Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

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MythSearcher
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

yazi88 wrote: Tue Jul 11, 2017 6:48 pm Top speed might be a factor in a one on one dogfight or possibly hit and run tactics in skirmishes as shown in Thunderbolt, but in a wide battlefield like Solomon and ABQ it is not a reliable factor. You can use real life fighters as examples, but they really don't mean much comparing to MS combat where AMBAC and maneuverability are a factor in close combat while also dodging enemy fire in a chaotic battlefield especially in space combat. Space combat and aerial combat use completely different factors.

The Ball has shown to be slightly effective in numbers and even then it loses miserably to the Zaku before the GMs debuted. It was utilzed a little better with GMs in Solomon and ABQ battles as support fire but when a Zaku or any other MS comes to mid or close range, it lives up to its name as a mobile coffin. Long range units, especially with the Ball's cannon are not particularly useful especially in Space during the OYW, considering the fact that MS are far more mobile in space compared to Earth where Gravity limits movement. Close and mid range are the deciding factor in battles, as shown when the Zaku debuted in Operation British where the Federation's reliance on the Big Gun strategy was obliterated from close and mid range combat of the Zeon mobile suits. The Ball not show anything to rectify this.

As for the Gelgoog and GM specs, the only thing the GM has over it is a little better acceleration, lighter armor and vulcans. Gelgoog A has higher generator, actual beam rifle, longer sensor range and a bit faster turn speed compared to the base GM.

One last point about the Rick Dom II, its heat saber is compatible with the extra tanks. The model kits show it as well as the Gundam War card link below. The Delaz version has less performance because of lack of parts compared to the OWY version, its a downgraded version.

http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/File:Ms09r2_GWar.jpg
AMBAC is useful, but not magic. It's function is limited.
In space, you still need to thrust to get away from your current velocity, changing the direction you face helps very little in dodgin. AMBAC can get your CoM out of your mecha, but that isn't completely reliable and your mecha only moved away from the point for like 2 metres. Without acceleartion, your movement path is going to be much more predictable.

The Ball's Iron Coffin naming is just a misnomer, it is clearly that in a world full of MS, pilots from both factions will see the Ball as an inferior unit purely due to its appearance. The advantage of it being resupplied faster is also contributing to the hate of the EFF pilots, with a longer on field time, you simply get more chance of being killed (An example will be 1 hr on a plane has a higher death rate than 1 hr on a car, but car accident rates are much higher because cars are on the road for a much longer time than planes) Its spec, combat history and records show otherwise.

And the 180 degree turning speed includes the AMBAC functions, thus the little better acceleration you are talking about shows very well that the AMBAC function on Dom and Gelgoog isn't giving it a large advantage over Ball and GM, both has a single digit percentage (5% and 6%) as opposed to the 40%, 12%. If 40% and 12% are little, then the 5 and 6% are neglible. IRL, a speed difference of 12% is huge, is doesn't matter if you are talking about planes or tanks, this is likely at least half a model's spec difference.

The higher generator output of Gelgoog is offset by it heavier weight and larger form. I have listed above, the output increase against the GM isn't going to give it a much better output for weaponry, at least likely less than 15% since more power will be needed for the increased thrust(thermonuclear thrusters require power from the generator) and increased mass and moment of inertia for its larger, bulkier form. The GM also enjoys Beam Rifles in limited numbers, by limited we can be sure that it is more than 200(counting all those variants including L, LA, G, GL, SC, SP) while you only have around 200 Gelgoogs. Gundam Officials and Encyclopedia Ver. 1.5 even listed Gundam's Beam Rifle as the standard GM optional equipment.(Yes, it specifically written as Gundam's) and another beam rifle developed basing on Gundam's rifle. The Beam Spraygun is issued as standard equipment because it is cheaper and produced in numbers, but likely the commanders still have the option to equip the GMs with Beam rifles when needed, it is just that the sprayguns are enough in normal situations. Gundam Officials even listed the Beam Rifle being bulkier and less convenient as one of the reasons GM carries the spraygun. The "Beam rifle cannot be produced in great numbers even with the capability of the EF" is simply a statement showing Zeon also didn't have that capability, and the "Produced in small numbers" by EF standard is simply well over Zeon's production which is within hundreds. The Beam Rifle argument really isn't that solid.

