Sambot wrote:Nope. Sorry. They're still automobiles. Automobiles is a category. Muscle Car is a sub category. '69 Dodge Charger is a type. A Mail Truck is a category. A Grumman LLV is a type. The same skill is used to drive both; Pilot Automobile.
Again, you missed the point... not all things which would fit the dictionary definition of "automobile" are under the
Pilot: Automobiles skill. Some, where they clearly belong to a separate class of vehicle, are broken out as separate skills where relevant and appropriate to do so. That's why there is a separate skill (
Pilot: Truck) for operating large commercial and cargo vehicles. While the Civilian Valkyries of
Macross II are, in the most basic sense, Valkyries... they are a different class of Valkyrie and are broken out into a separate pilot skill even in RAW.
Sambot wrote:Except the setting allows for the private ownership of former military mecha, [...]
No, the Macross II: Lovers Again setting DOES NOT allow for private ownership of retired military equipment.You are (knowingly, at this point) attempting to conflate material from two separate
Macross timelines/universes. I am not sure how much clearer I can make this statement of fact. Please see below for a detailed explanation.
In
Macross II, the closest that any civilian can come to privately owning a Valkyrie is the Takachihoff Corporation's Civilian Valkyrie series. It is only in the main
Macross timeline that built on
Macross Plus and
Macross 7 where a private citizen is able to purchase a decommissioned military Valkyrie.
Sambot wrote:Other games do have prop fighters. Even Macross had replicas but there isn't been a Pilot Prop Fighter skill. Why? Because what separates civilian from military is guns. The Fokker D.VII was a fighter plane. Remove the machine guns, or render inoperable, and now it's a civilian plane. Either way the Fokker D.VII is a single engine prop airplane. It doesn't suddenly become a Helicopter in the presence of weapons. Why should a Jet or a Valkyrie?
First, this is kind of an irrelevance given that there are no propeller-driven aircraft in the
Macross II setting at all. They, like a number of other things, simply ceased to exist when the Boddole Zer main fleet scorched the Earth's surface into a barren wasteland.
Second, with respect to your argument here the gulf between a civilian aircraft and military aircraft is many times greater now than it was when the Fokker Flugzeugwerke developed the D.VII. Back in 1918, about all that separated the Fokker D.VII from a civilian biplane was the addition of a pair of "off the shelf" Spandau MG 08 machine guns. By the time World War II got going in earnest, fighters were a radically different breed of aircraft from anything else that was in the air. That divide has only grown with time. Your argument here is like saying that if I were to mount a NERF machine gun in the bed of a pickup truck it magically becomes an APC. No, there's a lot more to it. The VC-079 Civilian Valkyrie is basically the spacefuture version of a Cessna 172. It's nowhere near the same level as a military aircraft technologically or performance-wise. As Han Solo once put it, "This ain't like dusting crops, kid." Arguing that someone who qualified on a Civilian Valkyrie could operate a VF-2SS just as easily is like arguing that knowing how to race a go-kart qualifies you for the Indiana 500.
Sambot wrote:Why wouldn't there be prop planes? Prop planes far less expensive to build, operate and maintain then jet aircraft. They're what people learn to fly on. Like how people don't learn to drive in a Formula 1. You can get to places faster or take in views you can't see on the ground. Just because we don't see any doesn't mean there aren't any. And unless you're going to remove the Pilot Airplane skill from the list, you need to allow for their existence.
Manufacturing cost is much less of an issue with Earth benefitting from multiple factory satellites. With most of Earth a barren wasteland, there's no advantage to a relatively slow small aircraft. Better by far to exploit the incredible fuel efficiency and power of thermonuclear reaction turbine engines to make VTOL craft that can carry months worth of fuel and fly far faster and higher than any old prop plane ever could.
Propeller aircraft are basically absent in both
Macross timelines after the First Space War, except for the ultralight that Isamu and Guld built in school. In the main timeline, old Valkyries are easy enough to come by that vocational schools teaching piloting use civilian market Valkyries and other jet aircraft with reaction engines. (Mihoshi Academy, the school Alto attends in
Macross Frontier, uses VF-1s for its pilot students.)
Sambot wrote:Combat Flying: Similar to the skill Combat Driving, the Combat Flying skill represents a character's ability to fly in adverse weather and combat conditions.
The character's ability to fly in combat conditions.
As noted previously, the ability to operate the mecha in combat is explicitly covered by the base military Pilot skill and MECT.
What you are referencing is a supplemental skill that provides additional bonuses on top of those.
Sambot wrote:Where does the Fan Racer fit in? It isn't a commercial transport. It's not a Propeller Plane.
Well, the Civilian OCC's Stunt Pilot occupation offers bonuses to
Pilot: Airplane and
Pilot: Jet Aircraft.
Strictly speaking, based on its propulsion configuration the closest appropriate skill
should be
Pilot: Airplane as its main propulsion is a double ducted fan in a pusher configuration. There's no skill for rocket-propelled aircraft, but
Pilot: Jet Aircraft would probably be the next closest fit there.
