Or do they kind of feel their way along with the help of ESP? Any defined views or ideas on this one?
How do Transformers see in alt mode?
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 Orphanstar |
How do Transformers see in alt mode? |
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Posts: 29 (02/11/2009 22:21:11) |
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Syntia13 |
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Posts: 131 (02/11/2009 22:42:40) |
I have no idea if it's canon or just fanon, but most fics who deal with it use headligths as alt-mode optic sensors. Makes sense in a way, headlights
shine, optics shine...
(heh, I remember one fic where Mirage thought an organic creature was blind because its eyes didn't shine with their own light, only reflected it.  )
Also, we are speaking super advanced robots here. They have radars, sonars and a whole range of other gimmicks we don't even have names for yet. Personally, I'm of opinion that you could 'blind' a bot (a.k.a shatter his optics/visor) and they'd still be getting along just fine, having a lot of other means of orienting themselves in the enviroment. (What was that fic where Octane felt 'blind' because he landed on a rock that didn't have magnetic fields and it was throwing his gyros off balance?) EDITing to add: just remembered I once thought that headlights probably work as secondary/additional optical sensors in robot mode as well. Reason - most of bots have very large 'chests', which effectively obscure a great portion of terrain in front of them from their view. In other words, if they only relied on eye-optics, Prowl or Bluestreak couldn't see where they're going. But with headlight-optics placed on front of their chests, they could.
Last Edited By: Syntia13
02/12/2009 06:19:20.
Edited 1 times.
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Wayward Martian |
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Posts: 12478 (02/12/2009 09:41:57) We'll always have Kalis! |
They seemed to see out their windshields in one episode ( darned if I can remember which one. ) An Autobot convoy was driving through the rain, so they
reversed polarity on their windshields because ... I dunno. Windshield wipers aren't cool enough.
 Anyway, it kept the rain off.
Cannibal Predacon is cannibal. |
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Quallevra |
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Posts: 525 (02/12/2009 17:37:17) Sorta Fanatic |
It was "Ultimate Doom" part 2, and I imagine their reversed polarity was a lot more effective than wipers would have been.
I published a book! It's a fantasy novel called "Darkland" and it's available from Amazon. Go buy it! |
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Geminii |
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Posts: 314 (02/14/2009 03:33:36) Out-patient |
It's never been defined specifically in canon. There's a vague sort of feel that they'd see out of their windshields purely because humans sitting
in them would do so, but any time I've seen it specifically addressed in fanfic, their sensor web has been a lot more spread out through their chassis.
Which, yeah, does make me wonder why they seem to be limited to their optics in robot mode. Perhaps it's something that gets connected up in different ways
when they transform. In general, it's handwaved and a pawn of the narrative.
Then there's Perceptorfic... |
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Cyndi.joshgroban |
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Posts: 10 (02/15/2009 12:59:09) |
When I write TFA, I write Prowl as being flawed--no optics, so he is blind and his visor works similar to that of Geordi on Star Trek, except it uses
vibrations instead of artificial vision. Colors vibrate at different frequencies. So he can tell you you're wearing a red shirt or if you have blue
stripes, but he isn't actually SEEING it. The system isn't perfect because the vibration accuracy fades with distance and doesn't pick up on tiny
details(makes it very hard for him to read text unless it's huge), but he's discovered human braille, which he loves using to read. But in battle he
uses his ears more than the visor. If the visor failed he'd fight no different. He uses the visor to fake being sighted because let's just say if the
wrong people found out, it'd be nasty for him. Flawed mechs aren't held to highly in society in my fics. >>()
For movieverse fics, I have Optimus mention to Mikaela that he uses highly evolved sonar when he's in his alt mode.
Click to help my dragon(s) hatch and grow up.
   
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