Affinity Weapon

The seven Affinity Weapons, also known as Sub-Weapons, are weapons used by Bounty Hunters in Metroid Prime Hunters.
==Description==
The seven Affinity Weapons are named as such because each Bounty Hunter has an "affinity" for one of the weapons. When a hunter uses their corresponding Affinity Weapon, they gain an additional benefit. Other hunters can use the weapon as a Sub-Weapon, but they do not receive the Affinity Weapon's secondary attributes unless they are currently the Prime Hunter. For example, while Trace can turn invisible when he uses the Imperialist as his Affinity Weapon, other non-Prime hunters do not have this ability when they use it as their Sub-Weapon. Despite being radically different, all Affinity Weapons share the same Universal Ammunition.
In Multiplayer Mode, Bounty Hunters begin without any Sub-Weapons but can instantly earn their respective Affinity Weapon by picking up the colorless Affinity Weapon item. Otherwise, they must pick up colored Sub-Weapon items in order to use them.
The Missile Launcher is an exception among the Affinity Weapons. All Bounty Hunters start with a Missile Launcher, but it is only considered an Affinity Weapon when used by Samus Aran. However, it uses Missile Ammo instead of Universal Ammunition. Since Samus also begins multiplayer matches with the Missile Launcher already equipped, she will instead receive five Missiles when she picks up the colorless Affinity Weapon upgrade.
With the exception of the Missile Launcher, the Sub-Weapons must be collected and used as secondary Arm Cannon weaponry by Samus in Adventure Mode. The Sub-Weapons are used to open Blast Shields and Force Fields across the Alimbic Cluster, and each Sub-Weapon plays a part in the Alimbic Prophecy by activating the Colored Panels. Like in Multiplayer Mode, the Missile Launcher is Samus's only Affinity Weapon; the Sub-Weapons do not have their secondary effects.
Variants of certain enemies, including Guardians, Slenches, Voldrums, and Psycho Bits, use attacks that behave similarly to the Affinity Weapons. Most notably, Gorea copies the Affinity Weapons from the defeated Bounty Hunters to use in battle against Samus. Each of these enemies, as well as the enemy Bounty Hunters themselves, are weak to a specific "opposing" Sub-Weapon used by Samus. For example, enemies that use the Magmaul's attacks are weak to Samus's Judicator, and vice versa.
==Functions==
The weapons, users, and their special effects are:
*Volt Driver, used by Kanden. Effect: Launches an aerobomb that follows its target. The one who is hit by the aerobomb has his vision distorted and can be easily hit as he or she can be taken advantage of due to impaired vision.
*Battlehammer, used by Weavel. Effect: Has a slower rate of fire. Unlike the faster one, the slower version has an explosive effect that causes splash damage. Also, the splash damage has a shoving effect that is useful for knocking opponents off of ledges.
*Imperialist, used by Trace. Effect: Allows the user to become translucent so long as he remains stationary.
*Judicator, used by Noxus. Effect: Fires, instead of the three burst spread shot, a burst of super cooled wind that travels a short distance. Freezes opponents in their tracks for a short amount of time, which allows the user to get a major advantage towards attack.
*Magmaul, used by Spire. Effect: Larger explosion from charged shots that has splash damage. If an opponent is caught in the explosion, he is burned, and his health is cut down as time passes. The burning effect lasts for a good amount of time and can kill the victim without the player having to get near him.
*Shock Coil, used by Sylux. Effect: Drains the energy from the target and refills the user's energy.
*Missile Launcher, used by Samus. Effect: Homing ability added to missiles.
==Ultimate Affinity Power==
In the multiplayer mode Prime Hunter, the Prime Hunter is granted full access to the effects of each Affinity Weapon. While the Omega Cannon is not an Affinity Weapon because no hunter has any natural affinity for it, the hunter can gain an affinity for it as Prime Hunter and it acts like it does when battling Gorea; ironically, it's actually less useful that way. While playing Prime Hunter, Samus can be thought of to be the best choice to play as, due to her missile affinity, and earnable affinity with other weapons.
Note that due to the rule-changes that accompany the Prime Hunter, some affinity abilities are changed. These include:
*Imperialist: Invisibility is never turned on due to the constant flow of damage to the Prime Hunter. Also, the screen-shaking nature of this continual damage destroys any zoomed-in accuracy whatsoever.