Sambot wrote:And please remember Hikaru/Rick did fly a VF-1D which if we go with you're "Civilian's can't fly military vehicles" should not have been possible.
Are you having fun with that strawman? Please let him go, he's off to see the wizard. The wonderful Wizard of Oz.
My argument is that a civilian would not have access to military-only pilot skills like
Pilot: Valkyrie or
Pilot: Jet Fighter because a civilian's flight training does not and would not include the secondary stuff in the 2E skills like air combat strategy, military maneuvers, and weapons system training. That's why I have advocated for retaining
Pilot: Civilian Valkyrie from the M2 RAW for the sake of covering that awkward area in the RT2e ruleset.
Sambot wrote:Except Macross does allow the ownership of Military Mecha and Macross II is a sequel [...]
Eh... no.
What you're talking about is a different timeline/universe from Macross II's.Macross II is a sequel to
Macross: Do You Remember Love?.
At the time
Macross II: Lovers Again was being made, it was the only continuation of the
Macross story after the First Space War depicted in the 1982
Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series and 1984
Macross: Do You Remember Love? movie. Masaya developed
Macross's first two canon video games as tie-ins to it as well: the side-scrolling shooter
Macross 2036 and the TRPG
Macross: Eternal Love Song. The idea of a civilian-use mecha was a new concept introduced in
Macross II: Lovers Again with the built-for-purpose VC-079 Civilian Valkyrie and its backstory-only predecessor the VC-054.
Once Shoji Kawamori was enticed back to the franchise by difficulties getting his non-
Macross proposals funded, he created a new timeline for two new story pitches he had that became
Macross Plus and
Macross 7.
Macross II and its continuity were officially classified as
Macross's first (and still only) official alternate universe storyline.
Macross 7 was the first series to depict decommissioned military Valkyries in civilian hands. We usually refer to this new timeline/continuity Kawamori created for
Macross Plus and
Macross 7 as the "main" timeline due to it being used for all
Macross sequels developed from 1994 onwards. The announcement was made in a number of different formats including a promotional video, in art books, and in a note put at the end of the final volume of the
Macross II novelization.
So when you say
Macross sequels feature civilians owning retired military mecha... you're thinking of the "main timeline"
Macross stories.
Macross II is an alternate universe story with a very different continuity and chronology to it.
In
Macross II's timeline, the military never sold off decommissioned mecha to civilians. The only mecha civilians had access to were the ones deliberately developed specifically for civilian use... the aforementioned VC series from Takachihoff.
Sambot wrote:And where things don't fit we improvise And the RT2r ruleset does separate out Piloting Mecha and Combat Mecha.
The RT2e ruleset has military Pilot skills granting basic combat ability (without bonuses), unlike the M2 raw where basic combat ability was itself a separate skill.
It's easier to just have a civilian skill for a particular category, since that covers both built-for-purpose civilian mecha and decommissioned and disarmed military ones.
Sambot wrote:Pilot Battloids expressly says without combat training. The other two don't mention it. They all say
Note: Must select Mecha Elite Combat Training to get additional combat bonuses
You're conflating two different concepts here. The Pilot skills, as noted previously, confer the basic ability to use the vehicle in combat. When the RPG refers to Combat Training it's referring to the Elite Combat Training skill that provides bonuses in combat.
Sambot wrote:I suggest that this
means the character can operate it and use all sensors. features. and weapons of the mecha.
should be ignored.
I disagree. The basic qualification for obtaining an operator license on a vehicle of practically any type is knowing how to operate it and use its available features and such safely. The definition as it is makes real world sense for military and nonmilitary vehicles alike.
Sambot wrote:Further more, you have to be able to operate the sensors to operate Mechs. Battloids, Destroids, Pods, etc. are enclosed instrument only cockpits. You're not looking out a window. You're relying on sensors for everything. Operating the sensors is essential to operating the mecha. Everything else can be learned after learning how to operate the mecha. Unless you're in the military, or have a very good reason, you don't get to learn them.
So... yes and no? I mean, yes per RAW you need the
Sensory Equipment skill to operate a mecha. This is something I changed in my own homebrew because the skill is too broadly written. It covers everything medical diagnostic systems to military radars to research implements like electron microscopes. I broke it up a bit and made field-specific sensor operation covered by a field-specific base skill like
Electrical Engineer,
Paramedic, etc. Especially since, on the mecha in
Macross, the pilot is seeing the output of the sensor fusion work the integrated control AI does in the background. The individual sensors are being controlled and coordinated by the control AI, so the pilot doesn't have to work them individually. The system automatically selects and coordinates all the appropriate sensors for situational awareness. It's kind of necessary given how many sensor systems the average mecha has.
What I use
Sensory Equipment for is a specialist skill for ship-based personnel in air traffic control and as a skill for pilots operating Reconnaissance (RVF) and ELINT/AWACS VFs (VE) to cover a host of specialist sensors and non-standard mission-specific, high-powered sensor equipment.
