Zentraedi battlepod pilots and other thoughts

[Peacebringer]

I know the math is in the Zentraedi's favor, but, if numbers won wars, "mathematicians would be kings".*

What if the Invid had better tactics or actually fought the Zentraedi 24:1? If you all have ever played Battletech, you know that Innersphere vs. Clans usually ends with the Clans winning; however, in several occasions, I have been able to defeat the Clans usuing 2025 technology and tactics: I dropped two 100 ton Clan-mechs using a 50-ton LAM: It took 78 turns and seven-hours, but I did it!

Maybe the Invid have gruesome-tactics like reanimating fallen Zentraedi soldiers and getting into Zentraedi space-ships and shutting down their defenses from the inside?

*Tyron Lannister

[Seto Kaiba]

I know the math is in the Zentraedi's favor, but, if numbers won wars, "mathematicians would be kings".*

Numbers have always won wars… their applications on the battlefield have become more and more complex as time has gone on, but the ones we call generals, warrior kings, emperors, and so many other grandiose titles have always been the ones who excel at the calculus of carnage.

On today’s battlefield, everything from the amount of armor on a vehicle or infantryman down to the number of bullets troops are issued is determined by statistical analyses, ballistics, and a lot of other specific flavors of math. Battlefield performance is computed and projected down to the level of how many bullets an individual soldier is expected to expend to achieve one kill and how many newtons of force it’ll take to achieve that kill.

My little mathematical analysis is a grossly oversimplified version of exactly the kind of thing that the militaries of the world spend millions of man-hours obsessing over to ensure that their forces have the maximum possible killing efficiency.

What if the Invid had better tactics or actually fought the Zentraedi 24:1?

“Better tactics” won’t really solve the Invid’s basic problem of being totally outclassed per the RT RPG’s RAW stats. Their weapons have shorter ranges and deal less damage, and many of the Invid mecha don’t even have ranged weaponry. With Invid mecha like Enforcers, Commanders, and Overlords being extremely rare, and the Invid having no spacecraft capable of ship-to-ship combat save for the Regent’s personal transport, the Zentradi have an enormous advantage in battle with the Invid.

And this massively disadvantaged state is AFTER the RPG gave the Invid a massive buff vs. the level of durability they display in the TV series, in which light antipersonnel rockets and light man portable energy small arms were enough to take them down reliably.

Greater numbers will only work in the Invid’s favor if the Zentradi are obliging enough to fight on the ground or from a complete standstill. They’re so much faster than the Invid in flight that any Zentradi mecha except the naked Glaug (RAW, which is in this case inaccurate to the show) can easily outpace any Invid pursuit and most have weapons that outrange the Invid by hundreds of meters or more, so a Zentradi force can literally win a protracted fight against the Invid simply by reversing away from them while continuously firing. The Invid can’t catch up, so they’re stuck in the Zentradi’s metaphorical dust eating particle beam fire they can’t retaliate against. As long as the Zentradi keep the battle in space, they’re literally untouchable… and since they can simply flatten planets at their leisure from space, they have no reason NOT to.

Maybe the Invid have gruesome-tactics like reanimating fallen Zentraedi soldiers and getting into Zentraedi space-ships and shutting down their defenses from the inside?

The Invid have never been depicted with the capability to do something as ghoulish as using the corpses of their enemies as zombies, and the average Invid lacks both the intelligence and the physical dexterity to do something like sabotaging a ship… never mind that Zentradi ships and mecha are so much faster than they are they they’d never be able to catch one. Their standard approach to ships is just a kamikaze run, as seen in the series.

The Invid did experiment on captured humans, but their experiments were restricted to ghoulish surgical experimentation to determine the suitability of the human form… as happened to Rainy Boy (RT: Dusty Aires).

[ShadowLogan]

Assuming it’s even possible. I don’t have the CFD software to do a fully-detailed analysis, but in the case of wing-mounted ordnance it looks like a pretty unworkable situation given how little the Alpha has in terms of wing area.

Wing Area which is something that is also on the change block.

A straight pylon system would also be more drag inducing than a rail station. The ordnance itself is a source of drag, but they could design purpose built BVR missiles for the Alpha to minimize drag while connected (and/or restrict their use to space only where Drag has no power).

Something else to consider is that they could in theory adapt technology to reduce the drag in the Alpha (and Beta) to make them more efficient than the shape otherwise suggests. Examples would be plasma/hot-gas injection, skin morphing using memory materials, laminar flow control (F-16XL tested this with active and passive laser cut holes, also use of MEMS have been proposed for this).

I’m assuming the engines were designed for what the UEEF considers an acceptable balance of power vs. maintainability with the available cooling systems, inlets, nozzles, etc.

While I do not expect them to tune the engines to the redline, the acceptable balance can change over time based on experience (and fDana should be able to provide data to change that balance). We don't know what they consider acceptable balance either, or how much margin they built-in, or if there are suitable alternatives to replace the ATF and JG engines (using the RT.com size chart the Logan's main rear engines could theoretically replace the Alpha's 6 engines, weather that is an improvement over the baseline or not is hard to say AFAIK).

Apart from the idea that they need them for regular gunpods, and what a terrible idea that is?

Given there are 3 Gunpod stations and they only typically use 1 of those stations it would mean better utilization.

And what stops the UEEF from adding a secondary gun system to the Missile Gunpod?

A point of order… the RPG doesn’t distinguish between search radar and target radar. What you’re citing is, for all practical purposes, the search radar range. The Alpha can see enemies coming at that range, but they can’t lock onto them until they’re within the missile’s range. The boilerplate missile table in the RPG is also a rather poor fit for many of the missiles in the show, with the Alpha’s ranges normally being depicted as much shorter than what the table claims for SRMs.

Technically the RPG (at least megaversally) applies a x2 range/speed modifier in space to a lot of stuff (if it doesn't say space speed the general rule of thumb in Palladium is it gets doubled). So theoretically the targeting radar now functions at 10mile (max) range instead of 5mile (using the RPG missile table).

(Seriously… Rick went from a new recruit to a Major General in twelve years or less.)

6 years or less actually. 2009 corporal, 2015 promotion (Admiral in the old Novels, IIRC the 1E RPG had him at that rank before 2022 but given the lead time it likely was earlier I want to say around 2015-6). What TY has in the current continuity who knows.

… given what happened when they sent reinforcements in the Masters Saga, I’m not sure I could say that with confidence.

Carpenter was supposed to linkup with the UEDF proper, instead he launched a surprise attack. He was also supposed to relay orders from Reinhardt. That is a whim, but less from the higher ups and more from the guys in the field.

Transport Squadron 85 is the only other Deep Space Force to return for the UEDF in the Masters Saga, and they are recalled by the UEDF given Emerson's dialogue (so might not technically be UEEF given the UEDF couldn't countermand Reinhardt). Wolf and Garfish crew might have been sent back later for this purpose but arrive before the Invid, but they don't seem like a Whim choice either.

What if the Invid had better tactics or actually fought the Zentraedi 24:1? If you all have ever played Battletech, you know that Innersphere vs. Clans usually ends with the Clans winning; however, in several occasions, I have been able to defeat the Clans usuing 2025 technology and tactics: I dropped two 100 ton Clan-mechs using a 50-ton LAM: It took 78 turns and seven-hours, but I did it!

Maybe the Invid have gruesome-tactics like reanimating fallen Zentraedi soldiers and getting into Zentraedi space-ships and shutting down their defenses from the inside?

There are very few situations where the Invid might have a tactical chance against the Zentreadi and they require the Zentreadi to give up their range advantage (enter a complex to secure X, or an ambush of ground troops). The Invid need better technology to compete with the Zentreadi.

The Invid don't have technology to reanimate the dead, getting into the ships is the hardpart as they first have to penetrate the various defensive ring as they could home in on the PC use and then destroy it. The Invid do have the ability to possess people (Annie), but said ability isn't really defined anywhere (in canon or RPG IINM, so we don't know the range/limits of).

[Seto Kaiba]

Wing Area which is something that is also on the change block.

Again, this is the kind of change that’s limited by the rest of the Alpha’s design… because it’s so small, there’s not much that can be done to expand the wing area without fundamental changes to the Alpha’s aerodynamic profile. It’s a clipped delta wing, so expanding it is difficult without it becoming a conventional swept wing or flying wing, which in turn poses new problems for Alpha fighters operating at the low altitudes and airspeeds they were designed for, as well as a variety of new stability problems.

TL;DR, there’s very little that can be done on that front until you hit the aerodynamic tipping point where it’s easier to just throw it away and design a new plane.

A straight pylon system would also be more drag inducing than a rail station. The ordnance itself is a source of drag, but they could design purpose built BVR missiles for the Alpha to minimize drag while connected (and/or restrict their use to space only where Drag has no power).

At the risk of pointing out an obvious problem here, missiles are ALREADY designed for minimal drag because they have to sustain ballistic flight on launch… generally without the aid of a lifting surface.

Something else to consider is that they could in theory adapt technology to reduce the drag in the Alpha (and Beta) to make them more efficient than the shape otherwise suggests. Examples would be plasma/hot-gas injection, skin morphing using memory materials, laminar flow control (F-16XL tested this with active and passive laser cut holes, also use of MEMS have been proposed for this).

When you’re at the point of having to introduce complex and expensive remedies for the Alpha’s (and Beta’s) terrible aerodynamics, you’ve crossed the “why not just design a plane that doesn’t suck?” line. Does the technology to make viable active aeroelastics even exist in Robotech? We know it does in Macross, but even there is was too expensive and high maintenance for actual mass production (and it wasn’t available until the late 2030s there, with the YF-21 having been its debut).

While I do not expect them to tune the engines to the redline, the acceptable balance can change over time based on experience (and fDana should be able to provide data to change that balance).

Er… did you forget Future!Dana’s expert opinion on the Alpha’s performance was to brand even developing it a waste of time and resources and have its budget transferred to the YF-4? That’s a rather telling viewpoint of the “acceptable balance” of the Alpha’s performance… that under no circumstances is it acceptable.

Given there are 3 Gunpod stations and they only typically use 1 of those stations it would mean better utilization.

But it also means additional weight and complexity for a weapon with VERY limited endurance in combat, and significant additional drag if they use station 3.

Technically the RPG (at least megaversally) applies a x2 range/speed modifier in space to a lot of stuff (if it doesn't say space speed the general rule of thumb in Palladium is it gets doubled). So theoretically the targeting radar now functions at 10mile (max) range instead of 5mile (using the RPG missile table).

I don’t believe it applies that to radar.

(Seriously… Rick went from a new recruit to a Major General in twelve years or less.)

6 years or less actually. 2009 corporal, 2015 promotion (Admiral in the old Novels, IIRC the 1E RPG had him at that rank before 2022 but given the lead time it likely was earlier I want to say around 2015-6). What TY has in the current continuity who knows.

In From the Stars’s 2015 sections he’s still a regular fighter pilot… so presumably he wasn’t promoted until later.

Carpenter was supposed to linkup with the UEDF proper, instead he launched a surprise attack. He was also supposed to relay orders from Reinhardt. That is a whim, but less from the higher ups and more from the guys in the field.

Carpenter was approaching a planet under a de facto blockade… I don’t think that was on his discretion, he was just trying to follow the spirit of his orders by breaking through to link up with the UEDF.

The Invid do have the ability to possess people (Annie), but said ability isn't really defined anywhere (in canon or RPG IINM, so we don't know the range/limits of).

If that’s even what that was, and not just a shared hallucination.

[slade the sniper]

Quick question:
How are the Zentraedi organized for ground combat?
Do they use battlepods as the equivalent of a soldier so their platoons are 20-40 battlepods/powered armor/infantry...or are they more like 4 pods per platoon, etc.

I realize they are alien, and the human organization breakdown probably doesn't apply, but if anyone knows it, or where to find it, I would appreciate it.



-STS

[Seto Kaiba]

Quick question:
How are the Zentraedi organized for ground combat?
Do they use battlepods as the equivalent of a soldier so their platoons are 20-40 battlepods/powered armor/infantry...or are they more like 4 pods per platoon, etc.

Exactly the same way they’re organized for space combat… which is to say, the Zentradi are an almost exclusively mechanized force whose battle pods and battle suits are equally effective on land and in space. The only real use they have for what we’d consider infantry is as security on their ships.

The creators of Macross did publish a force org chart for a basic Zentradi battle pod unit that is usually translated as a “Battalion”. It consists of 28 battle pods of various types, broken down into platoons of five pods apiece, organized into two “Company” level units and those under one leader as the Battalion. The exemplar is a minimum-sized battalion consisting of two platoons of Regult tactical pods, and one platoon each of Regult light missile, heavy missile, and scout pods in support led by three Glaugs. Units made up of other types of mecha are presumably following similar organizational lines, albeit without the special purpose variants.

[ESalter]

Quick question:
How are the Zentraedi organized for ground combat?
Do they use battlepods as the equivalent of a soldier so their platoons are 20-40 battlepods/powered armor/infantry...or are they more like 4 pods per platoon, etc.

I realize they are alien, and the human organization breakdown probably doesn't apply, but if anyone knows it, or where to find it, I would appreciate it.



-STS

The Macross Compendium has a chart.
I assume the miniatures game has information on organization, but I don't have it myself.

[slade the sniper]

Thanks. I had found that chart earlier, but tbh until Seto Kaiba says something is right, I kinda don't trust it

-STS

[ShadowLogan]

Again, this is the kind of change that’s limited by the rest of the Alpha’s design… because it’s so small, there’s not much that can be done to expand the wing area without fundamental changes to the Alpha’s aerodynamic profile. It’s a clipped delta wing, so expanding it is difficult without it becoming a conventional swept wing or flying wing, which in turn poses new problems for Alpha fighters operating at the low altitudes and airspeeds they were designed for, as well as a variety of new stability problems.

Actually I've been thinking more toward replacement of the delta-wing with a variable geometry wings (F-111, F-14, B-1B, Su-17, etc) or a Forward Sweep Wing (X-29). Variable Geometry technology is something they would have experience with from the VF-1, the FSW is plausible (2E RPG Sylphid-B model is a FSW variant, and it appears in the show minus the RPG's canards). Either approach would seem to be an aerodynamic benefit to a retrofitted Alpha design (and both VGW and FSW have history in Real World of being retrofitted).

When you’re at the point of having to introduce complex and expensive remedies for the Alpha’s (and Beta’s) terrible aerodynamics, you’ve crossed the “why not just design a plane that doesn’t suck?” line. Does the technology to make viable active aeroelastics even exist in Robotech? We know it does in Macross, but even there is was too expensive and high maintenance for actual mass production (and it wasn’t available until the late 2030s there, with the YF-21 having been its debut).

The underlining technologies I do think have to exist in Robotech for all of them, weather they mindset to apply them in this manner is another mater. One explanation (to avoid animation error explanation) for the Sylpid being animated with 3 separate wing designs would be shape changing materials (though separate models is also possible).

Mission creep happens during development, but is not a guarantee for cancellation. IMHO though once the Alpha reach the point of needing the Beta (instead of a simpler options) that would be the point to have said the Alpha isn't worth it and gone with a new design (and the Beta's aerodynamics are a result of needing to connect to the Alpha). And I don't think the YF-4 is that platform since we don't have a firm idea of just what the RT version looks like in terms of performance compared to the Alpha overall.

But it also means additional weight and complexity for a weapon with VERY limited endurance in combat, and significant additional drag if they use station 3.

All of which depends the actual form taken, since we can at least agree that this approach could come in several forms each of which has their own advantages and disadvantages in terms of how they balance out weight/drag/complexity/payload.

I don’t believe it applies that to radar.

If the Missile range doubles then the radar's ability to target also has to double.

[Seto Kaiba]

Actually I've been thinking more toward replacement of the delta-wing with a variable geometry wings (F-111, F-14, B-1B, Su-17, etc) or a Forward Sweep Wing (X-29). Variable Geometry technology is something they would have experience with from the VF-1, the FSW is plausible (2E RPG Sylphid-B model is a FSW variant, and it appears in the show minus the RPG's canards).

These are, with respect, terrible ideas.

The Alpha is a low-altitude, low-speed aircraft… a forward-swept wing is about the worst choice possible for an aircraft like that. The modest reduction in drag and increase in lift coefficient are paid for with significant loss of stability, increased frame stresses caused by increased tip loads putting torque on the wing, and increased difficulty in recovering from a stall. It’s absolutely not suitable for an aircraft that’s going to be operating near the ground in close air support roles. A forward swept wing belongs on a high-altitude, high-velocity air superiority fighter.

Variable geometry wings have the advantage of being able to switch between sweeps that favor low-altitude low-speed flight and high-altitude high-speed flight, but it’s adding extra weight and mechanical complexity that the Alpha doesn’t need.

