Hasbro Q&A round 11 thread

[JediTricks]

Why would they make an entirely separate mould for the coneheads and not just do new parts? To me, that doesn't make any sense, but whatever.

I still think it's Dirge and Thrust that's the reason, myself.

New parts require space on the existing tooling, cutting into existing steel isn't ideal and doesn't always make the best results, and if there's no new space for the new tooling and the new channels that they'd need, then you end up making separate tooling anyway and are running 2 tools for 1 figure, and the older tooling has to have cavities blocked off or else generate unused parts.

[Dominic]

JT, the phrasing on your Thundercracker question left it open for Hasbro to say something assey like "they are all the same character". Like I said, it is less a problem with the question and more a question of my expectation of bad behavior from Hasbro.

Dom
-really is expecting that sort of thing at this point.

[Shockwave]

Why would they make an entirely separate mould for the coneheads and not just do new parts? To me, that doesn't make any sense, but whatever.

I still think it's Dirge and Thrust that's the reason, myself.

New parts require space on the existing tooling, cutting into existing steel isn't ideal and doesn't always make the best results, and if there's no new space for the new tooling and the new channels that they'd need, then you end up making separate tooling anyway and are running 2 tools for 1 figure, and the older tooling has to have cavities blocked off or else generate unused parts.

In the case of the seekers this doesn't make sense. The new parts (wings, tails, heads) would simply be designed to accomodate the existing body tooling, not vice versa. I've actually got 10 different Classics seekers up on my shelf right now and the only difference between them are wings, heads and paint jobs. At this point, I think O6 is right, Thrust and Dirge are probably why the Botcon Action Master Thundergate didn't happen.

[Onslaught Six]

Well, that's not *entirely* true. Check the Wiki. Apparently, the second-run guys (some of the Henkeis and definitely Acid Storm and UniScream 2.0) have tiny differences. Something about the gun pegs, and I guess there's a minor difference in some of the details on the shoulder intakes. I dunno, I only own ClaScream, so.

[Shockwave]

Hm. Obviously I have to have a closer look at my collection.

[JediTricks]

I'm thinking of sending in this round on Tuesday so as not to get it lost during Comic-Con (it's due the morning after Comic-Con, which is cutting it pretty close). I haven't done enough work on this round, I know, so I'd appreciate any advice/help with this.

JT, the phrasing on your Thundercracker question left it open for Hasbro to say something assey like "they are all the same character". Like I said, it is less a problem with the question and more a question of my expectation of bad behavior from Hasbro.

Dom
-really is expecting that sort of thing at this point.

They could say anything they like, it's their show, but the question specifically is barring the versions by saying "NOT SUCH AND SUCH BUT REGULAR THUNDERCRACKER?" The question is about the specific toy, not about universe-crossing characterizations, so if they try to cop out, it'll be to their own doom.

New parts require space on the existing tooling, cutting into existing steel isn't ideal and doesn't always make the best results, and if there's no new space for the new tooling and the new channels that they'd need, then you end up making separate tooling anyway and are running 2 tools for 1 figure, and the older tooling has to have cavities blocked off or else generate unused parts.

In the case of the seekers this doesn't make sense. The new parts (wings, tails, heads) would simply be designed to accomodate the existing body tooling, not vice versa. I've actually got 10 different Classics seekers up on my shelf right now and the only difference between them are wings, heads and paint jobs. At this point, I think O6 is right, Thrust and Dirge are probably why the Botcon Action Master Thundergate didn't happen.

The new parts have to be molded, Hasbro wants to run as few molds as possible at a time because it's significantly cheaper to run 1 mold than 2, so they would run the additional parts in the same mold as the base figure, just from different cavities in the mold. But cutting into the existing Classics Starscream tooling is problematic if those parts weren't planned from the outset (not enough space in the steel tooling to cut new cavities and channels), so it's more efficient (possibly cheaper in the long run) to just cut new molds if it's a big run (which may explain why the short run of the Games of Deception figures are different from this new Thrust, they made and ran secondary tools just for Thrust's additional parts alone knowing the higher cost of cutting and running that would be made back by the significantly higher retail price, which is conversely why some of these Botcon exclusives are so damned expensive, they're essentially "boutique" tooling). Then when Takaratomy wanted a real run of Gentei Dirge and Thrust, they couldn't use the Thrust boutique tooling due to the costs, so they had a new body and accessories mold cut for longer term factory use - hence, different wings and accessories for them.

As for differences, the Classics Starscream mold is different from the rest right off the bat, you can see this in the jet intake with a different slope inside (compare Skywarp and Starscream face on, Screamer's slope goes above his "ears" while Skywarp's don't) and 1 more rectangle on the vertical part, and if you have a micrometer with a gap tool, you can also find a very small difference in the width of the intake itself.

[JediTricks]

As usual, round 11 grinds to a halt the moment I step back in. Well, I still have to send off the Qs, so here I will go... I'll edit the thread when I have figured it out.

EDIT: Oh man, I just figured out what happened! I must have forgotten to start a new thread for the next round and we never had one, never even had a discussion about it.

EDIT 2: uh, weird. The schedule says the next round isn't due until the 9th of August, why did I think it was due at the end of this week, 2 weeks early? I'll start the thread for that round now, and that takes a HUGE load off my mind for Comic-Con. This schedule is really confusing.

[andersonh1]

As usual, round 11 grinds to a halt the moment I step back in. Well, I still have to send off the Qs, so here I will go... I'll edit the thread when I have figured it out.

EDIT: Oh man, I just figured out what happened! I must have forgotten to start a new thread for the next round and we never had one, never even had a discussion about it.

I didn't even realize that it was time for a new round of questions. What kind of turnaround time do we have on this?

[JediTricks]

As usual, round 11 grinds to a halt the moment I step back in. Well, I still have to send off the Qs, so here I will go... I'll edit the thread when I have figured it out.

EDIT: Oh man, I just figured out what happened! I must have forgotten to start a new thread for the next round and we never had one, never even had a discussion about it.

I didn't even realize that it was time for a new round of questions. What kind of turnaround time do we have on this?

2 and a half weeks, no rush now. I goofed on the date and I can't figure out why. The Star Wars Q&A was due that day (next Monday morning), but I thought the TF one was due the day before, which made comic-con a disaster for me.

I don't know where Hasbro's answers are for this current round, they're late but that's pretty standard. If they come in before next Monday, I doubt I'll be able to put them up, but I'll try.

[JediTricks]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you... the round 11 answers:

http://www.tfviews.com/news/main/hasbro-q-and-a/1024


Also, at Comic-Con, I talked to their PR people about some of the issues we have with the TF Q&A (pacing, forthrightness, vagueness, and lost email issues) in order to make it better for everybody involved, and they said they will try to address these, especially the quality of the answers.


As a side note, I did the Transformers Hasbro panel at SDCC and they addressed some of the stuff we've been talking about here lately, about the need for a "new main continuity" and moving forward, and that ties into 1 of the answers in this round. I'll be doing a little write-up on that panel later this week (I have a lot of Star Wars stuff on my plate as well, and real life too).