48 réponses à ce sujet

[Repzik]

Thermal Clips gameplay wise were a much better solution to the "my shotgun is the best gun in ME1 ever, so I shall never switch off of it" problem. Story wise, it makes some sense (race to keep up rate of fire with shields design so they are actually effective). However, it really shouldn't be analyzed too much. My only problem with clips is the fact that they are the size of my forearm on the ground, glowing orange and stuff for all to see. I'd really like to see enemies dropping less thermal clips (or barely any at all), and allow Shepard to take more clips into battle.

[Top Sick RAT]

At first , thermal clips may be observerd only as gameplay factor not for need, but for me it's role in battefiend gained distinct place. Because of this as follows;

As we know from codex , micro-scaled mass accelerators creates massive emount of recoil(consequently heat) equal to the impact energy. In that case, bioware used weapon-modes and upgrades in ME1 to compensate for this(Heat Sinks ex.).(As it was mentioned in the codex , recoil is still a prime limiting factor on slug velocity) Based on assumption , ammount of heat occuring in fire mechanism can be limitedly cooled by the exterior atmosphere,namely by air. That where Thermal Clips step in. They incorporate some type of liquid and liquid can absorb much more heat than air cooling.

I mean whole point of this thing may be caused by the heat created by micro-framed mass accelerators. Since thermal clips include liquid, it can absorb faster and more efficiently. Maybe the heat sinks for weapons in ME1 lies on this basis .

[xSTONEYx187x]

I didn't mind the Thermal clips, infact, I much preferred them. In Mass Effect 1 I never used my shotgun, pistol or sniper rifle for the simple reason that I didn't need to because I essentially had unlimited ammo with my assault rifle.

Having ammo actually makes you more tactical when in combat, having to make use of all of your weapons.

[Captain_Obvious_au]

Stoney - I was the complete opposite. I loved the Sniper Rifle in ME1 (that was an actual Sniper Rifle, not a glorified marksman rifle) and the shotgun was extremely useful with sledgehammer rounds especially on Feros and in any anti-husk mission.

[Black Raptor]

xSTONEYx187x wrote...

I didn't mind the Thermal clips, infact, I much preferred them. In Mass Effect 1 I never used my shotgun, pistol or sniper rifle for the simple reason that I didn't need to because I essentially had unlimited ammo with my assault rifle.

Having ammo actually makes you more tactical when in combat, having to make use of all of your weapons.

Shotgun and sniper beat assault rifle hands down at close and long range respectively. 

[CajNatalie]

I switch weapons in ME1 for the situation, and mostly try to do the same in ME2; not because of Shepard's absolute ineptness at how much lolammo they bring along in to a mission.

This is how I do things in ME1...
Close up? Shotgun please... Stoney, you're missing out on Carnage and the awesome ragdoll knockdown effect of shotguns in ME1.
Far away? Sniper - activate Assassination and you're good to go.
Everything Else: Pistol versus Assault Rifle: Pistol all the way, with the Assault Rifle as backup if it gets sabotaged (I reverse this for my Shock Trooper Soldier; the only character who uses Assault Rifles as their multi-purpose).
And for my Engineer who is untrained in Shotguns, I whip it out with explosive mods to finish off the last enemy, with hilarious results.

Modifié par CajNatalie, 10 juillet 2011 - 02:31 .

[InkognitoY]

 Makes sense, someone overheats your gun, you have to wait for it to cool off. Now you can just eject the thermal clip. 

Another explanation is that ejecting a thermal clip is faster than waiting for an over-heated gun to cool off. Personally I would accept this explanation as well, considering how in some situations you just need to put as many bullets as you can down range, and waiting 10 seconds for your gun to cool off is not very effective. 

[Get Magna Carter]

InkognitoY wrote...

 Makes sense, someone overheats your gun, you have to wait for it to cool off. Now you can just eject the thermal clip. 

