Mass shifting is only an artistic cheat.

 

Yeah, I like your post, and the well-thought-out way you approached the idea. I hadn't considered the idea that individual Transformers' abilities could be written as spark-quirks, but I like it. I had always thought of those special abilities as expensive one-off tech-mods, that probably came with a certain downside keeping every 'bot from adopting them. You could sort of combine the concepts, too, and say that these are after-market mods that are adapted to a Transformer's individual spark. Just like how humans might show a proclivity or heightened ability in one area (good ear for music, good head for numbers, naturally athletic, etc.) but those gifts can be augmented by training and/or special equipment.

So you could say something like, "Soundwave's spark has a mutation which makes his molecular structure unstable." To take advantage of that, maybe he gets a special mod which gives him a subspace pocket and helps keep his matter organized properly when he sheds or regains it. But that mod wouldn't work on just any Transformer, and using it probably comes at a cost.

Anyway, sorry, that's getting off-topic and doesn't really speak to the original point of the thread. I guess the only point I'm trying to make is that mass-shifting in and of itself should not be completely off the table, but if it were used it should be treated as a rare specialized ability and at least an attempt should be made to give it a logical (if pseudo-scienc-y) explanation... as well as some rules and parameters. Because, yeah, if everyone can mass shift anytime to any size, it creates all sorts of problems in the mythos.

 

Come to think of it, there aren't many Cybertronian 'single-unit' robots at XXL size (Omega Supreme/Guardians, City/Base bots, and... ? ) . I'd assume it's difficult and resource intensive to build and maintain guys that large, and from a certain view it might be easier to build or adapt five or six standard-size robots to become one larger stronger unit occasionally. (who can do the work of five or six normal 'bots when separate, as opposed to one giant clumsy thing)

On the size-change tech, especially if you go on the idea that the mass lost or gained comes from some kind of interdimensional pocket or something, there's probably a limit to how much is available. Since most obvious size-change TFs get smaller when transforming, I'd think the size they were built at is the 'peak' of mass, and can only shrink smaller than that, so someone with the ability to become combiner-size or bigger might need to be created at that size to start.
Some robots apparently to grow larger for vehicle mode, to accomodate passengers. This could be a matter of then getting less dense in vehicle mode than robot mode, gaining internal empty space (if that's true, Broadside must be a really dense guy, driving Devastator into the ground like a spike with carrier mode like that) - or maybe it's just laziness or a lack of forethought on the writers & artists, making most robots about the same size in robot or combined mode, regardless of what they turn into.

 

I think it's important to note that mass shifting is not the same as size shifting. From a physics point of view, mass shifting (mass*gravity= weight) is much harder to explain than simply reducing in size.
Megaton & soundwave have a lot to answer for.

 

Well, do you want the show to be just a bunch of robots bigger than Godzilla using buildings as baseball bats against each other? Probably not. Also, if they mass shifted in that episode where they were all small, the whole story line would be messed up and predictable (Although G1 did have predictable stories...)

 

It's not just a G1 cartoon-only thing, though. The comics frequently had mass-shifting too.

 

Mass shifting is good sci-fi.

 

Robots that combine into bigger robots always have been and always will be cool.

 

Not everything made sense, but "nothing" is way too extreme. However, I totally agree on simply enjoying it for what it is