Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[Seto Kaiba]

13 hours ago, sketchley said:

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)...

That'd certainly explain a lot.

 

12 hours ago, JB0 said:

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.

I think that's my favorite interpretation of this so far... one of those largely fictive "based on a true story" type productions with a budget so low they have to raid the studio's props warehouse for anything that looked remotely right.  (In the context of that last part, like how G-Saviour raided the props warehouse for SF props and came away with a lot of stuff from Starship Troopers.)

[ErikElvis]

So if the sdf 1 was set up to carry zentradi and per dyrl the protoculture sank their city 200k years ago and disappeared IM Assuming because of the war with the zentradi does that make the sdf-1 greater then 200k years old?

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, ErikElvis said:

So if the sdf 1 was set up to carry zentradi and per dyrl the protoculture sank their city 200k years ago and disappeared IM Assuming because of the war with the zentradi does that make the sdf-1 greater then 200k years old?

Well, in Macross: Do You Remember Love? the alien warship that became the SDF-1 Macross belonged to the Meltrandi... but as to its age, it's highly unlikely it's anywhere near that old.

The war between the Zentradi and Meltrandi that destroyed the ancient Protoculture civilization had been raging for 500,000+ years at the time Alien Starship One crashed in the South Pacific.  Both sides had automated factory satellites constantly providing them with replacement ships, mecha, and troops to offset combat losses.  Even the Zentradi Boddole Zer Main Fleet's mobile fortress - a core fleet strategic asset - wasn't that old.  Boddole Zer's mobile fortress had only been active for ~120,000 years.  A regular ship of the line like the one that became the Macross would not have lasted anywhere near that long because it'd be getting shot at on a regular basis.  Odds are it was somewhere between a few years and a couple decades old.

[Bolt]

3 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

A regular ship of the line like the one that became the Macross would not have lasted anywhere near that long because it'd be getting shot at on a regular basis.  Odds are it was somewhere between a few years and a couple decades old.

Interesting.  So just to be clear. What was so special about AS1 (to the Zentradi)..? I forgot..

[JB0]

9 minutes ago, Bolt said:

Interesting.  So just to be clear. What was so special about AS1 (to the Zentradi)..? I forgot..

In the TV series, they were initially following an escaped enemy vessel. The booby-trapped main cannon proved the ASS-1 was on Earth, and implied we were in league with the Supervision Army.

 

Then the zentradi attacked(fair enough, we had just shot them), and we nuked their butts with a legendary weapon lost to them eons ago.

They became interested in our reaction weapons, as well as our ability to repair and upgrade equipment.

[Seto Kaiba]

Just now, Bolt said:

Interesting.  So just to be clear. What was so special about AS1 (to the Zentradi)..? I forgot..

Well, their original interest in it - the reason they pursued it to the Sol system - was that it was a ship belonging to their enemy.  It was a Supervision Army gunship in the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross series and a Meltrandi gunship in Macross: Do You Remember Love?.

After discovering what'd become of it, their interest shifted from pursuit of an enemy to wondering what the hell they'd just found when they noticed the ship had been rebuilt and the locals started shooting at them with weapons based on lost technology.  That got them perplexed enough to decide they needed to capture the ship instead of destroy it.  

[ErikElvis]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, in Macross: Do You Remember Love? the alien warship that became the SDF-1 Macross belonged to the Meltrandi... but as to its age, it's highly unlikely it's anywhere near that old.

The war between the Zentradi and Meltrandi that destroyed the ancient Protoculture civilization had been raging for 500,000+ years at the time Alien Starship One crashed in the South Pacific.  Both sides had automated factory satellites constantly providing them with replacement ships, mecha, and troops to offset combat losses.  Even the Zentradi Boddole Zer Main Fleet's mobile fortress - a core fleet strategic asset - wasn't that old.  Boddole Zer's mobile fortress had only been active for ~120,000 years.  A regular ship of the line like the one that became the Macross would not have lasted anywhere near that long because it'd be getting shot at on a regular basis.  Odds are it was somewhere between a few years and a couple decades old.

Aahhh you learn something new everyday. I wasn’t aware it was a meltrandi ship. But why the micron bridge?

[Gerli]

16 hours ago, ErikElvis said:

Aahhh you learn something new everyday. I wasn’t aware it was a meltrandi ship. But why the micron bridge?

It was added during the reconstruction.

