The Macross Valkyrie Thread

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Seto Kaiba
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

False Prophet wrote: Fri May 22, 2020 7:56 am Also, by your explanation, does that mean when a machine is given the YF designation, it means NUNS or its local branch is seriously evaluating the machine?
Sort of.

The Prototype (Y) status prefix indicates that the aircraft in question is a test property under active development as part of a military development program, and is at least theoretically intended to go into mass production it the design meets the military's requirements. Sometimes, prototype designations are used to camouflage a program's actual intentions in order to keep certain details out of the public record at the time. For instance, the USAF has used incorrect prototype designations to conceal the existence of derivative programs... the SR-71 the USAF gave to NASA for testing was given the designation YF-12C to conceal the existence of the SR-71 program. In-universe, the YF-30 Chronos was given a prototype designation instead of an experimental designation so that its developer could avoid disclosing the specifications of the proprietary system it was actually an experimental technology demonstrator for... the Fold Dimensional Resonance system.


False Prophet wrote: Fri May 22, 2020 7:56 am It's likely before that point, the machine has some kind of company internal-only designation, right? Has there ever been a case of NUNS getting it wrong and awarded the YF designation to a machine that was basically half-baked in the design process?
It depends on the program, really.

Very rarely, there will be an undesignated early proof-of-concept that will be known only by a codename... such as the Lockheed Have Blue (AKA the "Hopeless Diamond") that was an early proof of concept for another program that was codenamed Senior Trend (the YF-117) that was developed into the F-117A Nighthawk. Have Blue would likely have been classified as an Experimental plane if it hadn't been so damned secret.

The normal trajectory in Macross is to start with an Experimental (X) airframe to prove out the concept, then a Prototype (Y), then the final aircraft.

Because the designation system is based on the intended use of a design and its level of development, I don't think there is really any case of the military assigning an incorrect designation by accident. There are cases where they have done so deliberately either to indicate a design was put into production without approval (e.g. the VF-27 the NUNS considers to be YF-27 and YF-29B) or to conceal the existence of a program (e.g. the YF-12C/SR-71).


False Prophet wrote: Fri May 22, 2020 7:56 am Say, how hard is it to maintain VF with stealth capability like the VF-17? I recently read some articles from the 1990s complaining about how much money went to maintaining the F-117 and the B-2 (like storing them in environment-controlled rooms), both of which becoming basically paperweights.
The problems experienced by the F-117, B-2, F-22, and F-35 are because those aircraft are passively stealthy and derive their stealth from a combination of the shape of their airframes, special composite materials used in their airframes that absorb or at least do not reflect radio waves, and a special paint that contains iron particles which absorb radar waves and convert their energy into heat. The issue with the aforementioned aircraft is in the iron-based paint, which doesn't hold up well in humid environments because of the binders used to hold the iron in its structure and keep it adhered to the composite airframe.

Macross's VFs don't really have that problem. Most of them primarily rely upon active stealth technology to conceal themselves from detection. That's a system that analyzes incoming radar waves and produces a wave of equivalent frequency and amplitude but with an opposite phase. This effectively cancels out the radar wave by making the net amplitude of the combined radar wave 0, so the enemy radar sees that space as empty despite it actually getting returning radar waves. This method is called active cancellation, and it's also commonly used in noise cancelling headphones and other noise cancellation technologies. Some VFs do also have passively stealthy designs to complement their active stealth systems and have passive stealth coatings, but those coatings are a lot more robust since they have to stand up to things like atmospheric reentry.
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

Seto Kaiba wrote: Fri May 22, 2020 2:37 pm Macross's VFs don't really have that problem. Most of them primarily rely upon active stealth technology to conceal themselves from detection. That's a system that analyzes incoming radar waves and produces a wave of equivalent frequency and amplitude but with an opposite phase. This effectively cancels out the radar wave by making the net amplitude of the combined radar wave 0, so the enemy radar sees that space as empty despite it actually getting returning radar waves. This method is called active cancellation, and it's also commonly used in noise cancelling headphones and other noise cancellation technologies. Some VFs do also have passively stealthy designs to complement their active stealth systems and have passive stealth coatings, but those coatings are a lot more robust since they have to stand up to things like atmospheric reentry.
While we are talking about active stealth technology, has it ever been specified which part of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum do these devices cancel? What about visible light and laser A.K.A. LIDAR and photonic radar? And wouldn't it be possible in theory for them to make the machine invisible? I am not very solid on the theory of destructive interference?
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

False Prophet wrote: Sat May 23, 2020 3:54 am While we are talking about active stealth technology, has it ever been specified which part of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum do these devices cancel?
The Active Stealth systems in the Macross universe are a countermeasure against radar systems of all types... not just detection, search, and reconnaissance radar systems, but also from the targeting and guidance radar systems that are used by radar-guided missiles. This is why missiles in the Macross setting usually have two or more guidance systems working in tandem.

There is, consequently, a bit of an arms race between radar and active stealth technologies as radars strive to reliably pierce active stealth concealment and active stealth strives to counter those advances. Because the active stealth is limited by the transmitting power of the concealed aircraft, it's possible for larger and more powerful radars to simply "burn through" active stealth by transmitting radar pulses that are too strong for the stealthed aircraft to counter. The current state of affairs is that 3rd Generation active stealth systems have enough of an edge of radars that it isn't that necessary to adopt passively stealthy designs. When the VF-17 was developed, radars had begun to beat out the 2nd Generation active stealth technology and thus adoption of passively stealthy designs to reduce the burden on active stealth for concealment became a thing. Its derivative, the VF-171, was developed with a 3rd Generation active stealth system and thus can hang missiles and bombs on its wings without compromising its stealthiness.

False Prophet wrote: Sat May 23, 2020 3:54 am What about visible light and laser A.K.A. LIDAR and photonic radar? And wouldn't it be possible in theory for them to make the machine invisible? I am not very solid on the theory of destructive interference?
Laser radar is called LADAR, and light radar is LIDAR.

There's no active stealth countermeasure for detection using light, either regular optical cameras or LIDAR/LADAR systems... though those tend to have a very limited range. There are some passive stealth measures used to keep detection via infrared to a minimum, but ultimately there's no way to conceal the very hot exhaust coming out of the back of the aircraft.

