Has anyone given thought to weapons in Transformers?

Every gun is unique

Why would that be?

Perhaps it's time for standardization.
A in universe gun factory could be established in Kaon. Perhaps a weapon-smith character could also be added.

The thought occurred to me while musing about Gundam. In Transformers we have no idea of the effectiveness of any gun because they're all unique.

 

It's something that's bugged me for years lol. One of the many reasons I'm glad shapeways exists, cause at least from a toy angle there's quite a few good "generic" guns.

 

Well, yeah they’re all unique, because all TFs are unique, that’s what makes it fun.

 

That would make sense...if they were born with guns, but the lore is pretty clear that they are born peaceful and with no attachments. The guns come later, In fact after the Transcan, unless the subject is scanning a tank. Prime wasn't born with his Ion Blaster, someone gave it to him.

 

There's such a diverse range of body types and abilities within the transformers that I don't think theyd have standardized weapons.

Even in a real world military environment there's a lot of different weapons that soldiers use, for a lot of different purposes.

 

there'd have to be standard issue cybertronian firearms for all the rank and file autobot/decepticon troops we rarely see. Main thing here is most of the transformers that have toys and bios are higher ranked than basic grunts and rank brings with it privileges like the option to choose your favourite weapon or whatever is best suited for that transformers assigned role.

 

Forgive me but...what?

In G1 The very first transformers we see “born/created” were already attached to a team and already had their weapons

And if you follow the cartoon story, they were created as 2 lines, servers and war machines

 

Born?
... and with guns??

 

Well transformers prime the guns are built directly into their arms. I'm sure I remember something similar in rotf as well were a gun kind of transforms out of optimus's forearm and into his hand.

 

Well where did the servants get their weapons?

Vast majority of franchise has normal hand carried firearms, with exceptions

 

I like to think of them as Jedi in that they made/modified their own weapons to suit their needs, designs and personalities.

 

Please forgive me because this might sound adversarial......But what does that have to do with the topic, what you claimed, and my reply?

But try to answer your question, The ones that we saw seem to be using makeshift weapons

Which might explain why every weapon seem to be unique to the character, maybe they all had to build a room weapons initially and then became a tradition down the line

 

Possible explanation.

If all the weapons are custom, then it might be useful to standardize the parts, to give some idea of the weapon's effectivenes.
IE Megatron's Fusion Cannon is slow but deadly at medium to short range also has a small blast radius on impact.
Optimus' Ion Blaster is fast, life threatening at middle to long range and accurate (Optimus may have to shoot twice).

But why do these weapons have these attributes.
Megatron's Fusion Cannon

Guesswork:
Micro Fusion Reactor sits in the rear, charges a super heavy duty capacitor (midsection) on warm up (Megatron probably starts the reactor when battle is at hand). Upon firing the the actual plasma core can optionally be ejected into the barrel and accelerated out along with energy from the capacitor. Longer warm up with plasma core ejection.



Tarn carried two different Fusion cannons , probably newer, faster firing, not quite as powerful



anyone care to muse on Optimus' Ion Blaster

 

Is this information from an official source or something you’re coming up with

 

I subtitled it guesswork, but I'll take that to mean it's decent

 

But at the same time, your bog-standard infantry squad is going to be carrying the basic M4 rifle. Standardization of equipment eases the logistical train, since you don't have to produce as many weapons. It's why U.S. Marine squads switched to the M-27 and its variants, allowing them to fulfill multiple roles with the same weapon.

Something I'd like to see in future installments is a codification of what the blaster bolts are and what they do, and weapons that convert from one form to another. The latter could be gunblades, or they could be submachine gun-pattern weapons that can convert into longarms like assault rifles or battle rifles, or both (kind of like RID 2015's Decepticon Hunters or Voltron's Bayards).

Stepping into fanon/"let me show off just how nerdy I really am" territory, I've actually put a decent amount of thought into the armaments of the Transformers for a fan-series that's not likely to get off the ground.

