Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

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HalfDemonInuyasha
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

Yeah, Trieze was usually pretty perplexing like that. Then again, he did intend Epyon and probably Aquarius to be for "perfect soldiers" or "knights" (hence, Epyon's complete disregard for any sort of ranged weapon or guns and such) like Heero or Zechs or someone and he doesn't see himself as such a person it seems (given his pretty extensive use of the Tallgeese II's dober gun).
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Xiphas
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

Regarding the Aquarius, do we have any information about its use? I mean its a video game unit, but is it actually built and piloted? I've also been told it uses the Tallgeese's weapons because its own reactor cant handle it.
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Black Knight
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

Don't forget, when comparing putative age of MS designs, that in fact Zero was designed in the five years after the Tallgeese, before the Mad Scientists split up to create the five Operation Meteor Gundams. Those machines are, in fact, watered-down versions of Zero, generally trading abilities one or two areas to specialize in one aspect. All indications are that Quatre built Zero exactly as the blueprints were originally, without doing any sort of upgrade, as the Tallgeese III clearly received over the original & II. So Zech's comments about the responsiveness & power of Zero indicate how much either the Mad Scientists learned in the time immediately after they built Tallgeese, or how much Howard diluted the skills of the other five (since he claims to have been involved in the design of Tallgeese, but not Zero).
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

Well, that much is pretty obvious if at least the Wing Gundam was any indication, right down to its name, lol (limited buster rifle charge, 1 barrel for it, no ZERO System, and no "Zero" in name, and obviously less speed and mobility, though still a lot higher than anything OZ had at the time). You wouldn't really be able to tell very much with the other 4 outside of the general Gundam appearance (mostly their head and faces) and the "Gundam" name. And it's even called, "the original Gundam" by the scientists after they hear of its appearance.

The Zero's original intention was to have a mobile suit that was easily capable of wiping the floor with the Tallgeese as well as any MS that OZ produced after the fact (Leo, Aries, etc) at the time. Of course, the combination of things like the twin buster rifle and the ZERO System (as every pilot showed during their initial uses of it) obviously made it far too dangerous for even their tastes, which lead to them shelving the original design and only using it as a general basis for their own individual designs after they split, only to have Quatre stumble upon them 15+ years later, and in a crappy state of mind too.
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

HalfDemonInuyasha wrote:Yeah, Trieze was usually pretty perplexing like that. Then again, he did intend Epyon and probably Aquarius to be for "perfect soldiers" or "knights" (hence, Epyon's complete disregard for any sort of ranged weapon or guns and such) like Heero or Zechs or someone and he doesn't see himself as such a person it seems (given his pretty extensive use of the Tallgeese II's dober gun).
Yeah but he was fighting against MDs at the time and given his dislike of them, I don't thik it's surprising that he didn't care about using ranged weapons on them. Plus if he went toe to toe with the Virgos, the Tallgeese II probably would have gotten ZOINKS up.
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

Xiphas wrote:Regarding the Aquarius, do we have any information about its use? I mean its a video game unit, but is it actually built and piloted? I've also been told it uses the Tallgeese's weapons because its own reactor cant handle it.
Never built, never used. The official profile suggests that either Treize got out of his house arrest before he could build it, or that the Treize Faction was going to make it but it wasn't completed in time for the final battle. It's appeared in a few pre-set G Generation stages, usually in the hands of Lady Une or Noin, but these aren't canon appearances (in G Gen F.I.F., it's used by Une in a stage where ALL the Gundam women join forces to beat the stuffing out of Scirocco - and you're on his side).

As for the weapons, Aquarius devotes most of its reactor output to the Anti-MD Virus broadcasting pods and the thrusters (which allows it to fly), meaning it can't power any weapons bigger than its own heat rods. So in its G Gen appearances, it carries around the Leo's 105mm rifle, dobergun, and shield as well.
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

Xiphas wrote:That's interesting, I never noticed, but the TV series Gundams lack data for both the reactor output and the thruster output. Maybe they wanted to keep it consistent, since they rewrote Gundam Wing with the Early Type designs for the manga, so just omit the reactor and thruster outputs.
Maybe they decided to retcon the established "Custom" stats since it is inconsistent like with Wing Zero's TBR being able to fire dozens of colony-busting shots with a reactor output below 4000kW. Not to mention the 15Gs the Talgeese has going on which doesn't add up w/ Tallgeese 3 'Custom' stats.
Another observation, the Tallgeese III has better reactor and thruster outputs than the other Gundams and is just slightly behind in performance compared to the Wing Zero, which would make it a suit almost on par with the Zero, maybe the Epyon too. Quite a powerful unit for just a remake of the Tallgeese
IIRC Zechs stated that the Tallgeese has the performance that can beat any mobile suit and then he mentions its only weakness, the human pilot, it was also mentioned by Lady Une that the Tallgeese is the strongest mobile suit on Earth. So it's definitely above the 5 Gundams.

