The Energon Pub

by **Slumble B** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 4:42 pm

He arrived in the mail from amazon.com today.

And I really, REALLY, want to like him, but there are two issues that I simply cannot get over.

One - size. I didn't realize how small he was until I played around with him a bit. The man is supposed to be a transport unit and a space shuttle, yet my movie Ratchet is bigger than him! Is a hummer really bigger than a space shuttle? How can possibly carry other TFs if they are bigger than him?

Two - hands. Damn those hands! I can't tell you how many times I've pulled off his arm trying to get his hands to pop out. I can barely get his right hand to pop out enough to hold his gun. The left hand is a lost cause. It just refuses to come out.

Anyone have any tips for the hands or just wanna share my anger for this TF?

SB

News Credits: 1 · by **thor20** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 5:06 pm

I didn't like him much either. Loved the other classics but Astrotrain just is the least apealing of the line.

by **DoubleOScorpio** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 5:13 pm

One thing that I've come to accept (sort of) is that TFs will never be to scale when it comes to alt mode. Generally, within a line (i.e. Classics) the robot modes are the right scale, relative to one another. Watch the cartoon and you'll see that AstroTrain is about the same size as the Seekers. Shockwave and Megatron are about the same size too, but taller than the seekers. Bumblebee is generally one of the shortest, if not the shortest. All of these things are maintained by the Classics line.

Now, when you mix lines, everything goes south. I agree re: the frustration of movie line size vs Classics. I'm going to get Rescue Ratchet (red & white G1 redeco) when it comes out, but he'll tower over Classics prime. Too bad that I'd have to sell a kidney to get enough dough to buy Botcon Ratchet, which is the one I really want b/c he's in scale with the other classics. :MAD:

News Credits: 11 · by **Overcracker** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 5:15 pm

Hasbro has only a few size classes. Most of the time, the scale is not right. but you should have known he was going to be small, he's a deluxe, Ratchet is a Voyager. 2 different sizes.
If you really wanted something to scale, Astrotrain would have to have been the size of a Power Wheels car. (not gonna happen)
Or for that matter Cybertron Primus would have to be the size i don;t know, Giants stadium or something.
Besides in the cartoon he changed sizes. one minute he was big enough to carry m any Decepticons, and the next he was only as tall as Starscream. Its pointless to complain about scale.

As for his hands, yeah they are a pain to get out of the train halves, but there really isn't much you can do. I still like him.

by **Tramp** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 5:18 pm

You know you could always just try and get a couple of Energon Towline figures and make your own Ratchet and Ironhide. I did that when that figure first came out, long before the BotCon figures. All it takes is a little resculpting of the helmets, some mods to the side of Ratchet's van mode to get rid of the ladders, and some new weapons, along with emergency lights for Ratchet.

by **Maldroth** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 5:20 pm

the hands do get easier to take out as you use it more the joints are just stiff. Best advise and I'm recalling from memory since I don't have the figure in front of me. Use the wheels on the arm as leverage and keep applying gentle presure just on the forearm and that should avoid the arm to keep coming off.

Astrotrain is a good figure much better than the old G1 incarnation.

by **publicvisage** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 5:29 pm

Yeah the arms are kind of a pain, especially since you have to keep them at a 45 degree angle to keep the trains halves from sliding back down once you finally get them out!

Really though, I think he's a decent figure. My main complaint is the lack of paint, not just on the thrusters and underside of the shuttle but on the robot mode itself. Too much white. Yuck. The purple and grey G1 cartoon colors would have been much better.

News Credits: 2 · by **Magnimus** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 5:31 pm

If Transformers toys were even remotely to scale, you'd be paying out the arse for every figure that wasn't a compact car.

As for the hands of Astrotrain, I never had any problems. The kibble that makes up the front of the train part of his transformation easily slides to the left or right to grant access to the hands. Maybe you got saddled with a sticky figure.

News Credits: 104 · by **Cyber Bishop** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 5:52 pm

And he is a hair taller than G1 Astrotrain too.

News Credits: 972 · by **i_amtrunks** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 6:08 pm

Scale is something Hasbro will never understand.

Sunbow can take part of the blame for their "mass shifting to suit the storyline"

I quite like Astrotrain, but I do understand why many fans are not overly fussed about him.

For having two completely different alt modes, he is quite a good figure, and leaps and bounds better than his G1 counterpart (whom I still love to pieces)

The hands do loosen up though, so just keep transforming him, and you'll be fine.

by **Tramp** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 6:12 pm

i_amtrunks wrote:Scale is something Hasbro will never understand.

Sunbow can take part of the blame for their "mass shifting to suit the storyline"

I quite like Astrotrain, but I do understand why many fans are not overly fussed about him.

For having two completely different alt modes, he is quite a good figure, and leaps and bounds better than his G1 counterpart (whom I still love to pieces)

The hands do loosen up though, so just keep transforming him, and you'll be fine.

Well, only a few characters had true mass conversion in the cartoon. Others it was just a simple matter of screwing up the scale.

by **Slumble B** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 9:35 pm

Thanks for the comments and help guys.

I'm sure I will grow to like him more. I'm not that big of a fan of Decepticons for some reason. I guess thats why I only have 4 of them. I do really like the fact that he's a triplechanger tho.

