's in some kind of overseer or creative director role)...

[JB0]

What I'm getting is that this is the Macross equivalent of a Hollywood war movie: a big mess of anachronisms that make no sense at all where they're being shown.