The Macross Valkyrie Thread

[Dark Duel]

According to SK's post above, the VF-25 Messiah apparently narrowly exceeds the performance of the VF-31A/B Kairos, with the souped-up VF-31 Siegfrieds being approximately on par with the -25. That's kinda surprising, IMO.
OTOH, the -25 is, IIRC, more or less exclusive to the Frontier Fleet, and I have no idea if it ever spread beyond that, so that might make it less likely that it'd turn up.
So despite the superiority of the Messiah, I do think the Kairos is more likely.
Or maybe something entirely different - who knows?

[Seto Kaiba]

The VF-31 Kairos can make for a possible replacement, as well VF-25. The VF-25 would likely be a upgraded model given the new show is set after Delta.

Given what we've been told of the way military procurement works in the modern New UN Government, there isn't going to be just one answer to the question. Every member state, be it an established colony world or a fleet that's still out on a mission to find itself a habitable planet to colonize, is essentially able to decide for itself how best to arm the defense forces it raises and maintains under the auspices of the New UN Forces. It's been like this since the 2030's, really, but it hasn't really had the potential to produce this great a variety of designs until the 2050's.

We know, for instance, that at least one emigrant fleet out there in the 2060's (Macross-29) adopted a doctrine of actual pacifism and did not develop or purchase a replacement for the VF-171 because it maintains no armed forces to speak of. We also know that despite the appalling fiascio of the AIF-X-9 Ghostbird's debut in 2040, there are several fleets and planets that have abandoned manned fighters altogether and now use unmanned combat aircraft exclusively. Some of the emigrant fleets and planets opted to purchase or locally build under license an export model of the VF-24 which the Federal forces use a full spec version of (which, from available remarks, rivals the YF-29 for performance). Many of the Macross Frontier fleet's political, economic, and strategic partners committed to purchase the VF-25 and make that the replacement for their VF-171s and other craft. As a result, the VF-25 is likely to be very common as the new "grunt unit" around the galactic core. We don't know where the VF-30 is being built or how many worlds committed to buy that one, but that's another possibility. Like the VF-25, the VF-31 was already earmarked to be the next main fighter for a political and economic bloc... the Brisingr Alliance, all the way out on the galactic rim. There are no doubt several others that we haven't seen, because they were developed by one of the fleets or planets the franchise hasn't visited yet.

I would expect that, unless Kawamori jumps the next show forward by at least 20 years (c.2087+) the new show would have either the Gen 4.5 VF-171EX as the grunt fighter, something we've never seen before that's a Gen 4.5 or so, or we'll return to the original series format that Frontier and Delta had but ignored where the grunts are the same VFs the protagonists are flying but with different paintjobs (e.g. the VF-25A's original series retro "kill me khaki" paintjob, or the VF-31A's generic low-viz gray). Now that Kawamori's finally caught up to the numbering of real-world generational numbering for fighters and he does demonstrably base his stuff on real-world developments, I expect he'll slow down a bit since the real world is still decades away from a 6th Generation fighter.

After all, the VF-25s in Macross Frontier are Block 1 trial production units, and the actual mass production didn't get started until the early 2060's. Frontier had a bit of a head start, and by all accounts ~2065 is when the VF-25 finally had sufficient numbers in service to be deployed in numbers sufficient enough to claim to be a main variable fighter. In the VF-31's case, we know from Kawamori's interview that it won't be adopted by the New UN Forces for another 2-3 years after the events of Macross Delta, so 2069-2070 is when it'll first start to come into military service and it'll almost certainly be 5 years or more before it's got the numbers to start phasing out the VF-171. At that point, the VF-171 will have been in service for about 35-40 years, which is pretty typical for a VF. I would expect the VF-24, VF-25, and VF-31 will hold onto their main fighter designations at least that long, meaning we won't see their replacement until a series reaches the 2090's or beyond.

If so, it'd probably look more of a grunt unit, to look less heroic as Kawamori said with the VF-171 being the grunt unit over the VF-19 in Frontier.

Ironically, he and Tenjin seem to have regretted that move a bit and went back to add grunt VF-19s to the arsenals of SMS and the Frontier and Galaxy fleets in Macross R. For my money, the VF-19EF managed to do a pretty good impersonation of a grunt fighter with a khaki paintjob and high mortality rate.

Or maybe a whole new unit, different fleets have different units, or develop different units from the same plan as the Frontier and Galaxy Fleet made 2 different units from the YF-24/VF-24 plan.

There are doubtless others... so far, we've seen, heard, or encountered rumors of every number from 24 to 31 so it'd be beyond that if it were.