[pengbuzz]

13 hours ago, Gerli said:

It was added during the reconstruction.

Yeah...kinda hard to pilot a ship if Misa and Claudia had to get 30 foor stepladders just to hit the buttons for thrusters. O.o

[Seto Kaiba]

21 hours ago, Gerli said:

It was added during the reconstruction.

Remodeled, more like... the line art for either version of the design still has the bridge tower, but in the case of the Meltrandi it's not the only class of ship to have one.

Presumably the original bridge was laid out more along the lines of what we see of Milia 639's ship.

[aurance]

Were Supervision Army/Meltrandi gun destroyers relatively common? It seems a little odd to have a capital ship design that can instantly obliterate dozens of enemy capital ships. I would have thought the battle doctrine would then have shifted away from big huge expensive ships, since they can't be defended anyway.

[NightmarePlus]

6 minutes ago, aurance said:

Were Supervision Army/Meltrandi gun destroyers relatively common? It seems a little odd to have a capital ship design that can instantly obliterate dozens of enemy capital ships. I would have thought the battle doctrine would then have shifted away from big huge expensive ships, since they can't be defended anyway.

I'd image space battles between the Zentradi and Supervision army were just that insane to where gunboats like the SDF-1 were considered standard.

[Seto Kaiba]

20 minutes ago, aurance said:

Were Supervision Army/Meltrandi gun destroyers relatively common? It seems a little odd to have a capital ship design that can instantly obliterate dozens of enemy capital ships. I would have thought the battle doctrine would then have shifted away from big huge expensive ships, since they can't be defended anyway.

Presumably no more or less so than their Zentradi counterparts.

Heavy converging beam cannons don't have quite that level of firepower on ships of that scale... like the Macross's main gun, they can wipe out one ship with a direct hit or near miss, maybe two or three if they're flying in close formation, but not dozens in one go.  The long charge-up and cool-down times between shots make them rather less of an overwhelming advantage than you're thinking, and the space that would otherwise have gone to mecha, guided beam cannon turrets, and missile launchers is taken up by the cannon so the ship is probably somewhat more vulnerable than the average ship of the line.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Seto Kaiba

[aurance]

Ah okay that’s reasonable.

[Seto Kaiba]

32 minutes ago, aurance said:

Ah okay that’s reasonable.

Yeah, it's only the larger warships like the Zentradi and Meltrandi mobile fortresses, Macross II's Macross Cannon-class gunships, and the main Macross continuity's New Macross-class gunships and Varauta fleet mothership that have heavy super dimension energy cannons of fleet-busting proportions.

[jeniusornome]

I’m wondering about the rationale for giant super dimensional beam weaponry. 
 

“we might run into an angry zentradi fleet, so if they don’t like pop music we'll just wipe them all out” seems like a pretty good reason, I guess, but I mean, damn. 
 

also is the assumption that all zentradi/meltrandi fleets are hostile unless proven otherwise? Like are the zentradi out there just looking for a fight? What do those fleets DO in their spare time?

[Seto Kaiba]

4 minutes ago, jeniusornome said:

I’m wondering about the rationale for giant super dimensional beam weaponry. 
 

“we might run into an angry zentradi fleet, so if they don’t like pop music we'll just wipe them all out” seems like a pretty good reason, I guess, but I mean, damn. 

Well, we can't speak for the Zentradi's long-extinct creators... but humanity's rationale for constructing such large examples of super dimension energy weaponry seems to be based on the understanding that they will always and forever be fighting the Zentradi at a significant numerical disadvantage.  Your typical emigrant fleet/planet government's defense force has anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred warships at its disposal, and anywhere from a couple hundred to a couple thousand variable fighters, attackers, bombers, and what have you.  Even the very largest emigrant fleet described thus far (Macross Valiant) is only about 3/4 the size of a Zentradi branch fleet in terms of the simple number of ships.  The superior firepower offered by thermonuclear reaction weaponry and those large-scale anti-fleet super dimension energy cannons like the Battle-class's Macross Cannon level the playing field a bit.

Macross II: Lovers Again's Macross Cannon-class gunships and Macross 7's Varauta fleet flagship space carrier are perhaps the most excessive examples of this.  The former is basically a massive flying gun battery made up of four Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class fleet command battleships and their heavy converging beam cannons massively uprated to a level where they can wipe out hundreds of ships with a single shot.  The latter is simply an exercise in excess, with eight Macross Cannons and eight anti-fleet multi-warhead reaction missiles that are each outfitted with 24 10-gigaton reaction warheads.

