Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on March 01, 2024, 10:00:35 AM
That's a fairly accurate take. The problem has also been the people in charge don't want the earliest mecha generation become obsolete, even though we know demostrably they are even before the 1RW is over. That's why the Valkyrie kept having to get upgrades to keep just barely ahead of the curve. It helps to explain the in-universe reasons for the change to the 2nd Generation and later 3rd Generation mecha.

That's probably because the Macross section is hands down the most popular of three, so of course the people owning the IP don't want it obsoleted (I was always more a New Generation fan myself so it didn't bother me).

In terms of the timeline though, comparing the VF-1A series (developed c. 2007 in the Robotech timeline) to the VAF-6H series (developed c. 2035 for the Alpha generation that made the return to Earth with Karbarran and Tirolian refinments and the Beta Fighter linkage capabilities) is roughly on par to the differences we see between an F-15 (c. 1972) and an F-22 (c. 1996).

The F-15 is amazing... it's so good that we're actually discontinuing production of the F-22 and a new F-15 (the -EX) is entering production because there's literally nothing else on the planet that can take on an F-15...

... except the F-22 which literally takes out whole flights of F-15s in training exercises.

The VAF-6H (the blue Alpha for those watching at home) is similarly a beast, that utterly outclasses the VF-1 series at basically everything (better thrust, more armor mass, better space endurance, five times the firepower... this is before you include the Beta Fighter it can link to which is just a "Dear God in Heaven" can of whoopass... each arm carries THREE of the Alpha's main guns, it does legit tank missile hits like literally nothing else in the series can, and it can go orbital under its own power... the Alpha has an edge in maneuverability and acceleration; that's it).

So, yeah, I absolutely agree it's silly to have stuff at least three generations less advanced be considered equivalent to the current generation war machines.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 01, 2024, 05:38:48 PMIn terms of the timeline though, comparing the VF-1A series (developed c. 2007 in the Robotech timeline) to the VAF-6H series (developed c. 2035 for the Alpha generation that made the return to Earth with Karbarran and Tirolian refinments and the Beta Fighter linkage capabilities) is roughly on par to the differences we see between an F-15 (c. 1972) and an F-22 (c. 1996).

Sorry, no. Development of Robotechnology is more akin to the span of technology between the Sopwith Camel and the F-4 Phantom. For example, the VF-1's head lasers (and presumably nose-lasers) overheat as shown in First Contact, to later Veritechs being armed with beam weapons exclusively and able to fire for dozens of shots, in space (where there is no real way to radiate away the heat without something exotic to explain it). Veritechs also get way smaller, to the point the VF-8 Logan exists, a mecha that is 1/6th the volume of the Valkyrie. And the Logan's internal armaments are nothing but the aforementioned beam weaponry.

We see Veritechs go from having no armor whatsoever:

Rick's VF-1J gets thrown against what amounts to a coat rack and the spikes punch through it, a low-velocity throw. The armor is non-existent, which makes sense when you consider the Valkyrie had to be built when technology wasn't understood. And 2007 was when the first models entered service, so they couldn't have technology newer than 2005 at the very latest or else no jigs, dyes and other construction tools would have been ready at the time.

To being able to mount something that increases pilot survivability (granted, we may be talking a few minutes in combat).

We see Cannon Fodder Ajax (Mind Games), Sylphides (Southern Cross) and Logans (Southern Cross) being able to (temporarily) withstand multiple hits from beam cannons that are most-assuredly anti-tank grade weaponry (so Mega-Joule level energy, possibly high as a dozen Mega-Joules or more). Also, by the 2RW, the Earth has multiple 50km+ Factory Satellites in its possession and mecha are now mass produced in ways that dwarf the best the Earth could achieve before the Zentraedi Holocaust.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 01, 2024, 10:45:22 AMThat's fine. Every creator's going to have to draw a line somewhere when picking which examples to emulate. But you're disregarding the mecha combat performance of a pivotal battle in the Robotech Saga. This is a stand-out example because it's the only TV series moment we have of cross-chapter mecha fighting. Fans who pay attention to and care about this stuff are going to notice. You run the risk of accusations of favoritism towards the Biorods because in Southern Cross they are portrayed in one way, but in the larger context of the Robotech Saga, they are portrayed another way.