According to SK's post above, the VF-25 Messiah apparently narrowly exceeds the performance of the VF-31A/B Kairos, with the souped-up VF-31 Siegfrieds being approximately on par with the -25. That's kinda surprising, IMO.

The specs are somewhat misleading on their own... if you compute the thrust-to-weight ratios and so on for the VF-31A Kairos and VF-31 Siegfried, it's easy to miss the qualifying statement that the mass provided does not include the VF's ordinance container included in the spec.

Them being not-actually-better and very-slightly-better than the Block 1 VF-25 makes a good deal of sense when you put them in their economic context.

• The Sol system in general, and Earth in particular, is the political, economic, and technological capital of the galaxy. It spared no expense in developing its 5th Generation fighter, since it was expected to maintain its primacy and to arm the Federal New UN Forces in addition to itself.
• The Macross Frontier fleet's YF-29 was a super-high performance 5th Generation fighter, but as a result of the huge requirements for fold quartz to make it workable it was too expensive to actually produce even for a relatively wealthy fleet. The Frontier fleet was only able to afford to actually build ONE, and it wasn't even built to production-intent spec because they used VF-25 parts in an attempt to keep the cost down.
• The YF-30 was developed in secret by a clique of megacorporations using the little-visited and isolated emigrant world of Uroboros as a cover. No expense was spared in its development, up to and including the lives of test pilots, though it was designed not for combat but as an experimental testbed for piercing fold faults.
• The Macross Galaxy fleet is an extremely wealthy corporate state, a flying laboratory for General Galaxy that resorted to mind control and slave labor under the Galaxy execs. They were able to develop a super-high performance next main fighter in the VF-27 by exploiting all the latest technological developments their own labs made, by trampling the human rights of their mind-controlled employees, and by using subterfuge and espionage to steal development data from other fleets if they saw something they wanted. (The VF-27 production model is partially based on YF-29 specs they obtained through corporate espionage.)
• The Macross Frontier fleet is one of the wealthier emigrant fleets out there with strong trading ties and the support of interstellar freight companies, so when they set out to built an all-regime multirole next main fighter they opted to create something that could truly supplant the VF-171 as the goes-anywhere does-anything VF. That gave them the VF-25, and though the performance was better than the YF-27's and worse than the secretly-developed VF-27's, it was still a HUGE improvement with enormous potential for export sale.
• The Brisingr Alliance is an isolated and economically underdeveloped little politico-economic union out in the space boonies of the galactic rim. Their isolation makes them relatively poor despite being one of the older colonies to have been established, so when they set out to build a next-gen fighter for themselves they did it on the cheap. They used, as much as possible, "off the shelf" parts that had already been thoroughly tested by other parties. They took the frame of the YF-30 and simplified it, and most of the hardware that went into it like avionics, active stealth, IP/I, EX-Gear, sensors, and many of the weapons were slightly newer versions of gear developed for the Block 1 VF-25. What they created was not a super-high performance plane, but it was a solid, ruggedly dependable aircraft that could be built relatively cheaply.
  Because its performance is lowest among the known 5th Gen VFs, it's not likely to be exported much outside the Brisingr Alliance.

OTOH, the -25 is, IIRC, more or less exclusive to the Frontier Fleet, and I have no idea if it ever spread beyond that, so that might make it less likely that it'd turn up.

It did... though the extent to which it did is unclear in the unambiguously canon works (we know at least several systems and fleets bought it), and alleged to be significant in stuff like Master File, which suggests the VF-25 is one of the more widespread 5th Generation VFs.

(Curiously, though the VF-27 was not actually built with intent to export, we've seen several units end up in the hands of wealthy private forces including Zelgar Heavy Industries and the Uroboros Hunter's Guild.)

[yazi88]

These are very good points mentioned above and a learning experience for me. Thank you for the info as usual.

I wonder if we'll see any new Fighter Bomber units like the VAB-2 that became the Varuta's FBz-99G Saubergeran in Macross 7. The Koneg Monster does fulfill that job though.

[Seto Kaiba]

I wonder if we'll see any new Fighter Bomber units like the VAB-2 that became the Varuta's FBz-99G Saubergeran in Macross 7. The Koneg Monster does fulfill that job though.

We've had a few... some official, some not so much, but almost all are specialized models of existing variable fighters.

The first to do that was the VF-3000 Crusader, the -B variant of which was a fighter-bomber modification that had a new tail design reminiscent of an A-10. The VF-17 and VF-22 technically belong to this category already, given that they're a pair of fighters essentially built mostly for long-range attack capability. Model Graphix magazine and Variable Fighter Master File both produced a VF-22 variant that was essentially modeled on the FB-22 concept, one calling it the VF/B-22 Jagdvogel and the other calling it the VF-22D. The VF-171 is also noted as having a bomber variant which is designated VB-171, and that due to the heavily modularized design of the VF-171 it's possible to convert one airframe from fighter to bomber to recon plane to several other different configurations relatively quickly.