The Minmay Attack will usually only disorient and confuse a rogue Zentradi fleet, but if you wipe out their command ships while they're dazed and confused they'll retreat and if you wipe them all out your problem is solved at the outset.  Having the firepower to do that to branch fleet-sized forces is a good way to ensure your civilian population survives as that's the size of force you're most likely to encounter.

 

 

4 minutes ago, jeniusornome said:

also is the assumption that all zentradi/meltrandi fleets are hostile unless proven otherwise? Like are the zentradi out there just looking for a fight? What do those fleets DO in their spare time?

Basically, yeah... the remaining Zentradi fleets in the galaxy are still fighting the same war they were fighting while the Protoculture's civilization was collapsing around their ears, and thus far they seem to attack on sight.  They and their enemies have been the only show in town for so long that presumably it doesn't often occur to them that there might be other groups that aren't aligned with them or their enemies.

Thanks to mass production on an unfathomably huge scale, the Zentradi are still very much occupied fighting the same foes they've been fighting for half a million years.  Vrlitwhai's branch fleet stumbled across Earth on a search and destroy mission chasing a fleeing Supervision Army (or Meltrandi) warship.  Others simply stumbled across emigrant fleets due to sheer bad luck.  In Macross II's timeline, two more main fleets met their end in the Sol system thanks to Zentradi who'd survived the First Space War but not made peace with humans trying to finish what they'd started with progressively less luck as humanity got better and better at dealing with Zentradi forces.

[aurance]

6 hours ago, jeniusornome said:

also is the assumption that all zentradi/meltrandi fleets are hostile unless proven otherwise? Like are the zentradi out there just looking for a fight? What do those fleets DO in their spare time?

They play Galaga.

[aurance]

Is there a reason why the transformation scheme for Valks changes so radically between generations or even between companies? I know more than most things the real world explanation is "because it looks cool" and "sell more merch", but I was wondering if there were in-universe explanations. If I had to guess, development of linear actuators, and trying to eliminate the need for rotating cockpits?

[sketchley]

2 hours ago, aurance said:

Is there a reason why the transformation scheme for Valks changes so radically between generations or even between companies? I know more than most things the real world explanation is "because it looks cool" and "sell more merch", but I was wondering if there were in-universe explanations. If I had to guess, development of linear actuators, and trying to eliminate the need for rotating cockpits?

The overall trend (speaking in universe) is to simplify and speed up the transformation.

While the transformation scheme doesn't appear to get simpler as time goes by, keep in mind that with the 1st generation VF-1 you have parts that need to be moved then detached from the parts that move them (ref: the migration of the parts that become the legs from under the chest to the nosecone).  In later generations , while the twirling whirly bits looks visually complex, they're more or less rotating in situ, and hardly anything detaches after migrating to a different part of the airframe anymore (well, aside from gun pods).

Apparently the introduction of linear actuators in Macross Frontier sped the transformation process up considerably, too.  At the very least, it reduced the mechanical or engineering complexity, as parts that previously needed hydraulics to be moved merely slide along electrically charged rails (and so on) thereafter.

So, I guess you could say that coupled with the faster transformation times, there was also a decrease in maintenance costs, as well.

Edited May 6, 2020 by sketchley

[Seto Kaiba]

8 hours ago, aurance said:

Is there a reason why the transformation scheme for Valks changes so radically between generations or even between companies? I know more than most things the real world explanation is "because it looks cool" and "sell more merch", but I was wondering if there were in-universe explanations. If I had to guess, development of linear actuators, and trying to eliminate the need for rotating cockpits?

Apart from the mechanical refinements to the transformation system mentioned previously, a big part of it would have to be simply to accommodate the shapes of the airframes of the various models of variable fighter.  The various defense contractors developing new models of variable fighter are constantly experimenting with different airframe designs to see what will best meet the military's needs in quantifiable areas of performance like speed, maneuverability, climb rate, stealthiness, payload capacity, and so on.  That has led to some radically different airframe designs over the years to meet the military's latest set of demands for platforms that cover a variety of different roles.  So it's partly a "how do we get from here to a giant robot?" question for the design teams as well.  The more unconventional the fighter mode, the more unconventional the resulting battroid mode will likely be to accommodate it.

