The Energon Pub

[Starsaber468]

I will happily sell Va'al's soul for this.

Can Va'al's soul get two ramjets?

I'm not greedy.

I thought you'd already used mine..?

Multi-verse.

You yourself established the existence of multiple Va'al's.

But this isn't the transtechverse where all can meet XD but burn if i start seeing macross i am done just done XD

[ScottyP]

This looks cool. Limited availability is odd on this one to me. 11SW and 11T, characters done before - ok, I get it. Weird choice in this regard, but then again, may be one of those "Limited to 2000 in Japan" but then Hasbro Asia pumps out 80 gajillion of them. In other words, I wouldn't fret availability, just look out for preorders and you'll be all set

The jet mode on this is fantastic. I don't like the face sculpt, I think it tried to reach too far into cartoon accuracy and stumbled somewhere along the way. I'll get this one and display it in jet mode, and keep my iGear one in 'bot mode.

Bottom line, I think everyone wins with this toy in some way, except wallets

[wilcosu35]

I want this figure very much, but..... seriously, only 2000? they'll be gone in no time, and aftermarket prices will be ridiculous.

[Evil Eye]

Well, here's to hoping they decide to reissue this guy, because by the time I have the space/money for an MP display it'll be long gone, knowing my luck.

Which is a shame, because this looks AWESOME. Dat facesculpt. Dat jet mode. Dat EVERYTHING.

Also, CONEHEADS WOOOO. Now we don't have to fill the space on our MP displays with filthy knockoffs!

[Starsaber468]

Well, here's to hoping they decide to reissue this guy, because by the time I have the space/money for an MP display it'll be long gone, knowing my luck.

Which is a shame, because this looks AWESOME. Dat facesculpt. Dat jet mode. Dat EVERYTHING.

Also, CONEHEADS WOOOO. Now we don't have to fill the space on our MP displays with filthy knockoffs!

Yeah its a shame its limited to 2000 pieces and are you refering third party companies as knock offs because their not...

[Evil Eye]

Well, here's to hoping they decide to reissue this guy, because by the time I have the space/money for an MP display it'll be long gone, knowing my luck.

Which is a shame, because this looks AWESOME. Dat facesculpt. Dat jet mode. Dat EVERYTHING.

Also, CONEHEADS WOOOO. Now we don't have to fill the space on our MP displays with filthy knockoffs!

Yeah its a shame its limited to 2000 pieces and are you refering third party companies as knock offs because their not...

The only 3rd party MP scale Coneheads available are iGear's slightly-altered knockoffs of the MP Seeker mold. They use directly reproduced parts from existing official product without permission, thus making them knockoffs.

[Powered Convoy]

This looks cool. Limited availability is odd on this one to me. 11SW and 11T, characters done before - ok, I get it. Weird choice in this regard, but then again, may be one of those "Limited to 2000 in Japan" but then Hasbro Asia pumps out 80 gajillion of them. In other words, I wouldn't fret availability, just look out for preorders and you'll be all set

Nice to see someone that understands how this is likely going to work and not crying fowl because it's limited to 2,000 pieces IN JAPAN.

So if he's like Bluestreak, Thundercracker, and Clampdown. He'll be available en masse via US retailers from Hasbro Asia.

Randy

[ScottyP]

Nice to see someone that understands how this is likely going to work and not crying fowl because it's limited to 2,000 pieces IN JAPAN.

Additionally, there's a ton of new tooling on this thing. No way they do that and limit it to a run of 2,000 and never run it again for any purpose.

Moving on, anyone know why this is MP-11"NR"? Whats the NR for? New Ramjet?

[Wolfman Jake]

MP Ramjet's got some full, pouty lips, lol! Seriously, though, this looks pretty damned good. The legs maybe look a little thick (throwing the upper body a bit out of proportion), but I think it's due to a trick of the eye with the way the wings are now repositioned, flaring out the bottom half and failing to "fill in" some of the bulk for the torso and shoulders. The cartoon model gets to shrink kibble at will to cheat the proportions, so I can't fault the reality of engineering getting in the way. I'm impressed with just how much this has been retooled from the base MP-11 mold. They've accounted for just about every difference in the cartoon models between the Season 1 Seekers and the Coneheads. The one real shame is the double nosecone in robot mode. Oh well. I'm assuming there wasn't an elegant solution to hiding that. With such extensive retooling, I have to believe this won't be limited to 2,000 units total world wide. That will likely be true for Japan at first, with reissues being possible later, but I expect a wide Asian release of this figure. Toys "R" Us will probably snatch it up a few years down the line for North American distribution.