Another explanation is that ejecting a thermal clip is faster than waiting for an over-heated gun to cool off. Personally I would accept this explanation as well, considering how in some situations you just need to put as many bullets as you can down range, and waiting 10 seconds for your gun to cool off is not very effective. 

the problem is what if you haven't got a new thermal clip to switch to?
Shepard just ejects the old one and is left with a useless lump of metal in his hand until he can find another clip

[Black Raptor]

Get Magna Carter wrote...

InkognitoY wrote...

 Makes sense, someone overheats your gun, you have to wait for it to cool off. Now you can just eject the thermal clip. 

Another explanation is that ejecting a thermal clip is faster than waiting for an over-heated gun to cool off. Personally I would accept this explanation as well, considering how in some situations you just need to put as many bullets as you can down range, and waiting 10 seconds for your gun to cool off is not very effective. 

the problem is what if you haven't got a new thermal clip to switch to?
Shepard just ejects the old one and is left with a useless lump of metal in his hand until he can find another clip

And this is why there should be a hybrid system. You got thermal clips for when you need to put some more rounds downrange, but you can just let your gun cool off if there are no more enemies for the time being. 

Done right, it could also let you choose a "build" for a character whilst still staying within the lore. Balancing damage and ROF etc

[Bluko]

I can accept Thermal Clips being a legitimate technical innovation, but there are two very big problems with them that are simply inexcusable and that I cannot ignore.

1) Thermal Clips do not cool off and cannot be re-used. Seriously what the heck? And this is why Thermal Clips ****** me off. Because they are not reusable they are simply ammo, which is not what they're suppose to be. (If you wanted to add ammo, make guns use their damn ammo blocks.) Having a properly implemented hybrid system where used clips gradually cool would do wonders, not only does it have the potential to make the game far more tactical and unique among it's peers, but it makes sense from a logical basis. Why wouldn't you make Thermal Clips reusable?

2) Ejecting hot clips onto the ground is stupid. Not only are they hazaradous enough to light materials on fire, as demonstrated by Zaeed, but this is needlessly wasteful. Another issue is Thermal Clips leave a lot of evidence behind. As a special forces soldier you optimally do not want to leave anything behind indicating where you've been and or how many shots you fired. By ejecting thermal clips everywhere you make it that much easier for enemies to track you down or trace you to an attack. I know Shepard is hardly ever subtle as an N7, but leaving the equivalent of shell casings everywhere is just added stupidity.


The thing that will always irk me is that no matter what the explanation given Thermal Clips were added purely to make the game more familiar to the shooter crowd and because ejecting hot heatsinks is "cool". Any other basis for their existence for gameplay reasons is a load of manure as the same results could have been achieved with an overheat system. Or at very least by having guns that actually use up their ammunition. To me Thermal Clips are a complete farce in trying not to retcon ME1 because they still do anyways.

Modifié par Bluko, 10 juillet 2011 - 07:25 .

[SanDiego]

You know what the problem with the thermal clips (TC) drama is? Most of the complainers think as Spec Ops/Covert Ops. For them, ME1 system would be better. But majority of army is REGULAR ARMY. They have supply lines, defensive positions and stuff. And they need one thing - to lay down as much fire as humanly (turianly etc.) possible. And TC allow for that.
So, all major arms manufacturers (even the minor ones) start producing the TC series, as they will be getting huge orders from military and paramilitary (merc groups) organizations. Non-TC guns would have to be specifically tailored and custom made, which would make them ridiculously expensive. They would make good market with companies mentioned in the beginning of this post, but it's too small a market to make it economically viable.

Also, what I just did is called RP (Role Playing), which is 66% of RPG (Role Playing Game), which most (if not all) TC-complainers forget.

@Bluko: to your point 1) - I imagine TC as a kind of ferro-silicious block (these things can absorb huge amounts of heat). This capacity, however, has a downside - it would take really long for them to cool (in range of hours) even in total vacuum of space (with temperatures measured with a single hand's fingers in Kelvin scale). So, this is why they do not cool.

[CajNatalie]

That's a pretty good post SanDiego... unfortunately it doesn't change the fact that TCs are a cheap cop-out for trying to back-track to 'ammo' and imitate all the other shooter-type games.