A delta wing is exactly what you want for an aircraft like the Alpha that’s going to be operating at low speeds and altitudes, because it maximizes the available wing area, it allows for a more rigid structure, it’s lighter, and when designed properly it offers a very high stall angle. You’re running the engines a bit harder to compensate for the increased drag, but at the end of the day a delta wing’s what the Alpha needs. Build it big enough, and you’ve got an aircraft with a substantial payload capacity like Macross’s VF-4.

One explanation (to avoid animation error explanation) for the Sylpid being animated with 3 separate wing designs would be shape changing materials (though separate models is also possible).

“Animation error” is a LOT simpler and easier to prove.

Mission creep happens during development, but is not a guarantee for cancellation. IMHO though once the Alpha reach the point of needing the Beta (instead of a simpler options) that would be the point to have said the Alpha isn't worth it and gone with a new design (and the Beta's aerodynamics are a result of needing to connect to the Alpha).

Really, I don’t think the conventional rules apply here because the Alpha’s cancellation came as a result of someone from the future who has already seen the finished product in service saying not to waste time and resources on a fighter that can’t pass muster… and then backing up their position with objective and indisputable test data.

And I don't think the YF-4 is that platform since we don't have a firm idea of just what the RT version looks like in terms of performance compared to the Alpha overall.

All things considered, given who we’re talking about here, it’s a very safe bet that the YF-4 will be very similar if not straightforward copypasta from the Macross version. It won’t look the same as the finished Macross version for legal reasons, but it’s a safe bet they’ll copy from the Macross franchise given that that’s 1. Robotech’s favorite thing to do and 2. one of the guys running this show is an avowed Macross fan.

[xunk16]

I know the math is in the Zentraedi's favour, but, if numbers won wars, "mathematicians would be kings".*

What if the Invid had better tactics or actually fought the Zentraedi 24:1? If you all have ever played Battletech, you know that Innersphere vs. Clans usually ends with the Clans winning; however, in several occasions, I have been able to defeat the Clans using 2025 technology and tactics: I dropped two 100 ton Clan-mechs using a 50-ton LAM: It took 78 turns and seven-hours, but I did it!

Maybe the Invid have gruesome-tactics like reanimating fallen Zentraedi soldiers and getting into Zentraedi space-ships and shutting down their defences from the inside?

*Tyron Lannister

Well, secondary canon certainly seem to suggest these kinds of numbers would be probable. Even if we just think of the millions of invids abandoned on past battlefields by the Regent (See Genesis Pits Sourcebook). And theoretically, if you are inclined to that line of thought, a pursuer missile could be used to destabilize a fleet and get into range of the ships' hull before the Regults deployment. (Assuming a fold capability on the part of the Regent's ships.)
The regults would then have to fire on their own way out, in order to prevent the Invid getting in, then go in themselves to fight the pest from the inside.

A gamemaster would also be in his rights to interpret the "Called Shot" rule as applying here : since the Invids would be significantly smaller than the Zentraedis.
I mention it because the previous number crunching operation doesn't seem to account for the size difference.
Maybe this would smooth the path a little for a Gamemaster trying this kind of campaign?

As for the suggestion of "Zombies" I'm not sure it qualifies... But the case of Janus and Ku'Urtz certainly tells us that it would be possible in the limits of the RPG, assuming access to a genesis pit.
One could go at it using Invid Simulagents, parading as Masters, ordering a few Zentraedi in an ambush, then use the relevant Zentraedi DNA's plasticity to their advantage; while reprogramming a few to pilot Regults on their side. You then can have this little group capture more Zentraedis, convert them, rinse and repeat.
It is good to note that these tactics, while devastating, would be short lived. The RPG also states that the Masters did sacrifice a lot in order to convince the Regent such massive corruption of assets were futile. In the end though, the precise era while they would have been used is not clearly stated by the RPG. Which leave a little liberty to one wanting to build a campaign about such an operation.
And also offers leeway as to how devastating such a campaign would be.
An interesting argument on how long this would endure is the shock amongst Breetai's armada that the humans would "fire on their own" in order to attack the enemy. Which could be interpreted as a sacrifice the masters were loath to make. Something, however, they would eventually resort to; if we consider the massive sending of berserk civilians to fight the ASC on earth a few decades later.

I would also like to thank Shadowlogan for defending my previous line of thought with much more technical arguments that I could ever have.
And though Seto Kaiba is, like always, building a strong case for himself; I would like to renew the hope that the YF-4's design from RRT wasn't built in vain just to be ignored by Remix's authors.

[jaymz]

Thanks. I had found that chart earlier, but tbh until Seto Kaiba says something is right, I kinda don't trust it

-STS

There are three sources you can trust on macross

Macross Compendium
Macross Mecha Manual
Seto

All three use most of the same canon publications to bring us the information.

[ShadowLogan]

[These are, with respect, terrible ideas.

The Alpha is a low-altitude, low-speed aircraft… a forward-swept wing is about the worst choice possible for an aircraft like that. The modest reduction in drag and increase in lift coefficient are paid for with significant loss of stability, increased frame stresses caused by increased tip loads putting torque on the wing, and increased difficulty in recovering from a stall. It’s absolutely not suitable for an aircraft that’s going to be operating near the ground in close air support roles. A forward swept wing belongs on a high-altitude, high-velocity air superiority fighter.

Variable geometry wings have the advantage of being able to switch between sweeps that favor low-altitude low-speed flight and high-altitude high-speed flight, but it’s adding extra weight and mechanical complexity that the Alpha doesn’t need.

I'm not so sure these are terrible ideas, the whole point of this is to change the Alpha's abilities not just make cosmetic changes to the Alpha.

Animation error” is a LOT simpler and easier to prove.

Very true, but but we also know "errors" are sometimes adopted as "non-error" in Robotech. It doesn't happen often, and it can be one of those things they change their mind on (though coming from SDC:SC/TRM it seems unlikely without a decent argument). The reason I don't think its an AE is the repeated nature across episodes (ignoring recycled shots) suggests IMHO that it is more deliberate.

Really, I don’t think the conventional rules apply here because the Alpha’s cancellation came as a result of someone from the future who has already seen the finished product in service saying not to waste time and resources on a fighter that can’t pass muster… and then backing up their position with objective and indisputable test data.

No they don't, time travel though is a messy business. I mean Dana negated her own Birth didn't she, effectively creating a paradox. fDana's action might have unintended consequences down the line, specifically in the direction Invid Evolution takes (even as "poor" as the Alpha maybe, the Invid still developed new more powerful mecha to compete).

All things considered, given who we’re talking about here, it’s a very safe bet that the YF-4 will be very similar if not straightforward copypasta from the Macross version. It won’t look the same as the finished Macross version for legal reasons, but it’s a safe bet they’ll copy from the Macross franchise given that that’s 1. Robotech’s favorite thing to do and 2. one of the guys running this show is an avowed Macross fan.

I agree HG is likely going to go that route, but given RRT's take on the YF-4 (or even Strange Machine's RPG take) it seems like they are at least attempting to give the RT version its own take instead of being a pure Macross crib.

[Seto Kaiba]

Well that's odd, it seems to have double-posted.

[Seto Kaiba]

I'm not so sure these are terrible ideas, the whole point of this is to change the Alpha's abilities not just make cosmetic changes to the Alpha.

The reason they’re terrible ideas is that switching to a forward-swept wing hurts the Alpha in the very role it was principally intended to operate in, and a VG wing just adds additional weight and complexity without doing anything to address the problem.

It’s taking a design that’s already deemed unworkable and fatally flawed in-universe and making its flaws worse.

The reason I don't think its an AE is the repeated nature across episodes (ignoring recycled shots) suggests IMHO that it is more deliberate.

Really, the giveaway that it’s an animation error is that the animator’s model reference sheet for that fighter shows only one configuration with a compound delta wing. That’s the version which Palladium traced for art reference in the Masters Saga source book and refers to as “FA-109A”.

No they don't, time travel though is a messy business. I mean Dana negated her own Birth didn't she, effectively creating a paradox. fDana's action might have unintended consequences down the line, specifically in the direction Invid Evolution takes (even as "poor" as the Alpha maybe, the Invid still developed new more powerful mecha to compete).

Did she? It’s too early to tell. This may end up being handled similarly to how Macross II’s creators handled the Macross-equivalent character (Komilia Maria Jenius). In that timeline, Komilia’s parents got together under vastly different circumstances from the TV series and as a result her birth was deferred from 2011 to 2019. The differences in the timeline did not prevent her existence, it just changed the circumstances.

This kind of thing is so commonplace in fiction featuring things like time travel, alternate universe storylines, or literal cosmic retcons that it almost passes without comment. If a specific character is important enough, their existence is somehow inevitable regardless of how different the history of that universe is.

Spoiler:

Perhaps one of the best examples is in Star Trek, which helped codify the concept of a “mirror universe” in the first place. There are hints in Star Trek: Enterprise’s fourth season that the franchise’s Mirror Universe timeline diverges from the good future Star Trek timeline somewhere in the 16th century. Nevertheless, despite history having been altered at some point centuries before any of the characters were born, all the characters from TV shows still exist and many are still living very similar lives to the ones their “good” counterparts had.

Anime has several excellent examples of this kind of thing as well. Depending on how seriously you want to take the Holy Britannian Empire’s version of history in Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, their timeline diverged from ours in 55BCE with the native Britons defeating Rome’s efforts to occupy Britain. Yet, 1800 years later, all the major players in the American Revolution were still born and largely followed the same historical roles (save for Ben Franklin opting to side with England and Napoleon never subverting democracy in the French Republic while making it a superpower and successfully conquering the British Isles).

I agree HG is likely going to go that route, but given RRT's take on the YF-4 (or even Strange Machine's RPG take) it seems like they are at least attempting to give the RT version its own take instead of being a pure Macross crib.

Are they? Harmony Gold seems to have entirely abandoned its editorial oversight of the content its licensees are producing in the wake of the animated Robotech continuity’s abandonment following the failure of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles. Once HG’s own management put their foot down and said they weren’t going to bankroll any more Robotech projects, the HG creative staff seem to have just given up trying to keep licensees in line.

That’s when we started to see Palladium just throwing whatever into the RPG sourcebooks, like mutants chugging protoculture for superpowers and a glorified monster manual. After they lost the license, their replacements were writing trash that barely resembles Robotech. There’s little better in the way of examples than Titan’s Robotech comic, which started out stealing a piece of Macross fan art and using it commercially without the artist’s consent while it was also ripping off Halo and later progressed to ripping off a half-dozen other major titles like The Matrix and Megazone 23.

With HG essentially back in its late 90’s holding pattern with only bargain basement licensees and Hong Kong toy bootleggers at its disposal, they seem to be letting the licensees anything that brings in royalties. There doesn’t appear to be any coordinating intent anymore, so what Palladium did for the failed Tactics game was already non-canon and what Strange Machine’s RPG and Titan’s comic are doing doesn’t seem to be bound to any particular intent either. It’s open season, while it lasts, and Titan’s comic is currently being done by someone who’s using Macross as a free idea bucket much like what Academy and Antarctic did back in the 90’s, albeit apparently with a little more consideration for copyright law now that Macross’s owners are far more interested in suing to protect their property.

Spoiler:

Personally, I suspect that Harmony Gold’s lack of interest in exercising editorial oversight over Robotech licensees may be partly motivated by an urgent need to increase profits. HG saw a pretty big sales slip when it lost many of its core licensees, the streaming rights just aren’t worth what they used to be after changing hands so many times, and apparently had to give up a fairly significant sum of money owed to them by Tatsunoko as part of an arbitration judgement to secure renewal of their license. Selling as many licenses as possible, even if the licensees in question are churning out low-quality trash, feels like an attempt to dredge up some cash so the HG upper management doesn’t cut them loose and they can recoup losses incurred from their unsuccessful attempts to keep Big West from taking back the Macross trademarks in the UK, EU, and China.

[jaymz]

Spoiler:

Personally, I suspect that Harmony Gold’s lack of interest in exercising editorial oversight over Robotech licensees may be partly motivated by an urgent need to increase profits. HG saw a pretty big sales slip when it lost many of its core licensees, the streaming rights just aren’t worth what they used to be after changing hands so many times, and apparently had to give up a fairly significant sum of money owed to them by Tatsunoko as part of an arbitration judgement to secure renewal of their license. Selling as many licenses as possible, even if the licensees in question are churning out low-quality trash, feels like an attempt to dredge up some cash so the HG upper management doesn’t cut them loose and they can recoup losses incurred from their unsuccessful attempts to keep Big West from taking back the Macross trademarks in the UK, EU, and China.

I'll stick with the things I am doing...it makes more sense and is vastly more coherent with what crossover items I have done than anything I have seen elsewhere....then again I actually want stuff to be consistent and make sense as best i can while maintaining the canon that was Robotech

[ESalter]

Thanks. I had found that chart earlier, but tbh until Seto Kaiba says something is right, I kinda don't trust it

-STS

I don't think "Seto Kaiba" is more reliable than Egan Loo. Here, for instance, the first paragraph is just own invention, slightly careless common sense. The second paragraph is just a wordy retelling of material Loo translated over twenty years ago.

[Seto Kaiba]

Thanks. I had found that chart earlier, but tbh until Seto Kaiba says something is right, I kinda don't trust it

-STS

I don't think "Seto Kaiba" is more reliable than Egan Loo.

Well, you’re certainly entitled to your opinion… though it’s worth noting that a strong and entirely objective argument could be made that I am at least as reliable as he is in light of the fact that I have all the same resources he had AND twenty or so years of material he didn’t have when he wrote the original Compendium website.

(You DO know that Egan hasn’t actually done anything with the Compendium since the switch to the Wiki format, right? That site’s updated by a couple translators from MacrossWorld, including myself.)

Here, for instance, the first paragraph is just own invention, slightly careless common sense. The second paragraph is just a wordy retelling of material Loo translated over twenty years ago.

Correction: the first paragraph there is me paraphrasing a point that’s discussed in passing in a couple Macross Chronicle sheets. They don’t really harp on it, because it really is just an obvious point.

(There is a noteworthy exception in Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy however. In the game, there is a Zentradi enemy NPC mecha referred to only as “Zentradi Powered Suit” which is a flight-capable powered suit designed for a full-sized Zentradi soldier. Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy Visual Complete Guide describes the suit as a new design original to that story, but it’s visibly an improved version of the Zentradi Armored Spacesuit - what the RT RPG calls “Heavy Combat Armor” - from the original Macross TV series. The only weapon they have is a rifle, but they’re so small that they’re hard to hit with guns.)

The second paragraph, yeah… I expect Egan probably got it from the same book I did. I forgot he actually redrew the chart on his original article, though some of the terms in those old charts were translated wrong in his original translations.

[ShadowLogan]

The reason they’re terrible ideas is that switching to a forward-swept wing hurts the Alpha in the very role it was principally intended to operate in, and a VG wing just adds additional weight and complexity without doing anything to address the problem.

The FSW assumes the primary role of the Alpha (Fighter Mode) shifts away from an Air-Ground focus toward Air-Air , and it isn't like it couldn't use G-mode to compensate.

VGW does come with additional weight/complexity, but given we are talking about a transforming plane those penalties already seem to be there, and if we go with a larger conventional wing you are going to get hit with weight and complexity (complexity in how the transformation is handled) so it may be a wash.

Really, the giveaway that it’s an animation error is that the animator’s model reference sheet for that fighter shows only one configuration with a compound delta wing. That’s the version which Palladium traced for art reference in the Masters Saga source book and refers to as “FA-109A”.

While it maybe an AE from the POV of SDC:SC production, its consistency puts it in the realm of plausibility if one setting wanted to "canonize" it. I mean we get AE on the Beta's (what would be) MM-48 turned into MM-16/MM-40 from just one scene in one episode for example for Robotech, here we have a running issue over several episodes in multiple scenes which is something that just screams intentional especially given the consistency in use.

Did she? It’s too early to tell....

Like I said Time Travel is a messy business. I am not even sure that fDana is from Prime-Timeline (canon-Yune edit) or another timeline (Macek edit, novel, 1E RPG, Remix-specific-pre-TT, etc) before she goes back in time.

With HG essentially back in its late 90’s holding pattern with only bargain basement licensees and Hong Kong toy bootleggers at its disposal, they seem to be letting the licensees anything that brings in royalties. There doesn’t appear to be any coordinating intent anymore, so what Palladium did for the failed Tactics game was already non-canon and what Strange Machine’s RPG and Titan’s comic are doing doesn’t seem to be bound to any particular intent either. It’s open season, while it lasts, and Titan’s comic is currently being done by someone who’s using Macross as a free idea bucket much like what Academy and Antarctic did back in the 90’s, albeit apparently with a little more consideration for copyright law now that Macross’s owners are far more interested in suing to protect their property.

If the various license holders can do what the want, then it still leaves us with the issue of what the YF-4 actually looks like in terms of performance (and non-F mode visuals) resulting in disputes on which version to use (OSM, SM, PB, whatever Titan lays out, RT.com Infopedia, other license holders) since they don't all agree for general Robotech, specific to specific continuities is another matter of course.

