Gauntlet101010 wrote:G1 Ultra Magnus cannot be done at the Leader price point in this day and age, without compromises of some sort.
Sure, but I don't think having the arms jutting out like that was absolutely necessary either.
I really don't think that they didn't have a choice there if they were going to have the separate cab robot in the first place.
You know how Earthrise Optimus' trailer is such a thin, shrunken shell of the G1 trailer because of mass limits and how much is eaten up by the Voyager-size Prime himself? They were basically in the same boat with Ultra Magnus. They could spare some mass by making the cab what I call a "Voyager lite," but even that wouldn't leave enough mass to do the full G1 trailer with its completely separate, larger set of arms and its larger set of legs without some truly horrific thinning and hollowing.
That meant having to use the cab robot's own arms for both modes, so the arms basically had to be as thick as they are because of the super robot mode - if they
weren't that thick, they wouldn't be able to adequately support the forearm armor and shoulder pylons.
If they tied to make arms that thick tuck into the chest a la G1.. Leaving aside the problem of where to put the hands, that would require part of his torso to be a mere 1cm wide. Which... doesn't exactly seem like it would look or function well.
So, they either had to stick them behind the cab and minimize their presence as best as possible (probably banking on the white to quasi-camouflage the hands), or borrow CW Optimus' engineering and have the arms and shoulders make the front of the cab. The latter would have resulted in a cleaner look and probably been friendlier to the Galaxy Upgrade retool, but I think it would have caused some trouble for wearing the armor, so...
Gauntlet101010 wrote:Nor do I think smaller hands would be as bad as you make them out to be.
I think they would, I think hands small enough to fold into the forearms without interfering with the armor connector ports would look
really shrimpy in his armored mode. On top of that, they'd give Mags a moderate case of Slag Hands Syndrome in that mode. What's Slag Hands Syndrome?
A term I just coined for the problem of a character's hand being so small relative to their forearm that it causes problems for holding weapons. I decided to name it after Slag because he's an early example and has a very severe case.
One more thing is that such hands would also surely come at the cost of exposed arm gaps, so there's that to think about as well.
Gauntlet101010 wrote:I mean, your own failure of imagination and the current design doesn't mean it's impossible.
I resent that remark. I've actually been brainstorming about this ever since SIEGE Magnus was revealed...
Gauntlet101010 wrote:It just means that they didn't see the need to make the cab stand on it's own and, therefore, made a kinda crummy design.
I think they did the best that could be managed under the circumstances.
Gauntlet101010 wrote:Moreover, there's no need to shout and be rude. It's not going to convince me that they didn't fail in making a good standalone cab. Writing louder, longer posts sure isn't going to get your point across. It just makes you seem kinda obstinate.
I'm sorry for shouting...
Gauntlet101010 wrote:Edit:
For the record, this is the design you're defending to the death here. It's not good.
In my opinion. 
I don't think it's
great, but I think it's the best that they could have done under the circumstances and thus it's at least passable. It's not like, say, MPM Ironhide's feet, where there's no excuse.
I like Emerje's idea of some sort of accessory to cover the hands. I understand not doing that in SIEGE because of the secondary cannons. Although come to think about it, sacrificing those cannons on the Kingdom release might have been to free up mass for those new trailer side panels with the imitations of the G1 trailer's pillars.
Oh well, maybe something for somebody with a 3D rendering program to put up on Shapeways or Thingiverse. Note that I didn't say third party, because I have lost all faith in the 3P hacks to provide actually-useful upgrade parts going forward.
) I don't think we can make a correct judgment until the Magnus cab is actually in hand. But from the looks of it so far, I'll go with the Magnus cab being slightly worse. Slightly. At least Orion didn't have his hands blatantly sticking out. His legs folded up there but at least there was an attempt to make it look somewhat 
)
