Black Mesa is great! But it could be perfect with some changes

Hi! this isnt exactly a bug, its about making the game cooler, do you know how to increase the volume of the hecu marines fire? it sounds like they have supressed rifles, I dont hear the shots unless they are very close to me, may be a console command?

Well, I think tentacles should have idle stance like in HL. Now they bang on floors all the time, which makes sneaking tactics much less plausible to new players. I knew I could sneak past tentcles on my 1st HL playthrough, it was more obvious, but if I played BM first, I wouldn’t think of sneaking past them.

Seems like my hard mode barnacle nerf isn’t particulary popular, but here’s another explanation. Currently, conventional firearms are almost always used to take down the barnacle because crowbar use will damage the players. By nerfing barnacle health, players have the option to kill near and mid-height barnacles with the crowbar and far away barnacles with ranged weapons, thus adding to diversity of weapon choices for this enemy.

Though some have mentioned that killing the barnacle with the crowbar is meant as a last ditch tactic rather than for saving ammo, preservation of ammo is absolutely critical in areas like Unforeseen Consequences, Blast Pit (where you can deplete your ammo almost entirely), and Residue Processing, which a barnacle nerf would help.

I forgot to mention in my large post that bullsquid heath should be buffed by 30-50% to account for its preferential use of melee over acid spit, as it will need to take more damage while getting into attack range. This buff is also meant to be paired with the barnacle nerf as a sort of ammo sink. By combining the changes together, the dev’s would not have to worry about re-arranging ammo placement in the aforementioned levels. Note that in general that my balance suggestions would not affect ammo and health placement which saves a lot of work.

As I recall, the mag capacity was changed to reflect the actual mag size of the real MP5 (note also 3 grenades as opposed to 10). Personally I prefer realism whenever possible and like the decreased clip size, as the more frequent reloads add an extra element of challenge in game. The reason why I think bullet damage should be increased as a way to balance this weapon is that it partially offsets the HECU accuracy and reaction time nerfs. Also, if you can down enemies faster with the increased bullet damage, it will partially offset the smaller clip size as well. It’s like killing multiple birds with one stone.

Thats sounds very reasonable… but how about this?:

Make the flashlights flicker when the suit power is low, and make them go out, when suit power is zero.

That would be appropriately realistic. I kind of like it. The only question remaining would be whether the armor aspect of the suit is actually reflected in power levels. I mean, I understand that’s what the suit says, but I assume other systems continue to function when you’re at 0 power, such as voice alerts (“ammunition depleted”) and whatnot. So ‘power’ may not really be power but armor. As you suggest, 0 power would seem to mean nothing would work - flashlight, oxygen and radiation monitors, etc.

@up
On HL wiki they say that power level is optional and only provides additional defense in combat (just like the long jump module, which is also an “addon”), so what you’re saying is reasonable. I think it’s something of an energy field.

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I’m personally disappointed with teleportation orbs in Lambda Core, here’s why:

In HL, they are just floating orbs in the air. Nothing seems to power them, they just stand in one place without disappearing. How is that possible? I think it’s because of limitations of old engines back in 90s.

In BM, devs did nothing to make them seem more “realistic” (oh the irony, but you know what I mean). Some orbs are placed directly near the computer desks. Would someone work with a giant glowing and buzzing energy orb behind them? I don’t think so. Also, there should be some sort of platform (it was in HL, but only in a few instances) under the orbs (similar to Earth holograph in rocket launch room), so that they seem more believable as they would have some device to power them. I dunno what to do with the ones completely disconnected from floor (near rotating platform) though.

Yeah I agree with you on the floating orbs, they should have been given better context.

They are anomalies they were not there until after the accident… They could do with a visual upgrade though particle effects wise

What I also consider a serious weakness of the game is that unlike Half-Life, we ca barely go back to previous maps. In Half-Life usually we could go back to the start of the chapter we’re in, or even further beyond, but here in Black Mesa, most doors, gates and elevators shut behind us for good. This binding takes it’s toll on the game play.

I am at the start of the Surface Tension chapter… it’s one thing that we can’t walk back to the lab of the QE chapter, but hell, we can’t even go back to the tunnel (with cars and a marine post) after we proceed to the next map. Come on…

This is to push gameplay. So people don’t accidentally backtrack for 5 minutes.

I’m pretty sure that you can’t even do that in the original :expressionless: ?

Why would you want to go back and go through the loading screen again? I don’t see the point in backtracking.

In Half-Life there isn’t much of a reason to backtrack. I don’t like all the closing doors forcing me forward though. I’ll go where I want, thank you.

Sure we can do. Just touch the lab’s door and it opens, as for the tunnel’s gate, there is a button to push on both sides.

  1. Had no bug issues except lag at the very end.

  2. Please don’t make the soldiers easier, at least not on hard.

  3. Meh, I’m an old player. I don’t care, though I see how others might be annoyed.

  4. This! Way too easy. I remember at least 5 arrows on hard in the original.

  5. I liked how the tentacles were not as predictable as the old ones, and how near an exit it paid off to just run for it.

From loading old levels and backtracking I got some serious errors occur like being stripped of weapons and stuff no appearing properly and scripted scenes got completely messed up… The less back tracking the better IMO it coused lots of problems in source engine and is easier to shut a door then make global entities with god knows how many ins and outs to keep track of it all.

Better off shutting the door for your game play experience IMO

With regard to these orbs, I don’t think that they’re there on a normal day; I believe that these are self-sustaining wormholes accidentally created by the Resonance Cascade. As such, they’re randomly placed near the core. The scientists working there worked on teleportation to and from Xen, but when the Resonance Cascade happened, things in the Lambda Core went to shit and now teleportation orbs are popping up randomly.

Who says that they need to be ‘powered’ by something from an Earth machine? Xenian creatures teleported randomly into the facility so why not teleportation orbs?

I guess you can excuse it that way, but it would’ve been nice if it was made clearer in game as to why those orbs appeared

They’re tinkering with stuff that’s completely alien to current scientific understanding, who knows what can happen?

It’s just the result of uncontrolled circumstances.

Exposition about minor, entirely irrelevant side-points != good game play.

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.