Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[aurance]

42 minutes ago, azrael said:

We don't know. We've never been given figures on output. It is likely more powerful, but there are factors we need to take into account, mostly due to technological advancements due to time. We can say it's more versatile and technologically better, but that is due to time and design, so an apples-to-apples comparison doesn't work.

Why? Why not just bring a bigger gun and vaporize them ALL?

I mean, yes, this is the most logical way. So whoever fires first just wins?

EDIT: I guess not, per Seto Kaiba.

Edited January 3, 2023 by aurance

[aurance]

4 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's not explicitly stated to be, but it's clear from in-story context in official and unofficial material that it is given that it's described in terms like "the strongest naval weapon" and said and shown to be an anti-fleet weapon able to vaporize many ships with a single shot.

Exactly how much more powerful is unclear, because not all Macross Cannons are created equal and not all of them are used to their full potential in their respective stories.  Macross 7's Battle 7 was able to sink half a dozen enemy ships with a near-miss at 80% power from its Macross Cannon.  Battle Frontier seemingly only ever fired low power shots, but used a sweep of a low-power beam to kill hundreds if not thousands of Vajra converging on it during an emergency fold.  Macross 13's gained a scattering beam cannon effect that let it hit multiple enemy ships with a single low-power shot.  It wasn't until Battle Astraea that we got something resembling a full-power shot again, which in that case was projected to do a downright apocalyptic level of damage to Windermere IV just by having the path of the beam pass through the planet's atmosphere on its way to its target.  Variable Fighter Master File's description of the fleet assembled to tackle the Main Fleet that destroyed Spica III included the Battle 7, using its main gun in several sustained barrages to help destroy a fleet with a hundred thousand ships (alongside gratuitous reaction weapon spam).

 

By all accounts, probably not.

The incredible firepower of super dimension energy cannons (AKA heavy quantum reaction beam cannons) have some pretty significant drawbacks that make them difficult to use effectively on the battlefield.  They're quite large and unwieldy, taking up a substantial amount of space inside of a ship that could be used for conventional beam weapons and to carry combat aircraft.  The energy requirement to achieve such massive destructive force is substantial and even with dedicated reactors and the support of the power grid on the rest of a large ship, it can take several minutes to charge the weapon to fire.  It also takes several minutes (if not longer) to cool the barrel after firing because the beam is made of fusion plasma from a sustained exotic matter thermonuclear detonation.  You pay for the incredible firepower in the vulnerability of your ship between shots.  

The Zentradi, and presumably the Supervision Army as well, use more conventional but still immensely powerful particle beam cannons as their main offensive option for ship-to-ship combat.  In the distant past, they apparently made widespread use of less powerful (in individual terms) but more versatile and spammable thermonuclear reaction warheads launched from battle pods and warships... probably in a manner similar to how the New UN Forces do in the modern day.  The factory satellites producing those munitions were destroyed hundreds of thousands of years ago, and so they make do with conventional munitions to supplement their particle beam cannons.

 

Golg Boddole Zer, call your agent.

Okay this sounds reasonable.

[pengbuzz]

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's not explicitly stated to be, but it's clear from in-story context in official and unofficial material that it is given that it's described in terms like "the strongest naval weapon" and said and shown to be an anti-fleet weapon able to vaporize many ships with a single shot.

Exactly how much more powerful is unclear, because not all Macross Cannons are created equal and not all of them are used to their full potential in their respective stories.  Macross 7's Battle 7 was able to sink half a dozen enemy ships with a near-miss at 80% power from its Macross Cannon.  Battle Frontier seemingly only ever fired low power shots, but used a sweep of a low-power beam to kill hundreds if not thousands of Vajra converging on it during an emergency fold.  Macross 13's gained a scattering beam cannon effect that let it hit multiple enemy ships with a single low-power shot.  It wasn't until Battle Astraea that we got something resembling a full-power shot again, which in that case was projected to do a downright apocalyptic level of damage to Windermere IV just by having the path of the beam pass through the planet's atmosphere on its way to its target.  Variable Fighter Master File's description of the fleet assembled to tackle the Main Fleet that destroyed Spica III included the Battle 7, using its main gun in several sustained barrages to help destroy a fleet with a hundred thousand ships (alongside gratuitous reaction weapon spam).

 

By all accounts, probably not.