EDIT: guNjap just recently released a downloadable "All Gundam Complete Works" book. I think it's worth checking out.
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

The Tallgeese I is only considered the strongest on Earth among OZ's forces and that it's the only MS they would have that would be able to fight against the 5 Gundams in terms of overall performance as things like the aged Leo, Aries, Tragos, Cancer, Pisces, etc are nothing but cannon fodder for them. We also can't forget that "Earth" can mean OZ and Romefeller while the 5 Gundams are from the Space Colonies.

And the 15 G stat for Tallgeese isn't purely thruster acceleration either, but probably taking into account G forces from extreme maneuvers too.
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Xiphas
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

As for the weapons, Aquarius devotes most of its reactor output to the Anti-MD Virus broadcasting pods and the thrusters (which allows it to fly), meaning it can't power any weapons bigger than its own heat rods.
Are the shoulder spikes the MD virus pods? Just a nitpicky question. Also, regarding the dobergun, I've read (mostly on gundam wiki) that there are two types of dobergun, the regular projectile one that we all know and love, and a beam dobergun, which would explain the beams seen from the Tallgeese I's dobergun later in the series.
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

Tallgeese's 15g may have taken lateral acceleration into account. F-22 Raptors can pull 10g while doing a tight radius turn but they're not pulling that amount in a straight line. And since Tallgeese's wing binder/thruster pack has some degree of movement it's not hard to imagine it's raw acceleration while moving.

Tallgeese is also a big unit, so it's not surprising it needs a higher thrust rating to keep up with the lighter Gundams.
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HalfDemonInuyasha
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

Last I saw, the dobergun was always labeled as a shell-firing weapon and the "beam" effect...well...just animation. Did it with the GP02A's atomic bazooka too when it fired; looking like it's firing a giant, ever-spreading beam rather than simply an atomic warhead.
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Black Knight
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

On the other hand, in episode 10 Zechs refers to his Dobergun as being a beam rifle, as he discards it to challenge Heero & Wing to a melee fight.

Of course, he goes on to talk about how he's winning even as Heero begins dismembering Tallgeese...so it's possible Zechs wasn't firing on all mental cylinders.
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AmuroNT1
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

Xiphas wrote:Are the shoulder spikes the MD virus pods? Just a nitpicky question. Also, regarding the dobergun, I've read (mostly on gundam wiki) that there are two types of dobergun, the regular projectile one that we all know and love, and a beam dobergun, which would explain the beams seen from the Tallgeese I's dobergun later in the series.
Yeah, the shoulder spikes are the pods; they open up when in use. I'd grab a screen capture from F, but my Playstation emulator doesn't want to work right now.

About the dobergun, that thing on the Wiki is nothing but a fanon attempt to reconcile the inconsistent animation. Every official source refers to the dobergun as a shell-firing cannon.

Black Knight: What Zechs said was "We have no need for beam rifles or cannons between us." The "beam rifles" part presumably refers to the buster rifle.
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DoubleZero
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

HalfDemonInuyasha wrote:And the 15 G stat for Tallgeese isn't purely thruster acceleration either, but probably taking into account G forces from extreme maneuvers too.
Not that I disagree but, you can't break ribs at 15Gs. Colonel Stapp, the Fastest man on Earth, did a test-run in November 1953 and Stapp ironically endured an astonishing 15Gs and he said he felt fine after that. The 15Gs sounds reasonable if you think about the deceleration Zechs would have felt at that velocity, which is easily over twice the acceleration.
SNT1 wrote:And since Tallgeese's wing binder/thruster pack has some degree of movement it's not hard to imagine it's raw acceleration while moving.
5-7Gs if we assume that the 15Gs is the full brunt being felt in deceleration. Funny thing is if we double Tallgeese III's dry weight and calculate its max acceleration, we'll get 5.3Gs. But that's just my rough guesstimate and I somewhat doubt it because the 'Custom' thrusters and power output stats may have already been dropped, but I'm still waiting for confirmation.
Black Knight wrote:Of course, he goes on to talk about how he's winning even as Heero begins dismembering Tallgeese...so it's possible Zechs wasn't firing on all mental cylinders.
It's been a long time since I watched Wing but I'm pretty sure Zechs mentioned that he will win without using the full capabilities of Tallgeese, but I think he mentioned that before Tallgeese got dismembered.
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

