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FPA is supposed to be the lightning strike of Zentraedi air units, and the air speed went from Mach 2 in 1E to 725mph in 2E? What is that based on?

ETA: That value seems low. So I cracked open my PDF for a second opinion. And, lo! I was right; FPA in that printing can fly Mach 4!

My current hardcopy doesn't show what printing it is, and the copyright date is 1986. The PDF is dated 2017, and based on the 10th physical printing, 1998.

thorr-kan wrote:FPA is supposed to be the lightning strike of Zentraedi air units, and the air speed went from Mach 2 in 1E to 725mph in 2E?

Put simply... with the exception of the "Gnerl" air combat pod, Zentradi mecha really are not designed for atmospheric flight. They can manage it, but they're doing it on red raw thrust and nothing else and their speeds are limited by their need to divert part of their maximum output to producing thrust for lift instead.

The Queadluun-Rau battle suit is no exception in that regard. It's a big, chunky, heavy battle suit made for space dogfighting. It's got the aerodynamics of a modern art installation because it was made for high agility space combat not simple straight-line speed. That's why there's such a huge disparity between its atmospheric and space speeds in the RPG as well.

thorr-kan wrote:What is that based on?

ETA: That value seems low. So I cracked open my PDF for a second opinion. And, lo! I was right; FPA in that printing can fly Mach 4!

My current hardcopy doesn't show what printing it is, and the copyright date is 1986. The PDF is dated 2017, and based on the 10th physical printing, 1998.

Really, that's a question you should be directing far more at 1E than 2E. A big part of the reason 1E was disowned by Harmony Gold was that, despite Palladium's efforts, its contents bore only the most superficial resemblance to Robotech and almost everything was misidentified, mis-statted, or both.

2E's contents still make a lot of... guesses... but they're based much more heavily on the animation and original source material.

The Quadrono's shape looks pretty high-drag. It may be the Zentraedi's best battle pod without being their fastest.

I take it back; the speed is errata. From the Zentraedi sourcebook pdf, p. 19:
"Special Note: The first printing of the ROBOTECH® RPG indicates a flight speed of Mach 2. This is incorrect. The true speed is equal to that of the Veritech Fighters - 2600mph or almost Mach 4. Please note this correction."