Optic weaponry

I shoot what I sees.

Optics make up a mechanoid's sense of sight, feeding video data to their other systems. However, many mechanoids enhance these structures by installing optional weapons systems. Common examples include beam or particle weaponry, especially lasers. In these cases a robot can quite literally shoot what it sees.

Fiction

Photon Beam!!

• Optic lasers are Unicron's ranged weapon of choice in several continuities. The Transformers: The Movie On the Edge of Extinction! Predacons Rising Our Finest

Marvel The Transformers comics

Events from the UK-only comic stories are in italics.

• Upon arriving on Earth, Laserbeak boasted about his optical lasers. The Transformers He got a chance to show them off when the Decepticons needed to intimidate their prisoner Sparkplug Witwicky. Prisoner of War! He would later use them to free Megatron and Soundwave from the wreckage of Galvatron's super-weapon. Target: 2006
• The Decepticon who beat up Outback had optic lasers, which Optimus Prime found out the hard way. ...The Harder They Die!
• The first Nucleon guardian used optic beams while trying to keep Grimlock away from Nucleon. The Pri¢e of Life!
• Megadeath could fire laser beams out of each of his three eyes. The Magnificent Six!

The Transformers cartoon

• Optimus Prime possessed eye beams, using them in personal combat to knock Megatron off a cliff once. Divide and Conquer
• Grimlock is equipped with eye beams in his beast mode. S.O.S. Dinobots
• Devastator has eye beams, which he can use to take out any Autobots he misses with his initial boulder-throwing. The Core
• Megatron has eye beams which he uses to scare off earth germs. The Autobot Run
• Laserbeak contained optic lasers in his eyes, using them to both spy on the Autobots and rain death upon them. He used them to blast a window of Shawn Berger's office, allowing him to take the corpulent businessman to the Decepticons. Megatron's Master Plan, Part 1 Laserbeak also used them to open doors and potholes while in New York. Bear in mind that Laserbeak doesn't have fingers, so he can't ring the doorbell. City of Steel
• Trypticon has the power to take control of weaker-minded Transformers with hypno-beams fired from his eyes. But usually, he's content to just squash his prey like bugs and let Bombshell and Mindwipe do their jobs.

Beast Wars cartoon

• Several Predacons have optic weaponry which they used at least once during the duration of the show.
  • Waspinator - Eye-Lasers<ref>Beast Wars Universe, page 29</ref> Beast Wars (Part 1)
  • Terrorsaur - Heat Beam<ref>Beast Wars Universe, page 28 & the script of the episode "A Better Mousetrap"</ref> A Better Mousetrap
  • Dinobot's Cybertronic Beam<ref>Beast Wars Universe, page 14</ref> appeared to be tied to his own energon supply, making them potentially risky to use for too long. Indeed, Dinobot exhausted the last of his energy to destroy the Golden Disk with his eye beams, sacrificing his life. Code of Hero
  • Dinobot II - Proton Beam<ref>Beast Wars Universe, page 34</ref>

2001 Robots in Disguise cartoon

• Side Burn used an "optical laser strike!" attack to collapse a hill on which Predacons were standing. Bullet Train to the Rescue This was the only instance in which Side Burn used this skill.
  Side Burn's seemingly new ability was the result of a Fox Kids edit to the series, in which the original footage of Optimus Prime shooting his Blizzard Storm attack at the Predacons was deemed too confusing, as it was just a shot of water blasting from nowhere, and was replaced with an out-of-context clip taken from Side Burn's stock footage transformation sequence.

Dreamwave Generation One continuity

• Birdbrain's Pretender shell could fire laser beams from its optics. Birdbrain's More than Meets the Eye profile

2005 IDW continuity

• A Titan commandeered by Sentinel Prime fired lasers from its optics to deter their pursuers. Fortress Maximus highlighted the flaw in this attack by ordering his forces to get behind the Titan's head. Ten to Midnight

Titan movie comics

• Megatron used optic beams on Optimus Prime. Twilight's Last Gleaming, Part: 5

2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon

• Crustacion possessed "optic blasters" to supplement his Dinobot-tier strength. Defrosted

Beast Wars: Uprising

• The Grand Mal had the ability to fire lasers from its eyes. A first attack clipped Black-Out and damaged his rotors. Piloting, Eject chose to sacrificially ram Black-Out through the eye before it could fire again. Derailment

References

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