Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[darkranger12]

He's active on facebook for what its worth.

[SebastianP]

23 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

He hasn't posted on here in quite a while.

Come to that, I haven't spoken to him in a while either... I've been keeping the server going, but that's all I've been doing for it since I've been very busy with work and moving and a host of other nonsense since the start of the pandemic.  I know he recently changed jobs and moved I think twice recently, so I assume that's probably something to do with it.

 

Right now there haven't been any official specs for anything in the new movie, even the new movie's liner notes were silent on the subject, so all hopes currently hang on the Master File.

Once I'm done renovating my home office, I'll be getting back to work on my own projects and only doing server maintenance on M3.

I've seen him recent-ish in the facebook group, but the facebook thingy and I don't mix for technical reasons (it keeps eating anything I try to post as a separate post, but it's fine with posting images as comments...

Mostly just wondering how best to go about offering information from things like straight up turret counting. And I think part of the reason there's been a dearth of official specs this time is because some of the last releases were obviously wrong. 😛

[Seto Kaiba]

55 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

I've seen him recent-ish in the facebook group, but the facebook thingy and I don't mix for technical reasons (it keeps eating anything I try to post as a separate post, but it's fine with posting images as comments...

Yeah, my interactions with him have been limited lately for similar reasons... the Facebook groups he co-admins really went downhill and started banning people for many random reasons, like mentioning several of the people who worked on the official subs for Macross Delta.  I gave up after being removed from that group twice for no clear or explained reason.

 

55 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

Mostly just wondering how best to go about offering information from things like straight up turret counting. And I think part of the reason there's been a dearth of official specs this time is because some of the last releases were obviously wrong. 😛

Yeah, unfortunately I don't really have a good way to contact him except via Facebook.  We did most of our previous interacting via Skype, but few people use that anymore.

These days, I just keep the site running and the books I import are going towards my own projects instead. 

EDIT: That said, once I get my own project launched I'll be similarly happy to accept the same kind of details.  Just gotta get the actual pages build first. XD

Edited October 19, 2022 by Seto Kaiba

[Master Dex]

I talk to March on Discord a lot lately. He's in the Macross Fan Central discord which is an offshoot of the Facebook page but I never interacted on the Facebook page before joining that so that didn't seem to matter lol. I thought he was also in the discord for SDCon but that one isn't as active once the con passes and I don't see him there but I didn't look close. 

Edited October 19, 2022 by Master Dex

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, my interactions with him have been limited lately for similar reasons... the Facebook groups he co-admins really went downhill and started banning people for many random reasons, like mentioning several of the people who worked on the official subs for Macross Delta.  I gave up after being removed from that group twice for no clear or explained reason.

I gave up on groups entirely on FB after wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much drama.

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah, unfortunately I don't really have a good way to contact him except via Facebook.  We did most of our previous interacting via Skype, but few people use that anymore.

These days, I just keep the site running and the books I import are going towards my own projects instead. 

EDIT: That said, once I get my own project launched I'll be similarly happy to accept the same kind of details.  Just gotta get the actual pages build first. XD

Looking forward to that project!

  

44 minutes ago, Master Dex said:

I talk to March on Discord a lot lately. He's in the Macross Fan Central discord which is an offshoot of the Facebook page but I never interacted on the Facebook page before joining that so that didn't seem to matter lol. I thought he was also in the discord for SDCon but that one isn't as active once the con passes and I don't see him there but I didn't look close. 

Hmmm; I didn't know there was anything Macross on Discord (and here I have an account I hardly use on it!).

Edited October 19, 2022 by pengbuzz

[Seto Kaiba]

Well, I got my hopes raised and dashed today.

I got two new books today... Macross Grand Analysis and Macross Super Encyclopedia.

 

Both are, on their own, fine high-level overviews of Macross as a whole with some interesting "how we got here" discussion.  Worthy inclusions to any fan's collection.

Grand Analysis has a family tree of main timeline VFs done in a similar style to the ones in Gundam's MS Bible series, which is a VERY nice touch and it's clear they put a lot of effort into it.  

Where my expectations were raised and then shattered is that they include basic stat blocks for many VFs on that family tree and the family tree includes the VF-31AX.  The VF-31AX stats they printed are the ones for the stock VF-31A Kairos.

 

[Bolt]

23 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The VF-31AX stats they printed are the ones for the stock VF-31A Kairos.

How disappointing. So according to those stats(must be a mistake!) they're the same, just with cosmetic differences..?

Is there any info on the SV-303?

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Bolt said:

How disappointing. So according to those stats(must be a mistake!) they're the same, just with cosmetic differences..?

Is there any info on the SV-303?

Nothing more than what's been said previously, sadly.

I did notice some entertaining errors... the Macross Grand Analysis book has some images switched around in its ship section.  The family tree of Macross-type warships has the art for the Macross Quarter, Battle Galaxy, and Macross Elysion switched around.  The Battle Galaxy entry shows the correct fortress mode but the Macross Quarter's storming attack mode, the entry for the Macross Elysion shows the Battle Galaxy, and the entry for the Macross Quarter shows the Macross Elysion.

Macross Super Encyclopedia's go at a VF family tree omits everything outside of the main/Shinsei line... so the whole second generation is just not present, as is the 3rd Generation VF-14 and it just goes VF-0 to VF-1 to VF-11, 17, 19, 22, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, and 31.

[Seto Kaiba]

[TG Remix]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Both are, on their own, fine high-level overviews of Macross as a whole with some interesting "how we got here" discussion.  Worthy inclusions to any fan's collection.

Grand Analysis has a family tree of main timeline VFs done in a similar style to the ones in Gundam's MS Bible series, which is a VERY nice touch and it's clear they put a lot of effort into it.  

