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I'm having some trouble imagining the planet-hopping campaign of the UEEF. I've noticed some of the people who post here are experts on Robotech and have all kinds of resources I've never encountered. Maybe you can help me with some things.

Going by the expanded time table in The Expeditionary Force Marines sourcebook:

The UEEF arrives at Tirol. 2025
Karbarra is liberated. 2026
The Regent is killed. 2028
All mention of planet-liberation ends. The Karbarrans begin building a new UEEF fleet. The 1st cyclones are developed. 2029
The Regess arrives on Earth. 2031
The UEEF fleet attacks Earth. The Regess leaves. 2044

It sounds like the planet-hopping campaign happened from 2025-2029, and cyclones had not been invented yet. It looks to me like the Titan and the Horizon-T were designed with cyclones in mind, but apparently cyclones were never part of the planet-hopping campaign. Doesn't it seem a little odd that the UEEF sourcebook which wants us to start with the arrival at Tirol keeps talking about cyclones and machines that were designed for use with cyclones when apparently cyclones weren't invented until after the planet-hopping campaign was over?

What was the UEEF doing for 15 years between the Regent's death and their return to Earth? What were the Karbarrans doing for 3 years after they were liberated but before they started building a space fleet? It was nice of the Karbarrans to build a new fleet, but where did all the crews come from? The Robotech Masters could clone their Zentraedi. But the UEEF fleet that returns to Earth is much, much larger than one that left, and it's hard to imagine they had a "have as many babies as you can" policy since they have women in combat roles. So that massive UEEF fleet that goes up against the Regess- are humans a tiny minority in it?

The book says the VR-010 and VR-020 cyclones were never "mass produced." Does that mean there were only ever prototypes? Is there any kind of campaign where it would be appropriate to use these machines? I really like the space cyclones. I intend to just house-rule cyclones into existence from the invasion of Tirol, but it leaves me wondering what the UEEF was using for its planet-hopping campaign from 2025 to 2029. They had alphas but not betas. Destroids, zentraedi mecha, bioroid interceptors. There was some mention of using VF-series veritechs which seems screwy. I guess they had hovertanks and ajax's.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

The REF jump took 10 years or so, not to them, but in earth time.. (5 years each, or 10 there, I do not know)
But the REF forces returning to earth learned they had been gone way longer then they expected.

Beta's were tested before the REF left by Max en Myria in en in space exchange of bèta's.
So it's fait to asume they had them when tre REF left for Tirol.

Mind you, it had been 20+ years ago that I saw the series and the movies... Or read the books series..

So much of your time gap can be acounted for. The rest with the cyclones I do not know....

I read someware the a 100 VF-1's were taken allong with 24 Hovertanks. The Ajaxs does not ring a bell.
But I need te reread the books to find the references, and that's not even certain. It could be info from the web...

by HG canon the regent is killed in 2042ish. (per the prelude comics) UEEF marines is highly inaccurate in regards to its timeline, pretty much ignoring HG canon. the UEEF spent that whole time between 2025 and 2042 fighting the Invid regent's forces on the various worlds. in prelude, the sentinels worlds are described as "recently liberated" in events occurring in around 2041.

also per HG canon and the RPG's actual fold drive rules, the trip there would take multiple folds, so the 3 years of travel between the UEEF's leaving earth in 2022 and arriving at Tyrol in 2025 was not in a single fold. there was no time differential.


in regards ot the early cyclones, they were not mass produced, but they were deployed. this would put them into a situation similar to the real world F-35 and Littorial Combat Ship. Low Rate Initial Production, basically the practice where the vehicle is built in smaller batches using a mix of both mass production and hand assembly. usually it is meant to allow a product to start production and distribution before all the bugs have been worked out. problems detected in an earlier batch are addressed in the new batches, and where possible, the fixes are retrofitted to the earlier production already distributed.
you can think of it as a kind of mass field test. (like the deployment of the XM25 grenade launcher to Afghanistan in real life, or the deployment of the Landwarrior system to Iraq) the early cyclones were likely serving as test models at the same time they were in the field, the soldiers using them and technicians maintainign them being asked ot give feedback on problems the systems faced and features they liked, disliked, and would like to see.

blainedeyoung wrote:Going by the expanded time table in The Expeditionary Force Marines sourcebook:

That is likely the major source of you issues. The author seemed to be working on the basis of the pre-2000 RT timeline w/re to Sentinels. Until 2000-or-so, official RT materials seemed to place NG-events in the early/mid 2030s, but after the 2000-ish reboot HG moved the events of NG to the early/mid 2040s. In the past I went through the 2E main book (and era SBs), and put together a rough timeline, I'd use that for events more than Marines. Officially there isn't much information on the time period in question either.

blainedeyoung wrote:It sounds like the planet-hopping campaign happened from 2025-2029

That was the period in pre-2000 material, currently I'm not sure when I'd place it. From the show the Invid where unknown in 2029-30, so the war with the Regent couldn't really start until 2030 or so. The UEEF is also known to have launched the 10th MD invasion in 2038 of Earth vs the Regis, and we know the Regent dies in 2042-4 (I forget), so that gives an idea of when the Sentinels events likely happened in the current continuity.

blainedeyoung wrote:The book says the VR-010 and VR-020 cyclones were never "mass produced." Does that mean there were only ever prototypes?

The VR-01x/02x series are supposed to be 2020s models IIRC and saw limited use. They might not have been "mass produced" in great quanties like the -03x/04x/05x, but they could still have entered production on a limited basis and in limited numbers so they are not as prevelant in the period in question.

As to integrating them into a 2020s timeframe, they'd likely be specialized units using them and not generalized units.

sanka wrote:The REF jump took 10 years or so, not to them, but in earth time.. (5 years each, or 10 there, I do not know)
But the REF forces returning to earth learned they had been gone way longer then they expected.

Beta's were tested before the REF left by Max en Myria in en in space exchange of bèta's.
So it's fait to asume they had them when tre REF left for Tirol.

Mind you, it had been 20+ years ago that I saw the series and the movies... Or read the books series..

So much of your time gap can be acounted for. The rest with the cyclones I do not know....

I read someware the a 100 VF-1's were taken allong with 24 Hovertanks. The Ajaxs does not ring a bell.
But I need te reread the books to find the references, and that's not even certain. It could be info from the web...

The Beta was known to be tested in 2022 (OVA), but is said to be shelved until the program was revived into the VFB-9 program (really though it should be the VFB-7B IMHO) so the Beta would not be available (IIRC TSC Main RPG has a service date, but I don't recall it at the moment)..

The VF/VHTs are likely from the Sentinels RPG from 1E RT, though the novels did mention them being included (no hard numbers though IIRC). There have been a lot of changes made to RT between 1E and 2E, which is where I think you are drawing from (that and the Novels/OVA that aren't canon to RT any more).