The VF-25 probably doesn't need any modification to fill the role, given that it has eight underwing pylons to play with.

[yazi88]

Weapons pack add-on similar the VF-25s Armored pack can also help in bombing capabilities too. But like you said, the VF-171 and VF-25 are good examples of that.

[Seto Kaiba]

Weapons pack add-on similar the VF-25s Armored pack can also help in bombing capabilities too. But like you said, the VF-171 and VF-25 are good examples of that.

While it is possible, in most cases, to achieve level flight with FAST Packs on in atmosphere, it would be inadvisable in the extreme unless the pack was specially designed for atmospheric service. The few examples of that generally fall into the fighter or fighter/attack classification rather than fighter/bomber, usually by dint of loads of micro-missiles in pack-mounted launchers and then a big darn beam cannon of some description for attacking ships. (e.g. the Strike, Attack, and Tornado Packs.)

If you're looking to carry out a precision bombing, better to leave the FAST Packs at home and just make gratuitous use of the underwing and body pylons.

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

Going through the VF-31 Master File again, a thought strikes me that the writers were stretching themselves a bit when they were coming up with models other than than the ones seen in Delta. The VF-31R and the 31U in particular look like they belong in Kerbal Space Program, not Macross.

[Seto Kaiba]

Going through the VF-31 Master File again, a thought strikes me that the writers were stretching themselves a bit when they were coming up with models other than than the ones seen in Delta. The VF-31R and the 31U in particular look like they belong in Kerbal Space Program, not Macross.

Unfortunately, the last few entries in the Variable Fighter Master File series are largely rubbish thanks to lazy writing and lazier research by the writers. I'm a bit torn as to whether the VF-4 book or VF-31 book is the worst in the series to date, but neither is fit for much besides being a collection of CG pictures.

GA Graphic was originally pretty sparing with their original variants in the series. The first two VF-1 Valkyrie books confined themselves almost entirely to stuff that either officially existed and slight riffs on things that officially existed (e.g. the VF-1N[1], and VF-1P[2]). The VF-19 book stuck mostly to official variants and the sort of common-sense stuff you'd expect any VF series to have (reconnaissance models, etc.) and only had a couple research errors[3]. The VF-25 book only really made one up, and the rest were either common sense variants or nicked from other books and magazines[4]. The VF-0 book stuck strictly to the official stuff[5], and most of what came out in the Squadrons book was fairly logical. Then we got the VF-22 book, which went off into la-la land with a bunch of variants that looked like the artist really didn't give a damn (or maybe really wanted to draw Kamen Rider's mask instead). The VF-4 book completely and totally ignored the official variants except for the VF-4A, VF-4G, and VF-4SL[6], and the VF-31 book is total nonsense that ignores most of what Kawamori himself put out there for the plane[7], writes about the VF-31 Custom like it's a production-intent aircraft[8], and throws a bunch of unnecessary goofy variants at a plane that won't even be in proper mass production until 2069 or 2070, and caps it all by being mostly reprinted material from the VF-25 book.

Spoiler

1. A Master File-original variant that is, from its description, effectively nothing more than an alternate designation for the VF-1A-6 Valkyrie, AKA the VF-1A+ Valkyrie Plus, or the "Movie VF-1A".

2. Their riff on the development process that gave rise to the VF-1X, which is documented in the same book.

3. Little details like incorrect engine models aside, they cited the wrong base model for Basara's VF-19 Kai in there. It was officially built off a VF-19F, not a VF-19E, and the official VF-19E has an uncertain design since it's been depicted as a first mass production type in some works and a second mass production type in others.

4. The VF-25WR2 Wyvern II is their one true original, and that's a riff on the Wyvern that was originally drawn for the Macross Mechatronics column in Macross Ace magazine.

5. Yes, the VF-0C is canon. It never actually appears in Macross Zero, but it is an official design.

6. Dunno how the VF-4SL slipped through... since it's a relatively obscure one that only appeared in a light novel, but they copied an error from another book and erroneously claimed the VF-4 couldn't transform to GERWALK or Battroid until the VF-4G came out, and listed the VF-4G over a decade earlier than they ought to.

7. I'm at a loss to explain why they all but ignore the YF-29 in the book, or the way they gloss over the fact that it's the Kairos that's the next main fighter.

8. It's not, it's not even a customization by the manufacturer. It's an aftermarket job by Xaos Valkyrie Works.

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

Upon further thought, I find myself wondering why the Brisingir Cluster even bothered to develop the VF-31? If it doesn't have much better performance than the Messiah... why not just buy Messiahs?