[Hellscream9999]

MP Ramjet's got some full, pouty lips, lol! Seriously, though, this looks pretty damned good. The legs maybe look a little thick (throwing the upper body a bit out of proportion), but I think it's due to a trick of the eye with the way the wings are now repositioned, flaring out the bottom half and failing to "fill in" some of the bulk for the torso and shoulders. The cartoon model gets to shrink kibble at will to cheat the proportions, so I can't fault the reality of engineering getting in the way. I'm impressed with just how much this has been retooled from the base MP-11 mold. They've accounted for just about every difference in the cartoon models between the Season 1 Seekers and the Coneheads. The one real shame is the double nosecone in robot mode. Oh well. I'm assuming there wasn't an elegant solution to hiding that. With such extensive retooling, I have to believe this won't be limited to 2,000 units total world wide. That will likely be true for Japan at first, with reissues being possible later, but I expect a wide Asian release of this figure. Toys "R" Us will probably snatch it up a few years down the line for North American distribution.

First of all, this looks great

Second, they did bother to make it in the first place; and we all know what the first rule of seeker figures is, right?

[Sabrblade]

They finally did it!

[Seibertron]

They really need to quit trying to be so slavish to how these toys looked in a 30 year old cartoon. Silly things like giving Ramjet his large cluster bombs or whatever they are in jet mode and then give him the traditional Seeker arm guns to achieve the cartoon model is silly. I would've been just fine with the cluster bombs on his arms. Now he ends up with cluster bombs on his back, which is not cartoon accurate or G1 toy accurate.

I'm also not a fan of the Conehead's head being faked, leaving the real nosecone on the figure's backside. How did iGear do the heads for these guys? Seems unfortunate after waiting 9 years for these guys.

Face is off too. One of my favorite screen captures of Ramjet and Thrust (or possibly Dirge) is this one scene with them flanking Megatron at the Decepticon headquarters while Megatron is sitting at the computer console/monitor. Currently unable to find a high res image of their faces from that scene.

It looks good overall, just not what I would have expected after 9 years of Masterpiece Seekers. I guess I had hoped that the money made off of the approximately 15 Masterpiece Seekers from 1 mold would have gone to make an out of the park awesome version of Ramjet, Thrust and Dirge.

Hopefully more pictures will come forth soon!

[Hellscream9999]

They really need to quit trying to be so slavish to how these toys looked in a 30 year old cartoon. Silly things like giving Ramjet his large cluster bombs or whatever they are in jet mode and then give him the traditional Seeker arm guns to achieve the cartoon model is silly. I would've been just fine with the cluster bombs on his arms. Now he ends up with cluster bombs on his back, which is not cartoon accurate or G1 toy accurate.

I'm also not a fan of the Conehead's head being faked, leaving the real nosecone on the figure's backside. How did iGear do the heads for these guys? Seems unfortunate after waiting 9 years for these guys.

Face is off too. One of my favorite screen captures of Ramjet and Thrust (or possibly Dirge) is this one scene with them flanking Megatron at the Decepticon headquarters while Megatron is sitting at the computer console/monitor. Currently unable to find a high res image of their faces from that scene.

It looks good overall, just not what I would have expected after 9 years of Masterpiece Seekers. I guess I had hoped that the money made off of the approximately 15 Masterpiece Seekers from 1 mold would have gone to make an out of the park awesome version of Ramjet, Thrust and Dirge.

Hopefully more pictures will come forth soon!

Right there with ya, its hurting ironhide, and hotrod, and now it's messing with these guys. I don't know, though, how they would look with those giant missile things hanging off their shoulders...

[Cyberpath]

One of my favorite screen captures of Ramjet and Thrust (or possibly Dirge) is this one scene with them flanking Megatron at the Decepticon headquarters while Megatron is sitting at the computer console/monitor. Currently unable to find a high res image of their faces from that scene.

This?

auto berserk - ramjet.jpg (63.75 KiB) Viewed 7454 times

Moving on, anyone know why this is MP-11"NR"? Whats the NR for? New Ramjet?

Nosecone Ramjet?

[ScottyP]

They really need to quit trying to be so slavish to how these toys looked in a 30 year old cartoon. Silly things like giving Ramjet his large cluster bombs or whatever they are in jet mode and then give him the traditional Seeker arm guns to achieve the cartoon model is silly. I would've been just fine with the cluster bombs on his arms. Now he ends up with cluster bombs on his back, which is not cartoon accurate or G1 toy accurate.

I'm also not a fan of the Conehead's head being faked, leaving the real nosecone on the figure's backside. How did iGear do the heads for these guys? Seems unfortunate after waiting 9 years for these guys.

Face is off too. One of my favorite screen captures of Ramjet and Thrust (or possibly Dirge) is this one scene with them flanking Megatron at the Decepticon headquarters while Megatron is sitting at the computer console/monitor. Currently unable to find a high res image of their faces from that scene.