When you simply cannot catch up, your combat style is limited and passive. You have to react to the enemy's movements.

Not to mention the Ball has little trouble firing backwards, while all MS have trouble doing so with full thrust.
Fight or flight, the Ball is one of the limited choices you have in all of Gundam's history where you can fight when using full thrust running away. (The other is the Gaza series MA mode, which is designed to have its main thrusters pointing forward)

The Guntank cannon(which in turn, is the Ball Cannon, at least the 120mm one is.) has a longer range and higher muzzle velocity than the Guncannon 240mm guns, if the Ball's cannon is useless, the Guncannon and GM Cannons will be pretty much useless by the same deduction, since the Guncannon only has a 2.0s turning speed and harder to aim.

The incompatiblity of the Rick Dom II's heat sabre is specifically mentioned in Gundam Officials. Maybe the pilot can hand carry it at launch or somehow create other on-the-field mountings to carry it, but on official records, it is not compatible.
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

JEFFPIATT wrote: Wed Jul 12, 2017 7:51 amAt least according to current cannon the EFF had as the base GM model in production the A/B built on earth and Luna II had the [E] and it's production model the C type GM from those three models we got the various RGM and RGC units being built from those frames as bases the two worst offenders on non standard parts would be the Light Armor and Sniper Custom GM units witch are basically Field mods like the Ez8 was. the Sniper II was an attempt at building a standardized version of the Custom using the GM Command as a base as it was developed in the same "skunk works" the Command units came out of. I wind up think of the GM like the project that led to the Jeep that actually was two cars built to the same spec as both the Willys MB and the Ford GPW. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willys_MB The final model was an merger of the prototypes in to one unit. Ironically the GM II is more than likely a merger of the B and C GM units in to one line.
Well, it's more of a: I cannot see two GMs being incompatible with parts from one another, and I view things like the GM Sniper Custom to be a very clear, distinct - yet simple - modification of the basic GM equipment. If we completely put all our stock in the comments by the GM Sniper II's manual, it would be essentially impossible to create a field upgrade kit because you would have no idea what unit would have what GM and so forth.

Rather, I kind of like to think it has to do with that comment Amuro makes early on in the animation: when repairing the Gundam, he complains about having to use lesser quality parts. There's either a direct statement, or direct implication after, that the Gundam will lose performance for that reason. Because of that, though there is NO real backing for this beyond that statement and the fact that the later GMs, that is the GM II and etc get to make use of OYW parts later on for equipment. Because of that, I like to think that for the Federation, there's probably some RX/RGM inter-compatibility. I mean, definitely, one of the ways to increase the Gundam's performance is to replace its core fighter mechanism with a core block, etc, etc, etc.

So, I kind of want to selectively ignore the GM Sniper II's manual. For a number of reasons, it doesn't make sense and though there are scant amounts of evidence to support what I'm suggesting here, it's nothing but a cool thought that I'd like to believe, because... I have a hard time reading and believing the sniper manual especially since prior to that, this is generally the sort of thing leveled at Zeon. Hell, even with Zeon, where apparently there's the whole 'hand-made' issue going on, you still have reserve Zaku units and that whole 60% operational capacity, yet Zeon can definitely repair their suits using reserve units - yet the UMP still makes it very clear that it's solving other problems.

Like I said, you presented the way I'd think about it entirely if it weren't for the existence/my knowledge of that blurb.
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Seto Kaiba
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

MythSearcher wrote: Tue Jul 11, 2017 9:35 am I am using the published specifications for the MSs in question, what do you mean by them not supporting my assessment?
Simply put, you're placing massively disproportionate emphasis on straight-line acceleration as though it were the one and only factor in combat performance.

This isn't aerial combat. These mobile suits don't have control surfaces to translate acceleration-generated lift into changes in trajectory (not that such a thing would work in space anyway). They're dependent primarily on their AMBAC and verniers for anything resembling actual maneuvering. If you can accelerate very fast, but you turn slower, you're much less agile than a mobile suit that can turn faster but accelerates slower. The Rick Dom and Gelgoog have a substantial advantage there based on having engines in places other than the torso, allowing them much more freedom to maneuver with a combination of AMBAC, verniers, and thrust vectoring.