[Seto Kaiba]

The FSW assumes the primary role of the Alpha (Fighter Mode) shifts away from an Air-Ground focus toward Air-Air , and it isn't like it couldn't use G-mode to compensate.

Er… at the risk of pointing out several different problems with that line of reasoning, the Alpha is designed for low-altitude air-to-ground focus because that’s where the enemy is. The foes it was designed to fight operate exclusively on the ground or at low altitudes. A forward-swept wing’s a liability at low airspeeds and low altitudes because its low stability makes it even more sensitive to turbulence. You’d essentially be putting it in operating conditions that would greatly increase the likelihood of crashes due to stalls or loss of control.

For the kind of operating conditions the Alpha is expected to see, a delta wing is about as good as you can get.

VGW does come with additional weight/complexity, but given we are talking about a transforming plane those penalties already seem to be there, and if we go with a larger conventional wing you are going to get hit with weight and complexity (complexity in how the transformation is handled) so it may be a wash.

That’s on top of the Alpha’s already high empty weight… and there’s no real advantage as the Alpha’s transformation doesn’t require something like a VG wing to facilitate it.

While it maybe an AE from the POV of SDC:SC production, its consistency puts it in the realm of plausibility if one setting wanted to "canonize" it.

Big “if”.

I mean we get AE on the Beta's (what would be) MM-48 turned into MM-16/MM-40 from just one scene in one episode for example for Robotech, [...]

Only because the people who provided HG the info lied about the origins of that info. It was a fanfic thing they passed off as OSM.

Like I said Time Travel is a messy business. I am not even sure that fDana is from Prime-Timeline (canon-Yune edit) or another timeline (Macek edit, novel, 1E RPG, Remix-specific-pre-TT, etc) before she goes back in time.

I’m not sure that even matters… the comic doesn’t acknowledge the RPG or anything other than Harmony Gold’s various failed attempts to develop sequels to animated Robotech. She was apparently from the previous iteration of the time loop - whichever one that was - but since all of the Robotech titles that were presented as bad future timelines spawned by that stable time loop are the failed Robotech animated sequels, they all share the common history of the TV series. So, no matter what timeline she’s actually from, she’ll have seen the Alpha fighter being used extensively in actual combat and will therefore be excellently positioned to inform the past versions of her colleagues in the new timeline where the time loop was broken successfully that the Alpha was hot garbage.

If the various license holders can do what the want, then it still leaves us with the issue of what the YF-4 actually looks like in terms of performance (and non-F mode visuals) resulting in disputes on which version to use (OSM, SM, PB, whatever Titan lays out, RT.com Infopedia, other license holders) since they don't all agree for general Robotech, specific to specific continuities is another matter of course.

Given that HG has never considered games to be part of any official continuity, that’s kind of a non-issue. All we’ve got is the OSM, the mostly OSM-derived RT.com Infopedia entry, and then whatever Titan comes up with.

[ShadowLogan]

For the kind of operating conditions the Alpha is expected to see, a delta wing is about as good as you can get.

Except the Alpha in Robotech is designed PRE-INVID Contact for a contest with the Robotech Masters (the expected enemy for the Pioneer Mission) with no real data available on what to expect (given TRM saga dialogue concerning identity of their enemy and knowledge of the Invid in 2029 and we know the Alpha is over 10years old by this point), which is a stark contrast to the OSM take (designed to fight the Inbit). So either the Alpha:
-operates in a "mixed force" handling the Air-Ground Role with an other unknown unit for Air-Air Role
-design was lucky for the UEEF in terms of emphasis when they encountered the Invid given they aren't expecting to fight the Invid
-design is more multi-role, but in the animation it was primarily shown in air-ground role

That’s on top of the Alpha’s already high empty weight… and there’s no real advantage as the Alpha’s transformation doesn’t require something like a VG wing to facilitate it.

Complexity and weight are hard to say which is better if we replace the outer wing transformation mechanism (how to control the hinged action in existing setup vs a VGW mechanism that can do double duty), but such a change will require a different look for G/B modes. The existing mechanism has either one big hinge or several smaller ones, but it likely does use multiple "locks" to hold it in position, then you have to make the hinge an actuator to adjust its position. This seems much more complex and potentially more weight than a VGW pivot setup.

Only because the people who provided HG the info lied about the origins of that info. It was a fanfic thing they passed off as OSM.

Not looking to discuss WHY HG did X, only that they have done X. It was the first example to come to mind, nothing really stops them from correcting their mistake (and maybe passing said "mistake" off as a one-off field hack/IMU repair job)

they all share the common history of the TV series. So, no matter what timeline she’s actually from, she’ll have seen the Alpha fighter being used extensively in actual combat and will therefore be excellently positioned to inform the past versions of her colleagues in the new timeline where the time loop was broken successfully that the Alpha was hot garbage.

The thing is the "history" of the TV series goes beyond just what is shown. There could be timelines where the "off-screen" events playout differently*, and it isn't like there is just "one version" of the TV series story (novel and comic adaptions exist that have differences, then there are differences in Legacy vs Remastered edits).

*Shadow Device/Syncro-Cannon origins, reason for Pioneer Mission being unable to offer more help in TRM saga, platform [x] effectiveness, elapsed time between given episodes, the YF-4 "toy" being just a toy and not representative of a veritech unit in testing (or just an variant of the Conbat nt-fighter), etc.

[Seto Kaiba]

Except the Alpha in Robotech is designed PRE-INVID Contact for a contest with the Robotech Masters (the expected enemy for the Pioneer Mission) with no real data available on what to expect (given TRM saga dialogue concerning identity of their enemy and knowledge of the Invid in 2029 and we know the Alpha is over 10years old by this point), [...]

Given that the Robotech Masters also fight pretty much exclusively in the low airspeed and low altitude regime, this is kind of “six of one, half a dozen of the other”. They’re even less capable than the Invid given that their mecha can’t even fly unassisted.

One can surmise from the fact that the Alpha suffers from such crippling overspecialization that there WAS actually data available about the Robotech Masters capabilities and the UEDF’s top brass failed intelligence forever. Whether it was because the washouts weren’t invited to those top secret briefings on the Robotech Masters, they skipped the briefings to drown their sorrows over explicitly being labeled as the troops the military’s miss the least on the front lines, or they were simply so poorly trained, lazy, and complacent that they didn’t put two and two together is unclear… but it makes no sense to argue there was no intelligence available given that even in the Sentinels animation Exedore practically gives the UEEF the Masters street address. It gets worse in other versions like the comics, where humanity DID have explicit foreknowledge about the Masters and Invid.

If they designed something as obviously flawed as the Alpha fighter with no knowledge of their enemy whatsoever, well… that’s a level of stupid beyond ordinary idiocy. That is ADVANCED STUPID.

So either the Alpha:
-operates in a "mixed force" handling the Air-Ground Role with an other unknown unit for Air-Air Role
-design was lucky for the UEEF in terms of emphasis when they encountered the Invid given they aren't expecting to fight the Invid
-design is more multi-role, but in the animation it was primarily shown in air-ground role

Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles was desperately angling for that third one when it tried to Macross-ize the Alpha, but the effort largely fell flat on the basis of the Alpha’s very obvious and overwhelming flaws as anything other than a short-range air-to-ground platform.

The truth is more a mix of those first two. The UEEF had other fighters that were better suited to air-to-air roles, but they did get stupid lucky that their unexpected enemy turned out to be so bad at war that they didn’t even have ranged weaponry.

Complexity and weight are hard to say which is better if we replace the outer wing transformation mechanism (how to control the hinged action in existing setup vs a VGW mechanism that can do double duty), but such a change will require a different look for G/B modes.

Not the way the Alpha transforms… you’d still need the hinge it already has, because otherwise you’ll have two swept wings sticking horizontally out of the back of the mecha, and potentially in each other’s way if we’re trying to increase wing area.

The thing is the "history" of the TV series goes beyond just what is shown. There could be timelines where the "off-screen" events playout differently*, and it isn't like there is just "one version" of the TV series story (novel and comic adaptions exist that have differences, then there are differences in Legacy vs Remastered edits). [...]

Theoretically, there could be… but the comic only references animated Robotech features, not the non-canon novels or pre-reboot comics, so potential divergences would appear to have been rather minor. What we’re looking at here is essentially a semi-stable causal loop, and the retrocausal nature of the whole affair means we shouldn’t expect to see macro level changes in the timeline between iterations… otherwise you can hit an escape condition. Because the ship itself is a flying bootstrap paradox, what we ought to see is little changes between timelines as the result of the ship itself being slightly different in each iteration of the loop that build up until one results in a macro-level change that breaks the loop entirely as was implied to be the case with the events of the comic.

[ShadowLogan]

I don't think its accurate to describe the Alpha as emphasizing air-ground, its main weapons are all multi-mode even missiles. The Alpha is multi-role, the Macross-ization of the Alpha in TSC is much more limited than you think.

fDana strikes me as coming from an AU and not Prime, she's a VF pilot in Remix #1. Of course fDana could have retrained post TRM saga, but AFAIK Dana has only every been a VHT pilot, even in Prelude we don't know what mecha she would be assigned (UEEF VHT, Cyclone, Silverback, etc).

Robotech is definitely in the multi-verse aspect (it has to because of Revel Robotech and its loose association).

[Seto Kaiba]

I don't think its accurate to describe the Alpha as emphasizing air-ground, its main weapons are all multi-mode even missiles.

I disagree… given that the Alpha “fighter” is repeatedly shown to perform quite poorly in air-to-air combat throughout the series, it has no operational versatility to speak of, it’s designed to work in tandem with a light bomber, and its armaments are exclusively light, visual-range weaponry. The Alpha’s armed, and fights, like an attack helicopter most of the time. It hangs out at low altitudes - just a few hundred meters above the ground most of the time - and is engaging lightly armored fighting “vehicles” (Invid mecha) on the ground or at lower or at-best comparable altitudes.

Hell, the Alpha was built for a military branch that specializes in planetary assault operations and was frequently attached (literally) to assault landers as support for the ground troops they tried to land on enemy soil.

Every time the Alpha tries to operate as an air-to-air fighter, we see it fail miserably. It’s terrible at dogfighting. They get wiped in the first and last episodes of the New Generation, in Prelude, and in RTSC. Even Scott’s merry band only achieves its best results when it’s fighting with its Alphas either hovering stationary or on the ground directly. Its armaments are unsuitable for a multirole operating profile, it has no ability to take any other weapons that might let it fight more effectively against enemy aircraft like longer-ranged missiles, it has no ability to employ bombs, and it’s so slow and unwieldy that it’s a very poor dogfighter. It’s a terrible design for practically every fighter role. It’s only suited for attacker roles.

(I can only assume that the reason that it’s insistently referred to as the “Alpha fighter” is the same kind of deliberately misleading naming that was used by the F-117, which really should’ve been A-117, but the Air Force deliberately misdesignated in the hopes of attracting more and better pilots.)

The Alpha is multi-role, the Macross-ization of the Alpha in TSC is much more limited than you think.

If the Alpha is multi-role, then it is beyond any doubt the worst multirole fighter ever constructed in the entire history of humanity. It lacks the speed, performance, and long-ranged weapons to serve as an effective interceptor. It lacks the speed, perfrmance, and multi-range weapons that are necessary to serve as an effective air superiority fighter. It lacks the maneuverability to be an effective dogfighter. It’s not capable of mounting bombs of any stripe, so it can’t operate as a light bomber. That leaves pretty much JUST the one role it comparatively shines in: that of the CAS attack plane.

fDana strikes me as coming from an AU and not Prime, she's a VF pilot in Remix #1. Of course fDana could have retrained post TRM saga, but AFAIK Dana has only every been a VHT pilot, even in Prelude we don't know what mecha she would be assigned (UEEF VHT, Cyclone, Silverback, etc).

RTSC-era Dana had over a decade to retrain… and since the VHT was the first vehicle of its kind in the Masters Saga, odds are she was trained on VFs to begin with to get her used to the way a transforming mecha handles. The UEEF doesn’t use hovertanks, so they wouldn’t have had any use for someone whose only qualification was as a hovertank pilot.

Future!Dana was from the previous iteration of the timeline in the Titan Comics Robotech series. Not the same timeline as the TV series, but one similar enough that she’s familiar with pretty much everything that’s going on.

Robotech is definitely in the multi-verse aspect (it has to because of Revel Robotech and its loose association).

No, unless the existence of that multiverse is acknowledged officially what you have is just the divide between canon and non-canon… like the non-canon “Expanded Universe” materials of other franchises like Star Trek or Star Wars.

In this case, we have things which are officially Robotech (the animated works, and directly connected tie-ins acknowledged as canon like the DC/Wildstorm comics), and things which are Robotech in name only (the old comics, novels, games, etc.).

[jaymz]

Multi-role Fighter

"Multi role fighters as the name suggests excels at more than one role. F/A 18 is a multi role fighter. The F stands for fighter, while the A stands for attack. The aircraft is used as an air to air attacker, as support for ground troops and as well as an interceptor."

The only thing it does at even acceptable levels is Troops support......which works versus The Masters and the Invid but would be suicidal against the Zentraedi in my opinion.

Just watching the series makes you scratch your head as to HOW this became the mainstay for 20 years.....(granted I rewrote my own stats to keep it as a "better" fighter but that is just keep Robotech as Robotech and even then I have it that it was for other reasons rather than performance as to why it why it beat out the YF-4 and my iteration of the VF-X-5)

[xunk16]

Robotech is definitely in the multi-verse aspect (it has to because of Revel Robotech and its loose association).

No, unless the existence of that multiverse is acknowledged officially what you have is just the divide between canon and non-canon… like the non-canon “Expanded Universe” materials of other franchises like Star Trek or Star Wars.

In this case, we have things which are officially Robotech (the animated works, and directly connected tie-ins acknowledged as canon like the DC/Wildstorm comics), and things which are Robotech in name only (the old comics, novels, games, etc.).

What will you need in order to consider the multiverse as an officially accepted part of Robotech?
It was a reality in the RNU (though probably just being born out of Haydon), it was a reality in the old comics, it is certainly not excluded by the comic reboot / 2nd RPG, and it is once more included by Titan's iteration and Remix.
In fact, in recent talks (last year) HG and co. clearly stated that Event Horizon and Remix would draw from ALL previous material of Robotech in order to build their multi-verse. That's including RT-3000 (PV-113), a mutated T.R. Edwards which either makes the links to whatever version of the sentinels you choose (PV-66), and notably E.V.E. and Andrews which even brings back "The Untold Story" (PV-102).
They even gave Iteration codes to these Protoverse. (See aforementioned parenthesis.)
And we can quote the Regess of "Event Horizon" Titan #21 :

"Open the Shadow Portal. Cry havoc -- And commence the sack of all realities!"

Clearly, we are seeing a pattern here. One which was previously using the multiverse as a plot device native to RT, and now rejoining the long line of franchise trying to salvage ideas and expositions from their previous incarnations. Of course, we'll have to wait to see exactly what will be salvaged and how it will be used, but this seems to still follow the "law of multiversal constants".
Meaning that the laws of physics, and people, are mostly the same from one place to another.
Leading to different, but no so much, continuities of events.
Basically, for the writers, this means open season on anything they want to write about; as long as it stays near enough previous material of any sorts.
So while we yet not know the reach of what is in the RT multi-verse... it is acknowledged officially, and is used as a tool to save time by recuperating previous story arcs, designs and mechanics.

[Seto Kaiba]

"Multi role fighters as the name suggests excels at more than one role. F/A 18 is a multi role fighter. The F stands for fighter, while the A stands for attack. The aircraft is used as an air to air attacker, as support for ground troops and as well as an interceptor."

To qualify as a multi-role combat aircraft it doesn't even necessarily have to excel... it just has to have the technical capability and be reasonably competent at the role. For example, the US Navy had multiple variants of the F-14 Tomcat that were upgraded with ground attack capability but because they weren't very good at it they were still considered pure fighter aircraft. By contrast, the F/A-18 was conceived as more of an attacker but was passable enough at defending itself from other aircraft to be considered a true multi-role combat aircraft.

The only thing it does at even acceptable levels is Troops support... [...]

Yeah, the Alpha's problem is that it only really performs adequately in one very narrow role: Close Air Support.

The real irony is that it's not even a Fighter role, that's an Attacker role. It's not even suitable for other Attacker roles. Its lack of ability to carry bombs rules it out as a Tactical Bomber and combined with its low speed and low maneuverability make it unsuitable for use as an Air Interdictor. Its lack of long range ordnance capability means it's no good for Surface Attack either. Nobody really makes torpedo bombers anymore, but with no pylons the Alpha can't do that. It also doesn't seem to have any jamming equipment to speak of, so it'll never cut it as an Electronic Attacker either.

The Alpha's too slow, too unwieldy, and too lacking in armament versatility to be workable as an Air Superiority fighter or an Interceptor. It has no optional gear for electronic warfare so it couldn't fill any Forward Air Control or Reconnaissance roles.

If we were being REALLY generous we could maybe say it could qualify for a Cargo second role, if it used the cyclone bay.