You capture most of the issues I have with the robot mode in your post.

iGear also faked the head. They also charged about $100 each upon release for their seekers, which is just a random statement for knowledge's sake. Best picture of him I have right now is this one with MP-11 and a third party MP Astrotrain that's on the left, was trying to recreate the thirty seconds where Starscream was the leader of the Decepticons:



Here's a better one from a google image search:

[Seibertron]

I'm also not a fan of the Conehead's head being faked, leaving the real nosecone on the figure's backside. How did iGear do the heads for these guys? Seems unfortunate after waiting 9 years for these guys.

Youtube and Peaugh to the rescue! Interesting that they also faked the head.



As for the nosecone showing between his legs, I wonder if it's just incorrectly transformed as that is not the case on the regular Seeker mold.

[Seibertron]

One of my favorite screen captures of Ramjet and Thrust (or possibly Dirge) is this one scene with them flanking Megatron at the Decepticon headquarters while Megatron is sitting at the computer console/monitor. Currently unable to find a high res image of their faces from that scene.

This?

auto berserk - ramjet.jpg

Moving on, anyone know why this is MP-11"NR"? Whats the NR for? New Ramjet?

Nosecone Ramjet?

That's a pretty good shot of their face. Make it look a little less "doofy" and a little more traditional G1 toy with harder angles, which I usually have faith in Takara to do, and it would have been a really nice sculpt.

[Hellscream9999]

As for the nosecone showing between his legs, I wonder if it's just incorrectly transformed as that is not the case on the regular Seeker mold.

If you'll notice the cockpit is actually facing the opposite direction (the hinge gives it away) so I think it simply does a 180 from under the head and rests behind his back.

[Hellscream9999]

That's a pretty good shot of their face. Make it look a little less "doofy" and a little more traditional G1 toy with harder angles, which I usually have faith in Takara to do, and it would have been a really nice sculpt.

I actually really like the design of the face. I would be way less interested in it if it looked more like the doofy head design

[ScottyP]

That's a pretty good shot of their face. Make it look a little less "doofy" and a little more traditional G1 toy with harder angles, which I usually have faith in Takara to do, and it would have been a really nice sculpt.

Some of the sculpts lately between Takara MPs and 3P attempts at MP toys make me think that some of these designers are looking at the most doofus like messed up Sunbow frames out there when making heads and faces lately. I'm also a fan of the hybrid cartoon/idealized design aesthetic, and I feel like Sideswipe and Grimlock are really good examples of what I mean.

[Sabrblade]

They really need to quit trying to be so slavish to how these toys looked in a 30 year old cartoon. Silly things like giving Ramjet his large cluster bombs or whatever they are in jet mode and then give him the traditional Seeker arm guns to achieve the cartoon model is silly. I would've been just fine with the cluster bombs on his arms. Now he ends up with cluster bombs on his back, which is not cartoon accurate or G1 toy accurate.

I feel as though those can be removed, and were just stuck on the figure by the photographer for one reason or another.

I'm also not a fan of the Conehead's head being faked, leaving the real nosecone on the figure's backside. How did iGear do the heads for these guys? Seems unfortunate after waiting 9 years for these guys.

IGear faked their coneheads as well.

It looks good overall, just not what I would have expected after 9 years of Masterpiece Seekers. I guess I had hoped that the money made off of the approximately 15 Masterpiece Seekers from 1 mold would have gone to make an out of the park awesome version of Ramjet, Thrust and Dirge.

It's cuz they're still using that old MP Seeker mold made from 2006 engineering, regardless of how much remolding its undergone. What we need (but may never deserve) is a whole new MP Seeker mold made completely new with today's levels of engineering.

[Sabrblade]

Moving on, anyone know why this is MP-11"NR"? Whats the NR for? New Ramjet?

Nosecone Ramjet?

N = "New Jetron" (what the Coneheads were called in Japan), R = "Ramjet"

[Hellscream9999]

It's cuz they're still using that old MP Seeker mold made from 2006 engineering, regardless of how much remolding its undergone. What we need (but may never deserve) is a whole new MP Seeker mold made completely new with today's levels of engineering.

How much more 'better' can we squeeze out of this design?

[Jelze Bunnycat]

Moving on, anyone know why this is MP-11"NR"? Whats the NR for? New Ramjet?

Nosecone Ramjet?

N = "New Jetron" (what the Coneheads were called in Japan), R = "Ramjet"

Which seems odd, as there are no other Seekers with a name starting with "R" to warrant the extra "N". My guess is that it's to streamline the release numbers for the potential Dirge "11ND" and Thrust "11NT", the latter sharing the first letter with Thundercracker "11T".

[Robogeek1973]

Yeah, I'm gonna need this guy, but it sucks that he's an exclusive, because $200 Seekers are getting really hard to justify to myself.