I don't say the Macross is weaker than the zentraedi ships, indeed it's main gun is more powerful than any zentradi ships, and more powerful than the main cannons on zentraedi gunships too, but still it's not a super ship,
in a serious fight it can hold 3-4 enemy warship maybe, but after that it will be destroyed... and Dolza had 4 million ships if i remember right
Fighting off 3-4 enemy warships sounds about right, which I was more/less arguing all the time. Though maybe a few more if its got reflex warheads. My main argument was that the Palladium stats were inaccurate because they portray the SDF-1 as too weak, along with the Zentraedi battlepods (likely to boost the Player Character's ability to play the RPG).
Though the SDF-1 does have some quirks, like the barrier system, the main gun, converting ability and so forth. I rewatched Force of Arms, where the SDF-1 attacks Dolza's fortress and Nico was right, the fortress is just destroyed by missiles. I thought I remembered Dolza's fortress being destroyed in a spherical explosion, akin to the Marduk destroying 'contaminated' warships in Macross II. On the other hand, what this says is that the Barrier system, developed by humans, is incredibly powerful as it can take the sustained fire from several warships as well as the complete destruction of a 900km long ship. In that episode we also see Rick Hunter destroy a Zentraedi cruiser or destroyer with 6 reflex missiles, which also points toward some technological advancement on the part of humanity.
In Force of Arms it also shows the SDF-1 firing all her guns, including the rail guns. She has quite a few guns which are never shown firing in the show from what are clearly turrets, as opposed to Destroids.
Nico was also correct in the previous comment that Khyron's well placed main last blast crippled the SDF-1's radar system. But at the same time, when Breetai invades the SDF-1 by using the Daedalus attack against them, the SDF-1 gets hit by dozens of laser blasts. Though clearly they weren't trying to destroy the SDF-1, it shows that it can take some damage. The SDF-1 also takes a lot of hits in Force of Arms, having parts of Macross City destroyed in the process, but it can take a bit of damage.
First, in the TV version (and Robotech) Breetai flaghsip didn't had any main guns, only in Dyrl you see that. Second, the bombardment on earth was done by zentraedi Monitor ships (you see them opening the booms to fire), using main guns equal to those of the macross (and the laser turrets of standard warships can't level a city
in one shot, i'm sure), if you re-watch the episode you'll see i'm right. Third, in Dyrl you don't see the destruction of Earth, they only bombard the protoculture city trying to strike the
Macross.
Yup, you're right. I didn't realise that those were seperate ships as the RPG book for the Zentraedi doesn't have the monitor in it. It only goes to prove that Palladium is even more inaccurate as both Breetai's flagship and Khyron's Command ship are said to have Heavy Particle Beams similar to the SDF-1's Reflux Cannon.
the truth is that the Macross is a common
Supervision Army crashed on earth on purpose and "booby trapped", not some kind of special ship.
Supervision Army? I don't think the SDF-1 has any comparison to anything fielded within the Zentraedi fleet. I certainly don't think its a supership, but its probably a fairly unique design. The fact that it is able to change forms alone is telling as none of the Zentraedi ships or mecha can even do that. And considering that there are a lot of unexplored/undeveloped parts of the SDF-1, it seems unlikely that those wouldn't be explored if the Earth technicians had gone so far to make the ship able to change forms.