(Real world answer of course being that this was a new show thus a new fighter is needed)

[yazi88]

Different fleets/regions have different funds when it comes to deploying Valkyrie units. VF-25 seemed to be exclusive to the S.M.S because they helped develop it from the YF-24's plans. Although Macross 30 showed the protagonist Leon use a YF-25 Prophecy, but then again he was also part of S.M.S albeit a different branch.

Being that the Brisingir Cluster was a backwoods fleet where there wasn't much conflict before Vars outbreaks compared to the wealthy Frontier expedition fleet is also a factor...

In terms of performance the VF-31 is about the same as the VF-25, although in terms of weaponry the VF-31 is better than the standard VF-25 that isn't using weapons packs.

[Seto Kaiba]

Upon further thought, I find myself wondering why the Brisingir Cluster even bothered to develop the VF-31? If it doesn't have much better performance than the Messiah... why not just buy Messiahs?

Oh, any number of reasons... but the main ones are economic.

The Brisingr Alliance is an economic and political union in a remote cluster of colonies on the far side of the galaxy that, despite being one of the older settlements, is economically underdeveloped as a result of its isolation. To go outside the cluster and either purchase an export model directly from another government or obtain a license that would let them build the export model themselves would be a net economic loss to the Brisingr Alliance. It would mean money flowing out of the cluster to other, wealthier parts of the galaxy. By opting to develop and build the Brisingr Alliance's 5th Generation main variable fighter locally, that creates jobs in the Brisingr Alliance and builds up the local economy. Even if it's not the greatest fighter of its generation, there is always the chance that they'd be able to generate an additional net economic gain if they can get corporations and governments outside of their territory to buy the VF-31.

There is also a slight strategic incentive to develop their own, since the Brisingr Alliance doesn't seem to have any close economic or political ties to the wealthier emigrant fleets and colonies that are developing their own "Next Main Fighter" designs. Unless they were close allies with the fleet or planet they were buying from, they'd end up with an export "monkey model" that was less capable than the versions of the same craft used by the government they were buying from.

(The above is a case of "reality ensues", as this kind of shenanigans occurs quite often in the real world... this mirrors Japan's decision to locally develop their own 5th Generation jet fighter instead of purchasing an export model from the US as they've been doing for decades. Ace Combat fans will know the output of this as the ATD-X, now called the Mitsubishi X-2 Shinshin.)

Different fleets/regions have different funds when it comes to deploying Valkyrie units. VF-25 seemed to be exclusive to the S.M.S because they helped develop it from the YF-24's plans. Although Macross 30 showed the protagonist Leon use a YF-25 Prophecy, but then again he was also part of S.M.S albeit a different branch.

Yes, the different local governments have a more or less free hand in deciding how to arm the military forces that they maintain under the auspices of the New UN Forces. Different governments have different views on how best to equip their troops, leading to a fair amount of variation across the galaxy. Even when two governments opt to use the same design, it may not necessarily be identical as one might purchase an export model and one may put the effort in to develop its own local variation based on its own needs.

For instance, the Varauta system's colonial government (fmrly. the Megaroad-13 fleet government) opted for the VF-14 Vampire instead of the VF-11 Thunderbolt that most governments bought because they thought that space performance and the higher airframe versatility and upgrade-ability was more important than all-regime fighter performance. There are likewise indicated to be several different regional variations of the VF-171 based on the needs of individual governments (the VF-171EX is an example of a locally-developed variant that was later sold to other governments).

The VF-25 was developed by the Macross Frontier fleet government in partnership with their local branch of LAI and Shinsei Industry, to be their fleet's replacement for the aging VF-171. SMS only got them because they had been hired to do the final operational evaluation testing of the VF-25 in conditions as close to live combat as possible. (Master File alleges that SMS's VF-25s are actually inferior to the production spec.) The VF-25 is also intended for export sale, so once the New UN Forces in the Frontier fleet adopted it in the early 2060s it would also start to spread to their allies and economic partners. Various pseudocanon publications have indicated that there were at least a dozen other governments operating the VF-25 in the mid-2060s, and probably more. Reon Sakaki having a YF-25 from SMS Sephira Branch suggests the planet Sephira government is also considering buying the VF-25.

In terms of performance the VF-31 is about the same as the VF-25, although in terms of weaponry the VF-31 is better than the standard VF-25 that isn't using weapons packs.

I'm not so sure about that... the VF-25 has eight pylons on the wings for variable ordinance, whereas the VF-31 only has four, two internal bays, and the ordnance container system.

Beyond that, their armament is pretty similar and the VF-31 is missing the two key upgrades to the heavy quantum beam rifle that the YF-29 and YF-30 had.

