Andromeda Initiative briefings (6/6 Golden Worlds and Settlements)

Apparently you can also mod a weapon to use the old style heat sink which means infinite ammo, but the weapon will overheat. Sounds really cool.

That's the ammo... what's getting ejected there are thermal clips (ie. disposable heat sinks that store thermal energy building up when firing).

They've come up with a new justification for ammo pick-ups (basically, the "pick-ups" are things that your suit automatically breaks down for material to manufacture thermal clips), so that means they can have different weapons' thermal clips look like whatever instead of having a generic thermal clip.

That's what I wrote at first, but since kinetic energy in this case is literally "heat" - thus thermal - I changed it.

Anywho... the whole concept of mass effect weapons was changed between ME1 and 2, to include disposable ammo as a gameplay mechanic. They are kinda going back on it in MEA, though, since thermal clips will be created automatically by your omni tool, and no longer will be picked up in the field. So, in essence, it's just another "overheating" mechanic now.

Looks like they've addressed one of the balance issues of ME3 where assault rifles were sometimes lighter than pistols - good to see the Avenger at double the weight of the Carnifex.

Damn.. that Ark looks a lot like a Collector ship if you think about it.

Couple of things:

*Blood Pack Punisher. Ehm, yeah? I guess the gun is cool, haven't used it heaps so I'm not really attached to it, but it's here. Another proof that most of the trilogy weapons will make a return.

*Ehh.. now there're casings? I'm going to say that again. There are casings.
So we have a weapon system that uses a block of metal as ammo, gets cut in tiny pieces inside the gun and gets propelled using mass effect fields. There are no casings in such system. What the actual F***? Seriously you're going to tell me that the gun also creates fake casings so they can be dropped once you replace your heatsink thermal clip? Jesus... alright moving on...

*Still prefer the Avenger sound of ME2, but this is definitely and improved over the weak sound of the ME3 Avenger.

All in all, I like these briefings, they're kinda cool. Liam's voice is pretty cool too.

I'm thinking that's the answer... I mean, they did it with the Typhoon after all, an then there's that scene with Zaed in ME2 in which he uses a "casing" to light fire in the ground.
Thermal clips were always portrayed as a single piece, one cylinder relatively big. I don't get why they can't follow they own lore sometimes.

This isn't the first time we've had the casings issue. Zaeed ejects a hot casing in his loyalty mission, and causes a strut/upright to collapse on himself. I always cringe, and tell myself it's a heat sink.

The N7 Typhoon spews casings, as if it's firing 20C ammunition. It's a nice touch, except that it's completely out of place.

They mess this stuff up all the time. The rifles in MEA still appear to fire from the scope, rather than the barrel, in most of the vids I've bothered to check. It's annoying, but most people just aren't sharp enough to keep track of the details. This clearly includes many game devs.

Edit: partially ninja'd by you

That's the thing though, we aren't actually using the same exact design of thermal clips as before. Apparently the reason we can still use the disposable heat sink system in a new galaxy where no standardized disposable heat sinks should be commonly available is that our omni tool uses certain materials to fabricate them in the field. Since everything is fabricated on the fly, there's no reason for any sort of standardized design, so different weapons can each use their own heat sink design based on what is most effective and easiest to make. 

Bioware really is going overkill with weapons selection and mods. Me like it.

Also I do love the new and improved weapons animations.

The video isn't bad. My favorite part is the music

Awwww yuss.