Shame I can't get them now, but that's nice! Any new information that seemed to pop up?

 

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Macross Super Encyclopedia's go at a VF family tree omits everything outside of the main/Shinsei line... so the whole second generation is just not present, as is the 3rd Generation VF-14 and it just goes VF-0 to VF-1 to VF-11, 17, 19, 22, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, and 31.

The more Macross goes on the more it feels like the VF-14 feels like the neglected weird middle sibling with an identity crisis. 😅😆

[Seto Kaiba]

35 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

Shame I can't get them now, but that's nice! Any new information that seemed to pop up?

They're available on CDJapan and the like, and the secondhand sellers like Mandarake always end up with a few copies of books like this if it's a time thing.

If there is any new or noteworthy information it's buried in the interview sections of the books.  The only detail of note I saw on my skim through the rest of the books was that the events of Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!! take place approximately 13 months after the end of Macross Delta in October 2068.

 

35 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

The more Macross goes on the more it feels like the VF-14 feels like the neglected weird middle sibling with an identity crisis. 😅😆

Really, it feels like General Galaxy gets the short shrift anytime it's not talking about the VF-22 or VF-27.  Even though the VF-9 and VF-14 were successful and popular VFs among emigrant governments, they get forgotten because the Main VF role is dominated by Stonewell Bellcom/Shinsei Valkyries most of the time.

[TG Remix]

1 minute ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Really, it feels like General Galaxy gets the short shrift anytime it's not talking about the VF-22 or VF-27.  Even though the VF-9 and VF-14 were successful and popular VFs among emigrant governments, they get forgotten because the Main VF role is dominated by Stonewell Bellcom/Shinsei Valkyries most of the time.

The VF-17/VF-171 also has a good reputation in and out of universe, though it helps the VF-17 was tied to a major character in 7 and were never (barring Delta's involuntary instance) used as the antagonist Valkyries.  And yeah, from what we could tell from the remains even the Zentradi-only (and presumably General Galaxy dominated) Macross 5 preferred the lightweight and versatile VF-11C as their main fighter instead of the VF-14, which shared a lot with their VA-14.

[SebastianP]

On 11/2/2022 at 12:11 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Really, it feels like General Galaxy gets the short shrift anytime it's not talking about the VF-22 or VF-27.  Even though the VF-9 and VF-14 were successful and popular VFs among emigrant governments, they get forgotten because the Main VF role is dominated by Stonewell Bellcom/Shinsei Valkyries most of the time.

I think it has more to do with those designs being from the 2020s and we haven't seen anything from that era since M3... where those two fighters were introduced in their canon forms in the first place. In universe the VF-9 is 46 years old (introduced in 2021), and the VF-14 is 37 (introduced in 2030) - they're ancient, and unlike the VF-1 which has a cult following both in and out of universe for being "the fighter that won Space War 1" the VF-9 and VF-14 don't have anything going for them that'd make people keep updating them for four decades.  

The one place where we could have gotten the VF-4, VF-9, VF-5000 and VF-14 in "modern" Macross was Macross 30, where having more variety of VFs would have fit the existing game and smoothened over the bump between the VF-1 and VF-11, but really all of the VFs that were in the game were flown on screen by either the guest characters in their respective anime, or by the game's original cast, with the exception of the VF-0S (which is just a simple variant), the VB-6 (which Ranka rides to battle at least once, even if she doesn't fly it), and maybe the crank-winged VF-19s (and I'm not sure Gamlin or Milia doesn't fly those at one point in 7).  The only ones that are *missing*, as in "flown by a character appearing in the game, in a tv-series or movie" are the VF-17, the VF-11MAXL, and VF-19P, I think.

(I'm actually playing the game right now and working on filling out the tech tree. I need more engine parts, and the time trials suck rocks.)

What *really* gets short shrift are the various nifty background designs someone must have designed and paid attention to, but which are never named or given any information about. Like every capital ship type introduced since Macross 7 that wasn't some form of Macross-class, including the ones from the games. In addition to Dulfim, Deneb, and the "stealth cruiser" from Frontier, there's another two or three classes introduced in Delta that we know absolutely nothing about other than "they're sold by Epsilon and appear related to the Dulfim and Deneb types", and then there's the smaller stuff, like this thing:  

(Source: Macross Frontier, Episode 5 - this is the messenger that alerts Frontier that Galaxy is under attack and needs help. It looks fighter sized, with that fold booster on top and what looks like a canopy, but the two second sequence where it folds out and rotates around its axis is the only place where it ever appears AFAIK...)

Edited November 4, 2022 by SebastianP

[Seto Kaiba]

On 11/1/2022 at 7:20 PM, TG Remix said:

The VF-17/VF-171 also has a good reputation in and out of universe, though it helps the VF-17 was tied to a major character in 7 and were never (barring Delta's involuntary instance) used as the antagonist Valkyries. 

While it is true that the VF-17 and VF-171 - and, indeed, practically all of General Galaxy's known VF models - have good reputations in-universe it would be incorrect to say they've never been antagonist Valkyries.

One of two recurring boss or sub-boss battles in Macross VF-X2 is against Latence-backing Critical Path CEO Manfred Brando in his personal cherry-red VF-17S.  He's fought three times: in Mission 3 "Die Zauberflote", in Mission 7 "Pinocchio", and for the final time in the decisive Mission 9 "Mary Poppins" where he is the boss fight that puts you on the path towards the game's good end (A-route).  He's shot down and killed at Area ASR8283200 and information about the Jamming Sound System and Latence's plans for it are found in the wreckage.  (The other is Black Rainbow's ace Timothy Daldhanton, whose Feios Valkyrie is fought in Mission 2 "Wizard of Oz", Mission 6 "Singin' in the Rain", and Mission 8 "King & I".)

