Is this a plot hole in Mass Effect 2, or did I miss something?

What always bothered me about Mass Effect 2 was that all the weapons changed in a short 2 year span. It started with energy weapons that had unlimited ammo, but could overheat during battle(Mass Effect 1.) It then shifted to energy weapons that used thermal clips for ammo(Mass Effect 2.)

From a gameplay aspect, this is much better. However, I find it hard to believe that everyone in the galaxy accepted this change in only 2 years. I'm sure their are people out there that can see the benefits of energy weapons that do not need reload.

This always bothered me, and I feel like I'm missing something here...

They weren't energy weapons...ever. Mass Effect's weapons used bars of metal. The gun shaves the metal into very small pieces, uses a Mass Effect field to reduce the mass of the object (making it easier to accelerate) then fires the mass effect field encased shaving at extremely high velocities. The metal is constructed so that it expands and flattens when it hits an object, making sure that its entire kinetic energy is transferred to the target, thereby increasing the damage of each metal flake. The ammo wasn't limitless, just every chunk of metal produced such a large quantity of ammo, a person wasn't likely to have to reload in-mission.

Just as a reference point, physics says it's possible to accelerate a paint chip to the velocity where the energy transfered is on the order of that seen in an atomic explosion. Mass Effect weapons operate on the fact that velocity is a far greater contributor to kinetic energy than the mass of the object being accelerated.

The second game just wanted to introduce clips in following with the game being more streamlined to its shooter mechanics. But to explain the appearance of clips, it describes them as ejectable heat sinks to solve the overheating problems common to the sort of guns players used in the original. According to the lore, I believe that clips were supposedly already in use in the original Mass Effect's timeline, and by Mass Effect 2 they had simply become the standard.

yeah its a story gap...never has somethin in history changed that quickly...lets face it...it took the marines over 20 years to switch their marksmens rifle from the m14 to the m16...but its to make the gameplay shoddy...i really enjoyed the idea of infinite yet overheating ammo...it seems more like a move backwards to go back to heatclips...why would i want finite ammo when i used to infinite? doesnt make sense to move backwards like that...

Ish nailed it. It's not that they went backwards in tech, they were compensating for a little more balance. Having an assault rifle that shot infinitely would not do in a more shooter-oriented game (it did get a little ridiculous in the first ME, and this is coming from a Soldier class player). So if you were the kind of person that didn't equip heatsinks, being able to swap them out to avoid overheats was a more ideal system.

well i understand that it helps for balance...but if u think about from a technical standpoint...or as a soldier...why would i want a gun with heatclips that i could run out of...when i could have infinite ammo?

From what I understood (Ish could probably explain this better), if we look at this from a lore point, all guns still have the *infinite* ammo--due to its mechanism of shaving off bits of metal instead of actual bullets-- thermal clips I would assume are just precautionary measures. I like to think if we continued firing, overheated, we would only have to wait for it to cooldown like before, versus ejecting the clip and continuing. Thermal clips have nothing to do with ammunition.

But of course, in game it doesn't work like that. It pretty much serves as a magazine if you don't think about it.

I remember that they had a explanation somewhere, probably in the in-game database, but either way it's a pretty throwaway excuse as to why they stopped using the godly guns from the first game.Planeforger

Plothole it is. You will get the best confirmation for it on Jacob`s loyalty mission.

I like the idea of being able to eject a heat sink to be able to fire again right away, but also have a slower cool down, say, twice as long, so you can't permanently spam rounds like towards the end of 1, but not have the possibility of ever running out of heat sinks, if you get to your last one, you just switch to another weapon while it cools off.

Its a plothole just look at one of the companion missions "hey wait a moment... people did not use heathsink clips untill a few years ago... and they have been missing for how many years!?"

Its just something the devs threw in to make the fps crowd happy.

What always bothered me about Mass Effect 2 was that all the weapons changed in a short 2 year span. It started with energy weapons that had unlimited ammo, but could overheat during battle(Mass Effect 1.) It then shifted to energy weapons that used thermal clips for ammo(Mass Effect 2.)

From a gameplay aspect, this is much better. However, I find it hard to believe that everyone in the galaxy accepted this change in only 2 years. I'm sure their are people out there that can see the benefits of energy weapons that do not need reload.

This always bothered me, and I feel like I'm missing something here...

JangoWuzHere

If I was in Mass Effect world, then I would want a gun that use the clip as my main weapon. I like being able to just take out the clip and put a new one in and continue to fight.