I don't get it

[VikingBoyBilly]

How come in M1 I can't use my gattling gun in the vacuum level but the pfhors CAN??!?? That's so unfair! And where the heck did they get OUR guns? Are their hands able to operate them? How did they learn how to put the right ammo in them and shoot it so fast? Even the grenade feature! How did they obtain INFINITE ammo for the gun??? GAAH! You crazy 3-eyed aliens and your funny looking toes! D=

[treellama]

Troopers are vacuum-enabled. Their gun is more accurate than the AR. The bullets do more damage, but the grenades do half as much as the AR.

So, it works in different environments, fires at a different speed, has different accuracy, and different damage. What on earth makes you think it is the same gun?

[VikingBoyBilly]

The fact that in M1 they drop ARs when they die and it works exactly like the regular AR if you didn't already have one before you picked it up for starters...

And you find one in one of the Pfhor levels (no time pfhor this I think).

[Da Spadger]

The fact that in M1 they drop ARs when they die and it works exactly like the regular AR

What. :/

No, they don't. :/

[VikingBoyBilly]

I'm....... kind of.... exTREAMLY sure... that I've been picking up hundreds of guns those pfhors dropped and grabbing their ammo all through the game...... unless I remembered... wrongly...... ????

[effigy]

When you say M1, could you mean Marathon Eternal?

[VikingBoyBilly]

No, i mean Marathon 1. I'm not sure if the differences between M1A1 and A1 include certain item drops. Heck, maybe I DO mean Eternal, my memory's not that good. I know eternal is infamous for egregious amounts of ammo from enemies (including the pfhor staff), which is way cooler than the games where there isn't enough ammo.

In any case, there's still that mysterious AR in the pfhor ship. Did they have a purpose for stealing it and hiding it?

[Marathoner325]

In any case, there's still that mysterious AR in the pfhor ship. Did they have a purpose for stealing it and hiding it?

Perhaps they found it onboard the Marathon and kept it in that area back on their ship so they could study it.

[Major Pedro]

The Pfhor AR's are reverse engineered from ours. Remember how the Pfhor steal tech? They probably kept the same specifications.

Anyway the bullets work in Eternal because you're using a Pfhor gun as well. You can see they look different.

[treellama]

The Pfhor AR's are reverse engineered from ours.

Can you back this up?

The Pfhor had bullet weapons at least 1000 years before the attack on Tau Ceti.

[Pfhorrest]

The Pfhor had bullet weapons at least 1000 years before the attack on Tau Ceti.

Not quite a thousand, if you're thinking of the S'pht report on Questionable Surgical Procedures, which being from the time of the Pfhor invasion of Lh'owon is from 1811 CE, only 983 years before the attack on Tau Ceti in 2794 CE.

However, given that they were blowing up the Nahk's stars about five thousand years before that, it's probably a safe bet that, yeah, they had projectile weapons at least. I think the better question is why are the Pfhor still using projectile weapons after so many thousands of years, when lowly little mankind is already moving into fancy-pants fusion weaponry.

Regarding the Pfhor reverse-engineering our weapons, I think the point of confusion here is this:

The Trooper is armored for vacuum conditions and carries a combination explosive and impact projectile weapon which is similar to your AR-75.

[L'howon]

Perhaps they found it onboard the Marathon and kept it in that area back on their ship so they could study it.

I seem to remember something about this on the story page. It basically said that the AR was a left over from beta testing. Feel free to fact check me on that, it was a long time ago that I read it.

[treellama]

Not quite a thousand, if you're thinking of the S'pht report on Questionable Surgical Procedures, which being from the time of the Pfhor invasion of Lh'owon is from 1811 CE, only 983 years before the attack on Tau Ceti in 2794 CE.

What is 17 years among friends?

[Crater Creator]

Troopers definitely don't use the same weapon the marine uses. Marathon 1 has only 1 "alien weapon" the player can use, and that's the one the Enforcers carry.

Why is there an assault rifle in a Pfhor level? Well, practically speaking because there's at least one switch which must be hit with a projectile*. However, if Durandal can teleport you onto the ship, why couldn't he teleport you some weapons and ammo? I believe in Acme Station, Durandal hints at a correlation between the size and quantity of material teleported onto a spaceship and the chances of the teleportation being detected. Obviously an AR is considerably smaller than the player. So if he can teleport you, he can teleport in the MA-75.

That doesn't explain everything, though, since as I recall there are some secrets on the Pfhor levels with more human weapons. I doubt Durandal had the opportunity to make the Pfhor build secret rooms into their ships for housing weapons they don't use

* Though if you've gotten this far in the game without an assault rifle, it's probably not a major setback.

[L'howon]

What is 17 years among friends?

The time it takes to get to Lh'owon from Marathon while traipsing about the galactic core with a frozen cyborg stuck in your stasis chamber.

[patrick]

What is 17 years among friends?

"that's what she said"