[...]...which works versus The Masters and the Invid but would be suicidal against the Zentraedi in my opinion.

They never did get a chance to test it against the Masters, and there's a pretty strong argument to be made that it didn't actually work against the Invid at all.

Alpha "fighters" were used in three of humanity's five armed conflicts with the Invid... and humanity's record was 0 wins, 4 losses, and 1 draw due to outside interference. You could maybe call it 3 losses and 2 draws if you're being charitable. Two decades of attrition warfare against the Invid Regent in deep space only ended in a draw because the same third party (Edwards) backstabbed the other two at the behest of an uninvolved fourth party (the Haydonites). The 2nd Earth Reclamation Force was massacred in a hilariously one-sided fight in Earth's orbit, with only a handful of troops surviving and stranded on Earth. The 3rd Earth Reclamation Force was armed with shadow technology and got stalemated until their losses mounted so high they admitted defeat and launched their last-ditch punitive measure that was so insane and self-destructive that the Regess felt compelled to save them from themselves while leaving of her own volition.

Just watching the series makes you scratch your head as to HOW this became the mainstay for 20 years.....(granted I rewrote my own stats to keep it as a "better" fighter but that is just keep Robotech as Robotech and even then I have it that it was for other reasons rather than performance as to why it why it beat out the YF-4 and my iteration of the VF-X-5)

That would seem to be where Titan Comics is going with this. The Alpha is such an obviously terrible choice for the role it's supposedly filling that any rational examination is sufficient to throw its flaws into sharp relief. It had to be somebody's pet project...

[jaymz]

Ok to be clear my previous post was essentially to agree with you in the first place....

[Seto Kaiba]

What will you need in order to consider the multiverse as an officially accepted part of Robotech?

Nothing less than an official statement from the Harmony Gold Robotech creative director.

It was a reality in the RNU (though probably just being born out of Haydon), it was a reality in the old comics, it is certainly not excluded by the comic reboot / 2nd RPG, and it is once more included by Titan's iteration and Remix.

To be brutally frank, it was one of the things that made the McKinney take on Sentinels near-universally loathed and the awful old comics cribbing that bad idea endeared them to nobody. It was all explicitly tossed along with all of that material in Harmony Gold's 2001 reboot of Robotech which wrote out all of the licensee-created problems and magical nonsense. What Titan is doing is a good deal different from what'd been done previously, but there's no indication that Harmony Gold considers Titan's comic part of the official setting either.

In fact, in recent talks (last year) HG and co. clearly stated that Event Horizon and Remix would draw from ALL previous material of Robotech in order to build their multi-verse.

When they say "all previous material", HG's definition of "all" and your definition of "all" are dramatically different.

Titan Comics only referenced material from the Robotech animated continuity... and even then, it was mostly a short-lived gimmicky bit of fanservice that didn't even reference all of the animated Robotech works. The only parts that stuck around were from the original TV series, and even that was pretty limited because Titan is making a fairly concerted effort to get away from the plot of existing Robotech works. (Presumably they also know that references to some parts have to be kept low-key, because HG no longer has rights to some of it like Untold Story.

Clearly, we are seeing a pattern here. One which was previously using the multiverse as a plot device native to RT, and now rejoining the long line of franchise trying to salvage ideas and expositions from their previous incarnations.

What's happening here is actually the opposite of your conclusion... Titan's using this gimmicky plot idea to distance itself from previous Robotech incarnations, not to bring things from previous Robotech works into itself. They're using their self-proclaimed alternate timeline status as a shield against Robotech fans whining about all the sacred cows they're chopping up for burgers while they try to tell an original story instead of just retreading old ground.

[ShadowLogan]

I disagree… given that the Alpha “fighter” is repeatedly shown to perform quite poorly in air-to-air combat throughout the serie

I'm not sure we are watching the same show. I'd be hesitant to rate performance on the red-shirts since they aren't the focus of the story (they are meant to look bad and don't always bring out the full potential of a design). I mean if we rate the mecha pilot main character pilots, Rick and Co. trash the VF-1 far more often and to larger extent than Scott and Co trash the Alpha/Beta.

As I said the Alpha is multi-role, well really all VTs are multi-role when you get down to it. The variable nature of the design means each mode will excel in a different operational mode/style (Battloid for ground-ground, Guardian for air-ground, fighter for air-air/ground). Toss in the MULTI-ROLE missiles the Alpha uses (along with the VF-1 and Beta) to engage targets either in the air or on the ground successfully. If the Alpha has an emphasis on air-ground then it would not be packing 60 SRMs that could be used in either mode. I don't dispute the Alpha would benefit from the ability to use bombs and BVR missiles either (though I don't have a problem either with fan-rectoning them in since HG won't), but their lack of diversity in weapons doesn't mean the Alpha isn't multi-role since every weapon the Alpha utilizes is multi-role.

Then again the Alpha/Beta (& VF-1/Logan/AGAC) might not be the best platform to place BVR missiles on directly. The units just don't have the capacity of say a UEEF Phalanx Destroid or a ship platform (Garfish, Horizon, Ikazuchi, etc). Not fair to compare them to a ship platform, but we know the Garfish has them and can use them for anti-mecha use so in theory you could field one ship to act as magazine/launcher with the (optional mode for) targeting/firing command being remoted in from the fighter giving the fighter a "pocket of holding" so it doesn't have to contend with conventional payload limits.

They get wiped in the first and last episodes of the New Generation, in Prelude, and in RTSC.

I wouldn't count any of these as evidence of poor air-air combat:
-Prelude as the main enemies are Shadow Equipped (no sensors/computer assist), what it shows is the pilots aren't trained (or strongly emphasized) for WWI/WWII-style seat-of-pants-dog-fighting (TSC suggests this during SSF briefing of Skull)
-TSC is like both Prelude and Ep84-5
-Ep84-5 they do poorly due to shear numbers though (along with a dose of poor strategy/tactics)
-Ep61 they don't get wiped out from combat itself, but re-entry conditions (in GCM its Inbit tampering with the atmosphere, which HG might crib from the OSM for RT or go with the implied chosen re-entry trajectory or both).

We see air-air kills in numerous episodes by Scott or Co. (who tend to favor their guns over missiles unlike Scott): Ep64, 66, 70, 74, 76, 82, 83 all come to mind (and I'm not counting Ep61 or 84) and I'm sure I might be missing a few using the VFs. Air combat in the bulk of NG takes place close to the ground because they have to protect/support ground assets for the most part (or because that's where the enemy is like in Ep82), and short-range combat might be required due to small size or ECM (intentional or not, we know Invid disrupt broadcasts).

RTSC-era Dana had over a decade to retrain… and since the VHT was the first vehicle of its kind in the Masters Saga, odds are she was trained on VFs to begin with to get her used to the way a transforming mecha handles. The UEEF doesn’t use hovertanks, so they wouldn’t have had any use for someone whose only qualification was as a hovertank pilot.

I agree some retraining is possible given she has almost a decade and a half, but there is no way to know what she was assigned. There are indications though the UEEF has VHTs (or might have them in the past), but other ground options exist.

I don't see teaching VHT pilots how to fly a fighter jet is an introductory thing, by the mid to late 2010s I would think the UEDF would have some type of dedicated introductory trainer(s) relevant to given design or use simulators before letting them get in the real thing.

In this case, we have things which are officially Robotech (the animated works, and directly connected tie-ins acknowledged as canon like the DC/Wildstorm comics), and things which are Robotech in name only (the old comics, novels, games, etc.).

Robotech in name only amounts to AU officially for all practical purposes since officially it is not part of the canon universe (or Titan's universe) makes it an AU by default, which means multi-verse since not all "name only" settings are compatible.

Just watching the series makes you scratch your head as to HOW this became the mainstay for 20 years....

Well in the OSM it hasn't been around for 20years technically, we only have a ~30year life* due to poorly thought out actions by HG both before and after the reset in 2001-ish. Invid Evolution has occurred at a rapid pace per dialogue in Invasion, which might explain the results in the show (but not inclusion of other media which imply a more static/slower pace) if it is only recently (2038-ish) that the Invid have evolved enough to make the UEEF designs seem questionable....

*2015-2044 really puts it at closer to 30 years for the design, but over 20 year service life since it is ready for the SDF-3 departure in 2022 (OVA). It might also be worth considering that it wasn't the only fighter in the UEEF inventory during the 2020s and 2030s that we know of, but it might have been the "best" of them at dealing with the Invid. We know the Conbat really isn't designed for Invid fighting without support (Invasion), and no real information exists to evaluate the Carpenter Fighter (it wasn't shown dealing with bioroids IIRC) or Wolf Fighter (static image). That really leaves the Alpha, Beta (late entry), and possibly ASC VF designs (either stock model or UEEF optimized version) and old non-replaceable VF-1s.

[Seto Kaiba]

I'm not sure we are watching the same show. I'd be hesitant to rate performance on the red-shirts since they aren't the focus of the story (they are meant to look bad and don't always bring out the full potential of a design).

What I’m looking at is both how the aircraft performs with main characters aboard and its overall performance.

I mean if we rate the mecha pilot main character pilots, Rick and Co. trash the VF-1 far more often and to larger extent than Scott and Co trash the Alpha/Beta.

This is a false equivalency… Rick and the rest of Skull squadron are fighting on the front lines of the war with the Zentradi, who are a much more capable and deadly opponent than the Invid are or could ever hope to be. Scott’s band of irregulars aren’t even fighting on the front lines of their war against the much less threatening Invid, they’re well behind enemy lines potting away at the token Invid patrol forces who police human settlements. Of course Scott’s group won’t suffer as much combat damage fighting the space lobster Five-O as their predecessors did fighting a war with the biggest, deadliest army in galactic history.

As I said the Alpha is multi-role, [...]

To be a multi-role combat aircraft, the aircraft has to actually be good at what it does. The Alpha is only good at one very specific attacker role: close air support. It’s rubbish in air-to-air combat, and fighting on the ground doesn’t really count towards being a multi-role aircraft.

Toss in the MULTI-ROLE missiles the Alpha uses (along with the VF-1 and Beta) to engage targets either in the air or on the ground successfully. If the Alpha has an emphasis on air-ground then it would not be packing 60 SRMs that could be used in either mode.

It’s basically armed exactly like an attack helicopter, just with one set of missiles that fill both the anti-helicopter and anti-tank roles. You yourself have pointed out that the missiles have a rather lamentable performance level against Invid who are actually flying.

[...] but their lack of diversity in weapons doesn't mean the Alpha isn't multi-role since every weapon the Alpha utilizes is multi-role.

Yeah, it kinda does… because most of those roles kind of depend on having the ability to equip certain types of weapons in certain types of conditions.

I wouldn't count any of these as evidence of poor air-air combat:
-Prelude as the main enemies are Shadow Equipped (no sensors/computer assist), what it shows is the pilots aren't trained (or strongly emphasized) for WWI/WWII-style seat-of-pants-dog-fighting (TSC suggests this during SSF briefing of Skull)
-TSC is like both Prelude and Ep84-5
-Ep84-5 they do poorly due to shear numbers though (along with a dose of poor strategy/tactics)
-Ep61 they don't get wiped out from combat itself, but re-entry conditions (in GCM its Inbit tampering with the atmosphere, which HG might crib from the OSM for RT or go with the implied chosen re-entry trajectory or both).

Unfortunately, they’re all excellent examples.

In Prelude, a single squadron of Shadow fighters is able to strike the UEEF with impunity despite the UEEF having overwhelming numerical superiority. We’re talking hundreds to one… and that one rebel squadron completely punks them. Later on, when the SDF-3 is launching its surprise attack on Optera, they’ve got to have at least ten to one numerical superiority and they’re STILL struggling against Ghost squadron.

In Ep84-85, the UEEF has the advantage of being invisible to the Invid thanks to shadow stealth technology and STILL get stalemated to the point where their losses mount so high that they are forced to admit defeat and launch their contingency plan to destroy Earth. They go into the fight with what should be an overwhelming advantage and STILL suffer such massive losses that the battle is effectively won by the Invid. The same is true for RTSC, which just shows us a lot more detail of the UEEF getting stomped on by the Invid despite being invisible to them.

In Ep61, the UEEF 2nd ERF suffers overwhelming losses BEFORE a botched reentry causes a lot of the survivors to be wiped out while attempting to flee from the crushing defeat they’d just suffered.

I agree some retraining is possible given she has almost a decade and a half, but there is no way to know what she was assigned. There are indications though the UEEF has VHTs (or might have them in the past), but other ground options exist.

Even if she wasn’t retrained as a fighter pilot, which would have been the obvious thing since she’s supposedly got abandonment issues and both of her parents were ace fighter pilots, the mere fact that she was stationed at the #1 deep space muster point for UEEF forces would’ve meant she had ample opportunity to learn about all of the Alpha’s deficiencies even if she was just shuffling paperwork at the shipyards.

I don't see teaching VHT pilots how to fly a fighter jet is an introductory thing, by the mid to late 2010s I would think the UEDF would have some type of dedicated introductory trainer(s) relevant to given design or use simulators before letting them get in the real thing.

Exactly when the Hovertank was actually introduced is unclear in canon, but it’s fairly common in the real world to train on a different vehicle from the one you’ll end up operating due to a lack of dedicated trainers or simply greater ease of operation for students who are just learning how to handle a vehicle.

Robotech in name only amounts to AU officially for all practical purposes since officially it is not part of the canon universe (or Titan's universe) makes it an AU by default, which means multi-verse since not all "name only" settings are compatible.

No, that’s not how it works. If it’s not a part of the official setting, then it’s just non-canon unless the people responsible for the official continuity explicitly state that that body of work constitutes an official alternate universe continuity or continuities. Being declared non-canon doesn’t make the non-canon work an AU by default, it just makes it non-canon and therefore irrelevant.

For instance:

• The Macross II: Lovers Again OVA and its two prequel games are an official AU as per an official statement from Big West, but works outside that AU and the official main continuity are all non-canon even if they were produced concurrently with, adapting, or spinning off from one of its official stories. FamilySoft’s trilogy of Macross games are non-canon despite being made at the same time as official games like Macross 2036 or Eternal Love Song. Manga such as 7th Chord or the Viz-produced Micron Conspiracy are similarly non-canon despite spinning off of official stories.
• Star Trek’s “prime universe” and the handful of alternate timelines to appear in the series are accompanied by two recognized alternate universes: the so-called Kelvin timeline which the J.J. Abrams soft reboot was lumped into and the Relaunch novelverse timeline. All of the other novels, the comics, the video games, etc. are all non-canon.
• When Disney took over Star Wars, the old EU materials were all declared non-canon and lumped under the “Legends” banner. Anything in them didn’t happen unless recycled for one of the new EU’s works. They were not declared an alternate universe, so their content is simply a mess of discarded stories with no bearing on the setting anymore.

Well in the OSM it hasn't been around for 20years technically, we only have a ~30year life* due to poorly thought out actions by HG both before and after the reset in 2001-ish.

To be fair, it’s not like they had a choice. When they were developing Robotech II, they were well aware that they could not use the VF-1 Valkyrie or any Macross designs, and they didn’t want to use Southern Cross designs because general audiences didn’t like that saga, so the only port in that storm was the New Generation designs. They didn’t have the money to bring in a proper mechanical or character designer from an established studio like Studio Nue or Artland, so everything was done in house at Tatsunoko as cheaply as possible to preserve the budget for actual production.

It’s no more poorly thought-out than Robotech itself.

Invid Evolution has occurred at a rapid pace per dialogue in Invasion, which might explain the results in the show (but not inclusion of other media which imply a more static/slower pace) if it is only recently (2038-ish) that the Invid have evolved enough to make the UEEF designs seem questionable....

But that’s not borne out by other materials, which have consistently shown that Invid evolution’s not really advancing at all until the Regess sets up shop on Earth and doesn’t really take off until late in the series.

[ShadowLogan]

What I’m looking at is both how the aircraft performs with main characters aboard and its overall performance.

Which is what I am looking at to. This would be a lot easier though if they engaged a common target, but we don't have that.

ON SCREEN the characters with the higher kill counts are non-Macross ones. ON SCREEN the VF-1 suffers higher casualties (by dialogue is another matter). Both of which are the basis for forming our impressions on effectiveness of such units.

To be a multi-role combat aircraft, the aircraft has to actually be good at what it does. The Alpha is only good at one very specific attacker role: close air support. It’s rubbish in air-to-air combat, and fighting on the ground doesn’t really count towards being a multi-role aircraft.

If we where talking about a conventional aircraft in Robotech I would agree this definition, but Veritechs by their nature muck this up. Their multi-mode nature has each mode excelling compared to the other in a given role. The Fighter Mode is going to be better at air-air than its Guardian or Battloid Mode counter parts, which are better respectively in air-ground or ground-ground respectively.

eah, it kinda does… because most of those roles kind of depend on having the ability to equip certain types of weapons in certain types of conditions.