The VF-171 is used as an antagonist Valkyrie in Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy.  Self-proclaimed "Bandit King" Ganess Modora uses a VF-171EX as his personal Valkyrie and is fought on several occasions over the course of that game as the de facto leader of the bandits who operate on Uroboros with the secret support of Havamal.

 

On 11/1/2022 at 7:20 PM, TG Remix said:

And yeah, from what we could tell from the remains even the Zentradi-only (and presumably General Galaxy dominated) Macross 5 preferred the lightweight and versatile VF-11C as their main fighter instead of the VF-14, which shared a lot with their VA-14.

It was the New UN Forces chosen main VF, though not every emigrant government opted to go for it.

 

 

 

4 hours ago, SebastianP said:

I think it has more to do with those designs being from the 2020s and we haven't seen anything from that era since M3... where those two fighters were introduced in their canon forms in the first place.

Eh... we were talking more about official publications, which really don't have as good of a reason to skip over the entire 2nd Generation like that.  Especially when they're talking about the history and development of VFs.

 

4 hours ago, SebastianP said:

In universe the VF-9 is 46 years old (introduced in 2021), and the VF-14 is 37 (introduced in 2030) - they're ancient, and unlike the VF-1 which has a cult following both in and out of universe for being "the fighter that won Space War 1" the VF-9 and VF-14 don't have anything going for them that'd make people keep updating them for four decades.  

If I were in a snarky mood there's a Luke Skywalker meme I could deploy here...

Aaaaaaanyway, in a non-snarky manner, you'd be wrong to say so.  The VF-9 may be 46 years old but like other models of Valkyrie such an expensive aircraft is not something you throw away lightly.  General Galaxy was still developing updates and upgrades for it at least into the 2040s based on what we're told in Macross the Ride.  The VF-9E was an effort by General Galaxy in the 2040s to adapt the next-gen thermonuclear reaction burst turbine engine tech developed for 4th Generation Valkyries, albeit with less than ideal results in testing.  The VF-14 is noted to have been developed with longevity and easy upgrades in mind, boasting a roomy design that could accommodate mission-specific hardware and other upgrades beyond its original capabilities.  The Macross Galaxy emigrant fleet was noted to still be using the VF-9 and VF-17 in 2059 alongside the VF-171 in Ukyo Kodachi's novelization of the Macross Frontier series.

For its part, the VF-1 Valkyrie's enduring role has a lot more to do with decommissioned Valkyries being snapped up for use as civilian utility craft making Shinsei Industry realize there was a market for an inexpensive Valkyrie outside of the military than it does the VF-1's service history as a fighter.  Decades of improvement in manufacturing technologies made the VF-1 cheap enough that it was nominally within the reach of private civilian owners.

 

4 hours ago, SebastianP said:

The one place where we could have gotten the VF-4, VF-9, VF-5000 and VF-14 in "modern" Macross was Macross 30, where having more variety of VFs would have fit the existing game and smoothened over the bump between the VF-1 and VF-11, but really all of the VFs that were in the game were flown on screen by either the guest characters in their respective anime, or by the game's original cast, with the exception of the VF-0S (which is just a simple variant), the VB-6 (which Ranka rides to battle at least once, even if she doesn't fly it), and maybe the crank-winged VF-19s (and I'm not sure Gamlin or Milia doesn't fly those at one point in 7).  The only ones that are *missing*, as in "flown by a character appearing in the game, in a tv-series or movie" are the VF-17, the VF-11MAXL, and VF-19P, I think.

Quite a few others, actually... the big one being the SV-51α, which is not piloted by anyone in-game and has never had a named character pilot in the official setting.  The same is true for the VF-25A.  

Ones that have no pilot in-game include the VF-0S, the stock VF-171, the VF-19A, VF-19F, VF-19S, and VB-6.  The VF-0S was more or less exclusively Roy's ride, the stock VF-171's got several associated pilots but none featured in the game, the VF-19A which is exclusively Aegis Focker's ride (and seems to be in there solely to have a VF-X Ravens paintjob), and both the VF-19F and VF-19S are Emerald Force's signature ride but they're not in the game either.  (That's not counting New Game+ stuff like the Zentradi mecha.)

Though the VF-171 did try to double for the missing VF-17 in its alt paintjobs, which are VF-17 paintjobs from Macross 7.  

(You could say the VF-5000 made it on a technicality, as at least in the novelization the replica VF-0s used on Uroboros contain VF-1 and VF-5000 hardware.)

 

 

4 hours ago, SebastianP said:

What *really* gets short shrift are the various nifty background designs someone must have designed and paid attention to, but which are never named or given any information about. Like every capital ship type introduced since Macross 7 that wasn't some form of Macross-class, including the ones from the games. In addition to Dulfim, Deneb, and the "stealth cruiser" from Frontier, there's another two or three classes introduced in Delta that we know absolutely nothing about other than "they're sold by Epsilon and appear related to the Dulfim and Deneb types", and then there's the smaller stuff, like this thing:  

(Source: Macross Frontier, Episode 5 - this is the messenger that alerts Frontier that Galaxy is under attack and needs help. It looks fighter sized, with that fold booster on top and what looks like a canopy, but the two second sequence where it folds out and rotates around its axis is the only place where it ever appears AFAIK...)

That's different... those are meant to be background designs.  Things that aren't subjected to scrutiny.  Ship stats have always been kind of vague, with most being no more detailed than saying a ship has "many x" of a given type of weapon.  Design-wise, they're what Star Trek producers used to call "Feinbergers" after property master "Irving Feinberg".  They'd just include in the notes that the scene called for a "Feinberger" and let Feinberg figure out what the hell kind of prop needed to be made on his own.