The incredible firepower of super dimension energy cannons (AKA heavy quantum reaction beam cannons) have some pretty significant drawbacks that make them difficult to use effectively on the battlefield.  They're quite large and unwieldy, taking up a substantial amount of space inside of a ship that could be used for conventional beam weapons and to carry combat aircraft.  The energy requirement to achieve such massive destructive force is substantial and even with dedicated reactors and the support of the power grid on the rest of a large ship, it can take several minutes to charge the weapon to fire.  It also takes several minutes (if not longer) to cool the barrel after firing because the beam is made of fusion plasma from a sustained exotic matter thermonuclear detonation.  You pay for the incredible firepower in the vulnerability of your ship between shots.  

The Zentradi, and presumably the Supervision Army as well, use more conventional but still immensely powerful particle beam cannons as their main offensive option for ship-to-ship combat.  In the distant past, they apparently made widespread use of less powerful (in individual terms) but more versatile and spammable thermonuclear reaction warheads launched from battle pods and warships... probably in a manner similar to how the New UN Forces do in the modern day.  The factory satellites producing those munitions were destroyed hundreds of thousands of years ago, and so they make do with conventional munitions to supplement their particle beam cannons.

EDIT: You absolutely CAN build a giant F-Off super dimension energy cannon and try to take out the whole enemy fleet in one go... but if you don't get 'em all, as we saw with Boddole Zer in DYRL? and the UN Spacy in Macross II, you're in trouble.

 

Golg Boddole Zer, call your agent.

So with that all said: given enough time, Golg Boddole Zer's fleet could have boiled off Earth's atmosphere. I wonder how many Macross cannons that would take to do that to an Earth-type planet (and how long)?

[Seto Kaiba]

15 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

So with that all said: given enough time, Golg Boddole Zer's fleet could have boiled off Earth's atmosphere. I wonder how many Macross cannons that would take to do that to an Earth-type planet (and how long)?

I'm not sure if they would/could have boiled away the atmosphere itself given that the planet's gravity and electromagnetic field are the chief forces keeping it in place.  It'd probably be easier to actually physically destroy the planet using something like the Golg Boddole Zer mobile fortress's super-large scale super dimension energy cannon from DYRL? than just boiling off the atmosphere.  That thing's basically a Death Star... and a fusion plasma beam weapon able to vaporize moon-sized armored spacecraft would probably do a number on planets.

They absolutely could - and did - saturate the Earth's atmosphere with so much dust and pulverized debris kicked up by the bombardment that it became upsettingly lethal to breathe across much of the planet.  It took several months of atmospheric cleanup operations before it was safe-ish to be on the planet's surface without a space suit.  The damage was so bad that Earth is only kept habitable by large-scale technological intervention in the form of a massive orbital sunshade preventing runaway global warming and designer bacteria that are regulating the atmospheric composition and cleaning up radioactive contamination.

[Bolt]

In reference to gun pod types ( to gun pod or not to gun pod!) for the VF-4. Is this an example of the GU-11 C type?

It's quite interesting how they chose to mount the gun pod. I'm assuming the grip is absent , do to how it's mounted to the model. I would assume, in universe, the grip would be present. 
Are there such examples of gun pod mountings in the Master File?

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Bolt said:

In reference to gun pod types ( to gun pod or not to gun pod!) for the VF-4. Is this an example of the GU-11 C type?

The image is a bit dark, but yes it appears to be what Master File calls the GU-11C.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Bolt said:

It's quite interesting how they chose to mount the gun pod. I'm assuming the grip is absent , do to how it's mounted to the model. I would assume, in universe, the grip would be present. 
Are there such examples of gun pod mountings in the Master File?

Yeah.  Variable Fighter Master File: VF-4 Lightning III's loading chart shows that the VF-4 can potentially take two gunpods, one apiece on underwing pylons as shown on that model.

Since Master File alleges that the VF-4G is actually bigger than the VF-4A (officially it's not) the loading is different between the A and G variants.  The A loading chart shows it on the pylons inboard of the engines, while the G loading chart shows it outboard of the engines.

The only other one that presents a non-animation gun pod mounting besides the occasional VF-0/VF-1 Armored mounting spares on the forearms is the VF-25, which shows it able to carry three GU-17As, one center-mounted and one on each wing glove.

[twich]

18 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yeah.  Variable Fighter Master File: VF-4 Lightning III's loading chart shows that the VF-4 can potentially take two gunpods, one apiece on underwing pylons as shown on that model.