Radar is essentially the dominant long-range early-warning, detection, and search sensor technology... though fold wave radar is rapidly gaining ground there as well as systems become small enough to mount on VFs and precise enough for detecting small objects instead of just large warships. Variable Fighter Master File asserts that one other design feature incorporated into 5th Generation VFs is a fold wave-absorbent material used to reduce the detection crossection of a VF by fold wave radars.
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

just when i as about to use fold tech in my fanfic i realized i haven't actually read the finer details of the tech.
have the master file what have you elaborated on Folding? there are some details i'd like to know. like is it used in public ships(like travel within the Sol system or any of the Colonized planets) how long folding takes when going from a certain location to another the likes. is it similar to long airplane flights in the real world

also, anyone got an opinion on the Tech based VS magic based teleportation/FTL? one idea for my fanfics is that both method are viable and usage would just defend on the individual.
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

I'll let the experts answer the tech questions in detail.
Henyo wrote: Sat May 30, 2020 6:52 am also, anyone got an opinion on the Tech based VS magic based teleportation/FTL? one idea for my fanfics is that both method are viable and usage would just defend on the individual.
Literally unanswerable question, since there are a practically infinite number of ways you can imagine magic being used for teleportation. Are we talking a 'hard' magic system or a 'soft' one? Are there defined rules/limitations for the magic? How does the teleportation work and what powers it? There's no way to answer 'tech vs magic' without a lot more information on the latter and in the abstract it's completely outside the bounds of Macross discussion. Within Macross, it all comes down to the same fundamental principles whether it's the Vajra's biological FTL or a fold drive mounted on a ship.
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

Henyo wrote: Sat May 30, 2020 6:52 am just when i as about to use fold tech in my fanfic i realized i haven't actually read the finer details of the tech.
have the master file what have you elaborated on Folding? there are some details i'd like to know. like is it used in public ships(like travel within the Sol system or any of the Colonized planets) how long folding takes when going from a certain location to another the likes. is it similar to long airplane flights in the real world
Fold technology made it into the civilian sector fairly quickly after the First Space War. Once humanity started building permanent settlements on, or in orbit of, other planets in the Sol system and the emigrant fleets started locating Earth-like planets in other solar systems, it wasn't long before demand for nonmilitary applications of fold technology began growing along with a burgeoning interstellar economy.

Communication across interplanetary distances is slow, with 3 minutes or more of lag in each direction using radio or other lightspeed communication technologies, and it's impossible across interstellar distances. So, very quickly, there was a demand for civilian fold communications so that these settlements could have realtime communication or very close to it with Earth and each other for government purposes and for more mundane reasons like entertainment and keeping in touch with family who didn't emigrate to the stars. As private enterprises in these new settlements grew, it wasn't long before you had emerging demand for interstellar shipping to move raw materials and finished goods from one planet to another and when you had the means to move cargo from planet to planet it didn't take long for demand for interstellar passenger service to emerge as well. Once interstellar commerce became fairly regular, you started to see the emergence of honest-to-goodness space pirates and assorted ne'er-do-wells.

Strategic Military Services (SMS) was founded by one of the oldest and largest interstellar freight hauling services, the Bilra Transport group, as a private security force to protect their ships. As Bilra Transport's fortunes grew, SMS grew in parallel and eventually reached the point where it was able to begin offering private contracting services to the military as well. The Macross Frontier emigrant fleet was sponsored by Bilra Transport and SMS was along for the ride to help provide specialist services. Xaos, the conglomerate behind the Tactical Sound Unit Walkure and the Xaos PMC, began shortly after the First Space War as a fold communications firm providing interstellar data links.

Traveling by space fold can be a rather imprecise way to get around. The actual time it takes a folding ship to get from Point A to Point B is dependent on a bunch of different factors, like the efficiency and precision of the fold system, how accurate and precise the calculations for the fold jump were, if there are any disruptions in higher dimensional space in the path of the fold, local gravitational fields, and so on and so forth.

Time doesn't flow at the same pace in fold space as it does in our three-dimensional realspace, so the less precise the fold system is and the less precise the computations for the fold jump are, the greater the disparity between how much time passes aboard ship vs. back in realspace. Strong gravitational fields and dimensional faults can also increase the disparity between the subjective and objective experience of time significantly. The actual disparity in a proper, precise fold jump is small... but with humanity's initial crude understanding they computed it to approximately be 240:1, where one hour in fold was equivalent to ten days of real time.

The older models of interstellar passenger liner we see in Macross Plus are large ships, slow and unwieldy with a fairly short maximum range... sort of straddling the roles of "jumbo jetliner" and "cruise ship". The Stellar Whale-class ship Myung takes to get to Earth was a whopping 755m long (almost 3/4 the size of the Macross) and had room for 3,500 passengers while also boasting a small shopping mall and full service restaurant among its amenities during the somewhat long flight to Earth using its older and less precise civilian-model fold system. It wasn't exactly going for red, raw speed as a luxury passenger liner, but between the time it takes to take off and reach safe distance from Eden to fold, the time error from the 11.7 light year fold jump, and the time it takes to reach Earth and then land safely is 18-24 hours by a clock in realtime. The passengers only experience a fraction of that due to the disparity in subjective and objective time during the fold jump. Newer fold systems with greater precision and efficiency make a jump like that with much less disparity between subjective and objective time, making the trip "faster". The modern interstellar passenger liners of the 2050s and 2060s have evolved to a form roughly matching a modern jet liner, but boast far greater range and speed than the far larger cruise ship-inspired passenger liners of decades past. Modern galaxy starliners with state of the art fold systems make that same 18-24 hour, 11.7 light year, trip from Earth to Eden within about 2-3 hours... putting that interstellar journey on about the same level as a flight from Texas to Florida. In Macross Frontier, we see that the modern (C.2059) Galaxy Starliners can jump distances of over 500 light years within the same kind of timespan as a nonstop international flight.

Of course, even those modern fold systems are vulnerable to intense gravitational fields and dimensional faults which can make trips take far longer. For instance, when Sheryl takes a Galaxy Starliner from the Macross Frontier fleet to a remote planet named Gallia IV near the fleet's course, heavy dimensional fault activity between the fleet and Gallia IV increases the disparity between subjective and objective time from near zero to over a week and increases subjective time from minutes to hours. (That also made it impossible to send reinforcements to Gallia IV after hostilities broke out, until LAI rolled out a prototype fold system using fold quartz that was unaffected by faults.)

