The problem - or I guess you'd say failure of realism - here is that those minor design changes shouldn't each result in a new model or variant of Mobile Suit. What we should be seeing is these minor design improvements going into all newly-built MS's of that model and then retrofitted into older ones to bring them all up to the same standard of onboard systems and performance. That's how real world military vehicles are maintained and updated. You don't throw away dozens or hundreds of vehicles just because the manufacturer made some incremental enhancements to the design. You update the existing fleet in parallel with bringing in newly-built updated models.[/quote]Seto Kaiba wrote: ↑Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:49 pm It's trying... but the amount of actual success it had is debatable at best.
And can you give examples in which they failed?
The EFF mass-production units from older lines have pretty much entirely disappeared. What they are left with are either all labelled as the new model like in the case of 79C, 79R/179 and 86R, or units that are entirely different and cannot see the same upgrades, like the AQUA GM, Guntanks, etc.
Maybe they just never got into setting up such details about each small block because most people won't really care about those and the company can never sell something with exactly the same appearance and no detail changes.For example, the only appreciable difference between the MS-06A Zaku II initial production type and MS-06C Zaku II early production type were design changes to its armor. Exterior armor plating was redesigned on the shoulders in anticipation of combat against enemy Mobile Suits, and radiation shielding was installed around the cockpit. It didn't change the actual design of the MS itself in any way. They're hardware-identical, but they're treated as two separate variants by official material with it even being said the MS-06A's were scrapped after the C-type entered production. If handled realistically, these should be the MS-06A Block 1 and MS-06A Block respectively. The same is broadly true of the MS-06F, which differed from the preceding C-type only in the removal of the anti-radiation measures, the installation of a slightly improved generator, an improved fire control system, and some improved shock absorption around the cockpit. All in all, relatively minor design changes while most of the MS remained exactly the same. It really ought to have been MS-06A Block 3. It's not until you get to the weird customizations like the MS-06FZ or MS-06F2 where you start getting design differences significant enough to be designated as an entirely different variant.
Yeah, I will not buy a GM A block 11 and then buy a GM A block 12 with no apparent difference. On the other hand, the GM Command and the GM Command space at least have a different backpack.
And the Dom and Rick Dom is already gaining enough hate, I doubt they want to do a Dom block 52 which basically look the same as Dom block 43.
The closest to the block number is the RX-78-2, which you really only have 8 units following this convention.
G-1 was never mentioned if it received the upgrade or not. G-2 was the first RX-78-2, G-3 was a RX-78-2 at roll out and upgraded to RX-78-3, G-2 is upgraded to the RX-78-3 configuration with the MC upgrade but they never really mentioned why they didn't renumber it to RX-78-3.
G04~G06 are RX-78-4~6 for individual testing and obviously they didn't get to survive the testing so the whole batch of RX-78's can be upgraded. G07 was only finished after the war and with its own testing of the RX-78-7 configuration.
RX-78XX isn't even an official configuration but only machine built with left over parts.
You can give a sniper rifle to a regular GM can call it a GM sniper, but the GM Sniper Custom does have its own differences in which you really can't just randomly take it and put on another GM.That's kinda my point... the Federation has a lot of cases where the same damn Mobile Suit is treated as being an entirely different variant based purely on incidental optional hardware, which is wildly incorrect by any rational standard.
The 79FP is a unit where they take the 79F and added things you really can't just randomly remove.
It shouldn't be hard to find an example that they just gave it an optional weapon and labelled it as a new variant it they have a lot of cases doing so?
The problem here is that I doubt you can find any such case because they like to just draw a new picture for each variant and it would be most beneficial to make slight changes on the models so people will buy them. They also went into enough lengths to describe how each of these are different.
They are at least in the range of Stryker modular difference, not some incidental optional hardware.
This might be a speculation on your own but...the Tri-Service system that Gundam's own designation systems are modeled on.
Gundam's designation system isn't really modelled on that.
