Destiny & Legend's performance

The future is now. This is the place for mecha and science.
Faizu555
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2021 4:36 am

Destiny & Legend's performance

So near the end of GSD, we have been introduced with the 'Big 4' Gundams (Destiny, Legend, S.Freedom, I.Justice). The 4 are the most advanced and most powerful MS in Cosmic Era as well as their respective faction.

We know what happened to both Destiny and Legend. But putting aside their pilots, are Destiny/Legend actually weaker than their rivals in overall performance? In terms of weaponry, yes they are at disadvantage but performance wise, I'm under impression that they are on equal level.

Destiny & Legend seem to be more 'balanced' while S.Freedom & I. Justice seem to be heavily specialized in range / melee. By being more 'balanced', both can be a more versatile units to go against big ships, big MAs and MAs especially those with Positron Reflector, or MS grunts.

I would love to hear experts' take on these two :D
User avatar
Dark Duel
Posts: 4833
Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2006 6:39 pm
Location: A blue City in a red State

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

I would argue that Legend suffers from the same flaw of overspecialization, possibly even to a greater extent than SF. It's clearly designed as a mobile suit primarily intended to fight in space, where its DRAGOON System can be used more effectively, and while it can make limited use of it in atmospheric combat, it's still not very effective.

Destiny, at least on paper, is clearly designed to be equally effective on Earth and in space, against just about anything. So I would say of the four, it's really the only one that can be described as having a more balanced armament set.
// ART THREAD // NOT ACCEPTING REQUESTS

"You can learn all the math in the 'verse, but take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turn of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down. Tells you she's hurting before she keens. Makes her a home."
Mafty
Posts: 1131
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 10:43 am

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

As has been said the S.Freedom and I.Justice are very powerful, possibly some of the most powerful Gundams ever, and that's before were get into the METEROR Units. So almost any unit would look weaker by comparison. Thus looking at them individually, shows more of their specialties. The Legend improves upon the Providence by allowing a pilot without as much spatial awareness to use it to its full capabilities. Likewise as Dark Duel has said the Destiny is heavily armed and workable both on earth and space. Though that same is most likely true for the S.Freedom and I.Justice, so the Legend is really the only one that works best in space. This however affects many suits with strong mental power(ie Newtype or something like it) as the funnels generally seem to work best in the vacuum of space, though as UC has shown , Funnel or Funnel based units(yes I know CE has no Newtypes, but these are closest thing to SEED mode) can work under gravity (ie the Quebely MK 2 in Core 3, or the Shamblo in Torrington). So the Legend could possibly work on earth as well.
In terms of individual power the Destiny Gundam is armed with basically every Strike/Wizard pack ever, plus V Gundam style Wings of Light and the F91 like power of after images. So the Destiny own its ow n does have some rather unique features compared to the other units. It may fall most toward Shinns mental state at the end of the series as to why is unit was outmatched, rather than the equipment of abilities of the pilot.
Despite the Legends limitations in where it preforms best, it still manages to harness the power of the Dragoon system for more regular use, in addition to possessing several other armaments that would work well in any environment. Again the issues facing the pilot of the unit may have more affected the outcome of the battle than the power of the other units.
User avatar
MythSearcher
Posts: 1845
Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:36 pm

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

Artificial gravity by spinning is very different from Earth's gravity.
All you need is to have things fly at the spinning speed and they will stay up because it is technically just floating in space. Qubeley Mk-II in Core 3 is one such example, the Green Pepper is another. Qubeley Mk-II actually has one instance using funnels in Earth's atmosphere, but that is under freefall and they are both basically just falling.
Shamblo has the same type of reflector bit as Psycho Mk-II, which are specially designed for use under gravity.