True, but most people who point to the Bioroid's poor performance don't actually bother with the particulars of the battle. We know that at the same time, the Masters forces speeding towards Earth are basically running on fumes. No doubt, the Bioroids on Tirol are similarly hampered. We know that Tirol's defenders are down to a pittance of forces. We hear of 'Bioroid Squad 5' (which has ~9 Bioroids in it, so 3 'Fire Teams') so at a minimum there were 45 Bioroids to defend the planet (which amounts to 2 Bioroid Assault Corvette's worth of forces; each Corvette can hold 27 Bioroids and Biovers). In the first wave, the Invid have 3 Shell-Door ships packed with Iigaa Armored Fighter Scouts. That's ~1300 Invid mecha. Then there is a second wave which involves 3 more Shell-Door ships with Gurab Shocktroopers. That is ~600 Shocktroopers.

And it wasn't actually that pivotal a battle in the grand scheme of the wars. Tirol wasn't the capitol of the Empire anymore and Zor's Protoculture Factory wasn't there. The Invid Invasion of Earth was way more central to the wars than Tirol.

As another poster said Kevin knew the issues in the first edition of the Robotech rpg and didn't even try to fix the issues instead making it worse.

People like to get on D&D case for new editions at least when possible thry tried to fix some of the glaring issues. Nor is hiding behind the Sunken Cost Fallacy a reason to not try and emulate a genre. Or an excuse not to fix known issues.

As usual Kevin knew best was told many year ahead of the current issues of the first edition of the Robotech rpg. Then ignored any and all feedback. I'm not too sympathetic to any game designers who insist on repeatedly trying to hammer a square block into a circular opening .

The closest I agree would be the Mekton rpg in emulating most anime imo

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on March 01, 2024, 07:06:38 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 01, 2024, 10:45:22 AMThat's fine. Every creator's going to have to draw a line somewhere when picking which examples to emulate. But you're disregarding the mecha combat performance of a pivotal battle in the Robotech Saga. This is a stand-out example because it's the only TV series moment we have of cross-chapter mecha fighting. Fans who pay attention to and care about this stuff are going to notice. You run the risk of accusations of favoritism towards the Biorods because in Southern Cross they are portrayed in one way, but in the larger context of the Robotech Saga, they are portrayed another way.

True, but most people who point to the Bioroid's poor performance don't actually bother with the particulars of the battle. We know that at the same time, the Masters forces speeding towards Earth are basically running on fumes. No doubt, the Bioroids on Tirol are similarly hampered. We know that Tirol's defenders are down to a pittance of forces. We hear of 'Bioroid Squad 5' (which has ~9 Bioroids in it, so 3 'Fire Teams') so at a minimum there were 45 Bioroids to defend the planet (which amounts to 2 Bioroid Assault Corvette's worth of forces; each Corvette can hold 27 Bioroids and Biovers). In the first wave, the Invid have 3 Shell-Door ships packed with Iigaa Armored Fighter Scouts. That's ~1300 Invid mecha. Then there is a second wave which involves 3 more Shell-Door ships with Gurab Shocktroopers. That is ~600 Shocktroopers.

I think the Bioroids performed rather well, considering. They were heavily outnumbered and their defeat was inevitable, but they took some Invid with them. We can't know the total ratio, because we're only shown the fighting at the capitol. (I'm assuming that was the capitol city of Tirol)
But my point was the individual examples of weapon performance. We're shown that a Biorod can be one shot-ed or at most one volley-ed from a Scout's cannons. And Invid claws can tear open a Bioroid's chest in one swipe.
This is still a cannon battle, despite the series never getting finished, and one can hold it up as evidence that the Bioroid armor is tough, but in the Robotech universe, tough is on a sliding, narrative scale.

QuoteAnd it wasn't actually that pivotal a battle in the grand scheme of the wars. Tirol wasn't the capitol of the Empire anymore and Zor's Protoculture Factory wasn't there. The Invid Invasion of Earth was way more central to the wars than Tirol.

It was certainly notable in that it was the Invid that the REF encountered at Tirol and not The Masters, as they expected. I would say it was pivotal in that if the Masters had delayed their departure, or the REF arrived a little earlier or Invid had arrived a little later, the Expedition just may have gotten an alliance with the Masters against the Invid.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 02, 2024, 01:32:05 PMIt was certainly notable in that it was the Invid that the REF encountered at Tirol and not The Masters, as they expected. I would say it was pivotal in that if the Masters had delayed their departure, or the REF arrived a little earlier or Invid had arrived a little later, the Expedition just may have gotten an alliance with the Masters against the Invid.