[yazi88]

I meant more in terms of fixed/built in weaponry for the VF-31 (both Kairos and Siegfried) that it has more weapons over the normal VF-25, it has internal missile launchers, multipurpose container and 2 railgun gunpods on the arms along with the usual normal head gun, hand carried gunpod and the pylons that are standard for valkryies.

[Seto Kaiba]

I meant more in terms of fixed/built in weaponry for the VF-31 (both Kairos and Siegfried) that it has more weapons over the normal VF-25, it has internal missile launchers, multipurpose container and 2 railgun gunpods on the arms along with the usual normal head gun, hand carried gunpod and the pylons that are standard for valkryies.

On balance, there's not a lot of difference between the built-in armament of the VF-25A and VF-31A.

They both use the Mauler ROV-127 12.7mm beam machinegun for the coaxial gun mount on their monitor turrets, so they're identical there. Both of them have guns mounted on the underside of their wing roots, though the VF-25A is outfitted with a modular gun mount that can accept several different weapons. The initial configuration mounted a pair of Mauler ROV-25 25mm beam machine guns, which were later upgraded to Ramington ES-25A 25mm high speed machine guns capable of firing MDE shells. The VF-31A's gun mounts seem to be less versatile, as they're only set up for the Ramington LM-27 27mm rapid-fire railgun pod, which may in fact be a compound gun using a mixture of both conventional chemical propellants and electromagnetic forces to propel rounds (like the VF-25G's railgun pod) given that it has a visible ejector port near the back of the gun.

The only real advantage the VF-31 has there is that they have six micro-missile launchers with a total of 36 missiles, which the VF-25 doesn't. That isn't really a big advantage, given that that's pretty much equivalent to giving over a pair of pylons to micro-missile launcher pods, which still leaves it at least on par with the VF-31A given that it has 6 more pylons to play with where the VF-31A has just four in total and a pair of internal bays. The VF-31A's ordnance container doesn't seem like a factor, since the standard one we see in the series is bizarrely the same one used on Delta Flight's VFs, with a multidrone charger and gunpod rack.

The biggest advantage in the VF-25's book is that, given what we know of the VF-31A's spec, it's highly likely that a VF-25 can use the VF-31's gunpod and even deploy it in fighter mode. The VF-31A doesn't seem to be able to use a gunpod in fighter mode at all, which is REALLY weird given that its gunpod effectively has infinite ammunition while the reactors are running. The Henry repeating rifle has NOTHING on heavy quantum beam gunpods... they're the gun you load NEVER and shoot all month long because you're siphoning the ammo out of freaking fold space

[yazi88]

Yeah, we barely see much of the VF-31A in combat and its weapons features, we don't even see or know any VF-31A active pilots outside of Arad in flashbacks, which is pretty much the same as Frontier's S.M.S stock VF-25 pilots outside of the main team... You'll have to forgive me on the Henry repeating rifle, I don't recall that name anywhere... The heavy quantum beam gunpod seems to be exclusive to VF-29 and VF-30...

I don't remember the base VF-25 use the pylon hardpoints outside of Fast/Armored packs. Its been a long time since I saw Frontier.

[Seto Kaiba]

Yeah, we barely see much of the VF-31A in combat and its weapons features, we don't even see or know any VF-31A active pilots outside of Arad in flashbacks, which is pretty much the same as Frontier's S.M.S stock VF-25 pilots outside of the main team... [...]

Actually, we got names, ranks, and faces for at least eight of them in Macross Delta when Arad showed Xaos personnel records for pilots he was considering as replacements for Messer Ihlefeld. Mostly from Alpha and Beta Flights. Several of them are seen in the briefing where Captain Johnson announces that they were now acting to support the Brisingr Alliance NUNS in the war with Windermere, but only one gets dialog.

(Also, in the interest of accuracy, it's worth noting that even the VF-25s used by SMS Frontier's Skull Platoon were totally-unmodified stock aircraft.)

You'll have to forgive me on the Henry repeating rifle, I don't recall that name anywhere...

It's a famous historical weapon from the American Civil War. The Henry repeating rifle was an early lever-action repeater that was so beloved of the troops for its fast rate-of-fire and 15 round magazine that four times as many were privately purchased by the soldiers than were actually bought by the US Army. It had the affectionate nickname of "a rifle you could load on sunday and shoot all week long".

(It was also the design basis for the iconic Winchester lever-action rifles, including the Model 1873 AKA "The Gun that Won the West".)

Heavy quantum beam gunpods in Macross kind of have that beat, since they're pulling heavy quantum out of fold space, and therefore will technically never run out of ammunition as long as the VF's reaction engines are working.

[...] The heavy quantum beam gunpod seems to be exclusive to VF-29 and VF-30...

