Vintage Heat Sink

*Needs a frictionless materials mod*

OK so I am going to ask this question here since heat sinks are classified as an 'augment', and since the devs have actually started this thread I am hoping to entice them to answer by posting in here.

During the first Pax live stream they talked about the augmentations that you can get in the game and research. And it was a bit...confusing and contradictory. First off they said that researching augments can give you access to other of the same augment in the world, give you pointers out on the map, and second of all they said that once you use the augment you can't use it again.

...Does that mean that you can only use each augment once? For the entire game. IE you can only put 1 Vintage Heat Sink on ONE weapon? Any commentary would be appreciated.

So, a masterwork slot, for all intents and purposes?

I hoping the feature along with the Andromeda weapons with it is not incentivized by making heat sinks scarce. Options are good and I might throw it on some weapons.

Edit:

Based on Prima's guide iy looks like weapons will have a number of slots available based on the weapon from 2-4. Deconstructing a weapons will return augments.
Source: imgur.com/a/tFyOS#doz1RGw

Best piece of news so far.

I guess using Sniper will be fun again.

I wonder if now we will be able to repeat some feats from the first game. Making the Assault rifle unable to overheat, or maybe making the sniper overheat a lot but with massive damage turning it into a portable cannon.

Ah, how I missed my sniper with explosive rounds. Nothing in Mass Effect 2 and 3 even came close to replicate the sensation. Well, aside from the cain heavy gun, that you could only use every once in a while.

And the best thing is, the hits had the capacity to hit several opponents. It was so satisfactory to kill 2 and sometimes 3 henchmen with a single shot.

Except when dealing with husks (I was forced to switch to another weapon) and the geth gliders (usually killed by the squadmates) this was my favorite strategy in the game. Sometimes I would even order my team to stay behind while I would play hunter and pick up the targets one by one. Using a high leveled Soldier with Heavy Armor and good defensive abilities made it possible for me to basically play ME1 solo during most portions when the squad could be ordered to stay out.

The combat in ME1 may not be as polished as in ME3, but this was one aspect of it that ME2 and 3 never got to replicate.

And the best thing is, there was no concern about ammo. If you missed a shot, you just had to take a deep breath and try it again.

In ME2, ammo for snippers was very scarce. Which is why I never liked snipers and shotguns in this game. I would stick with pistols, assault rifles and (if I was a non-soldier) SMGs for close range and medium range combat. That is part of the reason why I felt in love with the Kassa Locust. Not only it has good stability, precision and damage, but you never need to be concerned about ammo.

I was so glad that ME3 was structured in such a way that you could run through the game using mostly powers and avoiding using guns and grenades.

And now they will allow in andromeda that we configure weapons to play ME1 style.

As a rule, I do not pre-order games. Not anymore. Got burned a few times. But Andromeda will be an exception to this rule.

Is it just me, or is the heat system kinda strange? I was expecting something like in ME1 where you can fire in bursts, or with a slow enough rate of fire (pistols, etc) that could could effectively keep up sustained fire without overheating. This doesn't seem to be the case in ME:A - the number of shots you can take before overheating seems to be drastically lower than the original thermal clip size. I've found it to be nearly unusable on certain weapons that have low original clip sizes (shotguns overheating in one shot, sidewinder overheating in 2-3).

In ME1, if I am remember correctly, any time you weren't firing, the heat meter was slowly going down allowing for you to find a "sweet spot" rate of fire that allowed continuous shooting with no overheating. In ME:A, the heat 'percentage' doesn't go down for a few seconds after firing effectively making you 'reload' by pausing for a few seconds for the heat percentage to even START decreasing.

This has let to several creations that were a waste of resources (shotguns overheating in one shot, sidewinder only getting a couple low damage shots off before overheating). It feels as if it isn't balanced right - I'd at least expect a huge damage buff to offset the laughably small "shots before overheat".

For example, I took a Phalanx pistol and slapped a heatsink on it. Original clip size is 12. Augmented version can fire 5 shots before overload (realistically 4 if you want to avoid over-heat). So I can get 4 shots off before having to wait a second or two for the cool-down to ever START and I'm betting that cool down period isn't any faster than a pistol reload - Effectively it seems to have just decreased the magazine size from 12 to 4 with the only benefit being that I'll never run out of reserve ammo.

Kind of a bummer - I would expect augmentations to feel fun and instead the heatsink seems to have ruined every gun I've tried it in.

My main gripe is "Why the cool-down delay???" - I don't think that's how thermodynamics works.

While yes VHS is not as great as it was when it was built-in in all weapons in ME1, it's still pretty good choice.

At low Ryder levels you can use the fact a weapon can't have less than 1 ammo clip, slap VHS on Widow or Isharay, it's the same stats gun but now doesn't consume ammo. Actually better, while the weapon is on overheating cooldown you can still use your powers or melee.

At high levels when you've grabbed all the +clip size passives you can craft 3 ammo VHS Black Widow and 7 ammo VHS seeking plasma Piranha, some of the better choices for far and close-mid ranges respectively. You can even swap between the two and never stop firing. Alternatively, the bio-converter turbo charge Piranha shenanigans is a thing.