If we are talking about a conventional real world system I would agree, but systems designed in the real world tend to be purpose built for either Air-Air or Air-Ground or Ground-Air or Ground-Ground when it comes to missiles. When you have missiles this versatile it doesn't seem necessary to require a more diverse set of options. That doesn't mean the Alpha couldn't benefit from having a diverse set of options.

In Prelude, a single squadron of Shadow fighters is able to strike the UEEF with impunity despite the UEEF having overwhelming numerical superiority. We’re talking hundreds to one… and that one rebel squadron completely punks them. Later on, when the SDF-3 is launching its surprise attack on Optera, they’ve got to have at least ten to one numerical superiority and they’re STILL struggling against Ghost squadron.

This is more of a training aspect rather than a technical capability. The UEEF pilots are overly reliant on their avionics to find and lock-on to the enemy that use of WWI/WWII style dogfighting techniques seems to largely be uknown. Now UEDF pilots might not be as reliant from a training perspective, but the Alpha and the VF-1 would both find their active sensors in the same bind in this situation thanks to TSC-expansion of the Shadow Device effects.

In Ep84-85, the UEEF has the advantage of being invisible to the Invid thanks to shadow stealth technology and STILL get stalemated to the point where their losses mount so high that they are forced to admit defeat and launch their contingency plan to destroy Earth. They go into the fight with what should be an overwhelming advantage and STILL suffer such massive losses that the battle is effectively won by the Invid. The same is true for RTSC, which just shows us a lot more detail of the UEEF getting stomped on by the Invid despite being invisible to them.

While they might be invisible to Protoculture Sensors of the Invid they are not truely invisible to the Invid, IF we take Invid POV shots at face value as what the pilot sees in the animation. We know they could still "see" the Shadow Fighters, they just don't have the glow-ie spots to help the Invid know where you are or set them off.

The UEEF has an advantage, but it isn't the trump card they thought it would be especially since the Invid would have seen in before (Ep83 if not before) and could assume the UEEF has more and respond with quickest option available to them: putting more eyes in the sky. It also doesn't help that the UEEF didn't leverage the technology for maximum effect.

In Ep61, the UEEF 2nd ERF suffers overwhelming losses BEFORE a botched reentry causes a lot of the survivors to be wiped out while attempting to flee from the crushing defeat they’d just suffered.

I don't know if I'd consider the shown/implied losses before retentry to be overwhelming. There are instances of entire VF-1 squadrons getting wiped out in dialogue.

Exactly when the Hovertank was actually introduced is unclear in canon, but it’s fairly common in the real world to train on a different vehicle from the one you’ll end up operating due to a lack of dedicated trainers or simply greater ease of operation for students who are just learning how to handle a vehicle.

I agree its common to train on different vehicles, but those vehicles tend to be done in a logical progression. Learning to pilot a jet fighter (with its precursor vehicles) to learn to operate a hovercraft does not seem like a logical progression, even if both are veritechs.

Being declared non-canon doesn’t make the non-canon work an AU by default, it just makes it non-canon and therefore irrelevant.

I disagree, if it isn't part of a given canon-universe then it would be by definition an alternate universe one that may or may not be canon (essentially we have canon universe, canon alternate universe ((titan)), and non-canon alternate universes for respective properties). FAN-FICTION I would agree would not fit this, only licensed products.

They didn’t have the money to bring in a proper mechanical or character designer from an established studio like Studio Nue or Artland, so everything was done in house at Tatsunoko as cheaply as possible to preserve the budget for actual production.

Yet they managed to design how many new mecha for Sentinels (at least ~20 IINM), some of which transformed? Not to mention they could have reused some of the early concepts from GCM/NG to achieve the same thing without creating continuity problems.

But that’s not borne out by other materials, which have consistently shown that Invid evolution’s not really advancing at all until the Regess sets up shop on Earth and doesn’t really take off until late in the series.

I agree Invasion isn't borne out by other materials, but it is worth considering. If early Invid the UEEF encounters use the same Scout/Trooper designs, but the pilot is different biologically gaining better and better mental prowess (its sort of like playing people of different ages or skill levels in the same game, you sort of notice the difference).

[Seto Kaiba]

Which is what I am looking at to. This would be a lot easier though if they engaged a common target, but we don't have that.

ON SCREEN the characters with the higher kill counts are non-Macross ones. ON SCREEN the VF-1 suffers higher casualties (by dialogue is another matter). Both of which are the basis for forming our impressions on effectiveness of such units.

Eh… a big part of the problem here is that you’re forming your impressions from what is, by any rational standard, an apples-and-oranges comparison. Not even for the reason you think it may be, but for a completely different reason you keep overlooking.

Specifically, not only are the Earth forces in the latter two sagas fighting hostiles that are a great deal less capable than the Zentradi on the battlefield… you’re trying to draw your conclusions on what is explicitly the atypical performance of the main characters of those sagas. This goes well beyond simple “plot armor”. The 15th ATAC in the Masters Saga is explicitly acknowledged as a unit that’s consistently and inexplicably achieving well above the level of every other unit, and as a result they end up as the brass’s go-to unit for special missions. Scott’s band of irregulars are operating under highly atypical conditions where the difficulty level’s a lot lower. They’re fighting behind enemy lines, against tiny groups of Invid who patrol the Earth’s human-inhabited regions who aren’t expecting and generally aren’t prepared for heavily armed resistance. Even then, it’s acknowledged that they’re out there achieving WAY more than the average resistance group, so not only are they fighting the Invid Five-O instead of the Invid’s real military, they’re also doing a LOT better than the average group trying.

The Macross Saga doesn’t have this problem, and Skull squadron is never identified in-series as elite or as achieving better results in combat than other squadrons.

So, essentially, what you’re doing here is trying to compare the average performance of the VF-1 in actual battlefield conditions against the highly atypical, not-under-actual-battlefield-conditions, performance of the Alpha.

If we just count the ships we see onscreen, more Alphas are destroyed in the first episode of the New Generation than there are VF-1s destroyed onscreen or off in the entire Macross Saga by a SIGNIFICANT margin. If you look at the OSM fleet composition for that scene, we’re talking the Alpha’s losses in that one scene totalling ten times more aircraft than the SDF-1 even carried… never mind that the Alpha’s loss rate in combat is also orders of magnitude higher than the VF-1 in terms of the percentage of aircraft deployed vs. lost on any given sortie.

If we where talking about a conventional aircraft in Robotech I would agree this definition, but Veritechs by their nature muck this up. Their multi-mode nature has each mode excelling compared to the other in a given role.

Maybe the VF-1… but the others don’t appreciably change performance between modes, they just free up a few more missiles or maybe one extra gun. The Alpha performs poorly no matter what mode it’s in.

When you have missiles this versatile it doesn't seem necessary to require a more diverse set of options. That doesn't mean the Alpha couldn't benefit from having a diverse set of options.

When you have missiles that ineffective, it doesn’t seem necessary to produce the aircraft that’s carrying them when you could simply produce coffins with a much smaller expenditure of money and resources… which is kind of the point.

This is more of a training aspect rather than a technical capability. The UEEF pilots are overly reliant on their avionics to find and lock-on to the enemy that use of WWI/WWII style dogfighting techniques seems to largely be uknown.

False. We see dogfighting going on even in the series, so these skills are clearly still taught.

Your assertion that they’re overdependent on avionics is just manifestly silly. These are jets, and armed with guided missiles and off-axis guns. Dead reckoning by eyeball is NOT VIABLE at the kind of speeds we’re talking about, or even well below them. That’s why mechanically-assisted aiming systems were invented back in the 1930s, and were rapidly introduced in combat aircraft during World War II. Firing guided missiles without a lock is no better than firing a rocket, and it may actually be worse since the guidance system is unprogrammed and thus may not even turn the safety off on the warhead. At the speeds involved, your chances of hitting anything that way are virtually zero.

The problem is not one of training, it’s technological… the UEEF’s shortsightedness made them entirely dependent on radar-guided munitions, which are useless if the enemy has a low or zero radar cross-section.

Now UEDF pilots might not be as reliant from a training perspective, but the Alpha and the VF-1 would both find their active sensors in the same bind in this situation thanks to TSC-expansion of the Shadow Device effects.

Not really, the VF-1’s weapons supported optical-only computer-assisted aiming and guidance…

While they might be invisible to Protoculture Sensors of the Invid they are not truely invisible to the Invid, IF we take Invid POV shots at face value as what the pilot sees in the animation. We know they could still "see" the Shadow Fighters, they just don't have the glow-ie spots to help the Invid know where you are or set them off.

This is rather at odds with the end of the New Generation, wherein the Invid at Reflex Point are seemingly unable to even see the Shadow Drones wreaking havoc in the hive.

I don't know if I'd consider the shown/implied losses before retentry to be overwhelming. There are instances of entire VF-1 squadrons getting wiped out in dialogue.

… the hell? The fleet is indicated to have been wiped out, and Scott is one of the few people to survive long enough to make planetfall. That’s the textbook definition of overwhelming losses...

I disagree, if it isn't part of a given canon-universe then it would be by definition an alternate universe one that may or may not be canon (essentially we have canon universe, canon alternate universe ((titan)), and non-canon alternate universes for respective properties). FAN-FICTION I would agree would not fit this, only licensed products.

Sorry, but in this case disagreeing literally just means you’re denying reality. You are wrong.

If it’s not recognized officially as an AU, then it’s just non-canon. That’s the way it works in pretty much every franchise, and HG was quite open about the non-canon materials being non-canon and has NEVER treated them as an AU.

Yet they managed to design how many new mecha for Sentinels (at least ~20 IINM), some of which transformed? Not to mention they could have reused some of the early concepts from GCM/NG to achieve the same thing without creating continuity problems.

They created a handful of new designs on the cheap, which were mostly attempts to redesign Macross designs in ways they felt would be “different enough” from their Macross roots to not incur a lawsuit... same as what they did with the character designs. HG, of course, now looks back on that with the benefit of experience and quietly buried the lot because they know they’d never get away with it if Big West noticed. The rest were terrible generic nonsense like that robot unicorn chariot, or a generic delta-wing plane that only had a “guardian” mode and may have been a ripoff of the Bronco II from Orguss.

I agree Invasion isn't borne out by other materials, but it is worth considering.

If it’s inconsistent with everything else, then it probably ISN’T worth considering.

If early Invid the UEEF encounters use the same Scout/Trooper designs, but the pilot is different biologically gaining better and better mental prowess (its sort of like playing people of different ages or skill levels in the same game, you sort of notice the difference).

That’s not how Invid evolution works in the series, though… they don’t do slow evolution, it’s all by leaps and bounds with improved performance coming with radical changes in form.

[xunk16]

I disagree, if it isn't part of a given canon-universe then it would be by definition an alternate universe one that may or may not be canon (essentially we have canon universe, canon alternate universe ((titan)), and non-canon alternate universes for respective properties). FAN-FICTION I would agree would not fit this, only licensed products.

Sorry, but in this case disagreeing literally just means you’re denying reality. You are wrong.

If it’s not recognized officially as an AU, then it’s just non-canon. That’s the way it works in pretty much every franchise, and HG was quite open about the non-canon materials being non-canon and has NEVER treated them as an AU.

For what it's worth, I'm with ShadowLogan on this one. That is pretty much how many reboots, re-imaginings and remakes are researched and rebuilt from the ground up. Maybe not taking literally every abandoned aspect of a franchise, but at least acknowledging them in order to fuel nods, cameos and "Easter eggs" for older fans. Some deleted scenes often leads up to entirely new story arcs. Or, at least, to keep the feel and theme of the original so as to not produce a totally new product not deserving of the title.
What he is describing is also the first rule of adapting an artistic work.
"Everything is new, recycle as much as you can."

Even works that begins with the avowed goal to destroy such a multiverse, in order to create an entirely new continuity, often re-include the possibility later to save on exposition. Depending on the reactions of the audience, this is more or less noticeable. IDW's first Transformers' continuity is a good example of this, with the characters reluctantly acknowledging the discovery of another universe later in the series, so as to play with the mythologies of the 13 Primes, Primus and Unicron. (Previously said as non-existent by the writers.)
In fact, the same can be said of Beast Wars, which was created in the intent of being a separate product, then ended so close to OSM, in techno-babel, that Hasbro asked them to link it to G1.

Plus... we're still talking in the context of an RPG here. So what happens at a table, if it comes even close to that level of respect to the original, is pretty impressive. Especially considering all the tempering that have been reportedly done to "rule and stats as written" by members of this forum.

*Returns to the shadows to follow the debate...*

[jaymz]

That only applies IF they actually take something from it.

Star Wars has Legends and does not treat it as an AU at all but they do pull from it into canon. Until they pull from it, non-canon is non-canon not an AU

[Seto Kaiba]

That is pretty much how many reboots, re-imaginings and remakes are researched and rebuilt from the ground up. Maybe not taking literally every abandoned aspect of a franchise, but at least acknowledging them in order to fuel nods, cameos and "Easter eggs" for older fans. [...]

That doesn't make the material being supplanted by the reboot/remake/reimagining canon... what they borrow is transplanted into a new context, a new significance in a different story and is at most only superficially connected to what existed before they decided to start over. It is, for all practical intents and purposes, something new that only vaguely resembles a thing that existed before in the decanonized body of work. It also doesn't make the decanonized body of work an alternate universe either.

Depending on the reactions of the audience, this is more or less noticeable. IDW's first Transformers' continuity is a good example of this, with the characters reluctantly acknowledging the discovery of another universe later in the series, so as to play with the mythologies of the 13 Primes, Primus and Unicron. (Previously said as non-existent by the writers.)
In fact, the same can be said of Beast Wars, which was created in the intent of being a separate product, then ended so close to OSM, in techno-babel, that Hasbro asked them to link it to G1.

That's not even an example of what you're talking about... IDW's comics were, like the comics under previous publishers, handled as a separate continuity from that of the animated series from the get go. They never decanonized the animated series. (Also, your claim about Beast Wars is false. The toy line that predated the CGI series was originally promoted as a direct sequel to Gen 2, with Optimus Primal and the T-Rex Megatron being new forms of the original Optimus Prime and Megatron. All the series did was rework that direct connection when the setting was changed to a primitive planet in the "future" that was later revealed to be Earth in the ancient past.)

Plus... we're still talking in the context of an RPG here. So what happens at a table, if it comes even close to that level of respect to the original, is pretty impressive. Especially considering all the tempering that have been reportedly done to "rule and stats as written" by members of this forum.

Only partly... we're also looking at this from the official setting's context, esp. given that RT2E's raison d'etre was to reflect the official setting as closely as possible for as long as that editorial intent lasted at HG.

That only applies IF they actually take something from it.

Star Wars has Legends and does not treat it as an AU at all but they do pull from it into canon. Until they pull from it, non-canon is non-canon not an AU

Even then, it still doesn't apply in 99.999999% of cases... because they're not rescuing entire stories from the decanonized materials. They're just rescuing tidbits. They might rescue a character or a particular macguffin from the rubbish bin of decanonization, but in practically every instance the original context of that character or object remains non-canon and they're given a new backstory and a new and different significance. Thrawn is a perfect example of that. He got rescued from the now non-canon Legends material, but the story he was created for and featured in was left non-canon and he was reintroduced to canon in a greatly different context. No Joruus C'Baoth, no new clone army or Spartii cloning cylinders, the New Republic capital isn't even on Coruscant, etc.

[ShadowLogan]

If we just count the ships we see onscreen, more Alphas are destroyed in the first episode of the New Generation than there are VF-1s destroyed onscreen or off in the entire Macross Saga by a SIGNIFICANT margin

If the Alpha was performing so poorly you'd think the UEEF would have replaced it. We know they can make changes to the Alpha (-Z and Shadow) and they revisited the Beta, and they have the time (~14years) and resources to design new Starships (Ark Angel, Shimikaze) and new mecha (the VR-05x series, Bioroid Interceptor). The fact the UEEF stuck with the design for so long either shows they are masochists or the design was more successful out in space than operations at Earth suggest.

The Macross Saga doesn’t have this problem, and Skull squadron is never identified in-series as elite or as achieving better results in combat than other squadrons.

Not true, Skull Squadron does achieve better results in combat than other squadrons since other squadrons get wiped out Ep6 for example. Skull might not be "elite", but they certainly do better than other squadrons that get wiped out or suffer heavy casualties.

the UEEF’s shortsightedness made them entirely dependent on radar-guided munitions, which are useless if the enemy has a low or zero radar cross-section.

Given the UEEF troubles in dealing with Ghost Squadron (both Grant and SDF-3), it doesn't appear the UEEF took the time to train the pilots to compensate for this blindspot who took part in this operation, otherwise they would have done far better.

They should also have had some training to deal with unreliable equipment (damaged/malfunctioning) or to deal with situations where some/all of the sensors are unreliable at best. Technology is only part of the situation here, people also are part of the situation. I don't blame the entire fiasco on the pilots, but some of the blame is on them for their apparent short sighted training and general lack of adaptability.