Actually, the REF (in fact everyone Earth-based) never encountered the Invid until the Invid Invasion of Earth. No one had even heard of them until Musica tells Bowie of them in Final Nightmare. The REF was out in deep space battling, quite likely, The Disciples of Zor and whatever was left of Dolza's Grand Fleet (at least for a short time). And that's not even mentioning whatever local forces would be trying to pick at the dead corpse of The Masters' empire. At least in the Tv series. The novels/comics (and even RPG) are altogether different, in ways that actually defy numerous dialogue cues and such. As I said, Robotech is the only franchise I know where the canon is ignored, sometimes whole cloth. 

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on March 02, 2024, 05:53:16 PM
Actually, the REF (in fact everyone Earth-based) never encountered the Invid until the Invid Invasion of Earth. No one had even heard of them until Musica tells Bowie of them in Final Nightmare. The REF was out in deep space battling, quite likely, The Disciples of Zor and whatever was left of Dolza's Grand Fleet (at least for a short time). And that's not even mentioning whatever local forces would be trying to pick at the dead corpse of The Masters' empire. At least in the Tv series. The novels/comics (and even RPG) are altogether different, in ways that actually defy numerous dialogue cues and such. As I said, Robotech is the only franchise I know where the canon is ignored, sometimes whole cloth.

   Is this the Purist/McKinney debate still raging thirty years after I encountered it on Usenet?

   And Robotech's actually unique among 80s franchises for having a semi-coherent canon. Ask Ratman about Transformers or me about Masters of the Universe.   

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 02, 2024, 07:05:31 PM

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on March 02, 2024, 05:53:16 PM
Actually, the REF (in fact everyone Earth-based) never encountered the Invid until the Invid Invasion of Earth. No one had even heard of them until Musica tells Bowie of them in Final Nightmare. The REF was out in deep space battling, quite likely, The Disciples of Zor and whatever was left of Dolza's Grand Fleet (at least for a short time). And that's not even mentioning whatever local forces would be trying to pick at the dead corpse of The Masters' empire. At least in the Tv series. The novels/comics (and even RPG) are altogether different, in ways that actually defy numerous dialogue cues and such. As I said, Robotech is the only franchise I know where the canon is ignored, sometimes whole cloth.

   Is this the Purist/McKinney debate still raging thirty years after I encountered it on Usenet?

Glad you mentioned that. I wasn't sure what the heck Insane Nerd Ramblings was talking about, since I've never read the novelization.
Alls I know is that in the outline for Sentinels the REF is fighting the Invid Regent's forces.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 02, 2024, 07:05:31 PMIs this the Purist/McKinney debate still raging thirty years after I encountered it on Usenet?

And Robotech's actually unique among 80s franchises for having a semi-coherent canon. Ask Ratman about Transformers or me about Masters of the Universe.   

Sort of yes, sort of no. More like Diagetic vs McKinneyist. There has been a sort of shift even among the 'purist' thought because a lot of us went back and studied what the Tv series says, specific cues and such. Like the people who basically built Harmony Gold's database, more specifically their timeline, at the time didn't really do any sort of in-depth dives on the show. Its why you have the absolutely absurdity of an 18 month long 2nd Robotech War, when there are specific time cues given throughout the series that shows its closer to 6 months at the very most. Which shouldn't be surprising as The Masters were running so low on power (but even on that low of a power, they were devastatingly effective).

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 02, 2024, 07:35:51 PMAlls I know is that in the outline for Sentinels the REF is fighting the Invid Regent's forces.

I know, but we have to go with the Tv series first (and The Sentinels was, thankfully, never finished). And if you pay attention to the Tv series, it paints a very different picture. Besides, in the grand scheme of things, its only a 7 year delay in the REF battling the Invid. You still have all the way to the early 2050s (so roughly 20 years) to tell stories of the REF fighting to liberate planet after planet.

Quote from: Insane Nerd Ramblings on March 02, 2024, 07:43:38 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on March 02, 2024, 07:05:31 PMIs this the Purist/McKinney debate still raging thirty years after I encountered it on Usenet?

And Robotech's actually unique among 80s franchises for having a semi-coherent canon. Ask Ratman about Transformers or me about Masters of the Universe.   

Sort of yes, sort of no. More like Diagetic vs McKinneyist. There has been a sort of shift even among the 'purist' thought because a lot of us went back and studied what the Tv series says, specific cues and such. Like the people who basically built Harmony Gold's database, more specifically their timeline, at the time didn't really do any sort of in-depth dives on the show. Its why you have the absolutely absurdity of an 18 month long 2nd Robotech War, when there are specific time cues given throughout the series that shows its closer to 6 months at the very most. Which shouldn't be surprising as The Masters were running so low on power (but even on that low of a power, they were devastatingly effective).