Just a small inconsequential question, but does Heero ever use Rolling Buster Rifle in the show or is it just everybody else that likes to spam that?
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

DoubleZero wrote:Not that I disagree but, you can't break ribs at 15Gs.
That depends on a lot of factors. Whether it's positive or negative Gs (toward your back/feet is positive, toward head/stomach is negative; people are much better at handling positive Gs than negative), how long it goes on for (people can withstand instantaneous Gs -- like the kind that come from an impact -- much better than they can extended Gs), and what sort of equipment they were using at the time. I doubt that 15 Gs could break anyone's ribs (unless they were slammed up against something, anyway), but they'd almost certainly be unconscious. In the real world, even pilots trained to deal with high-G maneuvers and wearing G-suits aren't expected to withstand more than 9 Gs without blacking out.

So, you know, having a mobile suit that will consistently render its pilots unconscious is definitely dangerous, even without the dramatic crushing-bones-under-their-own-weight nonsense.
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

Seraphic wrote:Just a small inconsequential question, but does Heero ever use Rolling Buster Rifle in the show or is it just everybody else that likes to spam that?
Now that you mention it, I don't think so. The first time he used Zero he didn't even have the thing to use. When he picked it up again from Zechs we saw him using it as a single weapon for the time he was on earth with it. In space he was usually dealing with Zechs and Epyon and when he wasn't, the action was mostly off screen. In fact, the only time I can recall Heero even separating the weapon ever (aside from transformation mounting) was in the second to last episode when he took off in the final sortie.
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Xiphas
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

Just a thought, are the Tallgeese series of units supposed to fight with their shoulder weapons mounted or detached? Like, for the dobergun/mega cannon, there's only a limited range of movement with the shoulder mount, so is it used detached from the shoulder mount or attached? Same goes for the shields, the III's heat whip looks barely usable while its fixed on the shoulder.
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

The attachment to the shoulder is more than likely to buffer recoil from firing the dober gun and also allow greater stability when firing it, given its length and all. Also to allow faster target acquisition after firing each time. More than likely, the Tallgeese is meant to use its thrusters and verniers to maneuver itself around while firing or at least only taking a short stop to fire a round or 2, and not simply stand in one spot like a pseudo-cannon.

The mega cannon seems like it'd be the same way, if only for design purposes as its looks and fixture are quite similar to the Victory's/Victory 2's mega beam rifle. The Victory 2's being attached to the arm while the Victory's is held with both hands. The fixture most likely allows for aiming stability while leaving the other hand free for some other purpose as, as with the Victory, needing to hold a large weapon with both hands like that for pretty limited firing (charge up and fire) would leave the MS vulnerable to incoming fire while also limiting what else they can do unless they drop the rifle entirely.

That's most likely why the mega cannon isn't seen again after the Tallgeese III is back on Earth. (Besides the fact that using it would end up killing pilots, civilians, and cause tons of collateral damage anyway, lol.)
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Re: Gundam Wing Mechanics Questions

Xiphas wrote:Just a thought, are the Tallgeese series of units supposed to fight with their shoulder weapons mounted or detached? Like, for the dobergun/mega cannon, there's only a limited range of movement with the shoulder mount, so is it used detached from the shoulder mount or attached? Same goes for the shields, the III's heat whip looks barely usable while its fixed on the shoulder.
At least from what I remember, the dobergun's used attached to the shoulder mount; it's the same as when Leos use it, and I'd presume it's for stability purposes, like HalfDemon said. With the shields--at least, on the model kits--they're on flexible mounts, which means they could be quickly released to free up the hand without completely dropping the shield, and nothing says they can't be disengaged from the mount so they could cover other parts of the body. And I can't recall if it's been detached from the shoulder, but Zechs makes pretty good use of the III's heat rod at least once, so there's obviously a way to make it usable.
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