Brenden, on 06 January 2017 - 04:21 PM, said:
But isn't Macross in a pseudo-early 2000s? Wouldn't the material they have be sorely lacking compared to the futuristic materials of the 31st century? Sure the BattleMechs have been recycled for centuries, but wouldn't it still stop their firepower? Sure they have the range, but so do the BattleMech's weapon systems if one goes by the advanced rules; LRMs could go out to at least 1,250m, while the Large Laser could theoretically hit something a little bit beyond that range, if the dice roll is high and you could actually aim at something that far.
Yes, it was like 2009 or something in the first episode of Robotech, I don't recall off hand when exactly Macross was set, but it had to be right around there because of the short known as "Macross: Flashback 2014", but keep in mind that the technology on what would become the SDF-1 was at least several hundred years advanced than what Earth had at the time. The crash landing of what would become the SDF-1 leap-frogged Earth's technology by a huge margin.
Literally the only reason the Zentradi didn't run roughshod all over the SDF-1 was they were under the same sort of conditions as the Inner Sphere in the early 31st century. All of their equipment was hundreds of years old by the time they arrived at Earth, and while they had numerical superiority, they could just barely keep their fleet running.
It's pretty much exactly like Battletech.
The Zentradi is the Inner Sphere, and Earth is the Clans.
Of course the whole culture shock thing certainly gave Earth a huge advantage.