Sambot wrote:If things were as you say, a Fighter Pilot couldn't just get checked out on a simulator and start flying for an airline because he wouldn't be able to fly the simulator. He'd have to go through flight school all over again, like all the other rookie pilots.
Hate to break it to you, but they DO have to go to flight school all over again... to recertify on a different class of aircraft which requires meeting a man-hours training requirement on that class of craft and taking specific training on class- and model-specific emergency procedures.
Sambot wrote:Not something you're going to do way behind the lines.
That someone else shot down the enemy before they became a threat doesn't mean that they weren't in the combat zone. They also boarded an enemy ship and made off with enemy personnel. That kind of sounds like engaging in combat to me.
Engaging in combat means you fought. That's literally what it means. At no point did Hibiki fight anyone. He basically did not do anything that would constitute a melee action, if we want to put it in RPG terms.
Sambot wrote:Is Hakuna Aoba a military pilot or is that just a rumor because he flies a VF-1X++.
Sambot wrote:How many of the Valkyries used in Macross R were owned by civilian?
Please see the above for why
Macross R is not relevant due to
Macross II belonging to an alternate
Macross universe with its own timeline.
However, to answer the question... "at least a few". It's hard to say with certainty because most Vanquish League pilots are sponsored by corporations. This blurs the line somewhat as to whether the VF they're flying is corporate-owned or privately owned, though several corporate teams are definitely flying corporate VFs and are considered by some fans of the sport to be attempting a sort of pay-to-win strategy. Like Team Shinsei, whose entry in the Ultimate Class races is a Shinsei corporate test pilot flying what is essentially a state-of-the-art customized VF-19 test aircraft. Team SMS, similarly, fielded a VF-19 technology demonstrator and was using the races to collect data for the YF-25 development program. There's also one racer who is the heiress to an interstellar bank and thus it's difficult to separate personal funding from having corporate sponsorship.
Of course, this has no bearing on
Macross II's setting since in
Macross II's alternate universe timeline the only civilian-owned mecha are the VC-series Civilian Valkyries.
Sambot wrote:I didn't say it was the only one. I said that those which had been replaced would have been surplus. Those remaining in service would continue in their roles until they were also replaced. And considering other VFs were being introduced to replace the VF-1, that would mean more and more VF-1s being retired.
Again, that's the main timeline... where the VF-1 Valkyrie remained in frontline service into the 2040s with the special forces and was used as a training aircraft are being replaced by the VF-4 and the VF-5000. As I noted previously, based on other examples the VF-1 would not have wound up in military disposal sales until the 2030s when it was two generations old. It's also worth noting that in a number of secondary publications it's indicated that many First Space War mecha were fobbed off on emigrant fleets or converted into unmanned target aircraft for live fire exercises similar to how the New UN Spacy used remotely operated VF-11A's in its live fire testing of the Ghost X-9 in
Macross Plus.
In
Macross II's timeline, however, the VF-1 remained in frontline service alongside the VF-4 for much longer and were updated to the VF-1改 Refined Valkyrie standard to continue in service along with a similarly updated VF-4. Both were effectively ushered out of service in the 2050s due to massive losses in the 2054 Zentradi invasion and were replaced by the VF-XX and the VF-2 series VFs developed from it.
Sambot wrote:And the combat flying and military tactics and weapons systems, etc. that civilians can't learn? I would have thought that even he would have thought that that was more than just a guitar gig.
That people who don't have access to military training can't learn. Basara does not exactly meet the strict definition of a civilian given that he was the test pilot in a New UN Forces black project. He was certainly proficient in the use of that speaker pod launcher (gunpod) when he first sortied in the VF-19改. But, again, that's a different universe from the one we're talking about.
Sambot wrote:Hikaru/Rick aiming the head lasers while in GERWALK Mode to cut a circular hole so that Misa could get out....I'm pretty sure that was done manually. Max, Hikaru and others using the lasers in fighter mode to hit specific locations on Battle Pods...That seems like manual control too. Neither are automatically firing at incoming missiles. That's aiming and firing.
Ah, no... per official materials, we know that a VF's weapons are not aimed manually. Nor is the firing process strictly manual, since the control impulse from the triggers goes through the control AI to the FCS to the weapon. To aim at a target, all the pilot has to do is look at it and control AI does the rest. And yes, that includes aiming at specific parts of a target. When Hikaru cuts that hole, he's shown superimposing a large circular target on the door...
Sambot wrote:You do realize that you're proving my point.
Nothing I said supports your argument, I'm afraid.
Sambot wrote:Why should throwing a manual punch mean that you couldn't lean into it.
As far as we know, asserting manual control over one limb for precision maneuvers locks the rest of the mecha in place. There aren't separate controls for each limb, so controlling the right arm uses the same joystick that's used for general maneuvering, and controlling the left uses the same joystick that is also the throttle lever.