[JonathonPR]

Quick note on cool down. in space objects cool down slower. The lack of matter means that there is no conduction which is the best way to cool something. Many scifi movies get it wrong when they try to show death in a vacuum. the low pressure allows water to boil out of the body at lower temperatures. A natural freeze dry process. Most of the bodies heat loss in the first few hours would come from that. Afterwards the body only cools down from what it radiates. To give an idea of how slow this can be iron starts to crystallize. the time needed for this is measured in millions of years.

As to thermal clips. I would pay the extra cost for special materials that allow sustained fire rates with limited cool down. The Normandy must have a nano fabricator judging from the upgrade system. It made canons why not guns I had plenty in my inventory from ME1. Renegade shep would find a way to steal the designs for upgrades and equipment.

[Sgt Stryker]

SanDiego wrote...

@Bluko: to your point 1) - I imagine TC as a kind of ferro-silicious block (these things can absorb huge amounts of heat). This capacity, however, has a downside - it would take really long for them to cool (in range of hours) even in total vacuum of space (with temperatures measured with a single hand's fingers in Kelvin scale). So, this is why they do not cool.

Actually, I would imagine that in space it would take even longer to cool down than in atmosphere. Think about it: in an atmosphere there are 3 ways for heat to leave an object - conduction, convection, and radiation. Conduction and convection require contact with matter, so in a vacuum the only mechanism remaining is radiation. 

Sorry, this is what happens when you let a physics nerd like me talk about science fiction.

[Black Raptor]

JonathonPR wrote...

Quick note on cool down. in space objects cool down slower. The lack of matter means that there is no conduction which is the best way to cool something. Many scifi movies get it wrong when they try to show death in a vacuum. the low pressure allows water to boil out of the body at lower temperatures.

The human skin is strong enough to survive a vacuum without rupture. You do not boil away in any sense and you'd simply die from lack of oxygen if you were out in space without a spacesuit. 

[Praetor Knight]

Black Raptor wrote...

JonathonPR wrote...

Quick note on cool down. in space objects cool down slower. The lack of matter means that there is no conduction which is the best way to cool something. Many scifi movies get it wrong when they try to show death in a vacuum. the low pressure allows water to boil out of the body at lower temperatures.

The human skin is strong enough to survive a vacuum without rupture. You do not boil away in any sense and you'd simply die from lack of oxygen if you were out in space without a spacesuit. 

Your eyes and mouth do.   *shudders*

And your body would overheat in vaccum first.

[xI extremist Ix]

Sabotage = Overheat
Overload = Weapon Malfunction (Unable to eject heat sink)

[Von Delacroix]

My biggest problem with thermal clips is how shepard wakes up and instantly knows that the pistol he found needs one. I would a found their explanation more acceptable if they had both weapons that needed thermal clips, and weapons that didn't, and had pluses and minuses to each. to convert every single weapon in 2 years across the entire galaxy is impressive I'd say. and the thermal clips in space would dissipate their heat rather quickly, because the difference in temperature.

[xI extremist Ix]

Praetor Shepard wrote...

Black Raptor wrote...

JonathonPR wrote...

Quick note on cool down. in space objects cool down slower. The lack of matter means that there is no conduction which is the best way to cool something. Many scifi movies get it wrong when they try to show death in a vacuum. the low pressure allows water to boil out of the body at lower temperatures.

The human skin is strong enough to survive a vacuum without rupture. You do not boil away in any sense and you'd simply die from lack of oxygen if you were out in space without a spacesuit. 

Your eyes and mouth do.   *shudders*

And your body would overheat in vaccum first.

The side facing the suns sizzles while the side away freezes. Eardrums, sinuses, mouth, and eyes rupture.

[InfiniteCuts]

This discussion can go back and forth forever, but for me the simple truth is that weapons are nowhere near as satisfying to use as they were in ME (and not just due to ammo). Cooldown added a certain experience to combat that is lost with thermal clips... a sense of caution and tension when you found yourself in a firefight but with little heat capacity remaining. Running low on thermal clips was never really a problem and felt more like an annoyance than an integral part of your combat style. This comes from someone who initially wanted "ammo" in ME2, though thermal clips were not quite what I had in mind. The reasoning or "lore" behind it may have been weak... but more importantly the actual implementation was weak. Here's hoping BioWare either revises this aspect or offers some type of choice to the player.