Really severe dimensional faults like the ones surrounding Uroboros and Windermere IV can do far worse than simply increasing the disparity between subjective and objective time. Running into one of those faults can damage or even destroy a folding ship, knock it out of higher-dimensional space, or cause it to get stuck in the fault and be stranded in higher-dimensional space until its power runs out and it's destroyed. (This kind of fold accident was the cover story for the loss of the SDFN-04 General Bruno J. Global in 2048, because the existence of the Vajra was still classified.)
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

Say, how easy was it to sabotage an interstellar ship so that an accident happen when it goes into fold? And what is the possible damage?

Also, had Isamu not participated in Super Nova, thus Guld trauma did not rear its head and he went through the whole thing as expected, would the YF-21 be the winner instead of its competitor. Or, in another word, which is harder to control for your average grunts: the VF-19A, or the VF-22?
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

False Prophet wrote: Sun May 31, 2020 12:16 am Say, how easy was it to sabotage an interstellar ship so that an accident happen when it goes into fold? And what is the possible damage?
That's an excellent question... I'm not sure if anyone has ever made the attempt. It's possible the ship would simply fall out of fold space in an uncontrolled manner if the drive were unexpectedly shut down... it'd ruin someone's day, and it's probably overload a bunch of other systems, but I doubt it'd cause unrecoverable damage.


False Prophet wrote: Sun May 31, 2020 12:16 am Also, had Isamu not participated in Super Nova, thus Guld trauma did not rear its head and he went through the whole thing as expected, would the YF-21 be the winner instead of its competitor. Or, in another word, which is harder to control for your average grunts: the VF-19A, or the VF-22?
Hmm... well, the New UN Forces do have a marked tendency to favor the less-radical design in design competitions like Project Super Nova. That'd bias them towards the YF-19 right off the bat.

All told, there's not a ton of difference between the VF-19 and VF-22 in terms of stability and ease of control... the big problem with both of them was that it was incredibly easy for the pilot to end up pulling well over 10G either in turns or in straight-line acceleration. The pilots would start to go into G-LOC and lose control of the plane, and the result would be the crash of an extremely expensive aircraft. That's a big part of why the New UN Forces opted for something significantly less extreme (the VF-171) after the problems with the VF-19A and VF-22 became apparent.

That said, given that the YF-21-2's control system depended heavily on a person's concentration I would say that the YF-19 was the easier of the two to control.
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

adding more questions to the folding accidents, it if possible for a weapon to be developed that can hit a ship/unit that's Folding in/out? there are series that have done this yeah? one show i recall is the Ideon using its Gun on targets in while in DS Drive. on that note, i remember opening another forum's discussion about Folding. i think it went that folding is depicted like the Doctor's TARDIS in the original Macross while in M Frontier it was depicted like going through a portal...

another one, are the Vajra the only beings revealed to be able to fold on their own? was it shown in Frontier that's it possible to join a Vajra when its folding?


"a 'hard' magic system or a 'soft' one"

how does this go? like in Mahouka/ irregular in magic high school?
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

Henyo wrote: Sun May 31, 2020 7:06 am adding more questions to the folding accidents, it if possible for a weapon to be developed that can hit a ship/unit that's Folding in/out? there are series that have done this yeah?
You don't really need a special weapon for that... if the ship's fold system hasn't completely pushed it into fold space yet it's still partly in three-dimensional space and can be shot at normally. Same deal for a ship that's in the process of being pushed back into three-dimensional space.

The Vajra do fire at a few ships attempting to fold away in Macross Frontier, and successfully sink one or two.

If the ship is still in fold space or gets all the way into fold space, you're outta luck.


Henyo wrote: Sun May 31, 2020 7:06 am i think it went that folding is depicted like the Doctor's TARDIS in the original Macross while in M Frontier it was depicted like going through a portal...
The visual effect has been tweaked a few times over the years... but it's explicitly meant to be the same, mechanically.

The first actual instance of the "portal" style fold is in the very first episode of Macross and the very first fold that we ever see. The "ship glows and then disappears" thing was a cheap but effective way to handle it when everything had to be hand-drawn. Drawing a ship flying into a gate every time would have cost a lot of money. It's a lot easier to do that more complex sequence now that things are computer-animated.


Henyo wrote: Sun May 31, 2020 7:06 am another one, are the Vajra the only beings revealed to be able to fold on their own?
No, they're not the first to be shown with that ability... the Protodeviln's bodies, the Evil-series bio-weapons, in Macross 7 had bio-technological fold organs and could travel by space fold as casually as the Vajra do. Several of them used space folding as their sole means of movement. The Galactic Whales in Macross Dynamite 7 were also lifeforms that possessed the ability to travel by space fold... though they're not necessarily animals, having a biology that's more or less equal parts plant and mineral. As with the Vajra, the Galactic Whales were hunted for parts of their bodies that could be repurposed in fold devices.


Henyo wrote: Sun May 31, 2020 7:06 am was it shown in Frontier that's it possible to join a Vajra when its folding?
The Vajra's bio-technological space fold capability works no differently than a purely technological space fold system.

The process of traveling by space fold creates a "bubble" of space around the object powering the fold system and the entire volume of space defined by that bubble is what the fold system exchanges for an equivalent volume of space at the destination. So as long as you're inside that fold bubble before the ship folds into higher-dimensional space, you'll wind up transported to wherever the folding ship/object is going.

We see this happen to South Ataria Island and a chunk of the surrounding ocean when the Macross first engages their sabotaged fold system, and the whole island and surrounding ocean end up near Pluto's orbit. Sylvie Gena uses this to follow Feff's picket ship in Macross II so she can rescue Hibiki, who'd been captured trying to return Ishtar, getting inside the fold bubble just before the ship folds in. This is used several times in Macross Frontier, by the Vajra who are transported to where the Dulfim and Kaitos are fleeing to when they fold because they were on the hulls of those ships, by the titular Macross Frontier herself as she carries a bunch of her escorts along in her fold bubble to save power, and when Michael Blanc's VF-25G returns to the Frontier fleet by hitching a ride on a Vajra ship's fold effect after being unable to reclaim its fold booster in time.