Sensor ranges also matter rather a lot, and the Gelgoog out-ranges the GM in that respect as well.
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

The GM actually has a pretty fast rotation rate when you put it into not Gundam terms. It's 100°/s. I think the F-22 at best has like 27° or 33° rotation rate...? That's off the top of my head, I know 23/24° are much more common and respectable numbers for other planes.

I know mobile suits aren't planes, but for another comparison that may help people realize how fast that actually is: a lot of older space sim games - 'space sim' being 'space plane' - end up having like 60°+ in certain cases.

Couple that with the ability to aim off-bore from the direct front of the suit, I'm not sure rotation rate is that much of an advantage. It is a difference between 100°/s and 120°/s, but I think for a Gelgoog to be able to exert that, they would have to be pressed into a very, very bad position.
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

From what I've read and seen in various media in Gundam regarding the OYW, the regular GM barely had any beam rifles, majority of the time they had either various machine guns or beam spray guns or the occasional bazooka. GM production numbers mean nothing about the number of beam rifles equipped on them, and I'm guessing the ones seen in Jaburo might have been spare Gundam ones. Beam rifles were pretty rare on Federation units and only the limited/special GM units aside from prototype Gundam had beam rifles like the Sniper Custom and Sniper II.

And where are you getting the info about the Rick Dom II's heat saber being incompatible? Various model kits have shown it held in place vertically behind its left or right shoulders and also having the propellant tanks, model kits do use official info and whatever info about the heat saber's incompatibility might be outdated or not correct at all. Its not placed in the way of Dom/Rick Doms where its put on the back diagonally. The HGUC Rick Dom 2 shows this.
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

I think we are getting off topic here. This is supposed to be a discussion on morphological frequency, not a rehash of quality/quantity. Besides, everybody knows that in question of Zaku versus GM the Kampfer Amazing is #1. :P

In addition to the mundane matter like pleasing the sugar daddies at Namco-Bandai, the multiplicity of aggressor mecha in a series helps the writers and directors. SInce mecha suits are the exterior "face" of a character, much like a samurai's battle armor, a distinctive appearance is our visual shorthand for a character. Aside painting it three-times-faster red, making a different, distinctive version makes a baddie stand out from the crowd of lookalike flunkies. It goes much the way of the elaborate armors of commanders of Sengoku Jidai armies, as opposed to the drab & unadorned battledress of their troops. Heraldry and specialized weaponry got nicely together, I suppose. Plus we know right away who the hero is fighting this week. (It was a BIG help in the days before subtitles.)

Plus, the different modes can be used to give us a clue about the scenario as well. Hey, the other side has a budget, why should they just have 1 type when a location-specific design can work out as well? If there is a Gelgoog, than a Gelgoog Cannon as long-range support works. The Marine MS types all acknowledge that victory on Earth demands control of the coasts as well as the hinterlands. The Psycho Gundam is an all-destroying monster that requires knowledge of its brain cancer-afflicted pilot to defeat.
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

I also want to talk about this issue: Why is the upgrades that most mechas receives always bring about cosmetic changes (FAST and SUPER packs from Macross, for example)? And there should had been way more upgrades and different versions to mass-production mechs (if you go into the nut and bolt, you will be surprise by how many named variants there are of popular weapons and their minute differents.)
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

False Prophet wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2017 9:47 am I also want to talk about this issue: Why is the upgrades that most mechas receives always bring about cosmetic changes (FAST and SUPER packs from Macross, for example)?
Probably a bad example... the FAST Packs in Macross are not, strictly speaking, an upgrade to the VF.

A VF's FAST Packs[1] are optional, disposable, mission-specific bolt-on hardware that isn't permanently affixed to the VF in question and isn't, in most cases, limited to use by one variant of even one family of variants. They don't truly alter or improve the systems and performance of the base vehicle, they just supplement its existing capabilities and occasionally compensate for shortcomings in a particular operational role.[2]

To compare them to something Gundam-y since that's the common denominator here, they're like the Striker Packs from SEED or the G-Self's many backpacks from Reconguista in G.