[aurance]

9 hours ago, sketchley said:

While the transformation scheme doesn't appear to get simpler as time goes by, keep in mind that with the 1st generation VF-1 you have parts that need to be moved then detached from the parts that move them (ref: the migration of the parts that become the legs from under the chest to the nosecone).  In later generations , while the twirling whirly bits looks visually complex, they're more or less rotating in situ, and hardly anything detaches after migrating to a different part of the airframe anymore (well, aside from gun pods).

Was there anything else that completely detached other than the VF-1 leg scheme? I can't think of any other examples of this. This certainly would be an improvement but I think just from gen 1 to 2, from what I know.

[pengbuzz]

On 5/5/2020 at 12:26 AM, aurance said:

They play Galaga.

Do they use the Sledge-O-Matic ™?

[sketchley]

8 hours ago, aurance said:

Was there anything else that completely detached other than the VF-1 leg scheme? I can't think of any other examples of this. This certainly would be an improvement but I think just from gen 1 to 2, from what I know.

With Gen 2, we have the VF-3000 Crusader and VF-3000B Bomber Valkyrie.  However, they're both derivatives of the VF-1 with almost the exact same transformation mechanism.

The transformation mechanism remains complex in the VF-4, VF-9, and VF-14 (the legs have to traverse the inner wing before rotating on a hip join in the 4 and 14, and the wings form the torso in the 9).

One could say that the transformation mechanism doesn't start becoming simple across the board until Gen 3 with the VF-19, but the VF-22 has a needlessly complex transformation for the backpack/main engines section (not to mention lots of anime magic in general ).

As for other ones with "detaching parts", there's also the OCTOS—losing the underwater propulsion unit when it transforms.  But that's Gen 0 (or early Gen 1).

 

 

[deathzealot]

I managed to pick up Macross Variable Fighter Designers Note up at LevelUp Expo in Vegas a few months ago. It has some very nice lineart images for stuff like the Svard and the final episode White Painted Draken III.

[AN/ALQ128]

On 5/6/2020 at 7:03 PM, deathzealot said:

I managed to pick up Macross Variable Fighter Designers Note up at LevelUp Expo in Vegas a few months ago. It has some very nice lineart images for stuff like the Svard and the final episode White Painted Draken III.

Would you mind taking a pic or three? Seeing all the pre-production design sketches is half the fun of mecha shows for me.

[deathzealot]

19 minutes ago, AN/ALQ128 said:

Would you mind taking a pic or three? Seeing all the pre-production design sketches is half the fun of mecha shows for me.

Sure. Let's see. Okay let's try it this way.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/pBRBdMjzP7EENT3b8

Not much just did a handful of shots with my phone. I am not all that great with my phone's camera so please excuse the blurriness or shaky images. Tried my best. Still will try to add some more images later when I am rested. I had forgotten about the White Draken-III images and a couple other interesting bits.

Edited May 8, 2020 by deathzealot

[AN/ALQ128]

1 hour ago, deathzealot said:

Sure. Let's see. Okay let's try it this way.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/pBRBdMjzP7EENT3b8

Not much just did a handful of shots with my phone. I am not all that great with my phone's camera so please excuse the blurriness or shaky images. Tried my best. Still will try to add some more images later when I am rested. I had forgotten about the White Draken-III images and a couple other interesting bits.

Nice! Thanks, very much appreciated. I gotta try and get my hands on a Macross artbook one of these days.

[aurance]

Oh wow, super cool.

[aurance]

So, this question is a bit tough to put into words...

How "real" are some of these fighters that exist in only some of the media? For instance, Alto's YF-29 is in the Frontier movies. Does it also exist in the Frontier TV show reality, and we are just not assumed to see it? Is there actually an Ozma or Isamu YF-29 in the show or movie realities in the background somewhere, or do they just exist in the game and are non-entities elsewhere? Or do we just not know?

[Focslain]

14 minutes ago, aurance said:

So, this question is a bit tough to put into words...

How "real" are some of these fighters that exist in only some of the media? For instance, Alto's YF-29 is in the Frontier movies. Does it also exist in the Frontier TV show reality, and we are just not assumed to see it? Is there actually an Ozma or Isamu YF-29 in the show or movie realities in the background somewhere, or do they just exist in the game and are non-entities elsewhere? Or do we just not know?

