Are prototypes always more performant than mass-produced models?
It's a trend at this point with Gundam to pull that trope.
RX-78 to GM
Gundam Mark II to Barzam
F91 actually had Mass production types that were as good as the original
Strike Gundam to Strike Daggers
Intresting enough, in the Novelization of the original 1979 gundam series, the original gundam was actually outclassed in every way to the GM series. They eventually refined the Gundam design to make the G-3 Gundams which in that setting was being also put into mass production for potential newtypes.
>>14477568
Prototypes have more money pumped into their development than the mass produced model, they're supposed to impress investors, it's my Metal Gear Rex (with a little bit of retconning) can utterly curbstomp the supposed anti MG weapon that is Ray.
>>14477858
Barzam's not all bad
>>>/f/3112404
>>14477871
No, Rex being able to stomp Ray is simply bullshit, especially after it had been left rotting in a derelict building for many years after being demolished by a man with a rocket launcher
Prototypes in real life are generally shitty-er than the MP version. They're made as a test to work out the bugs and are made to be easier to work on and generally have less bells and whistles all around.
It's pretty much a Fiction thing for prototypes to be massively better than the MP version.
>>14477568
not in real life no
in anime yeah most of the time the biggest exception i can think of is dragonar
>>14477876
None of the units listed above a per-se bad. They definitely however were a step down from the original design.
>>14477882
Actually it's because Ray was engineered to curbstomp cheap-ass knockoffs of Rex. The real deal is such an overengineered badass of a Gear that it can endure years of neglect and still stomp ass.
>>14477909
Barzam is supposed to be slightly weaker than the MK II, but I'd say it more than makes up for it by using Gundarium armor compared to the MK II's armor.
>>14477922
While the decision to equip the Barzam with Gundarium armor may have given it a defensive boost over the original Mark II, I thought the armor composition did not do much against beam weaponory, which had become the norm for almost all units in the latter parts of the Grpys war. Also if I remember correctly, the armor led to the Barzam having generally lower speed than if it just would have used generic Titanium Cermatic armor like almost every other unit in the war. Don't get me wrong, I love the design to death, but it had its own fair share of issues the put it below the original Mark II.
>>14477858
The Gundam isn't a prototype for the GM. It's a prototype for MS development in general.
The prototype GM would be the early-type GMs launched by Luna II. Jaburo probably had some too but technically there's no word of such a thing.
Seems like a case of "marketing snowflake". The main suit is the one that has the most distinct design, the most character, and is the most visible.
If things followed real life, and Amuro were to switch over to a Jim mid series, which has a far less distinct design, it would probably hurt Gunpla sales.
>>14477958
Actually the prototype for MS development if we include MS-X and MS-V material was the Zanny. It was basically a Zaku II that had been modified to serve as a test bed for getting investors to sign on for the V project. Only after months of getting curb stombed by Zeon and it looking like they would lose with conventional weapons did they decide to fund a project for mobile suit mass deployment.
http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/RRf-06_Zanny
All of the V project units spawned mass production copies of their designs.
RX-75 Guntank to the RX-75MP
RX-77 Guncannon to the RX-77D
RX-78 Gundam to RGM-79 GM [separate in generally design to the ground variants]
>>14477886
This. However the actual test model is generally the "let's go all out and push this machine to its absolute limit before we scale it down for mass production". But prototype and test model aren't the same thing.
>>14477882
>after being demolished by a man with a rocket launcher
Snake literally couldn't damage that Rex, it was basically indestructible. All he could do was destroy the radar dish so that Liquid had to open the cockpit to look at him.
>>14477890
Macross too. The VF-19 is better in every way bar maneuverability to the YF-19. The VF-22 is better in every way to the YF-21, bar dropping the BDI/BSI system, which was unstable and not actually efficient anyways - since it didn't give any obvious advantage to Guld over Isamu.
Please keep in mind that I'm not talking exclusively about gundam but about all of mecha anime/manga.
>>14477993
ehhh, it's more that the pre-production model enjoys further expenses made to optimize a design that may not have been justifiable during proof of concept. Especially in the case of America's competitive contract approach where multiple companies are challenged to make a design according to a given set of specs, the initial proposal is subpar compared to the winning design's followup iteration, but the whole idea is that they're trying to secure the contract first before blowing even more funds on tightening things up.
I think it's also potentially an issue of differing cultural approaches, but I have no idea if Japan really did/does subscribe to a philosophy of "start with masterpiece, degrade it until it becomes fit for mass production."
I feel like the prototype thing generally goes one of 3 ways in mecha stuff:
1) The prototype is better in every way but cost too much to make more than one of
2) The prototype is generally better but has one glaring flaw that makes it impractical
3) There are numerous failed prototypes all of which got at least one thing right and the final model is just better balanced and significantly more reliable
I always liked that in certain points in different Getter Robo series it's been made clear that there are just dozens of failed prototype or strictly test-use getter units lying around.
>>14478228
in OP's case, would you say the prototype's flaw is a tendency to overheat, or smaller breasts?
>>14477568source of the pic?
>>14478288
just got done on /e/ by RetroAnime who's a based drawfag with best taste.
>>14478041
Remember that Japan was incredibly resource-starved in WWII. I know katanas and rifles both fell drastically in quality due to resource and time restraints but I'm not sure about other military hardware. I would assume it's the same case. However this is initial production vs late production, not prototype vs MP.
>>14477568
Nope. These bad boys managed to outperform the Dragonars they were based on. Said Dragonars had to get a major internal overhaul to surpass the Dragoon and regain their special forces mech status in the EF Army.
Alot of it is that they have next generation technology in them. It is also that many prototypes are heavily overbuilt, everything that can be reinforced will be. By the time mass production starts the enemy will have countermeasure to the new tech and the mass produced units will be limited not by tech available but by supply chains, cost, infrastructure capacity etc. If you look at the original Gundam later on in the show it wasn't as much that the gundam was so much better than the GM but how amazing Amuro had become at that point. Patlabor had some episodes that went over the differences with the Ingrams and replacements that dealt with the same issues.
>>14477886
>>14477890
>>14477993
Generally, yes, but there were numerous exceptions. IRL, some prototype vehicles had features that contributed to its overall performance, but were deleted from the mass-produced versions because of factors such as increased costs, finicky maintenance, reliability issues, etc.
Then there are cases where the factories doing the mass production couldn't achieve the quality control found in the prototypes. Notable examples are the majority of Soviet fighter aircraft in WW2. Even the poor paint finish had a negative effect on top speed.
>>14477568
IRL airplane prototypes are always shit compared to their MP sons.
>>14478919
>>14478955
>IRL
we're on /m/, IRL shit is off-topic
>>14477568
Never in real life, not always in anime. The prototype Zakus and Goufs were far inferior to the mass produced models.
>>14477568
Wait, weren't every single Gundam after the original RX-78-2, superior?
I mean every gundam that were fielded during the OYW?
I mean the FA series looks impressive.
>>14477568
All Adeles were equal to the AGE-1. They could equip all the same wears as the AGE-1, and their only limit was their pilot.
>>14480019
On the other hand the Clanches were inferior in every way to the AGE-2. The Clanche wasn't even a true mass produced version of the gundam, because the transformation sequence and the 4 wings were to hard to simplify. The closest they ever got was the Clanche Prototype, and even that had problems.