Since Master File alleges that the VF-4G is actually bigger than the VF-4A (officially it's not) the loading is different between the A and G variants.  The A loading chart shows it on the pylons inboard of the engines, while the G loading chart shows it outboard of the engines.

The only other one that presents a non-animation gun pod mounting besides the occasional VF-0/VF-1 Armored mounting spares on the forearms is the VF-25, which shows it able to carry three GU-17As, one center-mounted and one on each wing glove.

I too noticed that on the Variable Fighter Master File, and it seems that would be the ideal sortie load out, since the VF-25 doesn’t carry spare magazines, as far as I know.

Twich

[Seto Kaiba]

3 minutes ago, twich said:

I too noticed that on the Variable Fighter Master File, and it seems that would be the ideal sortie load out, since the VF-25 doesn’t carry spare magazines, as far as I know.

The VF-25's GU-17A gun pod doesn't use a detachable magazine.  Like the GU-11 or GV-17L, it opted for a larger single internal magazine.

[aurance]

Can the VF-4 actually swing its arms upward past the shoulder? Is the only rotation point under the engine nacelle?

[snakerbot]

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

the VF-25, which shows it able to carry three GU-17As, one center-mounted and one on each wing glove.

What about that shot in the last episode of Frontier where Alto is carrying a GU-17A and an SSL-9B alongside each other under the center of his VF-25F? Is there an explanation for that?

[azrael]

2 hours ago, aurance said:

Can the VF-4 actually swing its arms upward past the shoulder? Is the only rotation point under the engine nacelle?

We don't know. We've never seen the VF-4 Battroid in action, in animation. So we have nothing to go on besides the toys.

2 hours ago, snakerbot said:

What about that shot in the last episode of Frontier where Alto is carrying a GU-17A and an SSL-9B alongside each other under the center of his VF-25F? Is there an explanation for that?

Anime magic. IIRC, it also ended up on the wing glove shortly afterwards. We also don't know if the Full armor adds additional mounts that are covered by the Full Armor. The VF-1’s Super parts add a mount for the original gunpod mount that’s covered by the Super parts so who’s to say they didn’t think to add more mounts on these addon parts 50 years later.

[Bolt]

30 minutes ago, azrael said:

We don't know. We've never seen the VF-4 Battroid in action, in animation. So we have nothing to go on besides the toys.

There's never been any VF-4 animation in any of the video games?

[azrael]

1 hour ago, Bolt said:

There's never been any VF-4 animation in any of the video games?

Not of battroid mode. And we normally ignore in-game footage because of game mechanics. If we believed in-game mechanics and footage, Call of Duty would have you believe you and the people you shoot at are bullet magnets/pillows. 

[Bolt]

2 minutes ago, azrael said:

If we believed in-game mechanics and footage, Call of Duty would have you believe you and the people you shoot at are bullet magnets/pillows. 

Lol. Ain't that the truth..? 

[aurance]

Still, I would have liked to see any game footage or print stuff indicating one way or another. Oh well.

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, aurance said:

Can the VF-4 actually swing its arms upward past the shoulder? Is the only rotation point under the engine nacelle?

As others have said, we've never seen it do so... and, really, we've never actually seen the VF-4 Battroid in animation at all.

The rotation point does appear to be under the engine, so without rotating the engine itself it seems unlikely that it can do so.

 

1 hour ago, Bolt said:

There's never been any VF-4 animation in any of the video games?

Only Fighter mode.

The VF-4 has only appeared in a few Macross games to date:

• Macross: Eternal Love Song - which largely predates Kawamori's transformation design for the VF-4 and created a very different version of the VF-4 with a VF-1-like Battroid, a large beam rifle, super pack, and funnels.
• Macross Digital Mission VF-X - very brief appearance in opening animation in Fighter mode only.
• Macross M3 - appeared in the opening animation in Fighter mode only.
• Macross VOXP - gameplay only
• Macross Ultimate Frontier - gameplay only

[aurance]

Thanks Seto. While on this topic, any given reason the VF-4 packs conformal missiles in the way that it does, and no other valk?

[Seto Kaiba]

16 minutes ago, aurance said:

Thanks Seto. While on this topic, any given reason the VF-4 packs conformal missiles in the way that it does, and no other valk?

The semi-conformal medium-range missiles and built-in beam guns were an effort by the developers to prevent the standard armament from degrading the VF-4's stealthiness or its top speed and cruising performance the way it had on the VF-1. 