BTW S.Freedom had settings stating it cannot fully utilise its thrusters while the dragoon units are still attached, Legend doesn't have this problem.
S.Freedom also have this issue about not usable by anyone other than Kira Tomato. In fact, whoever got him on the unit likely runs your typical sweatshop where they don't care about their workers' safety. Super computer simulation gave results stating the weakened defences is a problem and even Kira's data showed that he cannot dodge all attacks(simple logic tells us this is 100% true because you can simply use a saturation attack so that there simply isn't enough space in between bullets for the unit to move) they choose to ignore the simulation and just have Kira go out in such a dangerous gamble...
User avatar
yazi88
Moderator
Posts: 1494
Joined: Wed Oct 03, 2007 1:53 am
Location: Scopedog Bed

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

Destiny is a all rounder unit and the most balanced out of the 4. Strong in both melee and range combat, but its speed and maneuverability is one of the best features too.

Problem is, the writing of the show just dumbs down both Destiny and Legend performance. The actual specs on both units are pretty high and a match for the Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice.
Faizu555
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2021 4:36 am

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

Also, I would like to highlight on Legend's sad fate.

Legend, despite his status as one of the Big 4, suffered the worst from its underwhelming impression.

Unlike the other 3 where the successors were obviously look more powerful than predecessors, Legend instead looks like a downgrade over Providence.

1. The performance of Providence outshines Legend during their respective final battle, so it gave an impression that Legend is weaker than Providence

2. Providence's have more dragoons and beams, making it look more powerful than Legend

3. The pilot was not the main protagonist / antagonist

But for me, Legend actually improves what Providence is lacking and is as powerful as the other 3. Legend fixes predecessor's weaknesses in mobility, defensive capability and melee

1. Legend is far more mobile and agile than Providence. During final battle, Legend was able to avoid all S.Freedom Dragoons and even able to make S. Freedom to use shield. This shows that Legend has a mobility almost on par with S. Freedom, a MS that is highly mobile and agile.

2. Dragoons, despite being fewer than Providence, provide more flexibility. Able to fire without detaching and beam spikes offer wider flexibility during battle situation. At the expense of fewer beams, it give Legend better flexibility in other areas.

3. Defensively, 2 beam shield are far superior than 1 composite shield. The composite shield would have trouble defending against red beams (S.Freedom's chest cannon for example) while Legend's shield was able to withstand it.

4. Melee, not restricted by beam sword attached to shield and by combining it with Legend's improve mobility, it would excel better in close combat than Providence
User avatar
hitokirigarou
Posts: 430
Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:46 am

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

Destroy Destiny's hands and it won't be able to use any of its weapons except for the vulcans.
User avatar
Kuruni
Posts: 2925
Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2006 12:43 am
Location: sitting next to a yandere loli
Contact:

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

hitokirigarou wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 6:26 am Destroy Destiny's hands and it won't be able to use any of its weapons except for the vulcans.
...Destroy the cockpit and most mobile suits are dead :p .
My girlfriend was a loli.
User avatar
hitokirigarou
Posts: 430
Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:46 am

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

Destiny feels like a downgrade compared to the other three.
User avatar
Arsarcana
Posts: 1478
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2007 5:26 am

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

Kuruni wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 8:17 am...Destroy the cockpit and most mobile suits are dead :p .
Yes, but a lot of MS in the setting have at least a few weapons that don't require the hands to function and those have a lot less armor than the cockpit block. Of all the Gundam types in GSD, Destiny is the only one whose offense can be completely shut down by taking off its hands (okay, also Impulse other than the Blast pack but it can replace its upper body in mid-battle if it needs to and Minerva is nearby) so it stands out for having a fairly obvious weakness in its design that was used against it.

True, it's overpowered compared to almost anything else in the setting so the odds that anyone who isn't an ace pilot, operating an equally powerful machine or both is gonna be able to exploit that flaw is limited, but it's still there.
Mafty
Posts: 1131
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 10:43 am

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

It seems odd that in the ZAFT/EA Arms Race there wasn't more copying of some of the more practical weapons on the other Gundams. Destiny combines several Silhouette packs together; yet despite coming late into the war; nobody thinks to add any of the features of the pre-existing Gundams, for example Chaos, Gaia, and Abyss could all transform into mobile armor mode, and all had heavy weaponry on their backs, not just in their hands. The Forbidden had a deflective armored backpack, The Calamity had shoulder cannons, and the Raider has a mouth cannon, something never seen again despite being useful in combat.
User avatar
Kuruni
Posts: 2925
Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2006 12:43 am
Location: sitting next to a yandere loli
Contact:

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

Mafty wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 12:09 am the Raider has a mouth cannon, something never seen again despite being useful in combat.
*Cough* Destroy. Its mouth cannon even called Zorn Mk2. *Cough*
My girlfriend was a loli.
User avatar
MythSearcher
Posts: 1845
Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:36 pm

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

To Destiny's defence, it should be THE most powerful MS of the lot if you look at the MG manual settings.

SF and IJ just have their own weak points and only didn't die because the enemies are forbidden to use saturated fire on them(so they still have space to evade). Even much less powerful weapons should be able to damage the joint parts with less armour. (don't try to argue about it, more armour should always be more protected and require higher fire power to damage if you are using real logic and not CE logic.)

But to rub salt to the wound, even if it is not for the strange CE settings where they are forbidden to use saturated fire, all melee only or focused units should be pretty useless and armour should actually be pretty important and Strike Freedom should not be able to dodge all attacks and the weak points are actually weak points.
Either way, Strike Freedom and Legend should still have the upper hand as they can beam spam the most thus they are the most likely units that can do saturated fire in a more realistic situation. (Since SF has 13 ranged shooting weapons it should be the best in this situation with Legend coming next, but 5 of SF's weapons seems to be more limited in range so for beam spamming from a long distance purpose SF might not be better than Legend.)
This is ignoring all head vulcans as those should pose little threat to MS in longer ranges.
Infinity Justice is supposed to be a melee unit, but is still has more ranged attacks than Destiny, AND Destiny's hand cannons cannot be used when it is using handheld weapons thus the maximum number of guns/cannons it can use at the same time is sadly, 2. Even if we ignore the fact that it has to hold the back cannon to aim, and say that the pilot/computer is so good at aiming with a dangling cannon, it can still only use 3 guns at the same time. IJ not only can use 5 guns at the same time, 2 of them are mounted on a separable unit so it can simply attack from more angles, so it is actually not a worse unit at range attacks than Destiny.

On first glance Destiny might sound like it is more well balanced and that is likely the one of the made up rationale of the settings saying it is the most powerful (the other being them trying to sell the toys so they must say it is powerful) but the designs are just so, ahem, mediocre, that you really don't see any good redeeming factors that can get it on par with the other 3 MS of the same lot other than maybe it is easier to manufacture and is better mass-production material.
SF and Legend are glass cannons, so does real world artillery and sniper units. Weak armour does not mean the unit is weak, it only means you don't want to push it to the front lines and try to use it head to head against say, a main battle tank in a fire fight even if its cannon is more powerful than the tank's.
IF, while most people are misled to believe it is a melee unit(since it is the one with most melee weapons) actually aren't that much worse in the shooting category. It's weaker armour might still put it in the glass cannon category but hey, same logic as SF.
Destiny is more like the main battle tank here, with better armour, but the sad thing is that SF and IJ both sacrifice their armour for agility, unlike real world artillery units, so Destiny don't seem to really have much advantage here.

It also makes sense that if you put all the units together, the other 3 are just that much bulkier, with so much more weapons carried on them, it will never be a fair fight. IRL you should run into a power shortage problem for those with so many more weapons. Nuclear generator? So what? You should still have a similar output energy per second for the lot and either Destiny is wasting a lot of it in nowhere, its weapons will be so much more powerful and have a much longer range or the others simply cannot fire all of the weapons at once or with capacitors storing a certain number of shots, have a shorter optimised combat time. But we see them spamming beams like they don't care and Destiny's cannons aren't more powerful, so pretty sure it is a design flaw on Destiny and a lot of power is wasted.