Usually a ship's fold bubble is kept as small as possible while still encompassing the entire ship to conserve power, but it can be made larger in order to deliberately transport other ships with it. This is implied to be how the earliest emigrant fleets got around... with the smaller escort ships not being fold-capable, the larger carriers had to carry their escorts on fold jumps in their fold bubbles.


Henyo wrote: Sun May 31, 2020 7:06 am how does this go? like in Mahouka/ irregular in magic high school?
A "hard" magic system is one in which magic is essentially just another science/technology, with its own immutable laws, consistent set of rules and limitations, etc. (Magic is a Science.)

A "soft" magic system is one in which there aren't really any defined limitations on what magic can do... and any rules can be overcome with sufficient application of magic. (Magic is an Art.)

The Irregular at Magic High School is an example of a hard magic system, where magic is analyzed as a science and follows immutable laws with unsurpassable limitations. Alchemy in Full Metal Alchemist would be another hard "magic" as it clearly defines where its energy comes from, has limitations based on chemical composition of its target matter, and has things which it full-on can't do and other things its adherants simply refrain from doing which would be fully possible under its system.

Harry Potter would be an example of a mostly "soft" magic system, which pays little to no heed to things like the laws of physical reality (esp. conservation of matter and energy), relies on unquantifiable energy, and its own laws are inconsistently applied... like being unable to create food out of nothing, though duplicating or enlarging existing food actually creates more nutritional value and is essentially creating food out of nothing.
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

Henyo wrote: Sun May 31, 2020 7:06 am"a 'hard' magic system or a 'soft' one"

how does this go? like in Mahouka/ irregular in magic high school?
Seto Kaiba pretty much nailed this one. Hard magic may break physics as we understand them but it follows its own laws, these laws are discoverable via observation/experimentation and you can't break them, though you may be able to work around them creatively in the same way that sci-fi technology creatively gets around various laws of physics to a more or less 'believable' extent. Basically it's another set of laws layered on top of the ones we're used to.

There are degrees of this, mind you. Some magic systems are really hard and more or less completely understood, others might leave some wiggle room for applications that its users haven't discovered or don't have the resources to exploit currently and some soft magic systems can have some rules they follow but not to such an extent that the system as a whole could be reduced to a kind of magic science.

An author who's especially interested in hard magic systems including the ways they might be harnessed for FTL travel is Brandon Sanderson. While he hasn't gotten there yet in his writing, he has plans for several of his different hard magic systems that occupy his shared universe to eventually result in FTL. He does have some current methods of FTL but they're based specifically on the metaphysics of his universe and don't really qualify as 'magitech FTL' despite being hard magic.

All this to say, even within a hard magic system there are many ways to imagine how FTL could be accomplished so there's no way to answer the 'magic versus science' question you posed unless you have a very specific system in mind. And that really belongs in the Fanfiction forum even if you're doing it within the confines of the Macross universe.
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

Arsarcana wrote: Mon Jun 01, 2020 4:14 pm And that really belongs in the Fanfiction forum even if you're doing it within the confines of the Macross universe.
For what little it's worth, the ancient Protoculture arguably crossed the line into "sufficiently advanced" alien status in accordance with Clarke's Third Law as of Macross Zero. The things they created right before what remained of their civilization collapsed and they went extinct definitely qualified as "indistinguishable from magic". They had created planetwide and interplanetary teleportation networks, hidden massive constructs in higher-dimensions, and created living constructs to defend their abandoned homes like dragons. One of their final strongholds is a planet covered in inexplicably-flying islands surrounded by impassably-intense artificial fold faults intended to seal away a weapon they considered too dangerous to ever use.
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

Beside the EX-Gear, how do 5th generation VF solve the problem of excessive G-Force? The same question to the matter of unable to transform with an Armored Pack? (Though it seems to me like both Armored Packs for the VF-25 and VF-31 are more guns than armors.)

And is it just flat-out that any 5th generation would win against either the VF-19 and VF-22? What about the VF-31? Could it surpass something like, say, the YF-19?

Also, how strong are VF armor, without the barrier and any other Overtechnology? I recently got into a Zeta Gundam vs. VF-1 argument, and someone using the example of Hikaru crashing into several building as proof that VF had armors far more stronger than what we have in real life.

Most people agree that someone on the skill level of Hikaru in a VF-11 is going to defeat Kamille in the Zeta Gundam, unless Kamille pulls out some Newtype shennaningans. And it's a straight up beatdown when you talk about the 4th generation.
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

False Prophet wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2020 3:48 am Beside the EX-Gear, how do 5th generation VF solve the problem of excessive G-Force?
EX-Gear plays a fairly minor role in managing high G-force loads... operating as a mobile seat to optimize the blood flow in the pilot's body to prevent G-LOC. The real heavy lifting there is done by the Inertia Store Converter (ISC). Also known as an inertia capacitor, the ISC is a device that uses a dimensional shift to buffer G-forces on the air frame temporarily... preventing the pilot and airframe from experiencing severe spikes in G-forces by converting and storing that energy in it and returning that energy to compensate for negative G-forces. Essentially, instead of outright cancelling inertial forces it buffers them to clip the peaks and fill the valleys in the G-force load on the aircraft.

The initial-type Inertia Store Converters developed in the Macross Frontier and Macross Galaxy fleets could buffer up to 27.5G at a time for a period of up to 120 seconds. Later improvements on production aircraft upped that slightly to 28.0 G, and more advanced limited production units have demonstrated buffer capacity up to 30.8G.

The need for ISC systems is one thing that will constrain the ability of various governments to build 5th Generation VFs, since an ISC system cannot be built without fold quartz.

It's a more advanced and powerful version of the Quimeliquola Queadluun-Rau's Inertia Vector Control System, which is an older and less capable inertia capacitor technology that uses fold carbon and can only buffer G-forces for a couple of seconds.

Without an ISC, a 5th Generation VF's acceleration would be debilitating or injurious to the pilot... much as the lower but still problematic G-forces incurred by VF-19 and VF-22 pilots were.


False Prophet wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2020 3:48 am The same question to the matter of unable to transform with an Armored Pack? (Though it seems to me like both Armored Packs for the VF-25 and VF-31 are more guns than armors.)
Armored Packs were originally intended to improve a VF's defensive capabilities in land warfare. They were, essentially, body armor for a VF that was going to be operating alongside Destroids in heavy combat on the ground. There wasn't a perceived need to make them support transformation initially. It wasn't until the 5th Generation VFs that Armored Pack systems were reinvented as a heavier Super Pack for heavy assaults.

