ZeroWolf wrote:Tuned Agent wrote:ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Rodimus Prime wrote:Yet you still miss the point, that being cartoon and/or toy accuracy. Astrotrain did not have a tender in the cartoon or with his G1 figure release. Whether this is accurate to real life is irrelevant.
From my perspective it's relevant because it makes the G1 toy and cartoon depictions
faulty and incomplete; the component they omitted is
that important to the real thing. It can't go anywhere under its own power without that part, nor can it hook up to train cars.
A bit of a side note, while it does aesthetically improve the train mode, does Astrotrin actually need the tender? I mean, he's always been able to fly around in shuttle mode, even reach escape velocity, without booster rockets.
Its more to complete the train disguise,
Exactly.
-Kanrabat- wrote:It's because hardcore-all-or-nothing Zelda forget that Transformers are ROBOTS IN DISGUISE.
Blow it out your actuator
I did not forget that they are robots in disguise. In fact, the conceit of them being in disguise is a big part of why the original toy's lack of a tender bothers me.
Since you apparently cannot grasp what I am saying, let me try making it clear:
1. The thing Astrotrain is supposedly pretending to be DOES NOT WORK without the tender. I'm
not saying Astrotrain himself needs it to function, I'm saying
the actual locomotive does.
2.
Because the tender is a non-optional part of the actual locomotive, Astrotrain without the tender
isn't a robot in disguise. He's a robot in
HALF a disguise.
I'll say again, it's like looking at the steam engine version of this:
Or this:
It is
that sticks-out-like-a-sore-thumb incomplete.
-Kanrabat- wrote:As a child and even now, I always saw Astrotrain (and every single other TF) to be pretenders in their altmodes.
Well, without a tender, I see Astrotrain as pretending
badly.
ZeroWolf wrote:and to provide an impromptu launch pad (and as seen on the last page or the one before that, a big massive hammer...that should have been the official weapon mode!)
Like I said, we'll no doubt see it canonized by Takara.
Nemesis Primal wrote: Counter-counterargument: The current design team might have mostly shifted away from that design choice because they actually can't implement it like you're suggesting with a number the designs they've settled on, because as you just pointed out:
ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:(given just how much Transformers have been gutted of mass since then).
The budget and plastic costs for these figures have clearly shifted since the Unicron Trilogy, as gets repeatedly brought up every time someone complains about a figure like Impactor, Ironhide, or Grapple having visible hollow limbs to accommodate their height/parts count.
Well, that didn't stop the Combiner Wars Dragstrip from using it. That mold has actual spring-locked telescoping legs just like Cybertron Hot Shot did. Pretty firm ones too.
I think there really is some sort of aversion to it, because even pseudo-telescoping (such as that seen on Classics Mirage) seems like it's declined in use. It feels to me like they go out of their way to avoid making legs that effectively collapse straight down unless they don't have a choice.
Nemesis Primal wrote:Having grown up through the UT and handled numerous figures that have effective telescoping mechanisms (Energon Landmine comes to mind first), all of the figures that do it right require the larger part of the telescoping limb that houses the mechanism to be a fully enclosed part. For that type of engineering to be used on Astrotrain, his lower legs would have to be completely redesigned not only to change the transformation like you said but also to cover up/enclose his currently-hollow inner calves. which seems like it could have easily cut into the figure's budget enough depending on how those changes were implemented that he might not even have had the tender that you've coveted for so long (and that keeps starting these arguments), as I doubt they would have wanted to cut down on his weaponry that much considering the weapons being part of the line-wide gimmick and designed to all combine, and his arms already have hollows as well to accommodate the current design & transformation, so they can't take from there.
I am aware of all of that, and I did take that into consideration. I still think it would have been feasible, because I think designing the legs to telescope would have simplified less plastic was needed to handle the front end.
And if that wasn't enough... Well, having given it further thought, they probably could have just used with the pseudo-telescoping employed by Classics Mirage and PotP Starscream. Or the sideways version employed by SIEGE Skyfire.
Nemesis Primal wrote:With that said, they clearly haven't forgotten completely how to do it, seeing as how the Brunt mold from this same line/trilogy has telescoping design for his arms
Well, that's not fully spring-locked telescoping and it doesn't have to bear a load the way legs do.
Nemesis Primal wrote:so for all we know they did consider it more than we think for figures like Astrotrain and cut it for the reasons I said or other ones that we can only guess, we just don't have a way of really finding that out currently. I also could just be totally off-base with this analysis, I'm not a professional toy designer by any means.
Well, we could write to Hasbro asking about the rationale and see whether they consider that too proprietary to tell.
Starseeker wrote:Well I for one think Astrotrain is a great figure, and I greatly enjoy him. Probably my favorite of the line after the Seekers.
I think he's awesome despite the flaws, and I really really want to get my hands on him.
william-james88 wrote:About Aatrotrain, the tender didn't make much sense to me since it looks better upside down but it can't reach the bottom.
How does it look better upside-down? That puts the train wheels on the wrong side.
Apologies for my stupidity here. 
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