If you really want to get Destiny up to spec, you will first have to mount more cannons on it, better if those are remote weapons, or have a Twin Buster Rifle class ultra powerful gun that just ignores everything and blast the heck out of the other units, negating their attacks. Current settings as it is only showed Destiny to be the worst optimised unit out there amongst the 4.
Mafty
Posts: 1131
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2020 10:43 am

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

Totally the Destiny isn't a bad unit in itself; its just underpowered, while SF and IJ are ridiculously overpowered. You have to wonder why Shinn was tasked with a unit that ultimately proved to be underpowered, especially given the role he was assigned to in the Durandles plan. Its established that SF and IJ were actually ZAFT designs that were ultimately stolen by by Terminal/ORB; so why didn't ZAFT just make more? At the very least they could have given Shinn a unit that could go up against their own previous units better.
User avatar
Dark Duel
Posts: 4833
Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2006 6:39 pm
Location: A blue City in a red State

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

At that point, the story was determined to pretty much flush its new cast down the toilet in favor of re-glorifying the returning characters, so looking at it from that viewpoint, it makes sense that Shinn got handed a subpar design while Athrun and Kira got the overpowered God-Mode Bots.

And I say this as someone who loves the Destiny Gundam. But even I have to admit it's a brilliant concept with a subpar, flawed design.
// ART THREAD // NOT ACCEPTING REQUESTS

"You can learn all the math in the 'verse, but take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turn of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down. Tells you she's hurting before she keens. Makes her a home."
User avatar
yazi88
Moderator
Posts: 1494
Joined: Wed Oct 03, 2007 1:53 am
Location: Scopedog Bed

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

Its just the way it was used in the anime and the flawed writing. The concept is perfectly fine as it is a multi-role unit. Thank god the Master grade of the Destiny had a revised and much better design. So much so that many video games use the MG version design of the Destiny over the anime version.
User avatar
Kuruni
Posts: 2925
Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2006 12:43 am
Location: sitting next to a yandere loli
Contact:

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

Mafty wrote: Sat Oct 23, 2021 10:25 am why didn't ZAFT just make more?
Terminal also delete the data from ZAFT's database. Since nobody at ZAFT aware that it was stolen design, I guess they either assasinate or kidnap the people who originally worked on the design.
My girlfriend was a loli.
User avatar
MythSearcher
Posts: 1845
Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:36 pm

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

Kuruni wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 1:06 am Terminal also delete the data from ZAFT's database. Since nobody at ZAFT aware that it was stolen design, I guess they either assasinate or kidnap the people who originally worked on the design.
Would make a little bit more sense if the settings say the entire R&D department defected. Explains why Destiny is so subpar.
User avatar
John-Luck Pickerd
Posts: 94
Joined: Wed Feb 26, 2020 6:02 pm

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

The SF we see onscreen is far from Zaft's own design. The existing SF is a machine built after Kira's own piloting style, and uses tech that wasnt available until later. We dont actually know if Zaft's SF is as good as the existing one, hell we dont even know how Zaft SF looks like. At all.

And the reason they dont make more is the same reason they dont make more of alot of gundam units, these are suits for important characters, so they need to have some exclusivity and ease of recognition.
User avatar
MythSearcher
Posts: 1845
Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:36 pm

Re: Destiny & Legend's performance

John-Luck Pickerd wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 4:02 pm The SF we see onscreen is far from Zaft's own design. The existing SF is a machine built after Kira's own piloting style, and uses tech that wasnt available until later. We dont actually know if Zaft's SF is as good as the existing one, hell we dont even know how Zaft SF looks like. At all.

And the reason they dont make more is the same reason they dont make more of alot of gundam units, these are suits for important characters, so they need to have some exclusivity and ease of recognition.
Well, CE have the mindset and written into settings and plot that the battlefield is won by a few elites, so they will never mass produce anything good.(at least when they are still good)

In-universe SF cannot be mass produced simply because anyone else will just die out there without being to evade all enemy fire, even Kira wasn't supposed to according to super computer simulation but the sweatshop owner Lacus decided to push him to death and just send him out like that anyway and he survived against all odds because he is the personification of the dictatorial authoritarian god/director.
Post Reply