It's not like, say, the upgrades the RX-78 series got throughout the One Year War (at least as interpreted by MAMS), which brought about subtle changes in the external appearance of the Mobile Suit over time while improving the internal systems.


False Prophet wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2017 9:47 am And there should had been way more upgrades and different versions to mass-production mechs (if you go into the nut and bolt, you will be surprise by how many named variants there are of popular weapons and their minute differents.)
Macross is probably one of the best examples of a mecha show that's handling it more or less realistically in that there are loads of both major and minor variations that offer little-to-no externally visible change. As you'd expect from a series about fighter jets written by a military aviation buff, they didn't skip the little details like a production VF having many different minor upgrades between production blocks, few of which produced a highly visible change to the design.

Take, for instance, the Stonewell/Bellcom VF-1 Valkyrie. It has loads of official variants and in mass production there were seventeen production blocks with minor modifications between each. Only a handful of those block upgrades, like the Block 5 to Block 6 upgrade that changed the design from the TV to Movie version, produced a visible external change. Many more major and minor variations produced no visible change at all. For instance, the VF-1 changed engine models several times over its 17 production blocks, and a VF-1A-6 looks essentially the same as a VF-1A-9, but the latter has a more powerful engine. The only outwardly visible change starting in the VF-1A-13 was that the little blade UHF and VHF antennas were switched to a flat panel antenna flush to its skin. The VF-1A from Block 6+, VF-1N, and VF-1X+ are all cosmetically identical, you'd only be able to tell them apart using the full serial number stenciled on the nose. You'd only be able to tell a VF-1C apart from those three by the fact that its coaxial laser cannon was removed. The VF-1EX and VF-1J-6 are outwardly identical until you get up to the cockpit and see that the cockpit interior is an EX-Gear setup on the former.

Likewise, the VF-19A and VF-19C are completely identical to the observer, since the only difference was software refinements, a change in ejection seat, and an upgraded engine. The VF-19 has 27 production blocks with various minor changes in addition to a double handful of major variants. It's also almost impossible to tell the VF-19EF/A apart from the YF-19 No.2 prototype at a glance if the FAST Packs are removed, and those two models are almost two decades removed from each other.

Were it not for his character-specific paintjob, it'd be impossible to tell Michel Blanc's VF-25G apart from a grunt model VF-25A as the two are externally identical and the significantly redesigned optical array isn't visible through the polarized filters on the head.

(From Macross Frontier on, they introduced the concept of regional/export minor variants of VFs as well, adding a new layer of minor variation on top of production blocks and major variants. Macross Galaxy has, for instance, its own local version of the VF-19C that is outwardly almost identical to a base model VF-19C but has numerous refinements developed locally by the Macross Galaxy fleet. Its formal designation is VF-19C/MG21. It's implied by Delta's writeups that the Brisingr Alliance's Block II VF-171 Nightmare Pluses are a different local spec from the Block II VF-171 Nightmare Pluses that the Macross Frontier fleet was using in 2059. The Macross Frontier fleet has its own version of the VF-19E, which modifies the 2nd Mass Production type VF-19 back into an all-regime fighter with a different wing design.)

EDIT: I cannot stress enough how insane the number of VFs in service must be in the 2050's and 2060's. The New UN Gov't launched over 160 emigrant fleets of varying scales. Lowballing from official carrier capacities and the average, middle-of-the-road fleet size, there could easily be over 100,000 VFs in military hands at any given time. That makes for a LOT of potential variation between fleets and inhabited systems.



1. e.g. the Super Pack, Strike Pack, Attack Pack, Double Strike Pack, Armored Pack, Aegis Pack, Paladin Pack, Super Armed Pack, Tornado Pack.

2. While the Option Pack components of a FAST Pack can be swapped out as casually as one might change the type of bombs or missiles hung on the wing pylons to accommodate a particular task, the one recurring shortcoming the overwhelming majority of FAST Packs attempt to address is the exponentially-greater fuel consumption of the VF's thermonuclear reaction engines in space. In atmosphere, they use air as their propellant, but in space they need to use plasma from the compact thermonuclear reactor instead, which consumes fuel literally thousands of times faster. (4,200 times faster, in the VF-1's case, cutting a 700 hour operation time down to just ten minutes at the rated maximum thrust without the extra fuel tanks.)



