Why did Palladium shrink the robotech factory?

[mech798]

I was just looking over my old copy of "The return of the masters" and suddenly noticed something very odd. The "super" robotech factory which was fluffed as being larger than the regular models has a main body that is only 17.5 "long".

Needless to say, that doesn't even work with what we see in the series, much less the production sheets. (Breetai's ship you'll note enters a gigantic hatch...which is impossible to discern in exterior shots because it's far too small).

So was there ever any reasoning given for this?

[ShadowLogan]

No I don't know of any reason they would have to shrink the RFS as depicted. Its still big enough to handle all known (Z/RM) ship classes though.

[taalismn]

They forgot to read the cleaning instructions and it shrunk in the wash.

[glitterboy2098]

at the time palladium didn't have much in the way of materials about macross's hardware (most of what was around at the time apparently didn't make it into their hands), so they had to figure it out on their own. and i suspect they focused more on the stuff people will use often, like the mecha.

[Seto Kaiba]

I was just looking over my old copy of "The return of the masters" and suddenly noticed something very odd. The "super" robotech factory which was fluffed as being larger than the regular models has a main body that is only 17.5 "long".

Needless to say, that doesn't even work with what we see in the series, much less the production sheets. (Breetai's ship you'll note enters a gigantic hatch...which is impossible to discern in exterior shots because it's far too small).

So was there ever any reasoning given for this?

Probably just an error on the writer's part.

[jaymz]

Basically Palladium didn't have the info to indicate its actual size. They got the dimensions wrong in the REF Field Guide as well.

I still use the old dimensions for the two specific "Factory Satellites" from first edition as smaller replenishment and repair satellites.

[mech798]

Of course, looking at Shadow Chronicles-- well Liberty is BIG, make no mistake about it, but it is clearly not 1/4 the size of the moon. Note the fact that when the Shimikaze is entering the station, you can see the entry point against the hull of the station in the first view, unlike the Factory Satellite, where the docking bay Breetai used was completely invisible.

[Seto Kaiba]

Of course, looking at Shadow Chronicles-- well Liberty is BIG, make no mistake about it, but it is clearly not 1/4 the size of the moon.

One of the (many) irritating things about the production materials from Shadow Chronicles is that they never bothered to decide any of the details of the designs they made for the film. Space Station Liberty's size seems to vary a bit from scene to scene. As you say, it's definitely not something like the one in Macross, which was so large that, while parked at L5, it could be seen from Earth's surface with the naked eye. Its size seems to vary, shot-to-shot, from a few dozen kilometers across to a few hundred.

'course, I've always suspected that Space Station Liberty was never intended to be a factory satellite, since it shares all the same aesthetic cues as Moon Base ALuCE. To me, it smacks of something they decided after the fact to fill pad out SSL's description in The Art of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles.

[mech798]

Of course, looking at Shadow Chronicles-- well Liberty is BIG, make no mistake about it, but it is clearly not 1/4 the size of the moon.

One of the (many) irritating things about the production materials from Shadow Chronicles is that they never bothered to decide any of the details of the designs they made for the film. Space Station Liberty's size seems to vary a bit from scene to scene. As you say, it's definitely not something like the one in Macross, which was so large that, while parked at L5, it could be seen from Earth's surface with the naked eye. Its size seems to vary, shot-to-shot, from a few dozen kilometers across to a few hundred.

'course, I've always suspected that Space Station Liberty was never intended to be a factory satellite, since it shares all the same aesthetic cues as Moon Base ALuCE. To me, it smacks of something they decided after the fact to fill pad out SSL's description in The Art of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles.

One of the problems we have with robotech is that unlike Macross there is only ONE zentraedi fleet, and so you don't need nearly as many factory systems as you had set up in macross. If anything, it might make more sense to have a number of smaller subsidiary satellites in order to make for more effecient repair/construction systems. Of course we never see that, or for that matter really anything about how the zentraedi logistics train works -- do they have tenders to bring in damaged ships or does every ship that loses its fold drive simply get scrapped. Personally, my take is that they have a number of repair ships (and even if we accept the rpg's claim that ships have internal factories, which isn't supported by anything else, having a dedicated repair ship is always going to be more efficient.)

[Seto Kaiba]

One of the problems we have with robotech is that unlike Macross there is only ONE zentraedi fleet, and so you don't need nearly as many factory systems as you had set up in macross.

Eh... there was only the one originally, but the Robotech creative staff did a lot of copying Macross in RTSC and its artbook.

Of course we never see that, or for that matter really anything about how the zentraedi logistics train works -- do they have tenders to bring in damaged ships or does every ship that loses its fold drive simply get scrapped. Personally, my take is that they have a number of repair ships (and even if we accept the rpg's claim that ships have internal factories, which isn't supported by anything else, having a dedicated repair ship is always going to be more efficient.)

Canonically... no, they don't have tenders or tankers or other kinds of logistical support craft. As we see in the series, when they need resupply they just fold back to their mobile fortress or to a factory satellite. Zentradi tech is pretty rugged stuff... and the apocalyptic scale of the weapons necessary to damage their ships seems to leave them in one of two states when they're attacked: "minor" damage that doesn't significantly affect the ship's ability to fight, and "completely destroyed". No real middle ground there for repairs, until humans came along and turned their hands to repairing Breetai's ship for their own use.

The closest we ever see (canonically) to any kind of concession to post-battle recovery of equipment is the recovery pod... and that's more a "pick up the pieces for material recovery" type thing.

[jaymz]

Yeah I always saw it is the "grab the specimen" or "salvage" pod not really "recovery".

[Seto Kaiba]

Yeah I always saw it is the "grab the specimen" or "salvage" pod not really "recovery".

The Japanese caption in the line art is, literally... "recovery craft". The description in Macross Chronicle indicates it's used for something analogous to combat search and rescue operations, recovering disabled craft whose pilots did not die in combat and retrieving disabled enemy units for study.

[jaymz]

So....specimens and salvage....

[Seto Kaiba]

So....specimens and salvage....

Not salvage... troop recovery. They could, by all accounts, care less about the retrieval of disabled battle pods because they have no concept of aircraft maintenance.

[jaymz]

true enough but in some ways that COULD be salvage