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 02, 2024, 07:35:51 PMAlls I know is that in the outline for Sentinels the REF is fighting the Invid Regent's forces.

I know, but we have to go with the Tv series first (and The Sentinels was, thankfully, never finished). And if you pay attention to the Tv series, it paints a very different picture. Besides, in the grand scheme of things, its only a 7 year delay in the REF battling the Invid. You still have all the way to the early 2050s (so roughly 20 years) to tell stories of the REF fighting to liberate planet after planet.

I doubt very seriously that the show writers were concerned about a coherent timeline. Going by what's said and/or shown in the series runs up against the issues of translation, dubbing for dubbing's sake, and trying to tie three (sometimes four) seperate, barely related shows into one continuum.
I would take the shows as the least reliable source for hard facts and data. And any writer or creator who wants to fudge for the sake of making a show or game work despite all the loveable mess that is Robotech is fine with me.
Even shows like Star Trek have to to some "creative remembering", in the case of women starship captains, for example...

I'm curious why you are thankfull that The Sentinels never got finished? It's got... lots of problems. But a part of me really wants to see what the show could have been. Maybe it would have turned out crap, but it would have been interesting to see it finished at the least.

Love this thread!

Harmony Gold never deserved their fandom. They're literally the rock band that made 3 great albums that spends the next 40 years pissing on their own fans. I used to drive past their building in LA...and never forgot to wave my middle finger out the window.

The best Robotech RPG that I played was using the Hero System's Robot Warriors book, an extremely underrated RPG from the mid-80s. You created your own mechs and our GM was a Robotech MegaNerd so he built out every mech to his view of the TV show.

Was he perfectly accurate? I'm only a casual Robotech fan so I don't know, but it FELT right when we played. The campaign was cool. Macross era of course, and the GM told us upfront that we had zero plot armor. Hero System PCs are hard to kill, but Robot Warriors was no joke about what happens to humans hit by mecha weapons...

We were flying tanks...but dodging was more important than armor.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 02, 2024, 11:07:25 PMI would take the shows as the least reliable source for hard facts and data. And any writer or creator who wants to fudge for the sake of making a show or game work despite all the loveable mess that is Robotech is fine with me. Even shows like Star Trek have to to some "creative remembering", in the case of women starship captains, for example...

You would be mistaken. The show is way more internally consistent than people realize. Thing is that you have to LET the show be internally consistent by ignoring the later stuff that conflicts with it, such as the idea the REF had been out there battling the Invid prior to The Invid Invasion. Or the Zentraedi had been fighting the Invid at all. Its only stuff that was crammed in afterwards that caused the problems. The simple fact is the Tv series came first, all else should flow from that.

QuoteI'm curious why you are thankfull that The Sentinels never got finished? It's got... lots of problems. But a part of me really wants to see what the show could have been. Maybe it would have turned out crap, but it would have been interesting to see it finished at the least.

The problem with The Sentinels is it takes the expansive universe that we just barely get a peek of in Robotech and immediately squeezes it down to a fraction of its size. And that doesn't even touch on the goofy aspects that Macek wanted to add like psychic powers and such.

Quote from: Spinachcat on March 02, 2024, 11:38:58 PM
Love this thread!

Me, too. I loved the original Robotech RPG because I watched the cartoon so of course the game was a required purchase. Macross is Robotech as far as I'm concerned; I never saw the rest of the series based on Mosepedea or whatever it's called, or the Sentinels. Roy Fokker and Max Sterling and whoever else blowing up giant fucking dudes in robot walker things was all I knew and the RPG did it to the best of my knowledge. I was 12, so it was a lot easier to just go with the flow and accept the fact that a Veritech was much hardier than the cartoon; I mean, how do you even know it didn't get hit a few times before it blew up?

It's a fucking cartoon about giant robots flying around with literal giants who become human sized and then fly around in giant robots. As long as you get to the entire point, WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ROBOTS HONESTLY ENOUGH, you'll be okay.

Meh - There's plenty of Mekton conversions out there......

https://www.oocities.org/timessquare/realm/7194/mekton.htm

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 03, 2024, 05:01:33 PM
Meh - There's plenty of Mekton conversions out there......

https://www.oocities.org/timessquare/realm/7194/mekton.htm

Perhaps, but as stated, for all it does well, Mekton itself could use a fan conversion (since a new edition seems exceptionally unlikely) for it character-scale rules to deal with Reflex being the supreme stat it is.

For my money, Jovian Chronicles' system does Robotech even better. The Reflex equivalent stat is still good, but not nearly as all encompass nor as overwhelming as it is in Mekton.