Some like the Ozma and Isamu are most likely marketing ploys. The YF-29 in general is only in the movies, it never shows up in the series. In the TV series Alto does the final fight in a VF-25 w/ Tornado armour, much like he uses through out the series.

Remember that that all versions of Macross are valid as they are all movies.tv/books/games in-universe. So none of the media is actual what happened, just based on events that happened.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Focslain

[Seto Kaiba]

24 minutes ago, aurance said:

How "real" are some of these fighters that exist in only some of the media? For instance, Alto's YF-29 is in the Frontier movies. Does it also exist in the Frontier TV show reality, and we are just not assumed to see it? Is there actually an Ozma or Isamu YF-29 in the show or movie realities in the background somewhere, or do they just exist in the game and are non-entities elsewhere? Or do we just not know?

Usually, if something makes its debut in a movie version it's usually established to also be a thing in-setting... though its context may end up being slightly different.

For instance, the obvious visual differences between the TV and Film versions of the VF-1 Valkyrie and the Film version becoming the standard going forward was reconciled as the TV version being representative of the VF-1's earliest production blocks (1-5) and the Film version being the production standard for most VF-1's produced starting late in the war and beyond (in Blocks 6 and later).  The SDF-1 Macross's design changes between the TV and Film versions were likewise reconciled as being (respectively) the ship's appearance at the outset of the war and what it looked like after it was repaired after the war ended.  Exsedol got similar treatment, with his TV appearance being what he looks like in his miclone form and his Film appearance being what he normally looks like as a giant.

By all accounts, the YF-29 Durandal absolutely does exist outside of the Macross Frontier movies.  Its context may be different, but it definitely exists.  Macross the Ride, a prequel to the Macross Frontier series, mentions the YF-29 and we know the Macross Galaxy fleet illicitly obtained YF-29 development data and used it to complete the VF-27.  Likewise, SMS's YF-30 Chronos technology demonstrator was based on the YF-24 Evolution and YF-29 Durandal, with its Fold Dimensional Resonance system being a derivative of the YF-29's Fold Wave system, and the YF-30 was the starting point for the development of the VF-31 as well.  At least one issue of Great Mechanics G (Autumn 2016) promoting Macross Delta also explicitly places the YF-29 in the VF-31's family tree.

 

10 minutes ago, Focslain said:

In the TV series Alto does the final fight in a VF-25 w/ Tornado armour, much like he uses through out the series.

No he doesn't... the TW-1 Tornado Pack only exists in the Macross Frontier movies.

Alto's final fight in the Macross Frontier TV series has him flying his VF-25F with an APS-25A/MF25 Armored Pack.

 

16 minutes ago, Focslain said:

Remember that that all versions of Macross are valid as they are all movies.tv/books/games in-universe. So none of the media is actual what happened, just based on events that happened.

Kawamori's stance aside, there's also a valid in-setting answer to the question that bears stating.

[deathzealot]

7 hours ago, AN/ALQ128 said:

Nice! Thanks, very much appreciated. I gotta try and get my hands on a Macross artbook one of these days.

5 hours ago, aurance said:

Oh wow, super cool.

You two are quite welcome. I shall see about adding a bit more photos of the book when I have the time to do so so check back on that album. As for Artbooks I got lucky with this one for I found it at my local convention, LVL UP Expo. I really do not want to buy any of the other books from the internet due to the large shipping fees on them therefore I may just keep an eye out for anymore when I am at Phoenix Comicon in September.

[sketchley]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

(...) Exsedol got similar treatment, with his TV appearance being what he looks like in his miclone form and his Film appearance being what he normally looks like as a giant.  (...)

Yes and no.  Macross Chronicle glossary* suggests that he did some kind of modification to himself to enlarge his brain after the First Interstellar War.

So, it's similar to the visual differences in the SDF-1 in its own way.

 

* http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/MCRglossary/Glossary04a.php#203

Edited May 9, 2020 by sketchley

[aurance]

6 hours ago, deathzealot said:

You two are quite welcome. I shall see about adding a bit more photos of the book when I have the time to do so so check back on that album. As for Artbooks I got lucky with this one for I found it at my local convention, LVL UP Expo. I really do not want to buy any of the other books from the internet due to the large shipping fees on them therefore I may just keep an eye out for anymore when I am at Phoenix Comicon in September.

Awesome, thank you!