If it’s not recognized officially as an AU, then it’s just non-canon. That’s the way it works in pretty much every franchise, and HG was quite open about the non-canon materials being non-canon and has NEVER treated them as an AU.

I do not dispute that HG handles things this way, what I am saying though is FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES, not official purposes, they are AU since they are not part of the Canon-Universe, especially since non-canon properties do not result in a single universe (2E RPG uses one timeline and the 1E RPG uses another, so there is not 1 NON-CANON UNIVERSE but several).

In any case that disucssuion is really irrelevant, within the Titan Comics there IS a MULTI-VERSE in Remix#1 that is established. fDana isn't just from the Future, but an Alternate Dimension (pg3-4) and there is even some plot point about wanting to return fDana to her own Dimension (pg12 & 18). So it is clear we are dealing with a Multi-Verse, at least for the Titan Remix Comic (which is likely self-contained). fDana also is not frome Prime, but some other universe (she has a memroy of Miryia with blonde/brown hair, which leaves open the possibility that other things might be different from her universe like the Alpha's effectiveness). Remix#3 (@ end) reinforces the notion that a Multi-Verse exists for Remix's Universe Canon.

They created a handful of new designs on the cheap, which were mostly attempts to redesign Macross designs in ways they felt would be “different enough” from their Macross roots to not incur a lawsuit... same as what they did with the character designs. HG, of course, now looks back on that with the benefit of experience and quietly buried the lot because they know they’d never get away with it if Big West noticed. The rest were terrible generic nonsense like that robot unicorn chariot, or a generic delta-wing plane that only had a “guardian” mode and may have been a ripoff of the Bronco II from Orguss.

While they might be "nonsense" from your POV (Destroid/BPs are rip-offs), the 1/2-G and chariots (plural) did transform so even their cheap designers where capable of producing transforming designs (lack luster they might be).

If it’s inconsistent with everything else, then it probably ISN’T worth considering.

To an extent it isn't consistent, but that inconsistency is from out-dated material or as you put it non-canon (like the RPG). Within the Wildstorm comics and TSC/show it does seem somewhat consistent. We don't know what the Invid are like in the show pre-NG. Non-Canon sources sure, the Invid appear to be "static" still searching for the next evolutionary form (like they are doing on Earth before settling on human form). Wildstorm/TSC don't elborate on pre-human contact Invid designs or forms.

That’s not how Invid evolution works in the series, though… they don’t do slow evolution, it’s all by leaps and bounds with improved performance coming with radical changes in form.

The Invid in Invasion (#4 first page main story) "The first invid specimens that ve captured years ago vere little more than protoplasmic energy creatures in an embryonic state but more recent state-two Invid that ve have captured have been evolving towards a humanoid form." (this being 2038-40ish, and Invid contact starting in 2029-ish in the show) that would be leaps and bounds.

Evolution still is in leaps and bounds since they appear to use have adopted intermediate forms between "PPEC" and "Stage 2", I mean you can't have a Stage 2 without a Stage 1 and we know sometime after Stage 2 there is full humanoid (Corg/Sera/Ariel), this doesn't even consider possible "research dead ends" some Invid might assume or how these "Stage#" are identified or if they miss stuff. If the first Invid encountered are "PPEC" operating Scouts/Troopers, then evolutionary leaps to Stage 1 and Stage 2 might still use the same mecha but with a more biologically different pilot that is more capable. That doesn't exactly tract with biological/mecha use in the show per say, but we could be wrong in assuming each evolutionary Invid incarnation gets its own mecha type/types (given Invid Human gets an nt-B and VF).

[Seto Kaiba]

If the Alpha was performing so poorly you'd think the UEEF would have replaced it. We know they can make changes to the Alpha (-Z and Shadow) and they revisited the Beta, and they have the time (~14years) and resources to design new Starships (Ark Angel, Shimikaze) and new mecha (the VR-05x series, Bioroid Interceptor). The fact the UEEF stuck with the design for so long either shows they are masochists or the design was more successful out in space than operations at Earth suggest.

It's undeniably odd that the UEEF stuck with such an obviously flawed, underperforming design for as long as they did. When something like that happens in the real world - as it did in the case of the US's F-35 - it's usually because the program was the pet project of some senior bureaucrat who had a vested interest in its completion and/or a conflict of interest (e.g. bribery, lobbying dollars, or just owning stock in the manufacturer). I suppose in the UEEF's case it may also have been possible that they didn't have the resources to devote to new development until near the end of the war against the Invid Regent's forces. What little development we see from them in canon prior to that point is almost exclusively limited modification of existing platforms like the VF/A-6Z and Bioroid Interceptor.

Not true, Skull Squadron does achieve better results in combat than other squadrons since other squadrons get wiped out Ep6 for example. Skull might not be "elite", but they certainly do better than other squadrons that get wiped out or suffer heavy casualties.

Skull squadron is not explicitly identified as an elite unit or as performing better than average for a VF-1 squadron... and they do also sustain losses over the course of the series.

Of course, there is a problem with your interpretation given that the Macross Saga's dialog can't seem to settle on what term it's using as a replacement for the original dialog's "Platoon"... so those squadrons that are getting wiped out are, in all likelihood, not actually squadrons but rather 3-4 man teams of aircraft. (In short, you're accidentally/unintentionally exaggerating the VF-1's losses thanks to ambiguous language in HG's rewrite.)

Given the UEEF troubles in dealing with Ghost Squadron (both Grant and SDF-3), it doesn't appear the UEEF took the time to train the pilots to compensate for this blindspot who took part in this operation, otherwise they would have done far better.

That's not something you can train around. Aircraft speeds back in World War II were sufficient to make mechanically-assisted gunsights necessary to provide anything like accurate machine gun fire, and that's not an issue that would've gone away as aircraft speeds continued to increase over time. You can't train away the physical limitations of the human body. This is something that needed to have been corrected for technologically.

I do not dispute that HG handles things this way, [...]

Then the rest of your argument is moot... the facts are what they are. Non-canon properties do not belong to any universe, because their stories didn't happen.

It's like damnatio memoriae... as far as the official record is concerned, it simply never happened.

In any case that disucssuion is really irrelevant, within the Titan Comics there IS a MULTI-VERSE in Remix#1 that is established.

So far, there has been no indication that Harmony Gold considers Titan Comics's run canon either... so while Titan's take does include a very screwed up set of parallel universes created by a temporal paradox, it's kind of off in its own paradoxical bubble where the multiverse exists but only in the context of one specific universe. Overthinking it is a surefire one-way ticket to a painful headache.

While they might be "nonsense" from your POV (Destroid/BPs are rip-offs), the 1/2-G and chariots (plural) did transform so even their cheap designers where capable of producing transforming designs (lack luster they might be).

There's a world of difference in the skill level necessary to sketch out a rough draft of a design with minimal articulation or with no concept of how it's supposed to transform and delivering a completely realized transforming design ready that can be readily converted into toys or model kits. What Tatsunoko's artists did is pretty good for the hair shirt budget they had, but what they delivered was just rough drafts with no conception of how they were supposed to transform or the absolute bare minimum amount of articulation derived from copying pre-existing designs. They absolutely didn't have a budget or the skill set to create something like a toy-ready 3 mode VF design that could be used as a substitute for the series. It's apples and oranges.

Wildstorm/TSC don't elborate on pre-human contact Invid designs or forms.

But only the Regess was experimenting with evolution... and the Regent's forces are visibly identical to hers for the most part. That would support the notion that Invid evolution is still along similar lines to the New Generation's take.

The Invid in Invasion (#4 first page main story) "The first invid specimens that ve captured years ago vere little more than protoplasmic energy creatures in an embryonic state but more recent state-two Invid that ve have captured have been evolving towards a humanoid form." (this being 2038-40ish, and Invid contact starting in 2029-ish in the show) that would be leaps and bounds.

This is inconsistent with the series, which describes the Invid themselves as "protoplasmic" (they keep using that word, and do not know what it means) in the state we see them c.2042.

[ShadowLogan]

I suppose in the UEEF's case it may also have been possible that they didn't have the resources to devote to new development until near the end of the war against the Invid Regent's forces. What little development we see from them in canon prior to that point is almost exclusively limited modification of existing platforms like the VF/A-6Z and Bioroid Interceptor.

They devoted resources to develop the Beta by 2022 because they knew the Alpha had short comings and had 7 or so years with the resources to fix/replace it. As we've discussed adnausem over the years though there are things they could do to the Alpha to address its short comings, which is at the level of the VF/A-6Z/S/X so it would be possible. We know they also had the brain talent available to design new mecha. They had manufacturing capabilities to replace losses of both the 10th and 21st MD assaults along with the Sentinels campaign(s) and what ever else they ran into. We know they saw the need for new mecha (VR-5x, possibly VR-4x, -6Z/X/S, -7 to -9, BIF) and other vehicles (starships and ground vehicles like the Syncro-Cannon).

This is what leads me to think the Alpha, even with its short comings, was successful in operations and it is only Invid around the 2042-4 timeframe where its age/limits start to become issues. A Top of the line PC form 10years ago that could play a AAA game tile easily is probably going to struggle if not out right refuse to run with a modern AAA game title (assuming DRM isn't the issue).

That's not something you can train around. Aircraft speeds back in World War II were sufficient to make mechanically-assisted gunsights necessary to provide anything like accurate machine gun fire, and that's not an issue that would've gone away as aircraft speeds continued to increase over time. You can't train away the physical limitations of the human body. This is something that needed to have been corrected for technologically.

And they couldn't give the Alpha mechanical gunsights as a fall back or to fight Edward's Ghosts @ Tirol? In any case though some level of training is required even with a technology solution, and we know technology can fail so what is the UEEF training regimen cover when technology fails? That notion seems foreign to the stock pilots of the UEEF (given TSC), even though the UEEF had this presented with Edwards escape it was fixed in the intervening year (time between Edwards leaving Tirol and Grant's arrival at Optera) or later for TSC/Ep83-5.

Then the rest of your argument is moot... the facts are what they are. Non-canon properties do not belong to any universe, because their stories didn't happen.

In so far as relating to "canon" sure, but if we discussing a non-canon property that doesn't mean another non-canon or the canon property is valid. This is why I say for "practical purposes", if discussing non-canon source it helps to stay with that non-canon source and not cross pollinate (unless that is the intent of the discussion, but that generally is clear when it is such). Ex. just pop a comparative look at 1E vs 2E Logan VF from Palladium's RPGs and the mess a discussion that would be if you tried to use one version in a discussion on the other (or the manga vs fullsize TSC rpg difference on a particular gun we had a few years back). This is why for practical purposes non-canon sources should be considered to have their own universes, even if not official it makes things easier and avoids pointless arguments resulting from using different "universe" material.

This is inconsistent with the series, which describes the Invid themselves as "protoplasmic" (they keep using that word, and do not know what it means) in the state we see them c.2042.

I agree to the point about them being protoplasmic, but they are also said to be energy parasites. Its classic technobabble really which makes a nice tight fitting answer difficult if not impossible. We know the Invid consider themselves "shapeshifters", perhaps when they adopt new evolutionary forms it literally is an external shape they adopt and not internal biology (Ariel isn't actually bleeding in the sense of blood in Ep83 then). Biological Shapeshifting for the Invid might also come with how they are internally organized, which could influence things (apparently human shape allows Invid to become disconnected from the Hive Mind).

The Regent/Regis divide might include some transfer, we don't know how a mass evolutionary change would be implemented (one-at-time ala Corg/Sera, or if a more wide spread process is possible). When we see the Regent in Wildstorm it is still 2040s though, so if mass evolutionary change is possible the Regent might have gone along for the ride if the Regis impelemented Stage 1 and Stage 2 leaps in the 2030s, but kept the same mecha they had been using for generations prior.

[xunk16]

The Regent/Regis divide might include some transfer, we don't know how a mass evolutionary change would be implemented (one-at-time ala Corg/Sera, or if a more wide spread process is possible). When we see the Regent in Wildstorm it is still 2040s though, so if mass evolutionary change is possible the Regent might have gone along for the ride if the Regis impelemented Stage 1 and Stage 2 leaps in the 2030s, but kept the same mecha they had been using for generations prior.

Supported in this by the RPG, which doesn't precise any conception dates for the Regent's piloted (not de facto grafted) mechas.
Thus they could have been in use prior... We only know about when the UEEF meet them, or speculate they were developed.
We also know that the Regess didn't bring the full diversity of it when she came to earth.
If the inorganic weren't to her taste, maybe the other mecha using more developed invids were also deemed too "primitive" (Warlike).

This is still pure speculation though.
And if the invids were prompt to abandon a mecha design, then why would the Scout stay so similar for such a long era?
The lack of information from Zentraedi sources about the "scientist pilots enabled" Invid mecha could means they were a recent addition.
Unless no one lived to tell the tale... which is doubtful.
But it also don't utterly prohibit the possibility of other models / prototypes being tried and phased out. For diverse reasons.
Might be they were inefficient. Might be the Master pulled another gamble à la Janus to strategically neuter their perceived efficacy.
We simply have no canon to add to this subject... yet.

[Seto Kaiba]

They devoted resources to develop the Beta by 2022 because they knew the Alpha had short comings and had 7 or so years with the resources to fix/replace it. As we've discussed adnausem over the years though there are things they could do to the Alpha to address its short comings, which is at the level of the VF/A-6Z/S/X so it would be possible. [...] We know they saw the need for new mecha (VR-5x, possibly VR-4x, -6Z/X/S, -7 to -9, BIF) and other vehicles (starships and ground vehicles like the Syncro-Cannon).

So, here’s the thing… despite having a 7 year period before losing access to Earth and then the access they gained to factory satellites and so on, what we see isn’t really indicative of a sizable research and development effort. We don’t see all-new designs, radical engineering concepts in testing, or anything big. What we DO see is small refinements, spaced out of decades of time in service. Low-cost, low-effort attempts to band-aid some of the shortcomings of the equipment in their inventory. They revisit a mostly functional prototype and decades after its cancellation and attempt to whip it into shape, only to discover it’s actually not very useful. They make a handful of minor refinements to the Cyclones that are mainly attempts to increase armament. A variant of the Alpha that offered a trivial improvement in its atmospheric performance is developed. No earthshaking advances or game changers… just little stuff.

The one and only time they come up with a true game changer, it’s not something they created… it’s an already-mature technology that was simply handed to them by the Haydonites.

To me, as an engineer, that says that the UEEF might well have been stuck with the Alphas even though they were underperforming because they lacked the resources to kick off development of an all-new aircraft to replace it and/or the capacity to manufacture it at a reasonable pace.

They had manufacturing capabilities to replace losses of both the 10th and 21st MD assaults along with the Sentinels campaign(s) and what ever else they ran into.

Considering how reductively simple their ship designs are, that’s not altogether surprising… their real problem there is much more difficult-to-replace manpower that was lost in the botched Earth Reclamation operations. I’m also not sure they were able to replace everything easily, given that the fleet composition seen in RTSC suggests that the 1st and 2nd ERF losses were actually very significant to the UEEF in terms of manpower and materiel… the 2nd ERF that gets wiped out in the first episode of the New Generation would’ve been upwards of 10% of their total forces, with fifty warships, a hundred and sixty landers, over 2,100 fighters, and almost 4,000 infantry.

This is what leads me to think the Alpha, even with its short comings, was successful in operations and it is only Invid around the 2042-4 timeframe where its age/limits start to become issues.

This wouldn’t tally with the idea from the series that the UEEF was so hard up for manpower and so committed to its war in deep space that a handful of ships under Carpenter were all that they could spare to reinforce Earth… never mind that the Invid don’t really get depicted changing and adapting until the Regess really gets into her evolution study on Earth in ~2043.

And they couldn't give the Alpha mechanical gunsights as a fall back or to fight Edward's Ghosts @ Tirol?

They probably have them… but jets move FAST, and there’s only so much a purely gyroscopic lead-calculating gunsight can do and unfortunately one of the design flaws of the Alpha is that the guns it has are fixed. They don’t have any traversal capability that could have made it a lot easier to hit a moving target at high speed by allowing the gun to make aim adjustments which are independent of the movement of the airframe. As such, it’s still going to be quite difficult to line up a shot. Quite a bit more difficult than it would be for a VF-1, which has something like a 270 degree field of fire with its anti-aircraft lasers.

In any case though some level of training is required even with a technology solution, and we know technology can fail so what is the UEEF training regimen cover when technology fails? That notion seems foreign to the stock pilots of the UEEF (given TSC), even though the UEEF had this presented with Edwards escape it was fixed in the intervening year (time between Edwards leaving Tirol and Grant's arrival at Optera) or later for TSC/Ep83-5.

While the lack of a countermeasure for shadow stealth is both undeniable and rather surprising given the bloody nose they got a mere year earlier, it would be worth noting that the Alpha’s got very little in the way of alternatives. When all you’ve got is fixed guns and radar guided missiles, you’re kind of up sh*t creek when your enemy’s invisible to the radar you’re using for your radar assisted gunsight and your missiles. The lack of other options is really the problem there.