Transformers use blaster-type weapons that fire bolts made of holomatter particles. The blaster doesn't use a traditional barrel, but is more like a tuning fork, something like Transmetal Megatron's tail cannon prongs, minus the rest of the tail. The bolts themselves are made out of holomatter, hard-light technology that is also used to generate shields. Holomatter shares the name with IDW's holomatter tech, but the properties have very little in common: holomatter is inflexible and resembles the Axalon's base shield in Beast Wars. It can be programmed to take different shapes, but it cannot change shape once projected.

The blasters themselves are made of protomatter, the same living metal that Transformers are comprised of. Installing a morphcore (or T-cog, whatever you want to call it) in the blaster allows the blaster to change shape, or to integrate into the Transformer's body for storage. Older "protoblasters" merely changed shape between something resembling an MP-7 (personal defense weapon, or PDW) in size to an M-4 or bigger. A Transformer could use the smaller sized weapon like a pistol or a submachine gun, like how Stormtroopers wield their blasters in Star Wars.

As shield technology scaled down, Transformers were able to equip personal shield generators, which worked a lot like Dune's shields: faster projectiles triggered the shield, protecting the wearer, while slower objects bypassed the shield trigger. Shields were set like this so that they didn't trigger every time the wearer bumped into something or tried to sit down. This led to a resurgence in melee combat. However, the Transformers weren't willing to give up the ranged utility of their weapons, so both sides developed protoblasters that could convert into melee weapons. The standard-issue small arms version converted into a sword or axe. Autobots favored cruciform swords, while Decepticons used falcata (forward-curving blade, better at chopping) or saber-type swords. In both modes, the weapon could change between something smaller, like a gladius, or bigger, like a longsword. Regardless of whether the melee mode is a sword, ax, or bludgeon, it generates a holomatter shell over the business end, to protect the weapon and improve its striking capability. True holomatter-only sword blades and ax heads run the risk of being non-functional when the weapon is out of power. That doesn't stop third-party factions from using holomatter pistols (pistols that convert into hilts that generate swords and ax heads) or holomatter bayonets.

Shields could be overwhelmed with sustained fire or heavy enough weapons, and the ranged mode can still work at point-blank range, since you're inside the shield's envelope.

Squad-support weapons could be divided into three categories: chainguns, rapid-fire missile launchers, and light fusion cannons (the kind that a Transformer could actually carry, as opposed to ship-mounted heavy fusion cannons). Chainguns would essentially be BW Rhinox's weapon or TfP Skyquake's weapon, and be carried in much the same way. Fusion cannons in this setting would essentially be larger blasters and use the same prong "barrel" mechanism - Autobots would fire them like bazookas (Big Convoy style), while the larger and stronger Decepticons would mount them on their arms, much like Megatron. The Decepticon missile launcher would resemble Rampage's rotary missile launcher and be carried the same way, while Autobot missile launchers are conical and resemble the shoulder rockets common to many G1 Autobots. The chainguns and Decepticon rotary missile launcher can change into hammers or kanabo-style clubs.

Body-mounted missile pods are also common to both factions, either embedded like Cyberverse Grimlock and Starscream, or external like AoE Lockdown.

Specialized crew-served weapons like mortars or sniper rifles (technically crew-served, since sniper teams are two-man operations) are a common method of bypassing shields through overwhelming force. With both weapons, the Autobot converts into a weapons platform that mounts the larger weapon. It would be like if G1 Galvatron's alt mode were used for sniping rather than heavy bombardment. Decepticons, meanwhile, used Lockdown's facegun.

Sorry to bombard you all with fanon, but I've been sitting on this for a while.

 

The ting goes skrrrrrrrrrrrrrah. Pap pap, kak kak kak

 

Brilliant! This needs to be full canon. Tied the halomatter to shields and weapons.

I suspect Megatron's Mace and Prime's axe are an extension of their internal halomatter abilities.

 

It makes you wonder who makes the guns. Like, do they just find them...or?

 

They would be. Prime's would be easy to pull off. My version of holomatter wouldn't be flexible enough to make a chain, but if the emitter is attached to the end of the chain and just generates the spiky ball, then Megatron's flail could work as well.

A lot of the technology introduced in the Transformers franchise could be condensed and linked together with enough thought.