Unusable Enemy Equipment: Difference between revisions

*** And, at least in human case, it would be pointless anyway, as somebody openly using reverse-engineered alien equipment would piss off either Adeptus Mechanicus or Inquisition, or if less lucky both of 'em.

*** As in using it as an [[Improvised Weapon]] and blasting the enemy before dumping it off a bridge or a cliff or some sort of crushing. But salvaging enemy weapons as your own is pretty difficult for a human for any race. Ork weapons are explained above, Eldar weapons are psychically controlled even for something as simple as a Shuriken Catapult, Tyranid and Necron weapons are pretty self explanatory, this is Tau's way of handwaving why stealing their weapons don't work.

* In the ''[[Splinter Cell]]'' series, Sam Fisher, for whatever reason, can't use the guns of fallen enemies. For ammo and weapons, he must find them laying around by themselves. This becomes ridiculous in the Xbox version of ''Double Agent'', where at one point a choice made earlier in the game can net Sam a pistol carried by a guard... but it is impossible to take the pistols from any other guards!

** This was lampshaded at one point in ''Chaos Theory'', where Sam can find an email yelling at a [[Mook]] for ordering the wrong ammunition, that only Sam can use. By extension somewhat [[Justified Trope|justifying]] the trope, given that all the weapons shown are modeled on real weapons, very few of the enemies would carry ammunition for the weapons Sam uses. Also, no one in their right mind would trade a FN F2000 with suppressor and grenade launcher (specially designed for firing less-lethal rounds) for a terrorist's AK-47.

* A common staple in ''[[Nippon Ichi]]'' games, though considering everyone and their grandmother (sometimes coming up as a storypoint even) is portrayed as having [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|Cthulhu-sacking]] prowess, it's generally accepted they simply annihilated the other person's equipment [[Everything Fades|along with the entirety of the enemy]]. Which doesn't explain how it comes back when you get them revived at the hospital, but there you go. If you see something you like, you must either steal it with a special item (it doesn't have to be used by a thief, but it's much harder otherwise) or capture the enemy and take the items away.

** The ''[[Disgaea]]'' games in particular have Geo Panels that can clone your characters - the clones are hostile and replicate the original ''exactly'', down to the equipment. It is impossible to steal their equipment even with the specialty items listed above, and only a weapon in the third iteration has the potential to knock only one of those items off the enemy when they do die to it; if you could freely steal equipment from the enemy, it would (much sooner than usual) [[Game Breaker|snap the game in half]].

* The ''[[Quest for Glory]]'' series was notorious for this trope. Even if you were equipped with only a dagger and leather armor, and you just killed dozens of enemies carrying scimitars, spears, maces, scale mail, shields, ball and chains, etc. they would invariably be too 'damaged' or 'worthless' for you to pick up, if the game even acknowledged their existence in the first place.

* ''Megaman Zero 4'' averted this. Zero's new weapon, the Z-Knuckle, is some kind of energized hand attachment which enables him to literally tear weapons off of enemies and use them himself. There's a huge variety of weapons and gadgets he can steal this way, but he can only use one at a time, and most of the projectile weapons have limited ammo (which a certain upgrade part can regenerate).

* ''[[EVE Online]]'' mostly averts this. In the case of player ships, a subset of the gear that the killed player was using will drop, and can be used by anybody with sufficient skills and a capable ship. However, NPC drops are only loosely related to the equipment they may have been observed to use during the fight.

** Played completely straight by Rogue Drones, which only ever drop crafting materials, and [[Demonic Spiders|The Sleepers]] who never drop their overpowered armor plating, missiles, or beam cannons.

* In ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'', weapons dropped by enemies act like medium-size ammo boxes, giving you 50% ammo, 100 metal (Engineers), and 50% cloak (Spies). The exception to this is the Heavy's Sandvich, which restores health to the person that picks it up, the Scout's baseball, which can be used by other Scouts, and the Engineer's toolbox, which fills ammo completely.

*** Although this seems to be at best a matter of personal taste more than an actual instance of this trope—4E holy symbols are by all appearances functionally generic divine-caster implements in terms of game mechanics, and if you can use one by virtue of being the right class, you can use them all (though only one at a time, of course).

*** In cases where it came up in my game, the party just happened to know about a simple ritual that swapped holy symbol properties.

* Generally averted in ''[[Borderlands]]''. Not every enemy drops their gun, but it IS a common occurrence. As each gun has many randomly generated elements, and some rare guns have distinct effects, you can get a hint or even know outright what weapon the enemy will drop when you kill them. Characters cannot equip armor (Besides a personal energy shield, which DO drop from every shielded enemy) however, and therefore you can never take the armor worn by enemies such as the Crimson Lance.

* In ''[[Pitfall]] The Lost Expedition'', Harry passes by crates full of TNT throughout the game and is assaulted by enemies that throw it. You cannot use it yourself until a friendly character hands you some during a cutscene late in the game.

* Some ''[[Monster Rancher]]'' games have unusuable enemy ''monsters.'' In ''2,'' there was a series of wild monsters whom you could fight and obtain cards for, but never own. In ''4,'' in addition to your [[rival]]s having monsters you can't, several of the game's bosses are actually ''old monster species from past games''—with proper movesets, even, although you're still not allowed to use them. In ''EVO,'' this gets downright silly, as some of the enemy monsters are perfectly normal things you ''could'' theoretically get, but aren't allowed to. For example, a Piroro/Gitan crossbreed—it's an opposing monster, and Piroro and Gitan are in the game, but ''you're'' not allowed to fuse them.

* The playable characters in [[Undercover Cops]] cannot wield knives, bottles, bats, or axes. This is kinda justified considering they can all shoot energy beams and wield weapons 2 or 3 times their size.

* ''[[White Knight Chronicles]]'' and its sequel revolve around a quintet of five [[McGuffin|20 foot-tall suits of living armor]] known as Incorrupti. Each Incorruptus has its own human pactmaker—four of them are full-time members of the player's party, and the fifth is the [[Big Bad]] ([[Big Bad Wannabe|Wannabe]]). But one of those four is a [[Sixth Ranger Traitor]], who's hiding the fact that their Inccoruptus is the evil [[The Rival|Black Knight]]. Its a poorly kept secret, even in-game, yet gameplay-wise [[Story and Gameplay Segregation|the game treats it like the character in question just doesn't have an Incorruptus at all]].

* ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'' got Boarding Pods and the ability to capture enemy ships in an [[Expansion Pack]]. But the captured ships will inexplicably vanish after the battle is over so you can't use their (possibly superior) technology.

* One of the more interesting [[Real Life]] examples was the Russian habit of deliberately building railroads at a different guage then the rest of Europe. This was to prevent them being used by invaders.

* As pictured ''[[The Elder Scrolls: Arena]]'' falls into this, with only "human" enemies dropping equipment and even these drop don't match the items they were depicted as using. It is however averted from ''[[The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall]]'' onward.

 

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