Later models had newer materials, fully-internal micro-missile launchers, and better active stealth systems to make up the difference.

 

[SebastianP]

I would imagine there's also a bit of "you'd need to design the airframe around the weapon" involved as well. In real life, conformal carriage of missiles has hung on for quite some time, with even some of the new Asian indigenous 5-th gen fighters sporting  conformal missiles rather than internal bays in the public concept art, but real fighter aircraft have relatively large flat undersurfaces which don't have to break apart in order to transform into a robot. There's very few places in the later designs that would allow conformal carriage of missiles because the good surfaces to put them on would separate during transformation.

The VF-4 appears to be an evolutionary dead end, given how few of its major features seem to have carried over to future fighters - no conformal missile carriage, no big built-in beam guns, no apparent re-use of the transformation schema, etc; compared to the Stonewell Belcomm/Shinsei lineage which has kept most of the primary features all the way into the 2060s and mostly added to them rather than discarding features wholesale. 

I kind of wonder whether Kawamori *decided* it was a dead end and abandoned it, or if he was forced to do so because of the constraints imposed by the conformal missile system. 

(one out-of-universe version might be the difficulty  of animation consistency. If you launch an externally carried missile in one shot, it should still be missing in following shots, otherwise you end up with people helpfully pointing out all your animation glitches; magically respawning missiles would be a big obvious. Especially with the low total count that the VF-4 has. You really can't do an Itano Circus more than once per sortie with only twelve externally carried missiles to use, and then you have to remember to animate the fighters as not having any missiles left. With the indeterminate capacity enclosed micro-missile launchers, the animators can be much more carefree.)

[sketchley]

21 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

The VF-4 appears to be an evolutionary dead end, given how few of its major features seem to have carried over to future fighters - no conformal missile carriage, no big built-in beam guns, no apparent re-use of the transformation schema, etc; compared to the Stonewell Belcomm/Shinsei lineage which has kept most of the primary features all the way into the 2060s and mostly added to them rather than discarding features wholesale. 

Arguably, the VF-14 and its derivatives pick up some of its design elements—namely the engine nacelles and arms on outboard pods.

 

21 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

I kind of wonder whether Kawamori *decided* it was a dead end and abandoned it, or if he was forced to do so because of the constraints imposed by the conformal missile system.

If memory serves, apparently Kawamori-san once said that he doesn't like the VF-4 design.*  So there's that.

 

* No, he didn't elaborate on why he doesn't like it.  However, one can surmise that it stems from the complicated transformation mechanism and the shoulder thing (whether or not they rotate, etc.)  As he's visited the trimaran form multiple times (VF-14, Fz-109, Az-130A, arguably the VF-27, etc.), it's not the shape in fighter form that he doesn't like per se.

[Seto Kaiba]

18 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

The VF-4 appears to be an evolutionary dead end, given how few of its major features seem to have carried over to future fighters - no conformal missile carriage, no big built-in beam guns, no apparent re-use of the transformation schema, etc; compared to the Stonewell Belcomm/Shinsei lineage which has kept most of the primary features all the way into the 2060s and mostly added to them rather than discarding features wholesale. 

Definitely not, given that the VF-4's development contributed to the development of multiple successor aircraft developed by Stonewell Bellcom and its post-merger successor Shinsei Industry and arguably the entire General Galaxy lineup.

The conformal missiles and thermonuclear ramjet engines did not persist into later generations of Variable Fighter due to the introduction of internal missile bays and launchers in its successors, but many later VFs use similar built-in beam weapons including the VF-14, VF-17, VF-19, VF-22, VF-25, and VF-27.  Elements of the VF-4's transformation system (esp. WRT the cockpit) made their way into the VF-17, VF-171, and VF-31's designs.

(The reason this shows up more in General Galaxy's works may have a lot to do with the VF-4 development chief Alexei Kurakin leaving Shinsei Industry in the late 2010s to cofound General Galaxy.)

 

 

18 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

I kind of wonder whether Kawamori *decided* it was a dead end and abandoned it, or if he was forced to do so because of the constraints imposed by the conformal missile system. 

(one out-of-universe version might be the difficulty  of animation consistency. If you launch an externally carried missile in one shot, it should still be missing in following shots, otherwise you end up with people helpfully pointing out all your animation glitches; magically respawning missiles would be a big obvious. Especially with the low total count that the VF-4 has. You really can't do an Itano Circus more than once per sortie with only twelve externally carried missiles to use, and then you have to remember to animate the fighters as not having any missiles left. With the indeterminate capacity enclosed micro-missile launchers, the animators can be much more carefree.)