The VF-31's Armored Pack doesn't really deserve the name IMO, being that its focus is offensive rather than defensive and it's more or less just a bunch of different weapons haphazardly welded together. The VF-25's Armored Pack is an extremely defensive piece of equipment. It's extremely expensive because it's made entirely of the very same nextgen Advanced Energy Conversion Armor material used on the VF-25's antiprojectile shield, giving it defensive ability that's essentially comparable to a cruiser-class warship, it has a bunch of capacitors so that Advanced Energy Conversion Armor can run at its full power all the time and also run the pinpoint barrier in all modes. That gives it such massive defensive ability that we see it tank the level of firepower that was one-shotting stealth cruisers in Macross Frontier.


False Prophet wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2020 3:48 am And is it just flat-out that any 5th generation would win against either the VF-19 and VF-22? What about the VF-31? Could it surpass something like, say, the YF-19?
Assuming pilots of equal skill and training, yes... a 5th Generation main VF's performance is so much higher than a 4th Generation main VF's that it would be a huge advantage. The VF-25 and VF-31 have more than double the main engine thrust per unit of mass than the VF-19 or VF-22 do, and they can safely pull 30G+ maneuvers without the pilot having to fear G-LOC thanks to their inertia store converters. (The VF-25 can pull 30.5G off a standing start, for instance, with its throttle open.)


False Prophet wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2020 3:48 am Also, how strong are VF armor, without the barrier and any other Overtechnology? I recently got into a Zeta Gundam vs. VF-1 argument, and someone using the example of Hikaru crashing into several building as proof that VF had armors far more stronger than what we have in real life.
Hard to say, but definitely much tougher than any modern fighter or attack helicopter even when the energy conversion armor isn't powered up. Really, the comparison's all but impossible because we have no frame of reference for actual defensive power of Gundarium. There are some remarks that suggest a VF-1 with its armor off is probably around as tough as a modern main battle tank. With its armor powered up, it's much tougher. A 4th Generation VF has around 8 times the defensive ability of a main battle tank, just on its energy conversion armor alone.

Offensively, any VF will take a UC Mobile Suit to the cleaners. The humble VF-1 Valkyrie's ROV-20 laser cannon belongs to the same level of firepower as the Zeta Gundam's beam rifle. No, really... there's only a 14% difference in the output power between the 5,000kW-class laser cannon and the 5,700kW-class mega-particle cannon... and the VF-1 can have up to four of those lasers at a time. Later-gen VFs have built-in laser or beam weaponry rated higher than that, around 9,500kW for light defensive weapons on 4th Gen VFs. Offensive beam weapons have outputs of dozens or hundreds of megawatts in Macross... while IIRC MS-carried mega-particle cannons usually top out in single digits with the most powerful I recall offhand being 20.2MW. The most powerful fighter-mounted beam weapon during the First Space War in the original Macross series was 750MW... that's about 395x the firepower of the RX-78-2's beam rifle.


False Prophet wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2020 3:48 am Most people agree that someone on the skill level of Hikaru in a VF-11 is going to defeat Kamille in the Zeta Gundam, unless Kamille pulls out some Newtype shennaningans. And it's a straight up beatdown when you talk about the 4th generation.
I'd say basically any VF from the VF-4 onwards is going to comprehensively outclass the Zeta Gundam.
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

Seto Kaiba wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2020 5:08 am
Offensively, any VF will take a UC Mobile Suit to the cleaners. The humble VF-1 Valkyrie's ROV-20 laser cannon belongs to the same level of firepower as the Zeta Gundam's beam rifle. No, really... there's only a 14% difference in the output power between the 5,000kW-class laser cannon and the 5,700kW-class mega-particle cannon... and the VF-1 can have up to four of those lasers at a time. Later-gen VFs have built-in laser or beam weaponry rated higher than that, around 9,500kW for light defensive weapons on 4th Gen VFs. Offensive beam weapons have outputs of dozens or hundreds of megawatts in Macross... while IIRC MS-carried mega-particle cannons usually top out in single digits with the most powerful I recall offhand being 20.2MW. The most powerful fighter-mounted beam weapon during the First Space War in the original Macross series was 750MW... that's about 395x the firepower of the RX-78-2's beam rifle.
I have no objection to VFs are much more powerful than MSs in general.(Not just the fire power, but their thrust to weight ratio and operational thrust time is much higher)

Just reply to give you the highest output power of MS weapons, not including anything without specs, the FAZZ HMC, 79.8 MW. They get 10 shots before over heating.
The slightly less powerful, S Gundam's BSG, 56MW(also operational in 12MW mode if it does not have enough input) is less restrictive, but still pretty large relative to the MS. The Z plus version of this gun is 50MW, no idea if it is just completely variable or a limiter is added.

Even if you look at MA class weapons, the highest is the Zoan's Mega particle cannons, 520MW, you have 2 of them on the combined Zodiac, which is one of the largest MA in the UC-verse, is still lower in power than the beam weapon you mentioned.
Seto Kaiba wrote: Mon Jun 01, 2020 5:46 pm For what little it's worth, the ancient Protoculture arguably crossed the line into "sufficiently advanced" alien status in accordance with Clarke's Third Law as of Macross Zero. The things they created right before what remained of their civilization collapsed and they went extinct definitely qualified as "indistinguishable from magic". They had created planetwide and interplanetary teleportation networks, hidden massive constructs in higher-dimensions, and created living constructs to defend their abandoned homes like dragons. One of their final strongholds is a planet covered in inexplicably-flying islands surrounded by impassably-intense artificial fold faults intended to seal away a weapon they considered too dangerous to ever use.
Just interested, did they ever mention how the protoculture collapsed?
(I only watched DYRL, Plus, Zero and Frontier with very little 7 and 7d plot knowledge from the PSP Macross game using the Gundam Battle series engine)

With such technology(above Kardeshev class 2, going towards or at class 3), unless it is something like "We(hive mind) decided to toss away our physical forms and transcend to the higher dimensions", I see no possible reason they can just suddenly disappeared. Multiple planets should have remaining pockets of these people even if the central government collapsed? If they are destroyed by a more powerful culture, we should see that more powerful culture instead.
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

MythSearcher wrote: Fri Jun 05, 2020 4:51 am I have no objection to VFs are much more powerful than MSs in general.(Not just the fire power, but their thrust to weight ratio and operational thrust time is much higher)
Apart from generator output and energy weapon power output, the most telling metric would probably be in their maximum acceleration. A really good, fast OYW Mobile Suit isn't even pulling 1G. The Zeta tops out at 1.8G in its Waverider mode. Even the most agile mass production suits in the second century UC (UC0100+) like the League Militaire's Gun-EZ or Zanscare's Contio top out around 4.4G. The VF-1 Valkyrie's rocking 6.5G and it only goes up from there. 4th Gen VFs could easily pull over 10G from a standing start, and as noted earlier the VF-25 boasts a maximum instantaneous acceleration of 30.5G.