Nah, it's looking to be the emerging standard in gunpod technology in the 2050s and beyond. The VF-25's actually kind of unusual as the only 5th Generation VF that isn't using one.

We don't know what the VF-24 had, but it seems highly probable that it uses one given that it's supposedly every bit as deadly as the YF-29.

The Macross Galaxy fleet made them the standard armament of its next-generation fighter as early as the YF-27-3 and YF-27-5 prototypes, though that version was a good deal larger than the gunpod that they put on the production VF-27.

The Macross Frontier fleet's YF-29 Durandal, the New UN Forces YF-29B Percival, and SMS Uroboros YF-30 Chronos all mounted heavy quantum beam gunpods as standard as well. (If Master File's art is any indication, its New UN Forces YF-30B Chronos and VF-30 Chronos also had heavy quantum beam gunpods.)

The Brisingr Alliance's VF-31 Kairos and Xaos's VF-31 Custom Siegfried both use a cut-down heavy quantum beam gunpod that seemingly lacks the more powerful "beam grenade" mode of earlier models. The Aerial Knights Sv-262 Draken III's gunpod is also a heavy quantum beam gunpod, and seems to actually possess a "charged shot"-type firing mode analogous to beam grenade.

(Given that the VF-31A is using effectively the same model of engine as the VF-25, it's highly probable the VF-25 could equip the same LU-18A gunpod the VF-31 does, though at least initially they went for a high-powered conventional rotary cannon using anti-energy conversion armor HE rounds.)

I don't remember the base VF-25 use the pylon hardpoints outside of Fast/Armored packs. Its been a long time since I saw Frontier.

Given that Macross Frontier is set almost entirely in space, it's only natural that what we see of the operating conditions is more commonly with a Super Pack or Armored Pack, so they can benefit from the additional fuel tanks and supplementary rocket engines. (Fuel consumption is orders of magnitude faster when operating in space, so that extra fuel is manifestly necessary for all but short-duration operations.) They do sometimes show the two outermost pylons in use with the Super Pack mounted, though the other two are covered by the pack itself and thus are useless.

Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy is better about showing VF-25s with ordnance mounted on the wing pylons, since the Super Pack, Armored Pack, and Tornado Pack are unlockable extras instead of the standard equipment.

[yazi88]

Ah, I didn't know that about the heavy quantum beam gunpod was developed into a scaled down version used by the VF-30A... I just thought it was a beam gunpod that didn't use solid rounds. As usual thanks for the insight.

I have a question, what are the difference in specs from the YF-29B Percieval from Macross 30 to the YF-29 Durandal? All I know is that the YF-29B is a improved model and I'm assuming doesn't use the parts from the VF-25 like the Durandal did in the 2nd Frontier movie.

[Seto Kaiba]

Ah, I didn't know that about the heavy quantum beam gunpod was developed into a scaled down version used by the VF-30A... I just thought it was a beam gunpod that didn't use solid rounds. As usual thanks for the insight.

Super dimension energy weaponry seems to be rising to even greater prominence as time goes on... as early as the original series it was the standard technology used for all starship beam weaponry, but it's been gradually reduced in size until it can even be mounted as coaxial guns on the monitor turrets of select VFs. The introduction of Stage II thermonuclear reaction turbine engines seems to have enabled VFs to mount the kind of heavy quantum-based beam firepower that would normally only be available from a frigate or cruiser's anti-aircraft battery.

I have a question, what are the difference in specs from the YF-29B Percieval from Macross 30 to the YF-29 Durandal? All I know is that the YF-29B is a improved model and I'm assuming doesn't use the parts from the VF-25 like the Durandal did in the 2nd Frontier movie.

No idea! The official coverage of the YF-29B Percival amounts to precisely two sentences.

No really.

Literally all we're told is that it's used by the top aces of the New UN Spacy 815th Independent Special Command "Havamal"... and that it's an improved version of the YF-29 Durandal.

(Which still manages to be more informative than the available info on Mei Leeron's VF-27y.)

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

(Which still manages to be more informative than the available info on Mei Leeron's VF-27y.)

Unless she heavily customized it, I can't imagine her Lucifer is any different than the other VF-27y

[Seto Kaiba]

(Which still manages to be more informative than the available info on Mei Leeron's VF-27y.)

Unless she heavily customized it, I can't imagine her Lucifer is any different than the other VF-27y

Granted, though the two sentences we get about it on Macross Chronicle's Mechanic Sheet for the VFs from Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy ("Other" UN 08A: YF-30 Chronos) raise a lot of questions and offer no answers on that and other fronts.