*Shock Coil: Health regeneration is not enabled, as the game specifically states the only way for the Prime Hunter to regain health is to kill enemies. Kills with the Shock Coil will still award the normal energy amount, however.
*Judicator: It is much easier to move to close range with a target to freeze them solid with a charged shot due to the much increased movement speed.
*Volt Driver: Player can move much faster than the charged-shot aerobombs. Fire at closer range for better use, but be careful not to be included in the blast radius.
==Official data==
===Metroid Prime Hunters manual===
;Sub-weapon Icon
:"Check the currently equipped Sub-weapon. Tap on this icon to switch to the Sub-weapon."
;Hunters & Affinity Weapons (pg. 50)
:"Using each Hunters' Affinity Weapon strengthens that Hunter's weapon power and weapon effects."
;Sub-Weapon
:"Samus earns a new Sub-Weapon."
;Items (pg. 51)
:Affinity Weapon
:"Earn the Hunter's preferred Affinity weapon."
===Metroid Prime Hunters: The Official Nintendo Player's Guide===
;SPECIAL WEAPONS
:"Each hunter has a signature weapon with special capabilities. You will find these weapons in both Multiplayer mode and Adventure mode, so it's important to learn the distinctions.Some weapons fire distant laser beams, whereas others fire waves of electricity or lob projectiles in an arc. The Imperialist even has a targeting scope!"
;Other Weapons
:"In addition to her Power Beam and Missile Launcher, Samus can find and equip seven special weapons. All special weapons consume the same Universal Ammunition.Each special weapon is associated with a certain color, and only the appropriately colored weapon can destroy force fields and blast shields of that color. When you get a new weapon, you can backtrack to old areas and use it to open additional paths."
;KNOW YOUR WEAPONS
:"In Adventure mode, each enemy hunter uses a single special weapon exclusively. Many nonhunter enemies (particularly Guardians) use similar weapons themselves, and are weak against certain other weapons. Enemies are usually very resistant to their own weapon.Each hunter is weak against enemies who use similar weapons, but strong against a certain other type of enemy.Samus has no particular weakness, but some enemies are resistant to her Power Beam and missiles. Early in the game, other hunters will always be a fair fight." 
==Trivia==
*During the cutscene where the Seal Sphere is released, some hunters seem to be using a different variant of their Affinity Weapons.
**Weavel is seen using a small handheld blaster.
**Trace is using a rapid-fire Imperialist, which can also be seen at times during the battle between Trace, Noxus, and Samus.
**Sylux fires the Shock Coil in bursts rather than a continuous stream.
**Spire appears to use projectiles that do not arch when fired.
**Kanden and Noxus have no noticeable differences with their weapons.
*The Item Acquisition Fanfare plays when Samus acquires one of the six Affinity Weapons in Adventure Mode, but when she acquires the Omega Cannon, the variant of the Get Artifact Jingle used for Alimbic Artifacts plays instead. In Multiplayer matches, only the basic sound effect for acquiring the weapons plays.
*With the exception of missiles, the icons used in game to represent the six Hunter Affinity Weapons, used for both the weapon pickups and the selection icons, appear to represent the Alt-Forms of the corresponding Hunters. Each also uses the same color scheme as the corresponding Hunter.
**While the missile icon does not resemble Samus's Alt-Form at all, there is an unused Missile Launcher pickup in the game's code which does resemble the Morph Ball and uses Samus's color scheme. (The colorless Affinity Weapon pickup from multiplayer mode also resembles the Morph Ball when viewed from the side, though lacks Samus's colors and the resemblance is less pronounced).
*While the Power Beam is not shown to have any Affinity powers even when playing as Prime Hunter, it does function differently between Multiplayer and Adventures modes. Specifically, holding the fire button causes the beam to fire three shots in Multiplayer before charging while Adventure mode adds a fourth shot after a short delay before charging.
==Gallery==
Image:Missile.gif|Missile
Image:Imperialist.gif|Imperialist
Image:Battlehammer.gif|Battlehammer
Image:VoltDriver.gif|Volt Driver
Image:ShockCoil.gif|Shock Coil
Image:Magmaul.gif|Magmaul
Image:Judicator.gif|Judicator
Image:OmegaCannon.gif|Omega Cannon
ru:Свое Оружие
Category:Beams
Category:Affinity Weapons