MythSearcher wrote: Fri Jun 05, 2020 4:51 am Just reply to give you the highest output power of MS weapons, not including anything without specs, the FAZZ HMC, 79.8 MW. They get 10 shots before over heating.
The slightly less powerful, S Gundam's BSG, 56MW(also operational in 12MW mode if it does not have enough input) is less restrictive, but still pretty large relative to the MS. The Z plus version of this gun is 50MW, no idea if it is just completely variable or a limiter is added.

Even if you look at MA class weapons, the highest is the Zoan's Mega particle cannons, 520MW, you have 2 of them on the combined Zodiac, which is one of the largest MA in the UC-verse, is still lower in power than the beam weapon you mentioned.
I was looking more at regular beam rifles... not so much the high mega cannons and other large optional weapons that impose significant penalties on the Mobile Suit's all-important mobility, but these are pretty good metrics to have nevertheless.

Had to look that last one up, since I'd never heard of it before. That's the AMA-100 Z'od-iacok from Gundam Sentinel, right? That thing counts as a Mobile Armor? It's the size of a freaking warship. Literally almost as large as the White Base or one of the Northampton-class frigates from Macross.

Though, to really put the cherry on it... the craft in Macross that has the 2x750MW beam cannon as its main armament? That's the SF-3A Lancer II space fighter... which is all of about 13.2 meters long.


MythSearcher wrote: Fri Jun 05, 2020 4:51 am Just interested, did they ever mention how the protoculture collapsed?
(I only watched DYRL, Plus, Zero and Frontier with very little 7 and 7d plot knowledge from the PSP Macross game using the Gundam Battle series engine)
The particulars vary depending on whether you're talking about the main/ongoing Macross continuity or the Macross II alternate universe continuity, but the gist of it is that their civil war got out of hand and they got decimated by the living weapons they created to fight their wars for them.

Macross II's AU runs with the explanation in Macross: Do You Remember Love?. The Protoculture split along gender lines after the introduction of advanced cloning technology made biological reproduction obsolete, and that divide between males and females grew until they literally split into two rival factions and declared an actual war on each other. The clone armies they created for that war, the male Zentradi and female Meltrandi, fought each other with weapons of literally apocalyptic power (including the thermonuclear reaction weaponry that would later become lost technology) and the ancient Protoculture civilization was all but wiped out by the fighting as the two factions tried to destroy each other. Organized dissent to the war came far too late, and by the time people on both sides started talking about how this war thing was maybe a REALLY BAD IDEA everyone who could've ordered a cease fire was already dead and the Protoculture had effectively lost control of both of their clone armies. There was nothing they could do except run away, and they did... groups of survivors used emigrant ships to flee into deep space and try to start over on other planets outside their former territory. It's unclear how many groups of survivors were able to flee, and how many actually found somewhere else to live... but we know that they were essentially forced into a pseudo-nomadic existence as the out of control and self-sustaining war between the Zentradi and Meltrandi expanded throughout the galaxy. In some cases, like Earth, they were forced to abandon their emigrant ships and flee in smaller ships when the war neared the new home systems they had colonized. Eventually, they were unable to maintain their population and eventually died out. The Mardook in Macross II: Lovers Again are implied to be the descendants of one of the Protoculture's refugee fleets, who've adopted a militant approach to preserving what remains of their civilization and culture using a new clone army.

Macross 7 offers a different take which is used in all subsequent works. The ancient Protoculture were a people divided along socio-political lines even before they reached the stars, and they never did manage to hit what we'd call a harmonious society. The sheer scale of their interstellar republic meant that internal schisms eventually formed and those tensions blew up into a civil war that very quickly ended up a stalemate thanks to how huge the Protoculture's Stellar Republic had been before it split and the Zentradi being used by both sides being prohibited from attacking the Protoculture. About 8 years after the war started, one arsenal planet was testing a new type of living weapon called the Evil-series. Bio-technological weapons platforms equipped with their latest and greatest weaponry and powered by an inexhaustible supply of energy drawn directly from fold space. Three years later, shortly after the ancient Protoculture first visited Earth and retrovirally modified the local homonids to accelerate their development into a sentient "sub-Protoculture" species, the Evil-series were activated for testing and their experimental power sources malfunction. Energy beings from higher-dimension space are trapped in the bodies of the Evil-series and take control of their minds. These beings, who would be known as the Protodeviln, needed higher-dimensional energy to survive and began harvesting it from the minds of the Protoculture on that arsenal planet. In order to avoid a slow death by starvation, the Protodeviln made an army out of the people they had drained of mental energy (spiritia) and rendered docile through mind control. This new force, the Supervision Army, attacked both sides and grew exponentially as it conquered new planets and added their spiritia-drained populations to its forces. The regulations prohibiting the Zentradi from attacking or interfering with the Protoculture made them incapable of fighting the Supervision Army, which was made up of brainwashed and spiritia-drained Protoculture and Zentradi. Over 85% of the Protoculture civilization was lost during the first nine months of the war, at which point the two Protoculture factions banded together and then rescinded the Zentradi's directives to not interfere with the Protoculture. The ensuing destruction took a huge chunk out of the Supervision Army, and with their "food" supply dwindling the Protodeviln weakened to the point that Protoculture who had been discovered to possess special spiritia called anima spiritia were able to capture and contain the Protodeviln, sealing them away in the laboratory where they had been created and imposing an entropy control field on the entire planet to keep people away from it. Unfortunately, this didn't free the many people who were brainwashed and enslaved by the Supervision Army, and large-scale hostilities continued, with many Protoculture planets being lost in the crossfire. Within a few years, the network connecting the colony planets broke down and control over the Zentradi was lost. Around 1,100 years later all that was left of their civilization was a few isolated planets, emigrant fleets, and space colonies out on the galactic rim due to the Supervision Army aggressively hunting them and the Zentradi indiscriminately destroying the Supervision Army's forces and any planets they were found on. The Protoculture civilization held on for around another 20,000 years before they disappeared from the galaxy and were presumed extinct. Now all that remains of them is the ruins left behind by their collapsed civilization and the many intact constructs they created that continue to operate hundreds of thousands of years after they vanished. (An awful lot of which seem to be stupidly dangerous stuff that the Protoculture deliberately sealed away, like the Delta Wave System they hid in fold space on the worlds of the Brisingr cluster, the Fold Evil they sealed away behind artificial fold faults on Uroboros, and the Protodeviln that they buried on the fourth planet of the system humans would one day call Varauta 3198XE. Humanity has found a lot of these dangerous things over the years... accidentally waking up the Protodeviln leading to a war against them in 2045-2047, and uncovering both the Fold Evil and Delta Wave System in 2060.