[TG Remix]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

One of two recurring boss or sub-boss battles in Macross VF-X2 is against Latence-backing Critical Path CEO Manfred Brando in his personal cherry-red VF-17S.  He's fought three times: in Mission 3 "Die Zauberflote", in Mission 7 "Pinocchio", and for the final time in the decisive Mission 9 "Mary Poppins" where he is the boss fight that puts you on the path towards the game's good end (A-route).  He's shot down and killed at Area ASR8283200 and information about the Jamming Sound System and Latence's plans for it are found in the wreckage.  (The other is Black Rainbow's ace Timothy Daldhanton, whose Feios Valkyrie is fought in Mission 2 "Wizard of Oz", Mission 6 "Singin' in the Rain", and Mission 8 "King & I".)

For some reason I keep forgetting Manfred and his suspiciously similar colors Miriya's VF-17S had. Maybe it's precisely because of that. 😅 Liked the ominous music whenever he popped up too, especially when (according to the soundtrack name) it's from the Jamming Sound Device as well.

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The VF-171 is used as an antagonist Valkyrie in Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy.  Self-proclaimed "Bandit King" Ganess Modora uses a VF-171EX as his personal Valkyrie and is fought on several occasions over the course of that game as the de facto leader of the bandits who operate on Uroboros with the secret support of Havamal.

 

I also keep forgetting Macross 30 has a story as well; I just don't think it's as well documented as VF-X2's. Time Travel is involved, iirc?

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's different... those are meant to be background designs.  Things that aren't subjected to scrutiny.  Ship stats have always been kind of vague, with most being no more detailed than saying a ship has "many x" of a given type of weapon.  Design-wise, they're what Star Trek producers used to call "Feinbergers" after property master "Irving Feinberg".  They'd just include in the notes that the scene called for a "Feinberger" and let Feinberg figure out what the hell kind of prop needed to be made on his own.

It went back to even SDF, to an extent. While we know how much guns are attached and how many VF's and Destroids UN ships can hold, if any, the Zentradi warships are officially "many mecha" and "many weapons" to paraphrase.

[Seto Kaiba]

24 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

For some reason I keep forgetting Manfred and his suspiciously similar colors Miriya's VF-17S had. Maybe it's precisely because of that. 😅 Liked the ominous music whenever he popped up too, especially when (according to the soundtrack name) it's from the Jamming Sound Device as well.

Yup... he does have basically the same paintjob as Milia's, complete with the gold trim.

 

24 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

I also keep forgetting Macross 30 has a story as well; I just don't think it's as well documented as VF-X2's. Time Travel is involved, iirc?

Sort of.  Uroboros is a planet where the Protoculture buried a Fold Evil they built that was capable of time travel that the story's antagonists, a rogue NUNS Special Forces unit, want to use to alter history.

As a result of events, versions of characters from other shows are pulled to Uroboros at points in their relative stories where they were traveling by space fold.  

 

24 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

It went back to even SDF, to an extent. While we know how much guns are attached and how many VF's and Destroids UN ships can hold, if any, the Zentradi warships are officially "many mecha" and "many weapons" to paraphrase.

Which was a source of considerable frustration to many... esp. the people who were writing licensed RPGs.

[SebastianP]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Eh... we were talking more about official publications, which really don't have as good of a reason to skip over the entire 2nd Generation like that.  Especially when they're talking about the history and development of VFs.

For mainstream fans who haven't read and played *everything*, the VF-9 and VF-14 are non-entities - they each have one appearance in the animation, in the background at New Edwards in PLUS and in a flashback image from Delta. They were in M3, which is a niche side game on a console that went bust; they're in the niche artbooks that only hardcore fans buy; they've got two pages each in Chronicle; and the VF-9E was in Macross: The Ride. But basically, your average anime only fan will go "huh?" if you ask them about either.

I'm guessing the author of the book you got either didn't read Chronicle or isn't as invested in Macross as we are. Given the frankly embarassing booboos you showed (which macross is which, exactly?) I'm thinking this is someone who got paid to do this rather than someone who was actually invested...

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

If I were in a snarky mood there's a Luke Skywalker meme I could deploy here...

Aaaaaaanyway, in a non-snarky manner, you'd be wrong to say so.  The VF-9 may be 46 years old but like other models of Valkyrie such an expensive aircraft is not something you throw away lightly.  General Galaxy was still developing updates and upgrades for it at least into the 2040s based on what we're told in Macross the Ride.  The VF-9E was an effort by General Galaxy in the 2040s to adapt the next-gen thermonuclear reaction burst turbine engine tech developed for 4th Generation Valkyries, albeit with less than ideal results in testing.  The VF-14 is noted to have been developed with longevity and easy upgrades in mind, boasting a roomy design that could accommodate mission-specific hardware and other upgrades beyond its original capabilities.  The Macross Galaxy emigrant fleet was noted to still be using the VF-9 and VF-17 in 2059 alongside the VF-171 in Ukyo Kodachi's novelization of the Macross Frontier series.

For its part, the VF-1 Valkyrie's enduring role has a lot more to do with decommissioned Valkyries being snapped up for use as civilian utility craft making Shinsei Industry realize there was a market for an inexpensive Valkyrie outside of the military than it does the VF-1's service history as a fighter.  Decades of improvement in manufacturing technologies made the VF-1 cheap enough that it was nominally within the reach of private civilian owners.

