So we all know that Forerunners rely on hardlight for a multitude of things from structures to projectiles. As seen in Halo 4, hardlight can be generated and regenerated very quickly.
The majority of Forerunner weapons we have seen so far use hardlight as ammunition, but come with magazines full of hardlight projectiles. Why don’t they just create the projectile inside the weapons? It would mean less space is taken up for carrying lots of ammo around and you’d have a limitless supply. Is there any reason they don’t just create the projectile inside the gun that I’ve not heard about?
I don’t know but this kinda bugs me too. With forerunner tech they should have been able to do weapons with nearly unlimited ammo. I don’t know if we ever get canon reason why forerunner tech seems so weak at least in the gameplay enviroment. It would better to have such reason instead of the old “gameplay isn’t canon” explanation.
> Is there any reason they don’t just create the projectile inside the gun that I’ve not heard about?
Yes:
Gameplay mechanics.
Personally I think the Forerunner weapons should be like Covenant plasma weapons. They don’t have unlimited ammo, but they don’t need to carry magazines like human weapons.
Covenant weapons are dependent on a charge. Perhaps the Forerunner weapons are the same, but need battery replacements.
Either way, it seems like a step down from Covenant weapons.
Basiclly put; gameplay balancing and mechanics.
In-lore; its because humanity hasn’t figured out how to make them work the way they should just yet. Hence why the Splinter Grenade and Pulse Grenade from Halo 5 and 4 respectivly are actually the same weapon with different settings, and how the Forerunner weapons change firing modes between games.
Halo – as with Marathon, Goldeneye, Quake, etc., before it – is about map control, above all else. Video games have to offer meaningful choices, which means that there must be consequences to the actions you take. Ammunition has always been a part of that. Most weapons can be replenished, but you have to find more of that gun (or an ammo box, in CE) to do that; there are weapons that cannot be replenished, and those you must seek out and fully replace. You can try to conserve, of course; pick your shots, make your gun last longer.
Where the gameplay is concerned, story has to take a backseat. Evidently the devs couldn’t come up with a unique, fitting take on this classic feature of the genre that offered just as much incentive to keep moving and choosing. I don’t doubt that there is potentially a great mechanic for that some way, but 343 hasn’t found it. That’s probably all a factor in why the hardlight weapons have finite ammunition stored in magazines.
I’m going to guess they do have practically unlimited ammo with the right pairing up or maybe setting. But the UNSC might use emergency cells or something when using them.
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> I’m going to guess they do have practically unlimited ammo with the right pairing up or maybe setting. But the UNSC might use emergency cells or something when using them.
I have this theory based on nothing that all promethean/forerunner tech is on energy saving mode like that because they were cut out of wireless Forerunner energy grid when forerunners fell. It makes them really weak and only because that we have even chance to beat them in the battle. This is just how I would like them to explain things like these.
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> I don’t know but this kinda bugs me too. With forerunner tech they should have been able to do weapons with nearly unlimited ammo. I don’t know if we ever get canon reason why forerunner tech seems so weak at least in the gameplay enviroment. It would better to have such reason instead of the old “gameplay isn’t canon” explanation.
If there were guns that almost cant run out of ammo , it’d be op as -Yoink- .
Are we certain that hardlight ammunition is, like, stored in magazines? Perhaps they’re more like power packs. It seems somewhat silly that the Covenant could develop weapons that could operate for extended periods of time in the field without the need to reload, but then again, they’ve got the overheating problem. Maybe they’re just a self-contained way of providing energy so the weapon can function, without the need for linking to some other source. That doesn’t really explain why the damn things are all over the place when the only intended users of the weapons should be Prometheans - maybe Prometheans use them too, instead they just teleport them into and out of the weapons or some crap like that.
A possibility is that hardlight, whilst it can be used by small scale equipment, requires a much larger device to actually manufacture, which means beyond the scope of what can reasonably be generated in a small arm - this is kinda doubtful, as the UNSC does have that whole kinetic bolts modification for their weaponry, but all that does (I believe) is sheathe conventional rounds in a hardlight field rather than produce entirely new hard-light rounds, and does seem to be far less effective.
Alternately, maybe the weapon is generating its own hardlight, and the magazines serve as heat sinks, a-la Mass Effect. Hardlight rounds do leave burn marks, after all, suggesting they’re not your regular hardlight, but more like some kind of super-heated killy variant. Another distinguishing feature of this specific form of hardlight is the method by which it flies through the air independently. All other forms of hardlight kind of just stay in the same place in relation to its source, just kind of hanging there in a projected field. The hardlight of forerunner weapons flies at breakneck speeds - you’ve got to ask, how is it propelled out of the weapon? Could it be some kind of self-motivated hard light? Maybe the ammunition isn’t entirely hard-light, and requires some kind of tiny generator within the round, or at least physical component to anchor the hard light to. After all, the aforementioned experimental barrel-mounted kinetic bolt generator for UNSC weapons seems to work on a similar principle.
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> > 2533274824409174;2:
> > I don’t know but this kinda bugs me too. With forerunner tech they should have been able to do weapons with nearly unlimited ammo. I don’t know if we ever get canon reason why forerunner tech seems so weak at least in the gameplay enviroment. It would better to have such reason instead of the old “gameplay isn’t canon” explanation.
>
> If there were guns that almost cant run out of ammo , it’d be op as -Yoink- .
Well canonically it would be understandable. All I want is a canon explanation why they aren’t overpowered. Is it too much to ask?