(Take, for instance, the VF-1… I know, I know, I keep harping on it… which has multiple radars it can use for guidance and targeting, as well as laser systems, multiple sets of optical cameras, and multiple sets of infrared sensors. Every one of its weapons has at least two types of sensors that the weapon can use.)

I agree to the point about them being protoplasmic, but they are also said to be energy parasites. Its classic technobabble really which makes a nice tight fitting answer difficult if not impossible.

Pretty much, yeah.

[ShadowLogan]

So, here’s the thing… despite having a 7 year period before losing access to Earth and then the access they gained to factory satellites and so on, what we see isn’t really indicative of a sizable research and development effort.

That seven year period is really squandered though, they could have done a joint effort with the ASC (who developed the AGAC). I am not sure we can say if there was or was not a sizeable R&D effort, partly because R&D doesn't always lead to mass production AND because it really doesn't get the focus front and center in the story. The only new development from R&D in the show proper is Shadow Tech and the Syncro-Cannon (known to Scott), and both of those have been rectoned as Haydonite in origin.

Considering how reductively simple their ship designs are, that’s not altogether surprising… their real problem there is much more difficult-to-replace manpower that was lost in the botched Earth Reclamation operations. I’m also not sure they were able to replace everything easily, given that the fleet composition seen in RTSC suggests that the 1st and 2nd ERF losses were actually very significant to the UEEF in terms of manpower and materiel… the 2nd ERF that gets wiped out in the first episode of the New Generation would’ve been upwards of 10% of their total forces, with fifty warships, a hundred and sixty landers, over 2,100 fighters, and almost 4,000 infantry.

Manpower is also an issue with the UEEF in terms of figuring out where it came from in the first place. Then again it's hard to work out where all the people in TRM/NG-TSC came from, the implied population growth rate to reach what we see/told in the post-TMS sagas is absurd requiring some explanation that is not readily available.

Well "easy" might not be the right word, it took them 4 years between 10th and 21st MD and 2years for final. If the UEEF didn't have to replace some of the hardware losses after either MD I'd be surprised, though by this point it seems like the UEEF might be receiving assistance from the Sentinels (we know Kabara helped in restoration of the SDF-3 far faster than the UEEF could have done). All those shadow fighters had to be manufactured OR re manufactured after all in a 2 year time span, and the Final Assault had a larger fleet than 10th or 21st MD.

This wouldn’t tally with the idea from the series that the UEEF was so hard up for manpower and so committed to its war in deep space that a handful of ships under Carpenter were all that they could spare to reinforce Earth… never mind that the Invid don’t really get depicted changing and adapting until the Regess really gets into her evolution study on Earth in ~2043.

Leonard: You mean you came here alone there's no more reinforcements coming from the SDF-3 sorry Major but we where hoping for more substantial assistance than that you must be kidding
Carpenter: I'm sorry sir but what it boils down to is that you can not expect any further help from the Pioneer Expedition at this time
Leonard: Huh
Carpenter: I'm afraid its true I'm simply relaying the orders from General Reinhardt cmdr of the mission when I say they can offer you nothing more… you see sir my attack wing was merely a last ditch effort to join forces with available fighters and knock the invaders from their orbit
Leonard: We all know how successful that little stratagem was
Carpenter: No one is more aware of our failure than I cmdr however at this point in time General Reinhardt can offer you only his prayers and his firm conviction the fate of the people of Earth lies in good hands with you the valiant fighting forces under your cmd sir

As you can see the show itself doesn't elaborate on the WHY. It is most post 85Ep works that create the idea of them being tied down elsewhere due to conflict, but it could just as well be something else, but current canon probably does take the conflict approach. Invid Evolutionary Studies aren't limited to Earth, they could have been looking at how to plug themselves in separately on Each world they conquer (in non-canon Novels Regis had a GP at Praxis, and we know Optera has a Genesis Pit in canon, the RPG editions both float the idea of non-Earth/Optera GP containing worlds).

It doesn't mean the Alpha wasn't successful, but it could indicate it was so successful that they couldn't spare any.

and unfortunately one of the design flaws of the Alpha is that the guns it has are fixed. They don’t have any traversal capability that could have made it a lot easier to hit a moving target at high speed by allowing the gun to make aim adjustments which are independent of the movement of the airframe.

Unless of course the Alpha assume G or B mode to aim its gunpod, it seldom uses its internal jet lasers (IIRC there are only 2 instances in GCM, and one of those was cut from RT but still included in end-credits and the other I'm not even sure if it was the jet lasers).

[quote="Seto"](Take, for instance, the VF-1… I know, I know, I keep harping on it… which has multiple radars it can use for guidance and targeting, as well as laser systems, multiple sets of optical cameras, and multiple sets of infrared sensors. Every one of its weapons has at least two types of sensors that the weapon can use.)
[/qouote]
Which the reality is the post TMS units should also be capable of. This is a product of the shoe-honing in OSM specs without much thought to the point of creating issues like what we see in various discussions with the weak "technology backslide" explanation that doesn't really hold up*. Some things obviously are fixed from the OSM perspective (dimensions, specific weapons) and some are changed for RT (possibly type of weapon or inclusion of AE, power source, name). Under the hood changes are much easier to implement and likely not as noticeable if done comparing RT vs OSM counterparts, at least until story "fixes" them into place as being unavailable (as TSC apparently does). If anything a continuation of TMS hardware level makes sense in a RT context, but might not for an OSM because in RT they should be building off predecessors in a lessons learned setup where in the OSM they are 1st gen designs like in TMS.

*it might be more accurate to describe it as a requirements backslide, the UEEF and UEDF:ASC might have come to the conclusion that some of the VF-1 feature requirements are in the "would be nice" as opposed to "must have" features. The VF-1 only really uses its anti-ship missiles x2 and its unassisted SSTO @ Earth x1 in 4 years in the show which could indicate these features are "nices" but not "musts" for a future VF.

[Seto Kaiba]

That seven year period is really squandered though, they could have done a joint effort with the ASC (who developed the AGAC). [...]

Well, to be fair, they are somewhat stuck on that side of things by the fact that the Masters Saga and New Generation are two totally unrelated shows.

I am not sure we can say if there was or was not a sizeable R&D effort, partly because R&D doesn't always lead to mass production AND because it really doesn't get the focus front and center in the story. The only new development from R&D in the show proper is Shadow Tech and the Syncro-Cannon (known to Scott), and both of those have been rectoned as Haydonite in origin.

What we see in terms of improvements in the UEEF's equipment is so minimal over a span of decades that the absence of a sizable R&D operation is the only way I can explain it. We know that it isn't because of a lack of manufacturing capacity, given that they've been established to possess at least one factory satellite.

Manpower is also an issue with the UEEF in terms of figuring out where it came from in the first place. Then again it's hard to work out where all the people in TRM/NG-TSC came from, the implied population growth rate to reach what we see/told in the post-TMS sagas is absurd requiring some explanation that is not readily available.

That's an adaptation-induced plot hole, yeah... but the most we get as far as an official statement is that the troops in the New Generation are "army brats" born out in deep space aboard the warships of the UEEF. Given the lack of entertainment options available to the UEEF after being cut off from Earth, they may have fallen back on the All Time #1 method of killing time.

Well "easy" might not be the right word, it took them 4 years between 10th and 21st MD and 2years for final. If the UEEF didn't have to replace some of the hardware losses after either MD I'd be surprised, though by this point it seems like the UEEF might be receiving assistance from the Sentinels (we know Kabara helped in restoration of the SDF-3 far faster than the UEEF could have done). All those shadow fighters had to be manufactured OR re manufactured after all in a 2 year time span, and the Final Assault had a larger fleet than 10th or 21st MD.

Yeah, that manufacturing sprint we see in ~2043-2044 is supposedly possible due to the involvement of the Karbarrans. Otherwise, presumably it would have taken them much longer to retrofit their fleet. Replacing combat losses in terms of materiel was probably not quick or easy.

As you can see the show itself doesn't elaborate on the WHY.

The implication that the UEEF can't spare any more troops is pretty damned overt there... Carpenter even had to convey the apologies of General Reinhardt for the inability to provide more support.

It doesn't mean the Alpha wasn't successful, but it could indicate it was so successful that they couldn't spare any.

That doesn't follow... we know they were still suffering shortages of them as recently as the 1st ERF, and we know they took heavy losses fighting the Invid and that the Invid Regent's forces had them at a distinct disadvantage for pretty much the entire conflict per Invasion and Prelude respectively. If they were highly successful, there should have been units that could be spared rather than having to have every available unit committed to the conflict at all times.

Unless of course the Alpha assume G or B mode to aim its gunpod, it seldom uses its internal jet lasers (IIRC there are only 2 instances in GCM, and one of those was cut from RT but still included in end-credits and the other I'm not even sure if it was the jet lasers).

The problem is that the Alpha can't fly anywhere near as fast in G or B modes, which means the enemy it was pursuing has a chance to get away while the Alpha is transforming.

Which the reality is the post TMS units should also be capable of. [...]

Unless, of course, they were made as cheaply as possible and cut corners to keep costs down... which is HG's attitude towards the Masters Saga mecha and seems to be Titan's take on the Alpha as well. Titan seems to be using this as the justification for brooming the Alpha and replacing it with the YF-4.

This is a product of the shoe-honing in OSM specs without much thought to the point of creating issues like what we see in various discussions with the weak "technology backslide" explanation that doesn't really hold up*.

Really, the horrific flaws in the post-Macross Saga designs don't really allow for any explanation OTHER than a technological backslide. What kind of nut designs a tank where the driver is exposed to enemy fire from every direction? Or a modern fighter that can only carry two missiles? Or an alleged multirole fighter with no multirole capability? Or a warship where half of its turrets can't fire to port? With no point defense weapons? Literally all the creative staff could come up with in an attempt to argue that the Alpha wasn't a massive step backwards was protoculture power.

*it might be more accurate to describe it as a requirements backslide, the UEEF and UEDF:ASC might have come to the conclusion that some of the VF-1 feature requirements are in the "would be nice" as opposed to "must have" features. The VF-1 only really uses its anti-ship missiles x2 and its unassisted SSTO @ Earth x1 in 4 years in the show which could indicate these features are "nices" but not "musts" for a future VF.

The problem, in terms of your arguments here, is that those "nices" are things that would have explicitly solved pressing and even fatal problems in later designs... like the Alpha's inability to retreat from the combat zone under its own power, the inability to target Shadow fighters in dogfights, etc.

[ShadowLogan]

Well, to be fair, they are somewhat stuck on that side of things by the fact that the Masters Saga and New Generation are two totally unrelated shows.

True, but the people making the calls (out of universe) also decided to fill in the blanks in some of the most ill thoughtout ways possible (if they even thought about it at all) which give us stuff like this. A lot of stuff can be changed to make more sense without offering flimsy excuses in canon, but it requires TPTB to do some work I don't think they want to (or would be allowed to without being able to recoup the investment).

What we see in terms of improvements in the UEEF's equipment is so minimal over a span of decades that the absence of a sizable R&D operation is the only way I can explain it.

Unless the R&D investments are on the support side: manufacturing and maintenance (or healthcare or food production or other less obvious ways). Ex. is the Alpha of 2020s/30s as easy to maintain as of the 2040s where Lunk maintains 3 in the field (on top of the Beta and Cyclones)? Is the production method changed to improve rates. It also doesn't help that what could be considered improvements are not the result of UEEF R&D now, but "gifts".

The only reason we have this apparent absence is because HG decided they want the Alpha to be "old" in NG, if they had gone with the implications of NG#1 they could treat the Alpha as "new". There would still be the question of what was the mainline VF fighter pre-21st MD (2020s and 2030s), but it would erase the absence of R&D.

Yeah, that manufacturing sprint we see in ~2043-2044 is supposedly possible due to the involvement of the Karbarrans. Otherwise, presumably it would have taken them much longer to retrofit their fleet. Replacing combat losses in terms of materiel was probably not quick or easy.

Yes the Kabarans and other Sentinels (Haydonites specifically) are responsible for the SDF-3 and the fleet being ready as fast as it was given Prelude, but how fast would the UEEF have been able to on-its own isn't known.

I would say though that the material loss was replaced rather quickly after each operation. We are talking about replacing or re manufacturing 1000s of Veritech Alphas, enough Cyclones to store in each Alpha PLUS infantry operation, plus ships and other assorted hardware.

The implication that the UEEF can't spare any more troops is pretty damned overt there... Carpenter even had to convey the apologies of General Reinhardt for the inability to provide more support.

We don't know why they can't offer support there is nothing implicit in the scene that the reason is conflict. There could be a disease(s) outbreak, ships pressed into evacuation of civilian colonies (we know they are looking to establish them at least, if some are established in 2020s and they had to evacuate them and are in the middle of such), some malfunction/flaw/discovery has suspended some operations until it can be resolved (this might be with their ships, mecha, specific systems like the Fold drive, though here an explanation for Carpenter is needed), etc.

That doesn't follow... we know they were still suffering shortages of them as recently as the 1st ERF, and we know they took heavy losses fighting the Invid and that the Invid Regent's forces had them at a distinct disadvantage for pretty much the entire conflict per Invasion and Prelude respectively. If they were highly successful, there should have been units that could be spared rather than having to have every available unit committed to the conflict at all times.

The question is what is driving the shortages, is it really Alpha losses or manufacturing or are the Alphas being used to plug holes with the less successful designs that are being lost in more urgent fronts. We know the Conbat requires escort when engaging the Invid, so as Conbats are lost the Alpha could be pushed into plugging those holes as it appears to be more successful.

Really, the horrific flaws in the post-Macross Saga designs don't really allow for any explanation OTHER than a technological backslide. What kind of nut designs a tank where the driver is exposed to enemy fire from every direction? Or a modern fighter that can only carry two missiles? Or an alleged multirole fighter with no multirole capability? Or a warship where half of its turrets can't fire to port? With no point defense weapons? Literally all the creative staff could come up with in an attempt to argue that the Alpha wasn't a massive step backwards was protoculture power.

It doesn't show a technological backslide. What it shows is requirements and doctrine change and maybe a bit of WTH are they thinking, but not technology backslide. Officially that "tank" is supposed to have the same level of firepower as a Destroid in a smaller package (at that fluff level hard to justify "backslide" if you get the same firepower from smaller package) though the exposed pilot is more WTH but I don't see how it is technology backslide (Tank Destroyers in WWII sported open crew areas, so it might not be technology but rather the concept of "tank" one applies) . The 2-missile fighter is also like 1/4 the size of its 1st Gen counter part which explains a reduction in capacity and a doctrine change. The weapon selection on ships isn't technology backslide its WTH because we know they can produce PDW or turrets with better traversabilty since they are from the same period in time as ASC warships (which do have PDW and turrets with better traversability).

The problem, in terms of your arguments here, is that those "nices" are things that would have explicitly solved pressing and even fatal problems in later designs... like the Alpha's inability to retreat from the combat zone under its own power, the inability to target Shadow fighters in dogfights, etc.

I do not dispute that the "nices" would solve problems the encountered down the line (like with the Alpha), but when the program's design requirements where laid out those features seem to be deemed "nices" not "musts" for whatever reason in the 201x.

[Seto Kaiba]

True, but the people making the calls (out of universe) also decided to fill in the blanks in some of the most ill thoughtout ways possible (if they even thought about it at all) which give us stuff like this. A lot of stuff can be changed to make more sense without offering flimsy excuses in canon, but it requires TPTB to do some work I don't think they want to (or would be allowed to without being able to recoup the investment).

As noted before, it's not really "ill thought-out" so much as it was dictated by a combination of the general unpopularity of Robotech's latter two sagas, the unique and complex legal problems the Robotech franchise has to contend with as a fusion of three unrelated shows owned by different companies, and the hair shirt budgets that were all that was available when Harmony Gold tried to develop new Robotech material. The current creative staff have to work within the constraints set by their predecessors a lot of the time, and producing a technological continuity that's internally consistent would be a tall order under the best of conditions given how wildly different the technical settings of the original shows were.

Unless the R&D investments are on the support side: manufacturing and maintenance (or healthcare or food production or other less obvious ways). Ex. is the Alpha of 2020s/30s as easy to maintain as of the 2040s where Lunk maintains 3 in the field (on top of the Beta and Cyclones)? Is the production method changed to improve rates. It also doesn't help that what could be considered improvements are not the result of UEEF R&D now, but "gifts".

We should also consider that Lunk's ability to maintain three Alphas in the field for over a year was likely facilitated by their much more relaxed duty schedule in their nonmilitary service on Earth, less intense combat operations with significantly lower threat levels behind the lines that frequently ended with at-most trivial battle damage, and easy access to repair parts via the wrecks of UEEF Alphas, transport shuttles, and escort ships dotting the landscape that the Invid have largely ignored. Didn't he find three new aircraft in perfect working order at Point K? If the Invid ignored those due to no active power systems, one can only imagine how many wrecks contained caches of perfectly viable repair parts and stores of fresh ammunition and inert fuel.