I don't have access to The Ride as I don't read Japanese, but the problem with all this backstory stuff is that the spec sheets tell an entirely different one, where the VF-9 is so horrendously outperformed in raw kinematics (thrust to weight ratio primarily) that I don't see how you'd ever make it catch up. Just to match the VF-171 for thrust to weight it needs a 50% increase in thrust. And that's a *slow* VF. To match a VF-19S, it needs 4 times the original thrust.  To match a VF-25, it needs almost eight. To match a YF-29, it needs *twelve* times as much thrust. And even the 50% increase would basically eat a normal design margin. 

The difference in performance between the VF-4 and a VF-25 is less "F-4 Phantom vs F-22" and more "P-40 vs F-15". 

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Quite a few others, actually... the big one being the SV-51α, which is not piloted by anyone in-game and has never had a named character pilot in the official setting.  The same is true for the VF-25A.  

Ones that have no pilot in-game include the VF-0S, the stock VF-171, the VF-19A, VF-19F, VF-19S, and VB-6.  The VF-0S was more or less exclusively Roy's ride, the stock VF-171's got several associated pilots but none featured in the game, the VF-19A which is exclusively Aegis Focker's ride (and seems to be in there solely to have a VF-X Ravens paintjob), and both the VF-19F and VF-19S are Emerald Force's signature ride but they're not in the game either.  (That's not counting New Game+ stuff like the Zentradi mecha.)

Though the VF-171 did try to double for the missing VF-17 in its alt paintjobs, which are VF-17 paintjobs from Macross 7.  

(You could say the VF-5000 made it on a technicality, as at least in the novelization the replica VF-0s used on Uroboros contain VF-1 and VF-5000 hardware.)

I'm still not entirely clear on whether they were originally planning to have Roy in the game or not - his rides are all there, and most of his companions, but not the man himself. Maybe it's because he's not directly associated with a songstress.  

Anyway, the VF-171 and VB-6 are probably easiest explained by "we made those for the Frontier games so we already had them ready and tossed them in because why not", the VF-19A is IIRC basically the same model as the YF-19 (at least it is in plastic...); the VF-0S, SV-51Alpha and VF-27Alpha are just headswaps of units already on the include list (and the VF-27Alpha is probably also a re-use from the Frontier games). Which means that the Emerald Force VF-19s were the only full VFs made specifically for the game without having a character in mind for flying them. 

(currently stuck searching for Sierra Stars and Ouroboros Rocks so I can finish up the race track unlocks in the desert. I think I need eight more Sierra Stars...)

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's different... those are meant to be background designs.  Things that aren't subjected to scrutiny.  Ship stats have always been kind of vague, with most being no more detailed than saying a ship has "many x" of a given type of weapon.  Design-wise, they're what Star Trek producers used to call "Feinbergers" after property master "Irving Feinberg".  They'd just include in the notes that the scene called for a "Feinberger" and let Feinberg figure out what the hell kind of prop needed to be made on his own.

Back in the 80s, the data books that came out explained *everything* that the mecha designers had come up with. The cars, the phone bots, the vendor bots, the ships, etc, with animation notes to explain how the weapons worked and actual stat blocks. 

Same thing happened with Macross 7, the ships were described and named and given lots of line art from the animation notes. 

In the 3D Era? Nothing. We don't even get names for ship classes that aren't obvious updates, and despite 3D models existing we don't even get an official length of the ship or even decent quality pictures of the model...

And when we did get official stats, they didn't match the animation... 

[Seto Kaiba]

3 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

For mainstream fans who haven't read and played *everything*, the VF-9 and VF-14 are non-entities - they each have one appearance in the animation, in the background at New Edwards in PLUS and in a flashback image from Delta. They were in M3, which is a niche side game on a console that went bust; they're in the niche artbooks that only hardcore fans buy; they've got two pages each in Chronicle; and the VF-9E was in Macross: The Ride. But basically, your average anime only fan will go "huh?" if you ask them about either.

In general terms, I'd agree with your assessment.

In this specific case, I'd disagree on the grounds that omitting them kind of hinders the ability to show the chain of design progression for the GG side of things and leaves the VF-17 and YF-21 looking like they just kinda came out of freaking nowhere instead of being developed by Shinsei Industry's chief rival.

 

3 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

I don't have access to The Ride as I don't read Japanese, but the problem with all this backstory stuff is that the spec sheets tell an entirely different one, where the VF-9 is so horrendously outperformed in raw kinematics (thrust to weight ratio primarily) that I don't see how you'd ever make it catch up. Just to match the VF-171 for thrust to weight it needs a 50% increase in thrust. And that's a *slow* VF. To match a VF-19S, it needs 4 times the original thrust.  To match a VF-25, it needs almost eight. To match a YF-29, it needs *twelve* times as much thrust. And even the 50% increase would basically eat a normal design margin. 

*checks the math*

So... um... what would you say if I told you they're actually good for it?

The VF-9E, with the identified carryover engine improvements, has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 17.386.  That's higher than the VF-22's. (13.960), the VF-19A's (12.914), or the VF-19F's (16.959).  Of course, it is noted that this improvement of engine thrust well beyond the original design tolerances led to significant control stability issues and few VF-9Es were built. 

There is precedent for evolutionary upgrades being applied to older models of VF like VF-1X+ and X++, the VF-4G, the VF-11MAXL (not the Mylene Custom, the regular one), the VF-17D/S type, the VF-22HG, and so on.  There is a point where upgrading an existing VF is no longer practical or economical but if the Frontier novelization is any indication that point either hadn't been reached yet for the VF-9 in normal use against Zentradi or the Galaxy fleet is incredibly stubborn.

