The original name of Feifeng is using a Chinese naming convention, so I translated it as Chinese.Seto Kaiba wrote: ↑Tue Aug 15, 2017 2:38 pm Hm... if you don't mind my asking, what language are the translations you're reading translating Japanese into? There may be a transliteration rule difference in play here. (Also, we want to be precise and make the distinction between the manufacturer of the pack and the equipment inside the pack.)
The specs I've seen for the SPS-31 Super Pack identify the manufacturer of the Super Pack system as being Hiotori Aerospace, a name which can be read as Feifeng Aerospace if you're reading it in Chinese. Various systems that were integrated into the pack were supplied by other companies: Bharat provided the rocket boosters and high-thrust verniers, while Bifors provided the missile launchers.
(This really has me wondering what the correct translation of the company name is, though. I'll see if I can find it written in kana or English somewhere.)
航天 (Aerospace/Astronautics, later one is the literal translation) and 公司 (Company) are Chinese words. Aerospace and Company in Japanese should be 航空宇宙 and 会社 respectively.
If it is a Japanese name, the original would be something like 飛鳳航空宇宙工業カンパニー or 飛鳳航空宇宙工業株式会社.
I checked the manual, Bharat built just the verniers, booster on the legs and back came from Feifeng.
Making vernier for packs, then having a chance to produce a VF that is going to adopt service-wide, maybe there are really different VFs in future sequels, breaking the de facto duopoly of GG and Shinsei, after gaining experience from building VF-31.
I heard about a theory that Protoculture had the technology to refine quartz, that's why there were quartz on Bird Human. Is this theory still valid?Seto Kaiba wrote: ↑Tue Aug 15, 2017 2:38 pm Yeah, but the limitation on fold booster use was a durability factor, not really a materials-limitation one. There's been nothing, thus far, that suggests that the feats achievable via fold quartz can be duplicated using synthetic alternatives.
If Protoculture could do this, given enough time, human may find method to do the same.
That certainly sends shockwaves to many industries, but I don't think it would be that colossal.Seto Kaiba wrote: ↑Tue Aug 15, 2017 2:38 pm Every source to date has said that high-purity fold quartz is the core of the ISC, and that it's categorically impossible to build one without it. Given that the VF-31 is described as using a variant of the same ISC in the VF-25 with only minimal performance difference, I would expect that the technology inside it stayed almost exactly the same. Developing an ISC that didn't need fold quartz would be a colossal coup for the developer and eradicate most of the value of fold quartz, which wouldn't fit with the Macross Delta backstory's intense focus on how valuable and restricted the stuff is... and it'd certainly have been talked about in the official spec in the liner notes, which it isn't.
I would say it may be similar to the relationship of desktop computer and smartphone, PC for quartz-based ISC, smartphone for carbon-based ISC.
Smartphones are getting more powerful, yet even the most powerful smartphone is no match for the most powerful desktop computer from the same era, with the same technological level.
If carbon-based ISC has a capability of VF-25 ISC, for example, the quartz-based ones may perform much better than the carbon lite version.
Inferior material can do it well, then the superior ones can do it better.
Maybe Xaos uses quartz smaller than the four on YF-29.Seto Kaiba wrote: ↑Tue Aug 15, 2017 2:38 pm That got my attention for rather a different reason... "FOLD WAVE SYSTEM CORE"?
Putting that aside momentarily, the description sounds like exactly what I'd expect. Fold wave projectors, like what the crystals in the same position on the YF-29 are identified as. (A system put on the YF-29 as a way of amplifying and directing fold song.)
The "fold wave system core" thing is a bit out of left field for the Siegfried. The official spec for the YF-29 Durandal identified those fold quartz insets behind the cockpit only as fold wave projectors, the four 1,000 carat pieces of fold quartz were explicitly identified as being elsewhere in the aircraft. They were located under the inset panels on the leading edge of the wing root and on the outside of the wingtip engine intake.
If the Siegfried's fold wave projectors are pulling double duty as the fold quartz core of the fighter's fold wave system, that would suggest the Siegfried uses good deal less fold quartz than even I suspected, and that would explain how Xaos can afford to field five of them when Macross Frontier could only afford the one YF-29... they're using one third as much fold quartz.
Though it is still not canon (Kodachi took material from Master File when he wrote The Ride), Master File VF-31 has mentioned a method to "enhance" the ability of the smaller, lower grade quartz.
By resonating some closely-placed (in certain configurations), specially-cut small quartz and manipulating the fold wave with song, Dr. Chiba could make these crystal groups give a performance suppressing that of FC.5, even reaching the level of FC.6/6+ was not impossible. All they need is a suitable singer.
I am not sure whether Chiba in real life read Macross 30 novel or not, being a biological singer is not a must for sing songs with fold wave. Macross 30 novel provided a wlid if not outlandish theory about Sharon Apple's hypnotizing songs: her song contained fold wave.
Yea, I know this is over-the-top, but it is still something comes from a canonical source.
If this theory is considered as true, it is not impossible than machine-generated waves can also do something similar.
Perhaps this enhancement can pushing carbon beyond their natural limits, enabling them to run carbon ISC like quartz one. I suspect that the reason of VF-31A having a specialized and visible carbon container is the size, it is too large to be fitted into the nose, where the ISC is located (if it is still installed at there like VF-25).
The enhancement also helps 5.5-Gen flying like a 6-Gen, if sufficient supports are avaliable.