VF-27 (Leeron's Aircraft)
The aircraft boarded by Mei Leeron, who works as a representative of the Hunter Guild in Vrlitwhai City on planet Uroboros. The VF-27 can only be controlled by cyborgs, and it's unclear why she owns a custom VF-27γ.

On its own it looks like an innocent statement, but if taken in context with what we know about the VF-27 in Macross Frontier's sources it's a pretty eyebrow-raising statement.

For one, while it's true that the VF-27 can only be controlled by cyborgs you can't drop just any cyborg in the cockpit and expect it to go. It can only be operated by specially g-hardened combat cyborgs who have been outfitted with a fold wave-based BDI implant. The kind of cybernetic modification that's almost a total body replacement job - research, development, and implementation of which is flat-out illegal in a good chunk of the galaxy. The sort of body modification that's only available in one place: the Macross Galaxy corporate army.

For two, the General Galaxy VF-27 Lucifer's specs were never disclosed to the New UN Government. It was completed in secret by the Macross Galaxy fleet using development data from the YF-29 program that they obtained through corporate espionage. The only thing from the program that was public knowledge before Major Sterne's rescue of Ranka Lee from a Vajra Bishop-class hiveship in mid-2059 were prototypes of the design that were twin-engine designs with nowhere near the performance of the final model. It'd been completed and pushed to production in perfect secrecy. It wasn't sold as an export model before the fleet was implicated in an attempted coup d'etat, and since the specs were never disclosed to the New UN Gov't as required by law and treaty export sale of it would be illegal too, and this is less than a year after Battle Galaxy was sunk over the Vajra planet.


So one can't help but wonder how Mei Leeron - a civilian official representing a mercenary cartel on one of the galaxy's most isolated planets - managed to get her hands on a state of the art 5th Generation VF that's used exclusively by a rogue emigrant fleet's military and how it (or she) was modified so that she could use the damned thing. The possibilities I can see are all quite interesting:

• Mei Leeron is a Macross Galaxy fleet cyborg soldier on a mission of corporate or military espionage with the goal of stealing any developments made by the joint Shinsei/LAI/SMS YF-30 program being carried out secretly on Uroboros. (Since she's besties with Major Aisha Blanchett, the engineer in charge.)
• Mei Leeron is a rogue Macross Galaxy fleet cyborg soldier and possible Project Stella prototype who had somehow broken free from mind control and made it to Uroboros, which is protected by fold faults, and set herself up as a civilian soldier-for-hire.
• Mei Leeron is a private citizen and possibly one of the wealthiest people in the galaxy, as she's able to afford to buy a 5th Generation main fighter out-of-pocket and either have her entire body redone with by top surgeons with bleeding-edge state-of-the-art classified military cybernetics straight from the General Galaxy corporation's flying laboratory or independently bought the most expensive inertia store converter ever created (the YF-29's) to retrofit her already-incredibly-expensive VF with.
• Mei Leeron is secretly in Havamal's pocket, and both her fighter and the above-mentioned modifications are her compensation from them.

[Phonix_1]

No idea! The official coverage of the YF-29B Percival amounts to precisely two sentences.

No really.

Literally all we're told is that it's used by the top aces of the New UN Spacy 815th Independent Special Command "Havamal"... and that it's an improved version of the YF-29 Durandal.

(Which still manages to be more informative than the available info on Mei Leeron's VF-27y.)

YF-29B is the YF-29 manufactured at Shinsei HQ on Earth, or the Earth Mainland Version (地球本国仕様). (From Macross 30)
There are some differences about background & the definition of "Earth Mainland Version" described in Master File VF-31 or Macross 30 Novel.

YF-29B is simply the YF-29 manufactured under license on Earth, and NUNS seems interested in putting YF-29 into mass production. (From Master File VF-31)
YF-29B is described as "Super VF with fighting ability of a Macross". Earth Mainland Version has the second meaning of "General-purpose Superweapon". (From Novel)

Maybe the YF-29 testing on Eden (from Master File VF-25) is actually a YF-29B, it is easier to get YF-29B from Earth than from Frontier.

Upon further thought, I find myself wondering why the Brisingir Cluster even bothered to develop the VF-31? If it doesn't have much better performance than the Messiah... why not just buy Messiahs?

(Real world answer of course being that this was a new show thus a new fighter is needed)

But real world answer sucks.
The development of VF-31...I would say it is a political decision at best (if you take TOMYTEC VF-31A manual as canon and know the deployment of VF-25 in Master File VF-25), a mess at worst (background mentioned in Master File VF-31 is even worse), though it is good that we finally have a VF with a waist joint, and the novel provide a possible reason why VF-31 is deployed in large numbers.