 

3 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

Anyway, the VF-171 and VB-6 are probably easiest explained by "we made those for the Frontier games so we already had them ready and tossed them in because why not", the VF-19A is IIRC basically the same model as the YF-19 (at least it is in plastic...); the VF-0S, SV-51Alpha and VF-27Alpha are just headswaps of units already on the include list (and the VF-27Alpha is probably also a re-use from the Frontier games). Which means that the Emerald Force VF-19s were the only full VFs made specifically for the game without having a character in mind for flying them. 

The SV-51α actually doesn't have a different head... just a different paintjob and one fewer rotary gun.  

The VF-27β actually does have a character associated with it: Grace O'Connor.  She doesn't fly one in the game, but she's the only character known to have operated the CF VF-27β.

The VF-25A is the odd bird out.

 

3 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

Back in the 80s, the data books that came out explained *everything* that the mecha designers had come up with. The cars, the phone bots, the vendor bots, the ships, etc, with animation notes to explain how the weapons worked and actual stat blocks. 

That's a bit of an exaggeration.  Items that were the focus of particular scenes got drawn up in detail, but only enough to get the job done.  

Many background designs have no stats at all, just names, even in the original series and DYRL?.

 

3 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

In the 3D Era? Nothing. We don't even get names for ship classes that aren't obvious updates, and despite 3D models existing we don't even get an official length of the ship or even decent quality pictures of the model...

And when we did get official stats, they didn't match the animation... 

Blame the focus being somewhere else... since the protagonists aren't NUNS.

[SebastianP]

8 hours ago, TG Remix said:

I also keep forgetting Macross 30 has a story as well; I just don't think it's as well documented as VF-X2's. Time Travel is involved, iirc?

Edit: I suppose I should spoiler this even if the game is 10 years old.. 

Spoiler

Back in ancient history, the Protoculture tried to seal up a superweapon called Yurva Arga, part of the Evil series (the things that were possessed by superdimensional entities and became the Protodevlin), but ran out of song energy and couldn't do a proper job. The surviving Star Singer was sealed up in a stasis pod, where the player character discovers her during an investigation of a mysterious ruin (of which there are quite a few on the planet). As she's waking up, the Star Singer reaches out through Yurva Arga for reinforcements, and grabs six singers (familiar faces from the various Macross shows) as well as some protectors (again, familiar faces) from across space and time to help put Yurva Arga to sleep for good, The problem is that 1) the summoning was imprecise, so not only were the singers and their protectors scattered all over the place, the "protector" category ended up kind of stretched, 2) the local NUNS detachment has been waiting for someone to start the process of unseal-and-reseal so they can jump in and use the superweapon to change history, and 3) the planet seems absolutely *lousy* with bandits in cheap VFs and biomechanical guardians whose job it is to keep people out of the ruins we need to explore to continue the plot. 

There are some fun character interactions because of characters who used to know each other but where summoned from different time periods (Space War 1 era Hikaru meeting Seven-era Max and Milia; everyone meeting Minmay; Sheryl meeting Sarah and Mao and referring to them as grandmothers; Ozma *not* meeting Basara and fuming about missing it; Isamu and Guld arguing about who bought who the most school lunches; and of course everyone interacting with our favorite blue-skinned, blue-haired backstabber. Whose VA clearly had a blast, and Ukyo Kodachi had a blast writing for, because he gets to backstab *everyone*. Multiple times. And gets away with it. 

Edited November 5, 2022 by SebastianP

[Seto Kaiba]

Spoiler

11 hours ago, SebastianP said:

3) the planet seems absolutely *lousy* with bandits in cheap VFs and biomechanical guardians whose job it is to keep people out of the ruins we need to explore to continue the plot. 

The irony there being that both groups technically have the same goal but were set to it by parties with completely opposite objectives.

The ancient Protoculture created the self-replicating insectoid bioweapons known as the Dyaus to inhabit the ruins of their civilization on Uroboros to keep everyone away from the mechanisms maintaining the seal on the Fold Evil.

The rogue New UN Spacy VF-X Special Forces unit Havamal (815th Independent Squadron) used its clout and its priority access to resources to whip the local bandits into a real threat that would keep the Uroboros New UN Forces and the private contractors of the Uroboros Hunter's Guild too busy to notice or interfere with Havamal's own investigation of the ruins and the Fold Evil.

 

[JB0]

Seriously, though. Were the protoculture somehow completely unaware of any black holes they could drop these things into? 

[Seto Kaiba]

2 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Seriously, though. Were the protoculture somehow completely unaware of any black holes they could drop these things into? 

After a while, you start to wonder.

The extreme lengths the ancient Protoculture went to in order to seal and bury some of their more irresponsibly dangerous creations on various remote planets starts to feel a bit like wasted effort when you consider how many of them have ultimately proven to be quite vulnerable to "just shoot it".

Spoiler

For instance, the Birdman that was activated over Mayan island in 2008 (Macross Zero) took quite a bit of damage when it attempted to tank four tactical reaction shells from a HWR-00-Mk.IP Monster based on the Asuka II.  It was still operational, but four low-yield fusion warheads to the face did not do its exterior any favors.

In 2045, the Protodeviln Valgo was killed when the Protodeviln Gigil self-destructed on Lux.  The dimensional warhead-like self-destruction of Gigil suggested that even the Evil-series bioweapons could be killed with dimensional weapons.

In 2060, the Fold Evil that Havamal unsealed and activated on Uroboros was brought down by the combined firepower of only a couple dozen Valkyries and the SMS Macross Quarter.  In the novelization, it takes heavy damage from a MDE beam cannon the YF-30 is outfitted with.

In 2067, the Protoculture ship and key to the Protoculture System Sigur Berrentzs is shown to take nontrivial damage from a glancing blow from a not-terribly-powerful Macross Cannon mounted on the Macross Elysion.  A year later, in 2068, the Sigur Berrentzs is completely destroyed by a handful of fighter-launched anti-ship thermonuclear reaction missiles after its barrier fails.