I'll work on his hands sometime tomorrow. If I do tonight, most likely I'll get frustrated and rip off his arms.

You guys are right about the size. I knew I bought a deluxe, I guess I just wanted him to be bigger, lol.

I'm going to have to go buy some minicons to make myself feel better.

lol
SB

by **Born Yesterday** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 12:21 am

One thing I learned from my days as a child, with G1. The toy sizes dont hold true to comon sense. I have the original Astrotrain. hes pretty small too. My ultra magnus towers over him.

by **Auto Bot** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:50 am

Scale is a problem.

But even disregarding scale, I'd still prefer Astrotrain to be about the height of Megatron. Or slightly smaller.

And, of course, Starscream and the other Seekers should grow up. At least be taller than Rodimus. But slightly smaller than Astrotrain.

by **Tramp** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:53 am

I think the point was to keep all of the Deluxe figures around the same size. For Astrotrain to be about the size of Megatron, he would have had to be a Voyager class figure.

by **Auto Bot** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:55 am

Exactly.

I was thinking on the line that Astrotrain should have been a Voyager.

With a bigger Astrotrain toy, they can surely have more flexibility in the design, for example, to solve the disappearing hand problem.

by **Tramp** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:58 am

Auto Bot wrote:Exactly.

I was thinking on the line that Astrotrain should have been a Voyager.

With a bigger Astrotrain toy, they can surely have more flexibility in the design, for example, to solve the disappearing hand problem.

Not really. They used that same design principle for Vector Prime's hands, and he is a Voyager class figure.

News Credits: 7 · by **waaaaghlord** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 2:00 am

If anyone wants a larger Astrotrain this guy http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZchimungmung carries a roughly voyager sized KO. The quality isn't terrific, the paint aps are awful, some articulation is lost and he can't manage train mode without the front end hovering a couple of cm off the ground. Not really selling this I know, but the scale is to my liking and mine will be vastly improved once he's repainted.

by **Auto Bot** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 2:05 am

waaaaghlord wrote:If anyone wants a larger Astrotrain this guy http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZchimungmung carries a roughly voyager sized KO. The quality isn't terrific, the paint aps are awful, some articulation is lost and he can't manage train mode without the front end hovering a couple of cm off the ground. Not really selling this I know, but the scale is to my liking and mine will be vastly improved once he's repainted.

There's no picture.

News Credits: 7 · by **waaaaghlord** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 2:34 am

Auto Bot wrote:There's no picture.

For that one or the mini Fort Max. He must have some broken links. There were previously some mirrored pics from an older auction in the KO thread, but I've just checked and they're not there any more either. I'll try to get some pics of mine and post them here in a little while.

edit - And here's the pics

by **Auto Bot** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 3:27 am

Very nice. I want that.

by **Tramp** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 3:30 am

Interesting, I'll give it that, but with the lack of leg articulation, I'll pass.

by **Auto Bot** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 3:31 am

No leg articulation?

News Credits: 7 · by **waaaaghlord** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 3:33 am

Auto Bot wrote:Very nice. I want that.

Just so you're sure what you're buying here's the write up that I did for this and the oversized Titanium Seeker KOs in the KO thread

waaaaghlord wrote:I got my oversized Titanium Seekers and Classics Astrotrain today. Not the greatest quality in the world, but I've certainly seen worse. The plastic feels like it's going to be quite brittle, no 'give' to it. Even fitting the nosecone sections on the Seekers (they come seperately to save on packaging depth) was a little worrying. I've managed to get all three fitted without breaking anything, although a little force is required. The paint aps are not too great on any of these but since they're all destined to be repainted anyway this doesn't really bother me too much.

With the Seekers not much has changed from the original mould aside from the size. There are a couple of flat areas that had some sculpted detail on the originals. These all come with an oversized Classic Astrotrain rifle despite not having any means of using it, more on the guns next paragraph. The biggest problem with these is looseness, especially on the knee joints. I'll be experimenting with superglue or maybe try adding screws over the course of the week to see if I can add some stability to the robot modes before I get in to painting them over the weekend. It's a good size for a Seeker toy though, a touch smaller than the average voyager, and if I can get the looseness sorted out then I'll still consider picking up another four and doing all of the named Seekers.

Astrotrain shows more changes than the Seekers. The legs have been simplified removing their articulation. While this makes him less posable he is at least steady on his feet in robot mode. There is still quite a bit of looseness around the shoulders, but again hopefully some superglue will help to tighten this up. There are less train mode wheels overall with the ones on his lower torso in robot mode having been replaced with a flat area. He manages transformation to shuttle mode well but the train mode is compromised by the simplifications to the design. He will still transform into a train but the front end winds up off the ground. Like the Seekers he comes with a blown up version of his original weapon. These guns have an extra post sticking out to the side and a partially hollow design. The cool thing is that while the gun that comes with Astrotrain has the tab pointing one way and can only be held in his left hand without modification, the ones that come with the Seekers are mirrored to this and can be held in his right hand. Needless to say I've given him a pair of boomsticks. The size is good with a Classic Seekers head just about coming up to the bottom of his chest shield, and this is the main reason that I wanted him. The lack of articulation doesn't make him a perfect substitute for the original deluxe though so I'll still be looking to grab one of these at retail if the rest of the Classics ever get released in the UK.