It's no different from the VF-1 in that regard... so I don't think that argument really holds water.

Really, the problem the VF-4 faced is that Macross simply leapfrogged past it.  All the 2nd Generation VF designs get shortchanged because Macross stories collectively skipped the late 2010s, 2020s, and early 2030s.  By the time the story picks up in either timeline, the VF-4 and all other 2nd Generation VFs are obsolete and have been replaced by newer and more powerful models: the Valkyrie II in Macross II, and the VF-11 and VF-14 in Macross Plus and Macross 7.  It's a victim of being the main fighter in an era of "Not much exciting happened".  

[Bolt]

Concerning the VF-4 launch sequence. I'm assuming, without super packs installed, the DYRL style launch arm wouldn't be used for launching the VF-4. But just for VF-1's with supers.
But rather the SDFM style elevator, for the VF-4 main launch mode.

This would, theoretically, necessitate having both styles of launch mechanisms for the Megaroad-01. As it was believed to have a compliment of VF-1's and VF-4's. As we don't have much official animation ,and such ,as reference (I'm not sure what , if anything, the VFMF VF-4 says) this is all  just trying to piece a picture together..

[Seto Kaiba]

10 minutes ago, Bolt said:

Concerning the VF-4 launch sequence. I'm assuming, without super packs installed, the DYRL style launch arm wouldn't be used for launching the VF-4. But just for VF-1's with supers.

The one and only shot we have of VF-4s being launched in the main Macross continuity is in Macross M3's opening, where Max's VF-4G is shown being deployed via a launch arm similar to the DYRL? VF-1s.  The gate they're shown launching from seems to have multiple tracks for launch arms too, since Milia launches from the same gate at the same time, only offset 180 degrees so her VF-5000B appears to be upside-down.

Image shamelessly snipped from a YouTube upload of the Macross M3 opening by VF5SS.

 

 

10 minutes ago, Bolt said:

But rather the SDFM style elevator, for the VF-4 main launch mode.

That approach is probably not used by the Megaroad-class.  That's one of the through-deck elevators on the Prometheus... and the Megaroad-class doesn't have any "space flattop" features.

[Bolt]

10 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The one and only shot we have of VF-4s being launched in the main Macross continuity is in Macross M3's opening,

Interesting. So the launch arm is grasping underneath? But what's it grasping? Confounded..

 

10 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That approach is probably not used by the Megaroad-class.  That's one of the through-deck elevators on the Prometheus... and the Megaroad-class doesn't have any "space flattop" features.

There does seem to be something that looks suspiciously deck-ish. With those two large circles (colored red in the Macross Mechanic issue) 

There also appear to be several launch bays of various size, as well. 

Edited January 10, 2023 by Bolt

[Seto Kaiba]

23 minutes ago, Bolt said:

Interesting. So the launch arm is grasping underneath? But what's it grasping? Confounded..

In the Macross M3 opening, the arms seem to end in some kind of small block that attaches to the underside of the aircraft rather than a large clamp.

 

23 minutes ago, Bolt said:

There does seem to be something that looks suspiciously deck-ish. With those two large circles (colored red in the Macross Mechanic issue) 

There also appear to be several launch bays of various size, as well. 

For what it's worth, the ARMD-class has never been depicted using a conventional carrier deck setup.  Exactly what the purpose of the markings on their upper surfaces are is unclear, esp. given that they carry over to the later Guantanamo-class Advanced ARMD.  The only ship of that earlier period we know of using artificial gravity and arresting wires to recover fighters and conventional catapults to launch them is the Prometheus.

Not surprising it might have larger bays, since the ship would doubtless have larger auxiliary craft in addition to fighters.

[Knight26]

26 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

In the Macross M3 opening, the arms seem to end in some kind of small block that attaches to the underside of the aircraft rather than a large clamp.

 

For what it's worth, the ARMD-class has never been depicted using a conventional carrier deck setup.  Exactly what the purpose of the markings on their upper surfaces are is unclear, esp. given that they carry over to the later Guantanamo-class Advanced ARMD.  The only ship of that earlier period we know of using artificial gravity and arresting wires to recover fighters and conventional catapults to launch them is the Prometheus.

Not surprising it might have larger bays, since the ship would doubtless have larger auxiliary craft in addition to fighters.