(I apologize for the excessively long post... but Macross has, if anything, TOO MANY good examples of this.)
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

Seto Kaiba wrote: Wed Jul 12, 2017 10:48 am Simply put, you're placing massively disproportionate emphasis on straight-line acceleration as though it were the one and only factor in combat performance.

This isn't aerial combat. These mobile suits don't have control surfaces to translate acceleration-generated lift into changes in trajectory (not that such a thing would work in space anyway). They're dependent primarily on their AMBAC and verniers for anything resembling actual maneuvering. If you can accelerate very fast, but you turn slower, you're much less agile than a mobile suit that can turn faster but accelerates slower. The Rick Dom and Gelgoog have a substantial advantage there based on having engines in places other than the torso, allowing them much more freedom to maneuver with a combination of AMBAC, verniers, and thrust vectoring.

Sensor ranges also matter rather a lot, and the Gelgoog out-ranges the GM in that respect as well.
The spec difference percentages are listed, and the fact is there.
I am not putting emphasis on straight-line acceleration, it is just that the other spec differences are much smaller.
If you get the specs out, list them out and weigh them at the same portion, the GM is still better than the Gelgoog on average. The Ball is around on par with the Rick Dom if ignoring the power output(in fact, the Ball still has a higher power to mass ratio) but likely around 25% of its cost.(at least it's 25% of the GM's cost)

Listing Acceleration, Turn Speed, Power-to-mass, Armour(using empty weight and steel vs titanium alloy specific strength modifier of 1.4, which in real life that will be a 3~4) and Sensor Range, 5 specs.

GM vs Gelgoog percentages: +12%, -6%, +8%, +8%, -5%, a simple addition(weighing them the same) gives us a 17% advantage.

Ball vs Rick Dom is harder to do a direct comparison of armour since the size and shape are different.
But the other 4 specs are: +40%, -5%, +5%, -35%, a 5% plus on the Ball's side.

You can try adding the fire power, but remember the Giant Bazooka isn't necessarily better than the Ball Cannon, a rocket projectile carries propellant on it for acceleration and thus needed to be larger to pack the same damaging energy for acceleartion. And if you planned to give the Gelgoog better fire power just because of its power output, remember the power-to-mass difference and the distribution of power just isn't adding up in this case unless you assume the units to completely stop thrusting and AMBACing when firing.

Also, the fact still remains that thrust is needed to propel the unit in different directions, acceleration isn't just about straight-line movement but is needed to change the units' velocity in any direction.

This is space, you cannot move to your left, right, up or down or even just slow down without thrusting to accelerate.

Yes, this is not areial combat, where you can just turn the orientation of the unit to change your velocity, the 180 degree turn rate is just that you can turn your attitude, not your velocity, you are putting too much emphasis on the AMBAC system and thinks that turning in different directions faster is that much more helpful. No it is not, the 6% increase in your turning speed isn't going to help you get through the gap of 12% acceleration.

Simple calculation, if you want to change your velocity by slowing down for 200m/s and accelerate 200m/s in the direction of 90 degrees to the right, meaning turning 135 degrees than full thrust till you get to the velocity you want, the GM and Gelgoog fair as below:
GM:
1.6s*(135/180)=1.2s
200ms^-1/(0.94)*(9.81ms^-2)sin45 = 30.7s
total: 31.9s
Gelgoog:
1.5s*(135/180)=1.125s
200ms^-1/(0.84)*(9.81ms^-2)sin45 = 34.2s
total: 35.3s

You can also start thrusting once you passed the 90 degree mark and just needed to turn from 135 to 180 to make the final adjustment, which will simply give you an actual difference in total of 0.05s.(since the other 0.05s is overlapped to the thrusting time)

You can do thrust vectoring, AMBAC is giving you thrust vectoring, and the spec tells us the GM and Gelgoog has a 6% difference in turning speed, thus AMBAC system ability difference.

A single leg pointing to another direction to thrust by the GM is still going to have a higher thrust-to-mass ratio than the Gelgoog, this is thrust vectoring.