The only reason we have this apparent absence is because HG decided they want the Alpha to be "old" in NG, if they had gone with the implications of NG#1 they could treat the Alpha as "new". There would still be the question of what was the mainline VF fighter pre-21st MD (2020s and 2030s), but it would erase the absence of R&D.

To be fair, they were stuck with the idea that the Alpha was "old" by Carl Macek and goes back to Robotech II: the Sentinels and the aforementioned legal, popularity, and cost issues. The Alpha was an already-complete design that Tatsunoko owned and could authorize Harmony Gold to use and it had existing toys that Matchbox could either license or copy quickly to get merchandise out at a moment's notice. It really was the best decision that could be made at the time, considering the budget was already at full stretch before Matchbox decided to bail on the troubled production and the exchange rate crash obliterated the budget's value.

One could easily take the "New" remark in Invasion to refer to the atmosphere-optimized Z variant that was introduced late in the 3rd Robotech War... which eliminates the perceived contradiction in one fell swoop.

Yes the Kabarans and other Sentinels (Haydonites specifically) are responsible for the SDF-3 and the fleet being ready as fast as it was given Prelude, but how fast would the UEEF have been able to on-its own isn't known.

Considering they needed Haydonite assistance to figure shadow technology out at all, it's probably safe to say they wouldn't have been able to do it at all on their own.

I would say though that the material loss was replaced rather quickly after each operation. We are talking about replacing or re manufacturing 1000s of Veritech Alphas, enough Cyclones to store in each Alpha PLUS infantry operation, plus ships and other assorted hardware.

Was it, though? We don't know what the pace of replacement was actually like, so the UEEF could actually be quite a bit smaller in 2044 than its peak size before it started throwing away huge numbers of ships and soldiers trying to retake Earth.

We don't know why they can't offer support there is nothing implicit in the scene that the reason is conflict. There could be a disease(s) outbreak, ships pressed into evacuation of civilian colonies (we know they are looking to establish them at least, if some are established in 2020s and they had to evacuate them and are in the middle of such), some malfunction/flaw/discovery has suspended some operations until it can be resolved (this might be with their ships, mecha, specific systems like the Fold drive, though here an explanation for Carpenter is needed), etc.

Considering what we know of what was going on around this time, we can say with a fair amount of confidence it was conflict preventing a more heavyweight response.

The question is what is driving the shortages, is it really Alpha losses or manufacturing or are the Alphas being used to plug holes with the less successful designs that are being lost in more urgent fronts. We know the Conbat requires escort when engaging the Invid, so as Conbats are lost the Alpha could be pushed into plugging those holes as it appears to be more successful.

How would the Alphas plug that hole? The Conbat's schtick was as an air-to-air fighter with longer-ranged munitions than the Alpha is capable of carrying and the Beta wasn't a thing yet.

It doesn't show a technological backslide. What it shows is requirements and doctrine change and maybe a bit of WTH are they thinking, but not technology backslide.

When the level of capability is THAT much lower, it's hard to argue with the technical backslide hypothesis... it's like starting out with the F-14 and then finding yourself fobbed off with an initial block F-4 or an F-86.

I do not dispute that the "nices" would solve problems the encountered down the line (like with the Alpha), but when the program's design requirements where laid out those features seem to be deemed "nices" not "musts" for whatever reason in the 201x.

Considering basic functional redundancy is a cornerstone of most engineering, and especially aerospace engineering, a lot of those "nices" are really "musts" in disguise... unless your design staff are completely insane or operating from a completely warped perception of what combat is like. (Which is not unrealistic, truth be told. The F-4 is a perfect example of mistaken assumptions, namely the assumption that "we don't dogfight anymore".)

[ShadowLogan]

Didn't he find three new aircraft in perfect working order at Point K? If the Invid ignored those due to no active power systems, one can only imagine how many wrecks contained caches of perfectly viable repair parts and stores of fresh ammunition and inert fuel.

At Point K Lunk found the Beta (IIRC he had to repaired it), Lancer found 2 Alphas (IIRC needed work, but was done), Rook/Rand found Ariel while Annie essentially babysat Scott. Other evidence is from NG#1 with the Horizon-T Rand looted (we see several VR-052s). The problem is that for the most part we don't see lots of wreckage fields to loot (ex. "Metamorphosis on the island to fix Rook's Alpha lacks a source for Alpha parts).

To be fair, they were stuck with the idea that the Alpha was "old" by Carl Macek and goes back to Robotech II: the Sentinels and the aforementioned legal, popularity, and cost issues.

I disagree they are not stuck with the idea back in the reset around 2001 to carry it forward form 1986 (even here), or even in the event of a future reset. The Alpha isn't the only option it never was, they could have recycled something from the OSM pre-production for the Legois/Alpha (at least then we would see "progress" in the design possibly). Alternatively they could have turned the Conbat into a Veritech (its basic planform is like the YF-4 from Macross, though they can't transform it like the YF-4) or Wolfe's Flashback Fighter or maybe had the UEEF/REF abandon the idea of Veritechs as to costly for some period of time (IIRC Matchbox wanted an emphasis on nt-mecha).

One could easily take the "New" remark in Invasion to refer to the atmosphere-optimized Z variant that was introduced late in the 3rd Robotech War... which eliminates the perceived contradiction in one fell swoop.

I was not considering "Invasion", a post 2001 property as I was in a "1986"-ish mindset. NG#1 is Ep65 that I was referring to, where we don't see the Z (it doesn't get introduced until Ep70/NG#10), so if the Alpha is "new" in NG#1 then it is reference to the H/I, which could still refer to this specific models but then you'd need to explain what is new about them over their predecessor models.

If they redo Sentinels (not saying they are or should), they liekly will redesign the mecha to look less "dated" to attract new audience (and legal of course).

Considering they needed Haydonite assistance to figure shadow technology out at all, it's probably safe to say they wouldn't have been able to do it at all on their own

Perhaps, or it would just take them longer to achieve. We don't know what the "natural progress" to achieve this technology would look like since they took a short cut.

Considering what we know of what was going on around this time, we can say with a fair amount of confidence it was conflict preventing a more heavyweight response.

But back in 1985 it was a big blank which is when I was looking at it. Around 1987 (Novels, maybe Comics) you have the no-FTL explanation (as the Fold Drives are damaged and they need to build new ones). The 1E RPG doesn't even consider it (REF has fold ships and operating with the Sentinels against the Invid, but doesn't appear tied down either). Then you have the 2001 reset, which returned it to blank essentially (that is true even today since a canon Sentinels Timeline isn't around AFAIK, and RT.com timeline doesn't elaborate on why).

How would the Alphas plug that hole? The Conbat's schtick was as an air-to-air fighter with longer-ranged munitions than the Alpha is capable of carrying and the Beta wasn't a thing yet

The Alpha would be pressed into air-air, probably at closer range than the Conbat. But the Conbat it should be noted only has 4 hardpoints, if those hardpoints are LRM they payload is only 4 and we don't have any canon depiction of alternate payloads (and the Infopedia Entry is pretty bland, we have the 2E RPG of course with its mass/weight limit but no details on practical configurations that can fit given by mass you could put ~66 SRMs on each pylon though there is no way for them to all fit without a TARDIS). What we do know is that the potential exists for the Conbat's LRMs to fail to wipeout the enemy, requiring either a retreat or them to engage enemy fighters (in Invasion).

Pushing the Alpha into this role frees up the Condor escorts the Conbat needs (this is from dialogue in Invasion), which would be a good trade in terms of capabilities and resources (1 mecha vs 2, though some capability is lost). They might also address the capability gap with upgrades that are later removed with the introduction of the Beta (to further justify its existence) and not in the Infopedia/RT sources because they only look at it at one point in time (or model specific that aren't covered by Infopedia).

When the level of capability is THAT much lower, it's hard to argue with the technical backslide hypothesis... it's like starting out with the F-14 and then finding yourself fobbed off with an initial block F-4 or an F-86

The question though is what drove the end product to replace the F-14 to end up as an F-4/86? The F-4s short comings where not from technology back slide, but driven by the doctrine that drove the requirements that selected the technology to go into it (this is over simplified I know), even though the technology to do so was available.

In Robotech the capability gap itself does not appear to be driven by a available technology but a doctrine shift that doesn't require a given capability. We know this because the UEEF/UEDF:ASC don't exactly fight like the UEDF:RDF of the TMS era, and the technology for similar capabilities exists its just not implemented in the force structure the same way. Technology advancement is also not strictly about all round improvement to performance in every metric, it can be seen in other metrics like size reduction (which may or may not be worth it) or efficiency or even cost or materials used.

The loss of a previous capability might not be from a lack of technology. Ex. the technology to produce hardpoint/rail stations is known to the UEEF (Conbat and Beta have them), so the Alpha's lack isn't technology driven but doctrine driven (and we know they have MRM/LRM missiles via other mecha). The same is true for the Alpha's lack of Earth-SSTO (while firm details are lacking, I feel comfortable in saying an approx. doubling of the propellant supply would eliminate this, and finding the space for that much propellant is doable based on what we know especially since the -S removed two space hogs that in theory could be put to better use for propellant supply).

[Peacebringer]

In the Zentraedi source-book, I believe it stated that every Zentraedi is issued a battle-pod; that's how many they have.

[Seto Kaiba]

I disagree they are not stuck with the idea back in the reset around 2001 to carry it forward form 1986 (even here), or even in the event of a future reset.

Eh... they kind of were, because they were developing Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles as a sort of conclusion to the unfinished Robotech II: the Sentinels storyline.

The 2001 reboot of Robotech wasn't a complete purge of all content, it was a shedding of unnecessary, inconsistent, legally problematic, and substandard materials and an attempt to reinvent the existing Robotech storyline in a form that they were hoping could pass muster as a modern anime franchise.

A future reset... well... that'd depend on the budget. Robotech II: the Sentinels went with the Alpha fighter because the budget was already on the tight side even before Carl Macek's "direction" made it significantly tighter by constantly second-guessing the much more experienced staff provided by Tatsunoko Production. It was a way to save money on a project that was already pinching its pennies. That problem has only gotten worse as time has gone on, with each successive Robotech development being less well-funded than its predecessor. Without a major influx of cash that's well above and beyond what Harmony Gold has historically been willing to invest in the brand, I don't see any new designs happening.

The Alpha isn't the only option it never was, they could have recycled something from the OSM pre-production for the Legois/Alpha (at least then we would see "progress" in the design possibly).

So, the problem there is that a lot of those pre-production designs would still need to be polished and refined before being workable and a lot of them ended up not being the final design because they had unresolvable issues, looked stupid, or were just plain fugly.

Alternatively they could have turned the Conbat into a Veritech (its basic planform is like the YF-4 from Macross, though they can't transform it like the YF-4) or Wolfe's Flashback Fighter or maybe had the UEEF/REF abandon the idea of Veritechs as to costly for some period of time (IIRC Matchbox wanted an emphasis on nt-mecha).

Eh... remember, Tommy tried that first one. It was called the VF-13 Delta Fighter and it never made it past the rough draft stage because, well, Tommy is no mechanical designer. Designing a fighter that transforms sensibly into a robot with a minimum of anime magic and that can be readily adapted into toys and models is HARD, which is why there are so few designers who can do it well and is also why so many of them moonlight in toy design as well. It's a skill that comes with a high price tag, which is why Robotech has never been able to afford it.

They couldn't use something like the fanmade VF-7 Sylphid either, because it just copied the VF-1's transformation practically whole-cloth and that'd get them sued for copyright infringement.

If they redo Sentinels (not saying they are or should), they liekly will redesign the mecha to look less "dated" to attract new audience (and legal of course).

Eh... it's a theorem that will never be tested, because Harmony Gold lives in well-founded fear of incurring the litigious wrath of Macross's Japanese owners.

I'd imagine that fear has become more profound in the last year or so, given that Big West has been routinely challenging Harmony Gold in court and winning every time.

Perhaps, or it would just take them longer to achieve. We don't know what the "natural progress" to achieve this technology would look like since they took a short cut.

Considering they were convinced it was utterly impossible until they found Dr. Zand's Haydonite data-based notes indicating it wasn't? They'd probably never have gotten there, since they would have been wiped out attacking Earth in 2044.

But back in 1985 it was a big blank which is when I was looking at it. Around 1987 (Novels, maybe Comics) you have the no-FTL explanation (as the Fold Drives are damaged and they need to build new ones). The 1E RPG doesn't even consider it (REF has fold ships and operating with the Sentinels against the Invid, but doesn't appear tied down either). Then you have the 2001 reset, which returned it to blank essentially (that is true even today since a canon Sentinels Timeline isn't around AFAIK, and RT.com timeline doesn't elaborate on why).

Well, back in 1985 that entire time period hadn't been fleshed out at all yet so that's hardly a basis for drawing conclusions.

The comics and IIRC the novels tend to take the inexplicable-given-the-series view that the SDF-3 was out there ALONE... which obviously doesn't tally with the rest of the story. Prelude gives us some hints as to how severe the conflict actually was, with the UEEF apparently being completely tied up fighting the Regent's forces well into the 2040s.

Pushing the Alpha into this role frees up the Condor escorts the Conbat needs (this is from dialogue in Invasion), which would be a good trade in terms of capabilities and resources (1 mecha vs 2, though some capability is lost). They might also address the capability gap with upgrades that are later removed with the introduction of the Beta (to further justify its existence) and not in the Infopedia/RT sources because they only look at it at one point in time (or model specific that aren't covered by Infopedia).

That doesn't really make sense when you think about it, but then each of them is independently even worse against the Invid than the Alpha is...

In Robotech the capability gap itself does not appear to be driven by a available technology but a doctrine shift that doesn't require a given capability.

Given what we've seen, I don't think a shift in doctrine is a viable explanation there. What we see is not a shift in priorities but an across-the-board decline in capability in every role, sharp increases in the number of roles that AREN'T properly filled, the emergence of designs that are clearly overspecialized, and a rise of designs with frankly obvious fatal flaws.

You could maybe credit the rise of specialist variants to a change in doctrine, but not the across-the-board decline in capability and DEFINITELY not the incredibly cavalier attitude they suddenly develop towards operator safety. There's no reason to have a dozen different land warfare robot designs that all do the exact same job, yet are armed with different models of rifle for the same role. Easily the most telling case would be the Spartas hovertank, a hovercraft built as a light tank that not only leaves its driver exposed from the waist up across 360 degrees in two of its modes and their entire body from the front (the direction of incoming fire) in the mode with the worst mobility, it apparently has no safety restraints for the driver so they can be thrown clear AT SPEED if the tank loses lift, crushed if it rolls over, etc. It's an operator safety nightmare that they then decided to attempt to use in space operations for... reasons.

This, to be brutally frank, reminds me of nothing so much as that period right before the end of World War II where the German defense industry and members of the German military brass were both self-destructively undermining their own war effort by refusing to acknowledge the concept of sunk costs, continuing to pursue obviously unviable programs, rushing out small numbers of increasingly unreliable prototypes, and determinedly looking for "magic bullet" solutions to problems. (This, of course, has an excellent explicit fictional parallel in Mobile Suit Gundam's One Year War period, justifying the "enemy mobile suit of the week" shenanigans as precisely that kind of arrangement.)

[Seto Kaiba]

In the Zentraedi source-book, I believe it stated that every Zentraedi is issued a battle-pod; that's how many they have.

Eh... 1st Edition was pretty inaccurate in a lot of regards. Of course, Palladium in general tends to massively overstate their crew sizes and so on. I suspect they keep forgetting that the Zentradi ships are, in respect to the size of their crews, effectively 1/5th the size in every dimension.

All told, I'd expect that only about half or less of the crew of any given Zentradi warship were battle pod pilots. General Duty Soldier-type Zentradi make up the bulk of any Zentradi ship's crew, and the ones who don't man the battle pods, battle suits, and other small craft have to fill a diverse array of roles like manning the ship's bridge, coordinating communications and relaying orders in the Combat Information Center, crewing the ship's gun and missile turrets, treating combat wounds, overseeing the ship's reactors and other key systems, etc. Macross: Perfect Memory's notes indicate that the spacesuit type worn by the Zentradi spy trio and numerous others like Exsedol's pilot in Ep26 is a standard spacesuit mainly used by warship crews (particular those in areas of the ship that may be decompressed during combat like gun turrets and hangar decks). Other types, like the Records Officer-type and Commander-type aren't suited to operate Battlepods because they're either too large or small, and were designed for more intellectually-demanding operational roles like strategic oversight.

[Peacebringer]

Yeah; I pulled out my Zentraedi source-book today; Zentraedi warships were so packed with crews and soldiers, it's like a game of Star Control.

One question I do have is, who repairs and runs the ships? The only OCC for a Zentraedi PC is soldier. Do they run the ships until they can no longer fight or, is there something aboard their ships we haven't seen yet like robots or a caste-system of tech-Traedi?