I’m stuck on getting down the ladders on the tentacles. Man it is tougher than in Half Life, for sure.
Well, can’t you climb them or do they kill you (the tentacles)?
If you haven’t noticed, yet, using the E (Use) key in front of and close to ladders can be a miraculously fantastic experience… 
Haha, yes, I know how to use E to get onto the ladders - just meant that the tentacles are quite a bit harder to trick in this mod than in the original game. A grenade thrown only seems to force them to act for a very short period of time. I made it down to the lower level and got the fuel on and then sort of cheated and dropped down one level and got the power on. So, now I’m at the bottom of the blast pit and cannot for the life of me make it up past the first ladder. Damn tentacle gets me every time. But a friend has just suggested tossing a grenade up through the gap in the floor as I walk past to attract its attention and then dropping a det pack just as I enter and detonating that just as I’m on the ladder. I know that I have to keep distracting the tentacles but it’s bloody hard. Way way harder than in the original. I’m about ready to whack the screen I’m so frustrated. Time for a break, and then go back to it fresh.
Here’s how I’m pretty sure the tentacles work. When you throw a grenade, two of the tentacles will go to investigate, while one will stay behind and most likely kill you through it’s random peckings. This makes stealth pretty hard if you do it this way.
HOWEVER, if you throw a grenade onto a different level then the one you’re on, the tentacles will go to that level and stay there until you make a sound, and then you’re free to crouch all the way to wherever you want to go.
EDIT (04:24 PM): Hah, me and my typing skills… too slow! :rolleyes:
No worries there, thanks to two (2) savegame corruptions in a row I have to attend to this ‘monstrosity’ myself - again…
There’s a trick I found that works best for me, though:
Throw a grenade on one of the lower levels (away from your position, at best), wait for it to explode, then slowly sneak (crouch-walk) to a ladder (possibly with your Crowbar out) and climb said ladder down or up. Although I am not quite sure if climbing a ladder alerts the tentacles, as well.
Other than that, it should be relatively helpful to sneak or crouch-walk instead of running or walking.[/SIZE]
Climbing the ladders usually won’t alert the tentacles.
The problem is releasing the ladder and landing on the floor with a thud. This is why you ALWAYS press the +USE key in the direction you want to get off the ladder… you’ll smoothly slide off and make zero sound. 
Well, I guess as a player who has not played the original Half-Life (in its entirety) I am clearly at a disadvantage here, as far as solving ‘puzzles’ goes, hehe. :lol:
Nevertheless -> “Learning by doing” would be my best bet.
I can imagine a ton of people who play brainlessly straightforward linear games like CoD getting really frustrated by Half-Life and Black Mesa. 
But anyway it’s not all too difficult to get the hang of. Puzzles usually fall into one (or a few) of several categories:
Physics:
-See-saw
-Flotation
-Pulley
-Weights (ie, weighing things down or lightening things up)
-Catapult (this is a bit rarer)
Area-denial:
-Electrified objects/areas (Follow the wires! See where they lead!)
-Burning objects/areas (Follow the flame sources/valves/pipes!)
Everything Else:
-Button pressing (straightforward; get to the buttons and push. Usually to remove obstacles/activate stuff)
-Carrying objects to certain places or removing objects from places (eg, batteries, electrical plugs, etc)
-Jumping puzzles/platforming
-Destroying stuff
Of course some of these are actually subcategories of each other, and elements of multiple categories can be combined to form superpuzzles. That’s what makes things fresh and interesting.
The biggest problem I see here is that crouching doesn’t activate the HEV suit’s noise suppression mode. The walk button works, but you don’t get more quiet. So it’s a lot harder to move around the tentacles. I still haven’t gotten past them yet. Aside from that, their AI might be a touch aggressive.
Their AI is a bit smarter. Setting off an explosion won’t attract all 3 tentacles. One or two of them will investigate while the other usually stays behind.
Because of this, it’s usually better to throw multiple grenades/satchels.
It still doesn’t address the issue of the lack of stealth mode on the HEV suit. When crouching, the suit itself is supposed to suppress as much of your noise as it possibly can. If you crouch and use the walk key at the same time, you should be virtually noiseless. However, this feature of the suit seems to have been overlooked on the Source Engine, or there’s just some difficulty scripting it.
This has always been my tactic. As a matter of fact, if you do it just right, you can not only distract them but you can also knock out the boarded up doorways at the same time.
Probably a small oversight. I don’t attract any attention from crouching. If I die while crouching, it’s because of a random tap in a random direction that the tentacles will occasionally do.
I agree that noise should be suppressed for us, the players, as well.
I actually found Blast Pit easier than in original Half Life…
A note to anyone stuck trying to get on the ladder leading to the fan and falling to your deaths, Jump into the ladder. for some reason the ladder doesn’t “Latch” onto the player just walking into it.
Well, I have a totally different problem in this level. I’m in the big room with the generator and I went up the ladders to the smaller room with a bullsquid, shot the bullsquid, pressed the button and the big round thing moved into place. But there was nothing else to do in this room except check out the air duct with blood smeared on the rim below. I’m assuming this is the next place to go. However for some reason I can’t understand I cannot get inside this air duct. I’ve never had problems with air ducts before. Is this air duct just for show? I try jumping in with crouch but he doesn’t go in. I even got one of the wooden crates as a step-up so height shouldn’t be an issue.
Check out the window and you’ll see there’s another room you can go to across the way.
I am new to Black Mesa and have not played the original Half Life. I didn’t know that you are indeed supposed to burn the Tentacle creature and have somehow gotten past it into a room with a large fan blade. I cannot figure out what to do from here even though I have consulted walkthroughs and other forums posted here. Do I need to backtrack and kill the creature, or can I move ahead from here? Any helpful comments would be appreciated.
You’re just fine. Sounds like you’re well on your way to starting the Fuel and Oxygen.
What you need to do is go under the fan…and turn it on. Then get above the fan before it spins really fast…and well…have fun!
In other words there are stages that have to be done to prepare the giant rocket engine for another test fire. Restart the Fuel/Oxygen…and then the electricity.
Thank you! You were very helpful. I think I’ve got it figured out now haha.