[Black Raptor]

xI extremist Ix wrote...

Praetor Shepard wrote...

Black Raptor wrote...

JonathonPR wrote...

Quick note on cool down. in space objects cool down slower. The lack of matter means that there is no conduction which is the best way to cool something. Many scifi movies get it wrong when they try to show death in a vacuum. the low pressure allows water to boil out of the body at lower temperatures.

The human skin is strong enough to survive a vacuum without rupture. You do not boil away in any sense and you'd simply die from lack of oxygen if you were out in space without a spacesuit. 

Your eyes and mouth do.   *shudders*

And your body would overheat in vaccum first.

The side facing the suns sizzles while the side away freezes. Eardrums, sinuses, mouth, and eyes rupture.

People have been exposed to a vacuum. Exposed limbs become useless after extended periods but do return to normal. The only person ever to have his face exposed to a near vacuum (1PSI) remembers the water boiling of his tongue. There is nothing mentioned about his eyes (maybe they weren't exposed for some reason), but the mositure would certainly boil away however I doubt your eyes would explode. 

[SanDiego]

In hard vacuum, water (and thus large part of your body - blood, lymph, CSF, ICF, TCF) boil at body temperature. Also (and I'm going to combine this with another reply)
@ "Actually, I would imagine that in space it would take even longer to cool down than in atmosphere. Think about it: in an atmosphere there are 3 ways for heat to leave an object - conduction, convection, and radiation. Conduction and convection require contact with matter, so in a vacuum the only mechanism remaining is radiation.

Sorry, this is what happens when you let a physics nerd like me talk about science fiction."

True, radiation is only way of losing heat in vacuum, but convection in normal atmosphere is nothing to write home about (it works better in liquids and environments such as star interiors - there are huge convection cells in stars that would hardly form in atmosphere) and most materials we've been ejecting clips on rather suck as heat conductors.
Radiation, on the other hand, just needs difference in temperatures of the radiating body and its surroundings. Hard vacuum of space is COLD. Few degrees of Kelvin. Clips and bodies are hot in comparison - the difference is measured in thousands or hundreds of degrees respectively. This means, that clip/body would cool exponentially - really fast at the beginning, but would eventually slow almost to halt as temperatures begin to close those of environment. For clip, it's not much issue, but human body would be undergoing interesting thing - it would be freezing and boiling at the same time. Call it freeze drying. Not a death I would like to die.

[Black Raptor]

SanDiego wrote...

In hard vacuum, water (and thus large part of your body - blood, lymph, CSF, ICF, TCF) boil at body temperature. 

In a hard vacuum, the water on any exposed surface would boil. Your body and the rest of the water inside you would not. Your skin is strong enough to avoid exploding or boiling away. Your blood would neither freeze nor boil until long after you had died.
Vacuum exposure kills you due to lack of oxygen. You would be unable to hold your breath as the air would be sucked out of your lungs, so unconsciousness occurs in a matter of seconds. You would be dead long before any other permanent damage was done due to the cold or pressure difference. As such, it would be a relatively painless death. You'd barely have time to panic. 
It would be quite a while before death occured otherwise. 

Explosive decompression could cause fatal injuries on any astonaut close to the hole.

[Get Magna Carter]

SanDiego wrote...

You know what the problem with the thermal clips (TC) drama is? Most of the complainers think as Spec Ops/Covert Ops. For them, ME1 system would be better. But majority of army is REGULAR ARMY. They have supply lines, defensive positions and stuff. And they need one thing - to lay down as much fire as humanly (turianly etc.) possible. And TC allow for that.
.

I Disagree...Shepard gets away with Thermal clips BECAUSE he is Spec Ops..replenishing his stock in the field.

Regular army would need to depend on their supply lines to restock ... if they run out they will wish they had the old design of gun with virtually infinite shots...