Mafty wrote: ↑Mon Mar 21, 2022 10:33 am
AGE apparently started out life as a video game by Level 5 , which if true, explains a lot, even the animation looks kinda like it's taken from a Doujin Soft Visual Novel. The quick upgrades flying out into the battlefield , does seem like something you would see in (some) videogames. Plus again the main reason is , of course the merchandising (though personally I though some of the armor looked a bit goofy).
This is probably better utilized in the Striker Packs in SEED. They actually were built beforehand(rather than being made by a computer), and are useable in a variety of different environments. Additionally they look more realistically mechanical (for a given definition of realistic) than many of the armor designs in AGE.
That is why I think the show has failed on so many levels.
We already have more different weapons in previous Gundam shows, it is not a new idea and they didn't take that into the system to make more out of the concept they had.
Even if it is like a game, there were also games like Gundam Breaker where you get a lot of weapons.
The design of AGE-1~3 is pretty obvious to be just referencing Gundam, Zeta and ZZ.
Characters are as shallow as they can be, Flitz hatred for example is very unconvincing with that face swap of a good'O grandpa and the incarnation of hate.
The whole thing just looks to be someone with a surface knowledge of Gundam trying to haphazardly put together a show they think kids will like, probably doesn't even like it themselves. It is that kind of mentality that's making a show to fool kids instead of making a show for kids.(the latter would be taking a story even adults find interesting and then simplify it to be understandable by kids)
However that also brings up which would be the easiest to maintain? A suit that has added armor packs? Or a suit that can transform to preform different combat maneuvers?
The simple answer would be which has more moving parts.
when you have modularised things to a certain extend, changing a backpack really isn't that much different from changing the limbs of the MS.
It is however not really that practical irl, as people have designed things like changeable turrets for AFVs to swap their functions. The reason is, the weapon system is likely one of the most expensive thing you have onboard, the other being the main drive to make the thing move.
Having a bunch of weapon systems lying in the base really isn't efficient strategy.
Yeah, and by now you probably figured out having a bunch of limbs lying back in the base also isn't really efficient.
Gundam seems to have a habit of thinking the most expensive thing is the cockpit, and all the other stuff is disposable or almost useless, that is pretty much shown in FG, and reached its peak in V(where AB parts are used as missiles)
In reality, if you only need to add a cockpit and you have another unit fighting, you will do it.
Thus SEED with the Sky/Cosmoscraper carrying the weapon and can fight is probably a more reasonable choice.
But back to your question. The weapon packs are likely easiest to maintain because it has least moveable parts. The limb packs in AGE is a step up from that since the parts itself has a lot more moveable parts.
These two has some redundant weight with the connectors and such, but likely not a whole lot more.
Transformation units are likely the worse because you have so much more moveable parts in the unit itself to begin with, and all of those are useless dead weight which will not really contribute in the fight in either mode it is fighting in. And in reality, hate to break it to you, but transformation isn't going to be useful in anyway. You won't get something to be able to perform a different combat just by changing its parts. You still have the same amount of thrust, a well designed MS can just direct all of it to the same direction and get the same effect. The streamlining by such a transformation isn't going to work wonders in aerodynamics than maybe the MS put itself in a stupid but equally effective "head first" standing pose. Definitely have even less effect in space.