I'd say that given SDF's ability to operate in atmosphere, that the "decks" on the ARMDs and later Gitmos were primarily intended for usage as decks in atmo.  They could also just be general landing markings for larger craft, like cargo transports, troop carriers, etc...  There are likely airlocks and or elevators on or near those circles for the transfer or cargo and larger craft.  Those angled lines might also be "Traditional" catapults for older VF-1s, and other larger or auxiliary craft.

[Seto Kaiba]

20 minutes ago, Knight26 said:

I'd say that given SDF's ability to operate in atmosphere, that the "decks" on the ARMDs and later Gitmos were primarily intended for usage as decks in atmo.  They could also just be general landing markings for larger craft, like cargo transports, troop carriers, etc...  There are likely airlocks and or elevators on or near those circles for the transfer or cargo and larger craft.  Those angled lines might also be "Traditional" catapults for older VF-1s, and other larger or auxiliary craft.

Definitely not.

The ARMD-class are dedicated space carriers.  They were never intended to operate in a planet's atmosphere and, in fact, were originally developed as space stations meant to occupy geostationary orbits over Earth and at the Lagrange points to serve as floating docks for light warships and bases for fighter squadrons in Earth's space-based planetary defenses.  The "floating stand" space station concept was hastily reworked to incorporate them into the Macross's defensive systems as space aircraft carriers.  (In the oldest versions of the lore, that adaptation occurred only after plans for a much larger (800m-class) space carrier were scrapped.)  The Macross itself wasn't really intended to operate planetside either, it was meant for long-term operations in space.  That it could land doesn't necessarily mean it was meant to... and it took a fair amount of damage doing it.

Similarly, the Guantanamo-class that replaced the ARMD-class and ARMD II-class was a dedicated space warship not intended for planetside use.  It could hover over a planet's surface using gravity control but it was by no means intended to do so or capable of landing properly.  Of the later designs, only the Uraga-class and Battle-class were truly intended for use in planetary surface environments.  On the Guantanamo-class Advanced ARMD, the deck would be canted at a 45 degree angle or thereabouts in atmosphere, making a conventional catapult launch basically impossible.  

[Bolt]

Wasn't the later Uraga class built also for water?

[Seto Kaiba]

1 minute ago, Bolt said:

Wasn't the later Uraga class built also for water?

Well, yes.  As I noted, the Uraga-class escort battle carrier and Battle-class supercarrier were made to operate both in space and planetside.  

The few times we've seen space carriers try to operate in atmosphere they've been stuck hovering over the planet's surface, and the ones we've seen launching fighters had to us some fairly odd setups for catapults like the centrifugal catapult of the Valhalla III in Macross Digital Mission VF-X2 or the strange right-angle catapults of the Algenicus in Macross M3 which launches fighters perpendicular to the ship's interior decks.  The later Macrosses use linear catapults for mostly normal catapult launches from their support warships, but the only time I think we've seen a dedicated space warship do a regular catapult launch is the Gefion in Macross 30... that being a light carrier variant of the Northampton-class with two single fighter catapult decks.

[Bolt]

17 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

In the Macross M3 opening, the arms seem to end in some kind of small block that attaches to the underside of the aircraft rather than a large clamp.

I'll have to check that out. Thanks.  It's still seems unrealistic, as the underside of the VF-4 would have minimal block attachment real estate, if it were to be  loaded with ordinance. But, as it's been discussed, video games don't necessarily follow real world physics. still, it's all we get, as far as VF-4 launch procedure(s).

 

17 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

For what it's worth, the ARMD-class has never been depicted using a conventional carrier deck setup. 

Yes, I realize the ARMD design intentions. But, presumably, that section of the Megaroad isn't a typical ARMD. And would have newer design features, specific to the Megaroad. And, it might not even be an ARMD. But something only superficially similar, with many different design elements. We just don't know. I'm trying to put together a rough picture of something there's about zero information on..

EDIT: so i just checked out the M3 opening. Very cool. But HOLD ON! What vessel is that they're launching from? It looks just about a spitting image of the Megaroad-01. So was that very same design used on a few or several of the early Megaroad ships? I was under the impression that the Megaroad-01 was a unique model.

As a side note, watching Max and Milia jerk and bounce around inside their cockpits like that, looks dizzying and painful for them!
 