MythSearcher wrote: Fri Jun 05, 2020 4:51 am With such technology(above Kardeshev class 2, going towards or at class 3), unless it is something like "We(hive mind) decided to toss away our physical forms and transcend to the higher dimensions", I see no possible reason they can just suddenly disappeared. Multiple planets should have remaining pockets of these people even if the central government collapsed? If they are destroyed by a more powerful culture, we should see that more powerful culture instead.
Well, in either of the above cases, they were destroyed by their own creations... and in a fairly short period too.

The ancient Protoculture seem to have felt that actually doing the fighting themselves was beneath them, so they entrusted all of their military power to the clone armies they created to fight those wars for them. When those weapons were turned on them, they had no defense. There was little they could do in the face of weapons that could depopulate a planet in minutes except run away... and with the thousands of fleets armed with millions of ships prowling the galaxy hunting each other, there weren't many safe places to run. Eventually, the war found them and they were unable to escape again... and the lucky ones who managed to hide out on the edge of the galaxy eventually went extinct when they were unable to maintain their population.

There is a theory, based on a musical postcard mail-in gift that came with one of the 90's video games, that there is at least one surviving Protoculture enclave that escaped extinction by creating a portal into another universe or a pocket universe and living there. That postcard, which purports to be the last message from Megaroad-01, the emigrant ship commanded by MIsa Hayase and carrying Lynn Minmay as a passenger, indicating they had found a "dark hole" near the galactic core that was transmitting music and were preparing to enter it.
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

Seto Kaiba wrote: Fri Jun 05, 2020 12:07 pm Apart from generator output and energy weapon power output, the most telling metric would probably be in their maximum acceleration. A really good, fast OYW Mobile Suit isn't even pulling 1G. The Zeta tops out at 1.8G in its Waverider mode. Even the most agile mass production suits in the second century UC (UC0100+) like the League Militaire's Gun-EZ or Zanscare's Contio top out around 4.4G. The VF-1 Valkyrie's rocking 6.5G and it only goes up from there. 4th Gen VFs could easily pull over 10G from a standing start, and as noted earlier the VF-25 boasts a maximum instantaneous acceleration of 30.5G.
Ah, the highest acceleration spec we get is 20G for the V2 (Not reflected by its thrust and weight specs, and is possibly a limiter because the heavier V2A, V2B and V2AB all can achieve 20G)
The second highest is S[Bst]'s 9.72G and 3rd is Ex-S's 7.27G.
(Not specified but can be estimated is the Deep Striker, with a 27% reduction to S[Bst], it should be about 7.09G)
Other than the V2, all others are calculated at full load.(Probably a limit will be added for consistent performance and easy piloting)

So the VF series is generally better in thrust to mass ratio to most MS.

I was looking more at regular beam rifles... not so much the high mega cannons and other large optional weapons that impose significant penalties on the Mobile Suit's all-important mobility, but these are pretty good metrics to have nevertheless.
Fully understand, just saying even if we give the benefit of the larger weapons, the UC-verse is still no match.
Had to look that last one up, since I'd never heard of it before. That's the AMA-100 Z'od-iacok from Gundam Sentinel, right? That thing counts as a Mobile Armor? It's the size of a freaking warship. Literally almost as large as the White Base or one of the Northampton-class frigates from Macross.

Though, to really put the cherry on it... the craft in Macross that has the 2x750MW beam cannon as its main armament? That's the SF-3A Lancer II space fighter... which is all of about 13.2 meters long.
Yes, AMA-100, it is a MA, just basically two big cannons with neccessary thrusters and stuff build around them.
And sadly, it is defective and meaning they don't really have the technology to build a beam cannon of that size with that kind of output at that time frame.

The particulars vary depending on whether you're talking about the main/ongoing Macross continuity or the Macross II alternate universe continuity, but the gist of it is that their civil war got out of hand and they got decimated by the living weapons they created to fight their wars for them.


Well, in either of the above cases, they were destroyed by their own creations... and in a fairly short period too.

The ancient Protoculture seem to have felt that actually doing the fighting themselves was beneath them, so they entrusted all of their military power to the clone armies they created to fight those wars for them. When those weapons were turned on them, they had no defense. There was little they could do in the face of weapons that could depopulate a planet in minutes except run away... and with the thousands of fleets armed with millions of ships prowling the galaxy hunting each other, there weren't many safe places to run. Eventually, the war found them and they were unable to escape again... and the lucky ones who managed to hide out on the edge of the galaxy eventually went extinct when they were unable to maintain their population.
Sorry, deleting those long descriptions.
This surely is a very stupid way to die.
There is a theory, based on a musical postcard mail-in gift that came with one of the 90's video games, that there is at least one surviving Protoculture enclave that escaped extinction by creating a portal into another universe or a pocket universe and living there. That postcard, which purports to be the last message from Megaroad-01, the emigrant ship commanded by MIsa Hayase and carrying Lynn Minmay as a passenger, indicating they had found a "dark hole" near the galactic core that was transmitting music and were preparing to enter it.
But shouldn't they still have the technology to build the weapons? Maybe not canonicaly but a more IRL thinking(I guess if we go all IRL the scenario probably will never happen)
I mean, yes, the weapons can turn on you and you have no weapons to fight back, but surely with the data left over they can build weapons to counter living bioweapons they built and know all of the weaknesses?
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

MythSearcher wrote: Sat Jun 06, 2020 10:21 am Fully understand, just saying even if we give the benefit of the larger weapons, the UC-verse is still no match.
It was never a fair comparison to begin with.

