Category talk:Weapons

Specialized weapons

Idle thoughts. The proper-noun-named special super-power weapons of G1, I think, deserve to be archived. However, the character profile sections really aren't good places for them, especially since what their weapons do can change when the characters change bodies. (I think a few in G2 even change when they're the SAME TOYS as they were in G1.)
The question becomes "what form should these entries take"? I'm fine with individualized entries for "Torque Rifle" and "Crustation Rifle" and whatnot (the former I know there's a visual example of what it does in... "Aerialbots Over America"?), but some people might object and prefer a centralized list, or want them in the character page somehow. I would like to note that the "individual page" list would be a nice way to boost article count in a not-needless way... plus account for those handful of weapons used by more than one character. (Blaster's not the only one packing an electro-scrambler, right? And doesn't "Razor's Edge" Crossblades use a bunch of specialized G1 weapons?) --M Sipher 23:19, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I strongly support giving each goofy-ass weapon its own individual page - as a compromise, we could have a central "List of specialized weapons" or something like that. - RolonBolon 23:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Got my support for individualized weapon pages. -- SFH 23:32, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't the Animated character pages have an "abilities" section? We should probably add ones for any character with a non-generic weapon with one sub-section for each applicable body with different powers. All the toy sections need is a listing of accessories. Named non-generic weapons probably should gave a page even if it's only used by one character. A list would simply be too large, and limiting it to character pages would make browsing weapons impossible. --FortMax 23:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm willing to let the Animated guys have that because 1) The weapons aren't really given "proper-noun" names, 2) they're all built-in stuff, and 3) they seem unlikely to change bodies and powers. They're not a pistol someone holds in their hand and someone else can pick up and use. I don't think the "sections" is a good idea outside of Animated because, well, some pages are already huge as it is. --

Sub-Categories?

I'm also beginning to think we might want to further sub-categorize the weapons... between "ranged" and "melee". Thoughts? --M Sipher 20:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Whaddaya do with the swords that shoot laser beams? They go in both sections? -- Repowers 20:51, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure. Why not? --M Sipher 20:52, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I dunno. Everything fits on one page as it is, so I'm not sure if we need more granularity than that.--Rosicrucian^Talk 20:53, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

"As-is" doesn't even scratch the surface of the vast plethora of bizarrely-powered weapons in Transformers. "Weapons", as a category, is going to become very big indeed. --M Sipher 20:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Part two

Since this is a long dead discussion, I'll start a second part for this question: would anyone mind me going through and making a Melee weapons subcat? -- SFH 17:40, 16 December 2009 (EST)

I second your motion. Khajidha 20:38, 16 December 2009 (EST)

New sub category suggestion

Perhaps we can add "Category: Guns" (pistol, riffle, etc). --TX55^TALK 22:45, 3 April 2009 (EDT)

"Continuity family" headers on Weapons pages

Alright, I just want to reach a consensus here, so we can keep consistency between pages. Do we want to keep a continuity-specific header for weapons pages? For example, Stinger (weapon) does not have a continuity header on its page, whereas Null-ray does. It seems kinda... pointless to put these headers up in my opinion. And I'm voting on taking them away from the pages instead of keeping them. Weapons aren't the same as characters: would we really put say, ak-47's as only belonging to the Generation 1 continuity family if the only time they appeared in fiction was in a Generation 1 story? Whatever continuity family they appear in is already cleared up in the "fiction" section in any case. --Ascendron 00:09, 3 July 2010 (EDT)

I agree; we don't separate instances of weapons by continuity family, so the headers aren't necessary. —Interrobang 00:29, 3 July 2010 (EDT)

Wait, wait a sec here. I'm totally OK with the reasoning behind TF ability weapons getting their continuities nuked, but I'm not sure at all about nuking the continuity note for things like the Global Orbiting Defense Satellite or the Negavator or such which are more specific devices tied to a single storyline. --Jeysie 18:48, 5 July 2010 (EDT)

My reasoning behind nuking it everywhere, is because it seems that in Transformers fiction, weapons are ridiculously prone to getting recycled across continuities. I wouldn't be surprised if both of those concepts would one day be used in a completely separate continuity one day. The absurd amount of weapons brought up by Swindle (Animated) showcases this quite well. That being said though, I did it for all the weapons pages because it's nice to keep things consistant in my opinion. If you feel that it greatly hinders the information being conveyed in those pages, I won't get in an edit war with you. --Ascendron 13:12, 6 July 2010 (EDT)

Well, I don't know for sure if it does, just that it feels weird, so I thought I'd bring it up for discussion. Because I mean, even if a specific device concept gets reused it still was created as a specific device for a specific storyline to begin with. Kind of like how we give planets continuity origin notes even if they later show up in more continuities.

I feel like that's somehow different than things like the TF abilities, which tend to be more universal and apply more across the board to the characters in question. (For instance, every instance of G1 Cliffjumper has glass gas, and other versions of him might as well; it's more tied to the character in terms of origin if anything, rather than a single continuity.) --Jeysie 13:42, 6 July 2010 (EDT)

I'm starting to think that the recent influx of homages and cross-continuity nods is just going to generate headaches for everything... I think maybe we should open up a discussion somewhere what does and what doesn't qualify for having a continuity header, and get people to vote on this... Obviously stuff like Earth doesn't, and Optimus Prime (G1) definitely does... But between real-world objects and developed characters, things start to get kinda fuzzy in my opinion. A line should be drawn somewhere. --Ascendron 13:51, 6 July 2010 (EDT)

Continuity notes on weapon pages revisit?

I would like to revisit this. I can see a point in not having continuity notes on real-world weapons, or on generic weapon articles like "energon axe", but it seems silly to me that we have pages for weapons which only exist in one franchise or continuity that now don't have continuity identifiers on them. Why is the Negavator treated differently to Wheeljack Instant Immobilizer? Why does Cyberbee get a continuity identifier and not Cyber-bat? IMHO fictional weapons should always have a continuity identifier, just like all our other fiction articles. --abates 05:04, 8 April 2011 (EDT)

Frankly, I agree and come to the exact opposite conclusion. I don't think any weapons should have continuity identifiers. They're going to cross that barrier constantly, with examples like ion blaster, fusion cannon, null ray, flare launcher, particle cannon, and so on and so forth. And since they frequently don't have a fiction section, there's no compelling reason to break them up like we do, say, Optimus Primes. I actually feel the same way about a lot of non-character articles, like Cybertronic wildlife (and this largely seems to be the way places like cities are already handled, and for the same reasons). -LV 10:17, 8 April 2011 (EDT)

What LV said. Continuity identifiers aren't useful if we're not going to grant every continuity family instance an article. Although I think they should all have fiction sections, if only to say who owns what and the range of the weapon's abilities in a particular continuity. This is such a boring task that I don't blame anybody for not doing it. —Interrobang 10:30, 8 April 2011 (EDT)

Put me down as firmly behind LV here. The fiction section on each page should give the information on which events occurred in each continuity, but there is no reason to burden the page with a separate note. --Khajidha 10:41, 8 April 2011 (EDT)

So you're saying if they have a Negavator in TF Prime, and it's a device for making Cybertronian coffee and therefore gets a separate article from the G1 Negavator, then the G1 Negavator would get a continuity identifier? --abates 16:03, 8 April 2011 (EDT)