One minor correction Robotech has nothing to do with the Macross saga except it used the same animation, and largely the same story (some significant edits iirc)
Harmony Gold wanted to sell some anime to US TV but didn't have a series long enough, so they used 3 totally unrelated series, Macross, Southern Dimensional Cavelry/Souther Cross, and Genesis Climber Mosepedia) to provide the footage and dubbed/edited them to make them into 3 story arcs that together had enough episodes to fill a 3 or 6 month time slot
The true Macross time line goes something like
Macross Zero
Super Dimensional Fortress Macross (the one Robotech used) - usually just Macross.
Macross Flashback 2012 (which is basically a music video telling the story in a very short order with Minmay's songs)
Macross Do You Remember Love - same story as Macross but told in about 90 minutes via movie form.
Macross 2 - although it's officially in an alternate universe as some consider it that bad
(I quite liked it, at least the OVA version).
Macross Plus - OVA set on an earth colony planet as they develop the latest generation of the Variable Fighters, centres around a love triangle between the two test pilots and their high school love.
Macross 7 - TV series (and OVA's) set aboard one of the Macross colony fleets - notable as it has two of the main characters from the original TV series and their daughter (one of about 5 they had from memory), possibly the weakest of the whole frnachise otherwise (although the end song Dakato Baby is great)
Macross Frontier
Just to confuse things further, from memory they were produced in an other something like, Macross, DYRL, 2012, Macross 2, Plus, 7, Zero, Frontier - completely different to the time line in the story.
All of it is largely stand alone, but having seen Zero helps a bit as it fleshes out a character in Macross, and Macross helps when watching 7.
Persoanlly if you want to watch it more it might be worth picking up the original Macross thinpack from ADV in the states, it's about £25 and has the full original series - including both the new dub and original Japanese as well as some mildly interesting interviews (ADV got the original VA for minmay to play the English version of minmay).
Definately watch Macross Plus - it's got some stunning visuals, a good story and excellent music (it's a 90's OVA that has held up really well).
Then Frontier is meant to be good.
Unfortunately due to the very conveluted legal issues surrounding the Macross universe it's very unlikely we'll see more of it released officially, as Harmony Gold believe they have the rights to all Macross stuff outside of Japan due to a deal they had for the original series (although i've heard suggestions that one of the reasons for several changes in Frontier is to work around some of those issues - Harmony Gold trademarked one of the main logo's used in the original Macross, and has been using it as a club to try and prevent retailers importing Japanese Macross models).
Macross = good but rather confusing to sort out what is what, especially with Harmony Gold's marketing for Robotech.
