7 réponses à ce sujet

[DGemu]

Just been reading TVTropes and it stated.

"The built-in cooling system is anything but redundant. The Codex claims thermal clips are "better" because the soldier doesn't need to wait for the gun to cool, without accounting for the fact that no amount of  waiting will help when he's out of clips... Unless the systems are combined: One or two spare heatsinks in an external cooling unit would  keep the soldier stocked with ammo forever and with no waits when overheated. Which incidentally is exactly how all the non-player characters operate weapons, right down to never dropping more than one heatsink when dead (the ones in their guns are lost). Guess Shepard missed the memo while dead or something and everyone else is having too much fun watching him desperately scavenge clips off corpses to tell him."

Is this true because it would be really funny.

Modifié par DGemu, 02 juin 2011 - 03:14 .

[PsyrenY]

I always justify it as: when the HUD shows you that your current gun has no clips left, there is actually just one remaining - but the gun's internal systems will not allow you to shoot because doing so will irreparably damage it.

In other words, your gun can't cool down no matter how long you wait, because it's already cool - it just won't let you heat it up again until you load more sinks into it.

It's quieted the nagging voice in my head somewhat, at least.

[dujh]

Optimystic_X wrote...

I always justify it as: when the HUD shows you that your current gun has no clips left, there is actually just one remaining - but the gun's internal systems will not allow you to shoot because doing so will irreparably damage it.

In other words, your gun can't cool down no matter how long you wait, because it's already cool - it just won't let you heat it up again until you load more sinks into it.

It's quieted the nagging voice in my head somewhat, at least.

that's soft of the way i justify it to

[RGFrog]

It's a heat sink. Your weapons shave off bits of metal and accelerate those. The processes build up heat that has no where to go. The thermal clips merely give you a number of shots you can take until the heatsink can no longer remove enough heat from the weapon for it to function. Pop the thermal clip (heatsink), insert another and continue.

Without a heatsink the weapon would overload on one shot. Pretty simple.

It's pretty much the same logic as ME1, except that the heatsink is now a removable component rather than a non-user serviceable part of the weapon.

It's advantage is no more waiting for cooldowns as long as you have spare heatsinks (thermal clips). But once you're out of heatsinks, you might be better off using your weapon as a bat.

They could have reinforced this concept if they (BW) allowed for an overload of the weapon when no thermal clips were available. Press a button and toss for a mini nuke/grenade effect.

Instead they failed to clearly differentiate between a serviceable component and ammo clip. Failed to reinforce the design of ammo being a block of metal that rounds were shaved off of...

I have no problem with thermal clips nor the explanation. I didn't particularly care for me1's weapons or the cooldowns.

[termokanden]

I agree with all that. However, that isn't what the OP is saying.

To answer that, I will simply point out that if allies and enemy NPCs had ammo management, the game could quickly get rather silly (what happens when they run out?). I guess they don't drop multiple heatsinks when they die simply because you're not supposed to refill that much ammo from one kill.

[mav76]

While I think it could be more realistic if enemies would sometimes drop multiple clips (what decent merc wouldn't carry spare clips?), it would skew the balance of the game. The next step would be that players would demand that enemies that they drop with a sniper rifle, who have yet to engage should obviously drop more clips, since they haven't used any yet. While enemies that got into extended firefights should eventually run out of clips and have to scavenge some themselves, or engage in melee. The net effect would be that better players that take down enemies quickly would be swimming in excess ammo while struggling players would get further and further behind because they take longer to drop enemies and get little or no ammo to replace the higher amount they are using due to skill level.

Even standard TPS games don't have the enemies starting with a set amount of spare clips, which are used up during firefights. It would definitely be more realistic, but it doesn't work as a game dynamic (takes away challenge from high skill players, who already benefit from using less ammo to kill each enemy; while potentially crippling low skill players who use up lots of ammo taking out enemies already).

[mav76]

For the heat sink vs. overheat issue, I wish that Bioware had come up with this to explain it:

Advances in armor and shielding (perhaps due to studies on pieces of Sovereign) led to defense systems that far outclassed the current generation of firearms. To counteract the additional defense, guns were designed that used larger mass effect fields and rounds. The amount of power needed to match the new armor generated far too much heat for conventional weapons to dissipate during combat. So arms manufacturers developed high efficiency heat sinks and redesigned weapons to funnel the heat into the sinks, which could absorb the massive amounts of heat generated by the new weapons. Unfortunately these sinks had to be ejected and replaced frequently as they reached capacity. How many shots can be fired before a heat sink reaches capacity depends on the size and power of the weapon. Because heat sinks are designed to absorb and hold heat rather than dissipate it, they do not cool a useful amount during combat. Guns are now designed to funnel all their heat into the heat sink, rather than distribute and dissipate it. If a weapon is fired without a heat sink, or with one that has reached capacity, the heat will overload the heat sink chamber, causing the weapon to explode. New models have built in safety systems that prevent them from firing if a usable heat sink is not present.

At least that's how my Shepard's understand the changes.

What still doesn't work for me is ejecting partially spent heat sinks. Take the 6/18 capacity of the Carnifex. I fire off 3 shots, using up half of one heat sink. Then I eject the sink and have 6/15 shots left. If I originally had 3 heat sinks for 18 shots, and I threw one out, I should be down to 2 sinks and 12 shots max. Fine, maybe I saved that half empty sink and will use it at the end to put in my last three shots. But if I fire off another 3 and eject another half full sink, I now have 6/12 left, and could fire off two burst of 6 instead of one full burst of 6 and 2 3's from my partial sinks. Or I could take my 3/18 Carnifex, fire one shot at a time, and eject the clip, ejecting a total of 17 clips. If I had 17 clips to start with, why couldn't I have used them for 6x17 shots?

Sure I understand that this is a game mechanic issue. Players don't want to have to choose between throwing out shots in order to load a fresh clip in vs. going into a fresh firefight with a mostly empty clip to start. Plus all the other shooters let you pull out your half-empty clip and slap in a fresh one while keeping those bullets. Sure I buy that a soldier would do that in the field, pull out a nearly expended clip and put it back on his ammo belt to start with a full clip when he advances out of cover. Sometime later, during a lull in the fighting he can combine partial clips together to make full ones. Of course in shooter games, you can cycle out half clips non-stop and every new one you put in is full, even if you've not had any lulls to move bullets around. You can even get to the silliness of having a 12 round clip in a pistol with 18 bullets left to your name. Fire off 6 shots and hit reload--you magically slot in a full clip in no more time than normal.

I can forgive the traditional ammo based shooters for the shortcut on clip management. ME2 is a bit trickier. Nearly full thermal clips may be literally too hot to handle, and even if not, I don't see how the spare capacity from 2 or more thermal clips could be combined in the field to give you a fresh clip. Then again maybe they're made so that you can connect them together and the heat will flow up into the top sink until it hits capacity, cooling the other one.

I also like to imagine that full thermal clips can be recycled--the heat can be extracted for use in power generation, or even just to use for heat, leaving the thermal clips ready to use again. Poor families can scavenge used thermal clips and plug them into their furnace to keep themselves warm for a week.

[Leonia]

Y'know, when I read the thread title, I wasn't really thinking about guns. But I think you guys are doing a good job of rationalising the changes in game mechanics.