7 réponses à ce sujet

[Agent Zoot]

I thourght, In ME1, thermal clips wasn't invented, it had infinite ammo for all gun. Just wait for them to cool down.

Shepard got blown up by a Collector vessal. When he/she was resurected by Cerberus, first line he/she said
"This gun doesn't have a thermal clip."

Errr, how could Shepard know about this if he/she was out for TWO YEARS?

[scratches head in confusion]

Someone care to explain please???

[PsiFive]

It's written on a sticky label on the top of the pistol: "This gun doesn't have a thermal clip". Shepard was just reading it out loud and thinking WTF and then Miranda tells Shep to look for one so the gun will work. It is in no way, shape or form a plot hole resulting from changing the in-universe rules so as to accomodate a reloading mechanic, no, definitely not a plot hole.

Nor is being able to send a hell of a lot more rounds downrange with a HMWA X assault rifle with a frictionless materials mod that lets you hold the trigger down for ages than you can with anything in ME2 because you have to keep stopping to change clips.

[duffpastorius]

No

[RedCaesar97]

I believe there is a gap of a few months (cannot remember off the top of my head; pretty sure it is greater than 1 month) between the Battle of the Citadel and when the Collector Vessel blew up the Normandy. Theoretically, that should have been enough time in the Mass Effect universe to switch from the overheating mechanic to the thermal clips mechanic.

It should be noted that the overheating mechanic does not mean infinite ammo. Based on the codex, both mechanics chip off small amounts off an ammo block, which is finite in size. The ammo block allows for thousands of rounds; not infinite but a large enough amount to seem infinite.

The difference between the two mechanics is that the overheating mechanic allows you to wait for the gun to cool down when it overheats, while the thermal clip allows you to instantly cool the gun by ejecting a thermal clip.

I know some players like the overheating mechanic of ME1, and I know some called for a hybrid version of the two. Personally I prefer the thermal clips for a few reasons:
1) It is familiar a mechanic to other shooters
2) It allows for more diverse weapon sets (when combined with other weapon characteristics)
3) You do not have to wait for your gun to cool down anymore. Stupid enemy sabotage...

[PsiFive]

I think it was two months between the end of ME1 and beginning of ME2, which seems like much too short a period of time to change from one system to another. In RL decisions like these (e.g. 7.62mm vs 5.65mm for NATO) drag on for so long that it's stretching credibility even for it to happen in the two years Shepard spends being dead. I like the reloading mechanic of ME2, prefer it even, but having established canon in the first game I feel they should have either stuck with it or asked the writers to come up with a better explanation than the one they did. My headcanon explanation is this:

Thermal clips are not a new development but were actually the original system in use prior to ME1, and all the "infinite" (at least for the purposes of short term firefights) ammo weapons are fairly new - say, up to seven or eght years old). There's even some evidence for this: Zaeed's old rifle and especially their use by the feral crew of the Hugo Gernsback on Jacob's loyalty mission, which is otherwise another plot hole going by the codex explanation. The ME1 weapons were of a fairly new design in which heat dissipation was dealt with by the weapon itself so the user wasn't constantly forced to stop fighting to change thermal clips. Unfortunately these internal heat sink/radiators required some special unobtanium-like resource that ran short during the time Shepard was dead. Perhaps the Geth blew up a planet that was a major supplier, maybe it was needed to reconstruct parts of the Citadel (must be some impressive heat generation there, possibly even enough to justify stripping sidearms of this stuff if stockpiles of thermal clips and clip using weapons still existed), maybe someone just screwed up and there wasn't anything like as much of this rare heat dissipating mineral as people had thought, perhaps even a bit of all three. Whatever the reason the move to self contained heat management in weapons technology turns out to be a dead end and so everyone returns to the tried and tested ejectable thermal clip technology.

Okay, clearly my headcanon goes against the codex entry, but when the codex entry itself goes against what we can see while playing the game it feels like the problem's really with the codex in the first place. Plus my headcanon not only explains why the Hugo Gernsback crew uses weapons with thermal clips but would also answer Agent Zoot's original question: Shepard recognises that the gun needs a thermal clip before it can be fired because the technology is not new at all, and would almost certainly have been in common use (possibly more civilian than military - again, the disappearance of the Hugo Gernsback establishes a rough time for the changeover and assuming military gets the new stuff first is why ME1 weapons are up to 7-8 years old in my headcanon plus why HG crew had guns with clips instead) around the time Shepard did basic training. We might wonder why Shepard didn't say something about being handed an "old" (to Shepard) pistol instead of the newer but unknown to Shep discarded clipless type s/he was using when the Normandy SR1 was destroyed, but I think it's understandable in the circumstances. If you'd just been woken up to find that you've got no clue where the hell you are and that wherever it is it's under attack you'd probably be happy enough just to get any kind of gun and wouldn't have a dummy spit about it not being bleeding edge technology. Just making sure it goes bang and bullets come out when you pull the trigger would be enough for most people, and Shepard covers this by saying that the gun needs a clip.

Of course, we could then ask what kind of person would leave a gun loaded with its ammunition block but no thermal clips around rather than the other way round (or not, depending on what you feel is safe storage of firearms and ammo) but that's a whole new plot hole and I've got no headcanon for it other than that Cerberus is run by an idiot. Oh, wait.... 