TOMYTEC version:
NUNS sent blueprint of YF-24 to various fleets and planets, Frontier built their VF-25 & the much-hyped YF-29 ("one-man strategic weapon" in Macross 30 novel, "6-Gen VF" and "Peerless VF" in Master File), Galaxy developed their VF-27. Then UN was anxious about another separatist movement may become a reality, as the colonies can develop, produce & deploy state-of-the-art 5-Gen VF, even 6-Gen on their own.

5-Gen VF is a term to describe YF-24 Family in Master File VF-31. YF-29 & YF-30 are 6-Gen VF, specialized Fold Quartz-equipped VF that meets some of the insane requirements of "Super VF Initiative", the Anti-Vajra VF that UNS wanted so badly after the Tragedy of 117th Fleet.

Yet somehow NUNS didn't procure VF-25 or VF-27 to replace the aging VF-171, or at very least, VF-25 was not deployed in very large numbers among NUNS regular force. NUNS wanted an even newer VF! Then NUNS requested Shinsei to redesign YF-30 and put it into mass production, as NUNS thought that there was no time for develop a VF from scratch. The result is VF-31 Kairos & VF-31 Siegfried. This time, NUNS planned to deploy them across the galaxy.

Frontier is still a member of UN, I really can't see the reason why UN is against the procurement of VF-25.
You sent to blueprint to them, hope that they can fight against Vajra on their own. Then they made it, VF-25 (& VF-27) saved the day. However, NUNS didn't want it.
Do NUNS on Earth think that using a VF developed by colonization fleet is an "insult" or something? It seems the Earth Supremacists like Ractence or Fasces (Ractence remnants from Macross the Ride) still having much influence in UN.

Yet they requested the very companies that developed and tested VF-25 to design a 5.5-Gen.
Political decisions?

Master File Version (Non-Canon but supervised by Kawamori):

Honestly, as English and Japanese are not my first language, it takes me some time to organize the entire thing as clear as possible. Sometimes, I even wonder that whether the writers know what are they write or not. They seems forgot the existence of Master File VF-25, which also wrote by (mostly) the same group...

Before talking about the mess, here is a summary of VF-25 developmental history mentioned in Master File VF-25.

1: Shinsei, GG & LAI started Evolution Project in 2040, aiming to develop a next-gen VF with high-output fusion engine, transforming structure with linear actuators, EX-Gear, advanced AI & ISC.
2: Project Team was disbanded in 2046, since they made little progress.
3: Tragedy of 117th Fleet
4: UNS started "Super VF Initiative"
5: Evolution Project restarted, presenting YF-24 to UNS. Even though it could not fulfill the insane requirement (in short, a Zentradi Main Fleet-killer VF), UNS approved the development of YF-24, since its total performance was higher than VF-19.
6: Breakthrough in ISC at 2050.
7: YF-24EMD rolled out in 2051 and performed well in test.
8: NUNS bought 60 VF-24A in 2052 and stationed them in the defense squadrons near Earth.
9: NUNS sent the blueprint of YF-24 to Frontier, Galaxy and Olympia Fleet at 2053, in exchange for the Fold Quartz harvested from Vajra.
10: After 4 years of testing, both NUN and Frontier Fleet Congress approved the mass production of YF-25 and introduced them into service as VF-25 on June 2058
11: Kill the bugs.

It seems that NUN not just approved Frontier to introduce VF-25, but also accept it as the next-gen main VF of NUNS. Many planets and fleets began to use VF-25 in the next few years.

Master File VF-31 tells a different story.

NUNS started the Hypernova Project in 2055. At first, it was like the Supernova Project in 2050s. NUNS would choose a next-gen VF after 3 years of demonstration and validation. Yet, the deployment of YF-24 family is well ahead the schedule, NUNS thought that there was no time for develop a VF from scratch to catch on, so they canceled the project.

However, when NUNS restarted the project in 2058, they simply accepted the proposal from Shinsei, rejecting the "Cyborg Combat Complex" from General Galaxy as "too similar to Ghost".

NUNS chose to develop two new VFs from Shinsei YF-30: an affordable general-purpose VF (JYF) and a high-end special VF (SYF).
JYF became VF-31A Kairos, SYF became VF-31 Siegfried.

Hypernova Project began while VF-25 was still in testing phase, canceled sometime before VF-25 took off. When it was restarted, NUNS didn't even consider VF-25, VF-27 or even older VF-24A. As they said, developing a new VF needed time, why waste more time and money if you got an approved and capable choice?
If the mainland Earth was so afraid of another separatist movement, why not to lead the project at first?

I hope Kawamori not killing VF-31 off with other strange or hard-to-retcon reasons again, it is a new VF that NUNS badly needed.

This reply may be too long, I post the possible reason VF-31 is better than VF-25 in novel later.