200m/s is awfully slow in space, I am not even talking about LEO velocities of 7,800m/s, the moon's orbit is about 1,000m/s, meaning getting to and from the L-Points you are going to face that kind of speed and running head on to your enemy can get the relative velocity up to 2km/s. Orbiting the moon at 400km gives you about 1.5km/s, meaning orbit combat there can simply get up to 3km/s and on average 2km/s+.

Having thrusters all over your body isn't a plus, but a minus, that means your max thrust is just going to be worse.
The main thrusters of the GM are in the legs anyway, and can be pointed in a very wide range, at least wider than the bulky Rick Dom and Gelgoog.

Vernier thrusters have less, much lesser thrust than the main thrusters, and are used for assist in turning and precise movements. They are not for evasive motions.

Sensor range is a matter of 5% for the Gelgoog against GM, and the 300m is a matter of 0.15s in 2km/s range combats, and you only need to accelerate for about 3.6 mins to get to 2km/s, about 5.4mins for 3km/s, well within reasonable pre-combat time, and you probably have that kind of velocity against the enemy in different orbits anyway.
You can say that the Rick Dom has the 35% sensor advantage to the Ball, which is still short of the 40% acceleration advantage.
The fact is that the Gelgoog and the Rick Dom will take much more time to get to these kind of speeds, this doesn't only mean that you need longer time, you also need longer distances(since the displacement equation is a quadratic function, it is roughly square of the percentage difference in acceleration), which in turn stresses your mothership's sensor ranges, not likely further than EFSF's ships after the Winson plan upgrades.

I am not putting too much emphasis in acceleration, Physics is.
You have probably been ignoring the vastness of space.
yazi88 wrote: Wed Jul 12, 2017 6:08 pm From what I've read and seen in various media in Gundam regarding the OYW, the regular GM barely had any beam rifles, majority of the time they had either various machine guns or beam spray guns or the occasional bazooka. GM production numbers mean nothing about the number of beam rifles equipped on them, and I'm guessing the ones seen in Jaburo might have been spare Gundam ones. Beam rifles were pretty rare on Federation units and only the limited/special GM units aside from prototype Gundam had beam rifles like the Sniper Custom and Sniper II.

And where are you getting the info about the Rick Dom II's heat saber being incompatible? Various model kits have shown it held in place vertically behind its left or right shoulders and also having the propellant tanks, model kits do use official info and whatever info about the heat saber's incompatibility might be outdated or not correct at all. Its not placed in the way of Dom/Rick Doms where its put on the back diagonally. The HGUC Rick Dom 2 shows this.
What do you expect? If we use a 1000 figure for GM, and give them 200 beam rifles, 1 out of 5 GM will be using beam rifles.
While almost 100% of Gelgoogs will be using the 200 beam rifles.(Well, some of them are still using machine guns, so you don't really have 200 beam rifles)
And if a weapon of choice can be made between the spray gun and the rifle, and official words states that the spray gun gives more agility, and powerful enough already anyway, pilots and commanders will tend to use spray guns over rifles. The GM spray gun isn't weak, and is pretty enough for OYW since most units has short sensor range anyway.
False Prophet wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2017 9:47 am I also want to talk about this issue: Why is the upgrades that most mechas receives always bring about cosmetic changes (FAST and SUPER packs from Macross, for example)? And there should had been way more upgrades and different versions to mass-production mechs (if you go into the nut and bolt, you will be surprise by how many named variants there are of popular weapons and their minute differents.)
Getting back on topic, since they need to be used as products, you really can't expect to have as many variants as real life combat vehicles.
Seriously, the GM and Zaku already has too much variants and they don't really produce all of those as products, no need to waste more money and hire a mecha designer to design something they are not going to sell.
On the other hand, if you really want to have an in-universe explanation, the OYW is short, and the EFF didn't have a lot of time in later wars to do a lot of modification since most are relatively short.

Also, they just didn't give you the details, they are different in different production blocks. You can have the same looking Salamis and there numerous variants like the mothership, the gun ship, the anti-air, the EWAC, etc.
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

GM main thrusters should be its backpack?

and IIRC isn't it been said around in the forum that various MS spec given are not really accurate anyway?
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

I agree that we really are getting off topic for this thread, probably best to make a separate thread for GM vs Gelgoog.