Modifié par PsiFive, 02 octobre 2012 - 10:07 .

[Scottland89]

A TL:DR version is at the bottom of the post:

Ok, time for some correct me if I'm wrongs, but I don't like the way the thermal clip system was implimented due to the following reasons, absed off ME universe as of the books (only red the 1st 2 but I'll use only the 1st, Revelations) and the games.

In 2165 David Anderson was a Lieutenant was involved in a whole load fo issues which lead up to Saren finding Sovereign, and Anderson failing to be the 1st Human Specter. It is established that the whole block of metal is the magazine and a mass accelerator shaving a spec of the magazine per shot as a bullet (as we have already established the tech for this), and it wasn't new technology then. The pro is you could send a soldier in with a handful of magazines and they could kill nearly a whole army before a reload.

Cue 2183, ME1 starts, and this is still the standard tech for the universes guns. Duing the game (or in ME2 atleast), it noted that the Geth use thermal clips in their weapoons to quicken the cooldown period in all their guns, so they can shoot next to infite ammo and have a much reduced cool down. Although not explored, should a Geth host run out of Ammo, I'm sure it would of resorted to waiting for it to cool down.

Then in ME2, it is established that the universe copies the Geth, which is fair enough. Taking away the whole EA\\Bioware did it for gameplay reasons, why would armed forces agree to go from a weapon which can shoot a stupid amount of bullets with a cooldown time of 10-30 seconds inbetween a steady stream of shots (none if configured right or used burst fire), to guns that use the same tech, should be capable of firing the same amount of bullets before cooldown, but only have the capacity to fire 1 of real life clip amount without a thermal clip and nothing else? It would make no sense at all?

Technically the magazine has plenty of the bullets left, the tech only requires the gun to cool down, so why can't it shoot without a new thermal clip being put in no matter how if you use burst fire, constant fire or how long you waited? The tech of mass accelerators shaving a block of metal is still in their, it's still got overheating problems, but now not only does a soldier have to carry more magazines (blocks of metal) but now thermal clips, so double the weight, and they can alot less than he could 2 years ago! They would be better of going back to bullets of today!

Also why isn't thermal clips universal between gun types? They work across all manufactures, and when you pick one up, you increase the ammo for all guns, but I can't take a pistol clip and use it in a AR?

To make sense, ME2 should of kept the overheating system, and included clips as a fast reload option, thus actually copying Geth techniques which were giving them the advantage originally.

To take an example, lets look at Elanus Risk Control Services pistols. Striker Line pistols (ME1 range) could fire 14-20 shots (depending on level of the gun) continously before needing to cooldown. The M-3 Predator could shoot 12 before needing a thermal clip, and carrying max amount of thermal clips giving a total 60 shots and then no more until you pick up more clips. the M3 M-3 Predator could shoot 16, but taking the max amount of clips meant only 50 shots before you need to pick up a clip. Assuming all 3 guns had a magazine the size of an iphone4 (random object, guess it's close to a size of a pistol magazine of today, therefore one of ME universe) has a volume of 62845 mm cubed (rounded down). Assume a Mass Effect bullet is a mm cubed (it's probably smaller), that would make the handguns able to shoot 62845 shots per magazine. Why can't a ME2 M-3 Predator pistol with a full compliment of thermal clips one can take at a time shoot the remaining 62785 bullets that the supposedly inferior Striker Line can without Thermal clips?

Also the Codex Entry on Small Arms:

Modern infantry weapons are micro-scaled mass accelerators, using
mass-reducing fields and magnetic force to propel miniature slugs to
lethal speeds. Nearly every gun on the battlefield is laden with
features, from targeting auto-assists to projectile shavers that can
generate thousands of rounds of ammunition from a small, internal block
of metal.
It was long thought that personal weapons had plateaued in
performance, but the geth proved all theories wrong. Mathematically
reviewing their combat logs, the geth found that in an age of kinetic
barriers, most firefights were won by the side who could put the most
rounds down-range the fastest. But combatants were forced to
deliberately shoot slower to manage waste heat, or pause as their
weapons vented.
To eliminate this inefficiency, the geth
adopted detachable heat sinks known as thermal clips. While organic
arms manufacturers were initially doubtful this would produce a net
gain, a well-trained soldier can eject and swap thermal clips in under a
second. Faced with superior enemy firepower, organic armies soon
followed the geth's lead, and today's battlefields are littered with
these thermal clips.

Either the whole universe went crazy and even ignored their own Codex theory, or they want Shepard dead so they gave him stupid technology and sued tech

TL:DR Version: ME1 Tech nearly 20 years old then they go 1 step forward and Atleast 173 steps back with weapons tech in ME2 and never recovered in ME3 so they can reload faster instead of shooting atleast 60,000 bullets from a handgun in a magazine

[Get Magna Carter]

The simple truth is that it's a retcon
Bioware tried inventing excuses for the change but they don't make sense
Just pretend that Thermal clips existed in ME1 and it will make more sense.

[PsiFive]

Get Magna Carter wrote...

The simple truth is that it's a clumsy retcon

FTFY.