The Earth Federation in Gundam's Universal Century is in the very earliest phases of space emigration, and it's doing it with only technologies developed as it goes. The Earth Unification Government and its successor, the New Unification Government, in Macross skipped those formative years entirely because they had an alien starship packed with technology from a civilization that had over 600 years of experience with space emigration, mastered the manipulation of gravity and higher-dimensional spacetime, and achieved a galaxy-spanning republic before the inherent flaws in their civilization caught up with them.


MythSearcher wrote: Sat Jun 06, 2020 10:21 am Sorry, deleting those long descriptions.
This surely is a very stupid way to die.

[...]

But shouldn't they still have the technology to build the weapons? Maybe not canonicaly but a more IRL thinking(I guess if we go all IRL the scenario probably will never happen)
I mean, yes, the weapons can turn on you and you have no weapons to fight back, but surely with the data left over they can build weapons to counter living bioweapons they built and know all of the weaknesses?
Yup... the ancient Protoculture were very definitely victims of their own arrogance and their own cleverness.

The Protoculture absolutely still had the technology and the technical expertise to develop and build weapons of frankly apocalyptic power even after losing the vast majority of their population... their problem was scale.

When the ancient Protoculture created the clone armies that would fight on their behalf, they brainwashed them to enforce obedience, prohibited them from having anything related to culture, and forbade them any knowledge regarding how their technology worked to keep them dependent on the Protoculture. Their needs were met by a huge network of fully-automated, self-supplying, self-maintaining factory stations that produced all the gear and supplies the Zentradi needed... including fresh troops. In theory, if a Zentradi fleet were to rebel the others had the firepower to keep them contained and wipe them out while preventing them from accessing reinforcements and replacement equipment at those factory satellites and storage depots. They never conceived of a situation where they'd lose control of ALL 5,000+ Zentradi main fleets, each of which contained millions of ships, billions of troops, and the dozens of factories needed to sustain them.

So, with the Protoculture population reduced to a tenth of what it originally was and having lost control over the Zentradi, they simply didn't have the manufacturing capacity to compete with the now-uncontrolled clone forces they'd unleashed on the galaxy. They'd built the logistical chain too well, to the point that they'd constructed at least one fully-automated factory satellite for the building of fully-automated factory satellites. Outnumbered millions to one and with no hope of ever acquiring the manufacturing muscle necessary to build a force that had the numbers and firepower to compete, all they could do was run and hide from their own creations.

Even if they'd been able to disable all of the factories, they engineered their weapons technology too well. It was basically maintenance-free and would run forever until battle damage rendered it inoperable. The ships were so robust that even dropping them from orbit wasn't enough to destroy them, and they could withstand hundreds of thousands of years of neglect without fatal breakdowns. (In 2067, the Windermereans disinterred a Protoculture starship that'd been buried in the side of a mountain on their homeworld for 500,000 years... it was still mostly operational and with modest repairs was put into service as a frontline warship by the Windermereans.)

At least some of the isolated pockets of Protoculture invested time and effort on developing technologies which could reverse their fortunes during their long isolation. They perfected fold dimensional energy conversion and used it to create the Birdman, one of which was left on Earth and programmed to destroy humanity if it gained interstellar capability before resolving its internal differences. One group living on the world humans know as Uroboros used it to create a similar bio-technological construct based on the Evil series (called a Fold Evil) that was capable of time travel, but they don't appear to have ever used it and sealed it away. Another group that'd taken refuge on the worlds of the Brisingr globular cluster created an elaborate telepathy system in the hope of using it to enforce peace on the galaxy by linking everyone's thoughts and feelings Newtype-style, but shuttered that project and hid the equipment in fold space... potentially out of the same fear the New UN Gov't had of the system when they discovered it, namely that a lot of people's minds couldn't cope with that and that it'd cause a mass extinction by burning out everyone's brains.
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

It has been a long time since I last watched Frontier, but what was the viability of Ex-Gear as infantry power armors? I remember they worked well enough, and there were Macross Galaxy soldiers armed with them. What is their operational time though? Or the protection that their armor provides?
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Re: The Macross Valkyrie Thread

False Prophet wrote: Fri Jun 19, 2020 4:18 am It has been a long time since I last watched Frontier, but what was the viability of Ex-Gear as infantry power armors? I remember they worked well enough, and there were Macross Galaxy soldiers armed with them. What is their operational time though? Or the protection that their armor provides?
It's not clear how viable Military EX-Gear suits like the EGP-03/05 were as a regular infantry unit... because we don't really seem them used in that capacity by the actual New UN Forces.

Unless there's a specific model meant for general infantry use that we haven't seen, I'd suspect they're probably not very well suited to operating in a regular infantry context. The biggest sticking point is that the defensive ability is fairly low due to the design exposing most of the operator's body. Only the head, the legs from the knee down, the crotch, and the forearms are protected. The rest is exposed, and without additional body armor would not be very well-protected. The design very clearly focuses on mobility more than defense. We saw how this could work badly back in the Macross Frontier TV series when Michael Blanc was fatally impaled through his unprotected lower torso by a Vajra larva.

The only time we see the actual New UN Forces use EX-Gear is the Frontier New UN Forces anti-cyborg special unit that Leon Mishima assembled as a precautionary measure to cover the possibility that the fleet might have to fight against the cyborg soldiers of the Macross Galaxy Corporate Army. They were a highly mobile special forces unit... intended to cope with a highly mobile enemy with superhuman abilities. They did an excellent job of it, though in the end they weren't able to stop Macross Galaxy from taking over the Battle Frontier. Their equipment was nonstandard though. The suit itself was given some improvements to enhance its overall stealthines, and the rifle ammunition was exchanged for overpressure cartridges with specially-designed anti-cyborg rounds and anti-cyborg harpoons intended to incapacitate cyborg soldiers.

There do seem to be a number of design features mentioned in connection with that Special Forces EX-Gear which would be suitable for general infantry use. Especially the ability to swap camouflage quickly and easily because it was an adhesive decal applied to the composite instead of being painted on.
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