Edited January 10, 2023 by Bolt

[TG Remix]

8 hours ago, Bolt said:

EDIT: so i just checked out the M3 opening. Very cool. But HOLD ON! What vessel is that they're launching from? It looks just about a spitting image of the Megaroad-01. So was that very same design used on a few or several of the early Megaroad ships? I was under the impression that the Megaroad-01 was a unique model.

The Megaroad-class were the first of the Long Range colony ships that were used for the first emigrant colony fleets, the Megaroad-01 was just the first of its kind and the most infamous due to its disappearance and connections in Delta. The planet which the Varauta Army would later become arrived there in 2025 (iirc) in the Megaroad-13 for example. I don't know how many of them were built, but the highest number went up to Megaroad-24 and Megaroad-25...Which were destroyed during construction.

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, Bolt said:

EDIT: so i just checked out the M3 opening. Very cool. But HOLD ON! What vessel is that they're launching from? It looks just about a spitting image of the Megaroad-01. So was that very same design used on a few or several of the early Megaroad ships? I was under the impression that the Megaroad-01 was a unique model.

Well... yes and no.

There is an old truism that no two ships of the same class are ever truly identical.  Ships develop their own individual quirks during construction as a matter of course, as well as thanks to many minor refinements and improvements made in the course of producing multiple ships of the same type.  SDF-02 Megaroad-01 was the first ship of her class and unique in the sense that, of all her sister ships, only she was manufactured by converting a pre-existing partially-completed Macross-class spaceframe from a battleship into an emigrant ship.  All of the later examples of the class were made from scratch as emigrant ships and differ from each other in little ways, but share the same general design.  The New UN Government built many Megaroad-class ships in the 2010s and 2020s.  The highest sequentially-numbered one mentioned is SDF-26 Megaroad-25, which were destroyed in an explosion at the factory satellite dock where they were being built.  However there are also several unnumbered ones that have appeared like the Odin II in the Macross Frontier short story "Kabuki Warbird" and the Odin IV in the dating sim Macross: True Love Song.  With the first emigrant fleet to use a New Macross-class emigrant ship being the 31st long-distance fleet, there may be 30 or more Megaroad-class ships sharing that same design.

 

 

9 hours ago, Bolt said:

As a side note, watching Max and Milia jerk and bounce around inside their cockpits like that, looks dizzying and painful for them!

Yeah, high g-forces are nothing to sneeze at... and Valkyries are, if anything, more inclined to violent acceleration and turning g-forces than a conventional aircraft.

Admittedly, their heads should NOT be snapping around like that with the neck supports in the flight suits.  No pilot wants whiplash.

[Bolt]

30 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

The Megaroad-class were the first of the Long Range colony ships that were used for the first emigrant colony fleets, the Megaroad-01 was just the first of its kind and the most infamous due to its disappearance and connections in Delta. The planet which the Varauta Army would later become arrived there in 2025 (iirc) in the Megaroad-13 for example. I don't know how many of them were built, but the highest number went up to Megaroad-24 and Megaroad-25...Which were destroyed during construction.

Yes, i was aware of most of that. Thanks. I'm just not aware how many of THAT design were deployed.  I'm pretty sure some looked more like the SDF-1..

[Seto Kaiba]

12 minutes ago, Bolt said:

Yes, i was aware of most of that. Thanks. I'm just not aware how many of THAT design were deployed.  I'm pretty sure some looked more like the SDF-1..

Not as such, no.  Prior to the end of the First Space War, the hull that would become the Megaroad-01 was being constructed from scratch on the moon as a second (larger) Macross-class ship.  Construction was halted during the war and the ship was never completed according to its original plan, instead being reworked into the first Megaroad-class long distance emigrant ship.  Every Megaroad-class ship we've seen in official materials so far has looked essentially identical to Megaroad-01.  (Miyatake's original design for the SDF-2 would have been used in the epilogue to the original series had it not been cut due to runtime concerns.  It was replaced by the familiar Megaroad-01 design when the epilogue was animated as an OVA years later in Flash Back 2012.)

The New UN Government did also build twelve new Macross-class ships based on the postwar repair design of the SDF-1 Macross, which were used to scout ahead of emigrant fleets before being retired or seconded to exploratory duty like the SDFN-04 General Bruno J. Global and SDFN-08 General Vrlitwhai Kridanik.  

AFAIK, the only time a ship named Megaroad has actually been depicted as a Macross-class ship in a story was the PC game Macross VO and its WInXP port Macross VOXP, which were not an official setting story.

Edited January 11, 2023 by Seto Kaiba