Skell weapon

Skell weapons are pieces of equipment in Xenoblade Chronicles X. They determine the type and strength of attacks a Skell may use in combat. Sidearms affect the Skell's types while the Art weapons: the back, shoulder, arm, and spare weapons, determine the Skell's Skell Arts. Skells can generally equip a maximum of ten Skell weapons (two of each type), although some weapons take up more slots if they are too large for just one side.

Characteristics

 * Type: Weapons come in five different types. A weapon's type determines where the weapon is installed and the position of its Skell Art in the Skell's arts palette. While many Skell weapons can be installed on either the left or right side of the Skell, some of them take up both back weapon slots, both shoulder weapon slots, or all four weapon slots.
 * Force: A weapon's Force partially determines how much is dealt by that weapon. (The actual amount of damage dealt also depends on the weapon or the Skell Art's base damage.)
 * Minimum : The weapon can only be equipped by Skells with an equal or higher frame level. Any Skell frame can use the weapon as long as its frame level is sufficient.
 * Attribute: This determines the attribute of s and indicates the attribute of Skell Arts.
 * Cooldown: On a sidearm, this determines the average time between each set of attacks. On other weapons, this determines how long it takes for the Skell Art attached to cool down before it can be used again.
 * GP Gain: Determines how many Gear Points, or GP, are gained per hit with the weapon. This value is set to 0 on every weapon other than the sidearms.
 * Stability: All else being equal, this determines the range of actual damage values which may be dealt by a weapon from hit to hit.
 * Augments: Most Skell weapons have between one and three Augment traits built into the weapon. These cannot be changed or removed, but they can be upgraded.
 * Empty slots: In addition to inherent augments, most weapons can have Skell augments added to them; the number of empty slots determines the maximum number of augments which can be added. This number can be increased up to three at L's Shop.
 * Maximum upgrades: Each inherent Augment of a Skell weapon starts out at a certain level from to . These can be upgraded for a material cost at the AM Terminal under the option 'Upgrade Battle Traits'. 'Maximum Upgrades' corresponds to the total amount of times this may be done across all of the weapon's inherent Augments.
 * Sell price: A weapon can be sold for this number of Credits.
 * Maker: Each weapon was made by one of the Arms Manufacturers. This is mostly for flavour, although upgrading an AM's level by using the weapon may allow for more of their weapons to be sold in the.
 * Skell Art: By pressing R, it is possible to see the Skell Art gained from the weapon, as well as its icon, fuel cost, effect, what the Art targets, and the Art's hit count (but not the Art's name, for some reason).

Naming Scheme

 * The first three letters indicate the slot of the weapon:
 * SHM: Sidearm
 * SRM: Back Weapon
 * SSM: Shoulder Weapon
 * SAM: Arm Weapon
 * SKM: Spare Weapon
 * After the dash (-), there can be zero, one or two Xs.
 * Zero means that the weapon was bought or crafted in New LA.
 * One X means that the weapon was found from an enemy.
 * Two Xs (XX) indicate that it is Intergalactic quality, which is found in Gold-quality drops.
 * An 'M' or an 'R':
 * M indicates that it's a melee (short-range) weapon.
 * R indicates that it's a ranged (long-range) weapon.
 * If neither the X or the M/R is there, the weapon is likely:
 * A Skell superweapon, which always uses the letters USP.
 * An Ares superweapon, which always uses the letters SP.
 * An extra X is added to some Sakuraba weapons.
 * A three or four digit number shows the model of the weapon. The last two digits usually determine the frame level required to use the Skell weapon, although not always. Beam-Shields and Antipulsers, among other weapons, change the last digit from a 0 to a 1-9 to signify a different variant of the weapon.
 * The two letters at the end indicate the Arms Manufacturer:
 * SA: Sakuraba Industries
 * GG: Grenada Galactic Group
 * ME: Meredith & Co.
 * GA : Orphean Technologies (GA usually indicates Ganglion make, since these weapons are mainly dropped by Ganglion Skells).
 * LA: Six Stars (LA may come from the Japanese name for Wroth: Rāsu with the R switched to an L)
 * XX or no letters: Unknown
 * Finally, the name given indicates the common name of the weapon, like the G-Buster or the Phoenix.

This means that a weapon like the SHM-XR250SA E-Machine Gun is a sidearm dropped from a silver drop from an enemy with a frame level of 50 developed by Sakuraba Industries.