Thermal clips seem to be universal and can be plugged into any small arm. But how many shots they allow entirely depends on how much heat the weapon has to dump into the clip.Ī thermal clip ejected from a weapon is a serious fire hazard. The body of the clip is thermally insulated, but the connector at the top isn’t and is usually glowing white from the heat.
Mercenary Zaeed Massani ejecting a hot thermal clip from his M-3 Predator sidearm. Presumably the heat radiation is exaggerated for the cinematography. Thermal clips have to be ejected and replaced once they’ve stored all the heat they can take. In practice, this is very much like firing firearms with removable box magazines. Hence the name “clip”. This allows for rapid, sustained fire that is more likely to overwhelm kinetic shields – at least until the heat sink is at capacity. The main difference is a new method of heat management, based on geth weaponry. Rather than rely on trigger control to avoid heat buildup from sustained fire, the heat produced by shooting is pumped into a removable sink called a thermal clip.
The differences are explained below. The rest - mass drivers, use of the Mass Effect on the projectile and the weapon, design aesthetics, weapons telescoping from carry length to combat length when drawn, etc. Firearms now work differently than they did in Mass Effect. Since Shepard is obviously familiar with the new weapons despite having been dead for 2 years, one assumes that those were being rolled out during the first game.