The EFF designation is a very simple Renbou eXperimental/Gundam Mass-production + the year it started development + variant.
It doesn't follow anything like the Tri-service system.
If we look at NT-1, the designation of RX-78NT-1 and RX-78NT-1FA shows that the FA isn't really a variant but an indication of it wearing its full armour.
Similar ideas go for the F90, the letter after it just indicates the equipment instead of that being a variant. The Roman numerals II or III after F90 is the machine number of it.(though II and III are upgraded from I, you can say they are)
The closest to the M numbers used on tanks in a much later time, namely MS Igloo 2 where the only tank to get a real M number is the M61A5.
Anything before that are following the Japanese designation system where they just call it Type [year]. Well, of course it is exactly because they have a Type 61, and also a Type 74 for the JDF...
No.The closest Gundam ever gets to the M numbers is the League Militaire's designation system... though it does seem to imply that the original Victory Gundam is actually the fourth revision of the model 312 (LM312V04) and that the Victory 2 is the 21st revision of the model 314 (LM314V21).
The V Gundam designation is completely different.
The 1st of the three digit number shows components, for V and V2 that's 3 for Upper, Core and Lower parts.
The 2nd shows the number of generators, both have one.
The 3rd shows the number of main thrusters, V have 2 and V2 have 4.
The letter after that is the series of the MS, for V and V2 the series is V, for the GunEZ and Gun Blaster the series is E.
The two digit number after it is the model type and then the registration number of that type.(not necessarily a variant, seems to be just the load-out type)
So as an example, the LM111E02 Gun EZ is a LM MS with a single component, single reactor and single main thruster E series model and 2nd on the registry.
I have no idea what model is the V1 because they never specify that.(V is V0 and V2 is V2.)
Also, V2AB are always equipments, but the Gundam Fandom, probably due to coding restraints, call those variantsin the info-box, which is not really official naming convention.
Similarly, S, Ex-S, S[Bst] are all weapon load-outs and not variants.
If you use the American designation system, yes.If I were going to pick a pair of GMs that actually meet the level of similarity for block revision it'd be the RGM-79 Early Type and RGM-79 production type... the [E] and [A] respectively. Designated correctly, the [E] is their trial production lot then it should be RGM-79A Block 0 and the actual production type should be RGM-79A Block 1.
But pretty sure they did not base their designation system on that.
Notice the RX-78 was used just because Kunio's favourite car is the RX-7 and they only formed the whole numbering system around that.
The 79A for the early type and B later type are also retcon from the 79C.
The [E] was before that retcon and at the time we know RGM-79, and we know it includes both early type and late types. [E] was placed after the RGM-79 to indicate it is an early unit. So technically the indication is showing that it is a 79A.
The GM II official EFF designation is 79R, the RMS-179 designation was because of EFF having so many different models in development during the Gryps war they needed another designation to distinguish them instead of having 15 RX-85s, 20 RX-86s, 30 RX-87s and 25 RX-88s. Since the number of development reduced by a lot, that designation never stick around and got ditched pretty fast by 0089.I'm not sure I'd say the revisions in the GM II and GM III are minor enough to be block updates, but they're definitely close enough that all three should still be considered RGM-79 variants instead of being issued separate models as they were (the GM II being RMS-179 and the GM III being RGM-86).
About if they are minor enough, well, at least you cannot just take an F-15 and just upgrade it to an F-22, not can you take an M26 and upgrade it to an M1, so I guess you can say those are minor enough? At least they are not completely new models.
The same goes for warplanes, tracked vehicles, military helicopters.Technically, it is... that's why it's treated as a new category of vehicle, and why Mobile Armors are similarly given their own separate category. Mobile Suits may be made for different purposes, but fundamentally they belong to one single category.
Having many purposes make it so that you get many variants doing many different things.
You can maybe use a GM with a bazooka to stand in for an artillery unit, but the GM Cannon still does that better.