 

[JB0]

The Birdman is exempt, at least. It was SUPPOSED to be laying in wait as a moralistic boobytrap. I'll even give 'em a partial pass on the Sigur Berrentzs, since they may very well have wanted to think about this for a bit and then come back to it if it turned out they did the math wrong and it wouldn't actually set fire to the atmosphere make everyone in the universe's head do the gooey kablooey.

 

But the rest? Sheesh. Just render it down into something no longer resembling structured matter as soon as possible.

Edited November 6, 2022 by JB0

[Seto Kaiba]

I threw the Birdman on there because it was a derivative of the Evil-series and the UN Forces did a number on it with four low-yield reaction weapons... y'know, evidence that "just shoot it" works pretty well against the Protoculture's eldritch abominations in general.

[JB0]

29 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I threw the Birdman on there because it was a derivative of the Evil-series and the UN Forces did a number on it with four low-yield reaction weapons... y'know, evidence that "just shoot it" works pretty well against the Protoculture's eldritch abominations in general.

Gotcha.

[pengbuzz]

12 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

After a while, you start to wonder.

The extreme lengths the ancient Protoculture went to in order to seal and bury some of their more irresponsibly dangerous creations on various remote planets starts to feel a bit like wasted effort when you consider how many of them have ultimately proven to be quite vulnerable to "just shoot it".

  Hide contents

For instance, the Birdman that was activated over Mayan island in 2008 (Macross Zero) took quite a bit of damage when it attempted to tank four tactical reaction shells from a HWR-00-Mk.IP Monster based on the Asuka II.  It was still operational, but four low-yield fusion warheads to the face did not do its exterior any favors.

In 2045, the Protodeviln Valgo was killed when the Protodeviln Gigil self-destructed on Lux.  The dimensional warhead-like self-destruction of Gigil suggested that even the Evil-series bioweapons could be killed with dimensional weapons.

In 2060, the Fold Evil that Havamal unsealed and activated on Uroboros was brought down by the combined firepower of only a couple dozen Valkyries and the SMS Macross Quarter.  In the novelization, it takes heavy damage from a MDE beam cannon the YF-30 is outfitted with.

In 2067, the Protoculture ship and key to the Protoculture System Sigur Berrentzs is shown to take nontrivial damage from a glancing blow from a not-terribly-powerful Macross Cannon mounted on the Macross Elysion.  A year later, in 2068, the Sigur Berrentzs is completely destroyed by a handful of fighter-launched anti-ship thermonuclear reaction missiles after its barrier fails.

 

I sometimes wonder if the Protoculture were intending to return for many of the things they supposedly  "sealed". It would explain why they weren't outright destroyed...

[TehPW]

13 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

I sometimes wonder if the Protoculture were intending to return for many of the things they supposedly  "sealed". It would explain why they weren't outright destroyed...

You are implying that this Galaxy (if not this universe) was a dumping ground for missing Protoculture Amazon products? That's a big dip into Pandora's Box (to actually conjecturize the Protoculture day-to-day goings on)... Now if you can come up with a way to sell Toys & models running with that idea, there's your next Macross series (on Netflix)?

[pengbuzz]

I did not say that: my point was the fact that they sealed away these items rather than destroying them outright.

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by pengbuzz

[JB0]

They definitely weren't planning on coming back for the protodevlin, but the rest? Maybe.

 

"You know, this is wildly and irresponsibly dangerous, but it hasn't actually tried to kill us yet. Let's think about it for a bit before we do anything we can't take back."

[azrael]

Considering nukes couldn’t destroy the Protodeviln, I think they knew they couldn’t do anything but seal them up. 

As for the rest of the stuff, you know how you have that one old timer at work who leaves and forgets to tell you about that one procedure cuz the likelihood you’ll need it is so low it’s not worth mentioning until this one time you actually do but you can no longer reach them. Yeah. That’s probably how the rest of Protoculture stuff went. We should have told you about it but the ones who knew about it are no longer around and no one remembers it exists and we don’t know what to do with it.

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I sometimes wonder if the Protoculture were intending to return for many of the things they supposedly  "sealed". It would explain why they weren't outright destroyed...

Well, there is the case of Macross 30 where the Protoculture left emergency measures in place so that they could come back and finish the job of safely disposing of the Fold Evil they sealed there at a later date.  They may have had similar designs on the Protodeviln for a future where their civilization recovered from the mass casualties of the Supervision Army's invasion.  They just never managed to recover, and slowly went extinct without the resources to properly dispose of a lot of extremely dangerous, ill-considered constructs and had apparently decided the next best thing was to make any planet they'd sealed something on incredibly inhospitable.  Either by messing with the universe's fundamental forces in ways that left the planet uninhabitable or installing swarms of technorganic bugs to make the overly curious the extremely dead.

Some of the others... well... dismantling the delta wave system clearly wasn't an option considering it comprised a fair part of at least six separate planets throughout the Brisingr cluster.  Destroying it would effectively require one to destroy the entire planet.  Not beyond their capabilities, but blowing up the planet you're currently standing on is generally considered to be A Bad Idea.

 

38 minutes ago, JB0 said:

They definitely weren't planning on coming back for the protodevlin, but the rest? Maybe.

Maybe, maybe not.  Gigil's self-destruct does suggest a dimensional warhead could kill the Protodeviln and Gepernich's reaction to the thermonuclear reaction weapon suggests a thermonuclear reaction warhead could probably hurt or kill them too if they didn't take action to protect themselves.  Sealed and deprived of spiritia, the Protodeviln were likely a lot more vulnerable than usual.

