
Thermal Clips are heat dispensers present in all geth ground weapons and post-2184 CE galactic standard weapons. Originally invented by the geth, thermal clips are seen as a more efficient means of dispensing the heat gathered by heat sink-based weaponry. Originally, weapons overheated over use duration, and the more heat required, the easier to overheat: this provided nearly infinite ammunition, but came at the cost of rendering some weapons useless after a while.
The geth invented the thermal clip to overcome this design flaw: instead of allowing heat to gather uncontrollably and then letting it vent for a bit, the heat would be dumped into a 'thermal clip', and once fully dispensed, the clip could be ejected, and a fresh one placed in. The geth were the first and, until 2184 CE, the only one to use this weapon design. It wasn't until after the Eden Prime War and a more thorough study of geth weaponry that this design was adopted as the galactic standard: by 2185 CE, all weapons across the galaxy used this method. Thermal clips, unofficially, are a form of ammunition: they effectively force the user to ocassionally 'reload' their weapon or risk having it explode, overheat and thus warp the barrel, or render it useless for a certain amount of time.