I'm not sure if it was mentioned earlier in the thread, but in terms of different mecha units, original Macross/DYRL the good guys had more units. Since all the VF-1 Valkryies have variations of the same unit, that counts as 1 design, but the destroids are all different. Comparing that to the Battle suits of the Zentradi/Mentradi with the Nousjadeul-Ger/Queadluun-Rau and the Regult/variations along with the Glaug, I'd say UN Spacey has more units in term of mechs.

Zentradi do have more ship types along with the recon ship and their main battle fighter.
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

Should we start discussing about flowers arrangements like the last time this happened? :mrgreen:

Well, I guess it's worth to note that Zoids (I'm not talking about anime) actually has huge variety on both good guy and bad guy. The story is full of arm race, and the variety is somewhat explained by how the Zoid core (which required to run them) will only response to the mech's body if they're of same type (there're some rare exceptions though).
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

yazi88 wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2017 4:38 pm I'm not sure if it was mentioned earlier in the thread, but in terms of different mecha units, original Macross/DYRL the good guys had more units. Since all the VF-1 Valkryies have variations of the same unit, that counts as 1 design, but the destroids are all different.
Well... that's kind of debatable.

There's a fairly sound argument that could be made for considering three of the five primary models of Destroid in service during the First Space War as three variants of one model. The base design of the Series 04 destroid is the Tomahawk, and both the Defender and Phalanx are mostly different sets of weapons and sensors hung on a shared body and drivetrain. The Phalanx was, in fact, built from spare parts for the Daedalus's complement of both Tomahawk and Defender units. The actual mechanical difference between the three is primarily just the primary sensors in the "head" and the weapon mounts on the upper torso. They're not much more different from each other than the VT-1 is from the VE-1 or VF-1.

Kawamori's fondness for broad strokes continuity also creates a slight problem in that there are at least four main depictions of the First Space War, all of which are technically "true". Between those, there are a variety of other Zentradi/Meltrandi designs that were also canonically present during the First Space War.

(Of course, that also means that we would have to consider the other stuff that the UN Forces canonically had at that point in time... like the Sv-51s that'd been taken from surrendering Anti-Unification Alliance forces, and the improved Octos destroid the Alliance had been gearing up to build before their backers pulled out and its design and production line fell into UN Government hands.)

All in all, it ends up mostly balanced... but it can rattle back and forth either direction depending on what level of mechanical difference you want to consider constituting a distinct design, and the uncertainty involving whether a few select designs ever even made it to production (e.g. Sv-52, VF-X-3).





yazi88 wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2017 4:38 pm Zentradi do have more ship types along with the recon ship and their main battle fighter.
By a significant margin... though in a funny note the ARMD-class is technically a converted space station.
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

Oh yeah... I forgot Defender and Phalanx were made from spare parts of other destroids.

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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

MythSearcher wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2017 1:14 pm The main thrusters of the GM are in the legs anyway, and can be pointed in a very wide range, at least wider than the bulky Rick Dom and Gelgoog.
Stuck on anything but the OP's topic, I suppose, but where did you get this idea?

Usually, for whatever reason, the feet thrusters are tragically underpowered for mobile suits except in specific cases.
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

Make a quick look at GM rear...
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

Take a quick look at the stats and tell me how you attribute out 2 x 24000 kg, 4 x 1870 kg. I mean, there's only one set of (2x2) four and one set of two, so...
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

Also considering that the individual output of each of the 4 is less than 10% the individual output of each of the 2, I'd say that translates to 2 primary thrusters in the backpack, 4 secondary thrusters in the feet
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

Primary thrusters majority of the time are in the backpack/skirt of mobile suit units atleast in UC, not the feet.
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Re: Why do the bad guys usually have more different models than the good guys?

DoleBananas wrote: Tue Jul 18, 2017 2:16 am Take a quick look at the stats and tell me how you attribute out 2 x 24000 kg, 4 x 1870 kg. I mean, there's only one set of (2x2) four and one set of two, so...
Guess we have some misunderstanding, I think the rear view suggest that the backpack thrusters are main ones because it's at least larger than ones on feet (should have write it more clear, sorry) and there's nothing visible at all on legs.
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