 

[SebastianP]

On 11/6/2022 at 2:18 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

After a while, you start to wonder.

The extreme lengths the ancient Protoculture went to in order to seal and bury some of their more irresponsibly dangerous creations on various remote planets starts to feel a bit like wasted effort when you consider how many of them have ultimately proven to be quite vulnerable to "just shoot it".

The problem seems to be that the Protoculture decided that "shooting things" was something that they could leave to purpose-designed servants, so that they themselves could concentrate on more civilized pursuits like singing and science and developing creepy superweapons. Then the superweapons were possessed, killed off the designers, and co-opted the slave soldiers, which left the singers and non-superweapon scientists to figure out what to do about it... and they went with "sing and science the problem away for now" because that's what they had on hand. 

Macross Earthling culture doesn't segregate warriors, singers and geniuses, they all do battle together, with the singers protecting the others from mental influence, the geniuses figuring out where to apply the shooting and the warriors applying the shooting. And it's not like people who are multi-talented has to choose one or the other either, as you can be both genius and singer, or genius and warrior, or warrior and singer. Or all three.

That's why they're *able* to apply "just shoot it" as a solution to a problem which basically went "yoink" when the Protoculture sent in their purpose-designed warriors.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

12 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

The problem seems to be that the Protoculture decided that "shooting things" was something that they could leave to purpose-designed servants, so that they themselves could concentrate on more civilized pursuits like singing and science and developing creepy superweapons. Then the superweapons were possessed, killed off the designers, and co-opted the slave soldiers, which left the singers and non-superweapon scientists to figure out what to do about it... and they went with "sing and science the problem away for now" because that's what they had on hand. 

Now, that was true up to a point... but even if we ignore clearly-armed constructs intended for Protoculture use like the Birdman, Fold Evil, and Sigur Berrentzs, the Protoculture did not have the luxury of leaving their defense exclusively to their clone armies of Zentradi once the Supervision Army emerged.  They had to take a direct hand in their own defense because their Zentradi forces were hamstrung by the directive "Do not interfere with the Protoculture".

Mind you, there is some evidence to suggest that the Protoculture took a direct role in the operations of their Zentradi forces even before the Supervision Army emerged and began decimating the Protoculture's population.  The Fulbtzs Berrentzs-class motherships are noted to have amenities that are clearly intended for use by Protoculture stationed there, like a 250 square kilometer (61,776 acre) nature park that reproduces the conditions of the Protoculture's homeworld.

Once the Protodeviln were sealed, there's no obstacle we know about that would have prevented them from simply solving the problem forever by dropping a dimensional bomb on the planet.  Or doing the same to many of the other irresponsible inventions they created. 

[SebastianP]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Now, that was true up to a point... but even if we ignore clearly-armed constructs intended for Protoculture use like the Birdman, Fold Evil, and Sigur Berrentzs, the Protoculture did not have the luxury of leaving their defense exclusively to their clone armies of Zentradi once the Supervision Army emerged.  They had to take a direct hand in their own defense because their Zentradi forces were hamstrung by the directive "Do not interfere with the Protoculture".

How much control did the "operators" of the Birdman and Yurva Arga really have, though? Sigur Berrentz being a flagship for miclone use I can see, but it also feels like it was built way way late in the war, then hid away.

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Mind you, there is some evidence to suggest that the Protoculture took a direct role in the operations of their Zentradi forces even before the Supervision Army emerged and began decimating the Protoculture's population.  The Fulbtzs Berrentzs-class motherships are noted to have amenities that are clearly intended for use by Protoculture stationed there, like a 250 square kilometer (61,776 acre) nature park that reproduces the conditions of the Protoculture's homeworld.

This just makes me think "the most overdone political VIP quarters imaginable", where a protoculture representative *could*, if they even bothered to be present, live like at home and only be bothered once in a while where the Bodolza-equivalent gave their reports and received orders. It doesn't really smack me as something you'd find on a ship where the leader was expected to be on the bridge or in a CIC giving orders, or strapped in a mecha and leading from the front. 

A 250 km3 park on a military warship could be excused if it's for the crew's R&R, but the Zentreadi don't seem to know what that even is....

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Once the Protodeviln were sealed, there's no obstacle we know about that would have prevented them from simply solving the problem forever by dropping a dimensional bomb on the planet.  Or doing the same to many of the other irresponsible inventions they created. 

Some deep-seated taboo about not destroying planets, maybe? Either that or the "we'll retrieve them when the situation allows" explanation. 

[Seto Kaiba]

47 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

How much control did the "operators" of the Birdman and Yurva Arga really have, though? Sigur Berrentz being a flagship for miclone use I can see, but it also feels like it was built way way late in the war, then hid away.

Plenty, by all indications.  The Birdman just messed with Sara's perceptions so she would direct it in battle, the actual combat direction appears to have been coming from her.  The Fold Evil on Uroboros was being controlled by Colonel Todo.  These weapons weren't designed with cockpits arbitrarily, they were designed to be piloted.  

 

47 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

This just makes me think "the most overdone political VIP quarters imaginable", where a protoculture representative *could*, if they even bothered to be present, live like at home and only be bothered once in a while where the Bodolza-equivalent gave their reports and received orders. It doesn't really smack me as something you'd find on a ship where the leader was expected to be on the bridge or in a CIC giving orders, or strapped in a mecha and leading from the front. 

A 250 km3 park on a military warship could be excused if it's for the crew's R&R, but the Zentreadi don't seem to know what that even is....

Considering how ruthlessly the Protoculture economized everything else about the Zentradi's ships and equipment, it seems unlikely they would order such a thing be constructed in Zentradi fleet motherships unless they intended to actually make good use of it.