General Xen Chit-Chat Thread

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#221

while this would be a cool feature, it’d fuck with the lore a lot as the headcrabs basically control the zombie, if the headcrab’s gone then the zombie can’t do shit since all their abilities rely on the headcrab

#222

Not if the reason they are still moving is explained could simply be explained by baby headcrabs connecting to the nervous system, the main headcrab does most the work, but inside are 2-4 baby headcrabs connected to the spine. main done dies they take control.

#223

And those new shadows, sometimes it seems they are floating in the air.

You can see this well in the intro, with the headlights of the tram.

Also possible to change the headlights to rear lights (red) if the tram turns around, so front becomes back and visa versa like on trains?

#224

Nice find! Looks extremly unsettling. in a good way. I love the little touch with the chestlamp! So excited for what’s in store for Xen!

#225

OK been messing with the HEV zombie. things I have noticed

  1. they have twice the health of the standard zombie.

  2. they have that flashlight on their chest which gives a cone similar to the players. but isn’t even that noticeable in dark areas.

  3. their suit is a darker orange then Gordon’s. Though that could just be caused by xen, and the damage on the suit.

  4. they have a torso version but it you gib them so they spawn the torso version the legs bug out. seriously I sent them flying in a ragdoll spas with a grenade once.

  5. they are bugged headshots do not damage them but they do kill the headcrab resulting in infinite headcrab corpses if you just head shot them over and over again.

  6. their suits are grimy as all get out and show evidence of having taken damage from many sources.

Things I wish they had.

  1. HEV voice lines, clear as day things like the blood loss, fractures, and user death lines. Reminder headcrabs do not kill their host and the HEV is likely sending out said warnings to the user and anyone that can “help”.

the problem with this, is would it cut into the atmosphere as you turn a corner and hear a warning from an HEV suit and instantly know oh hey HEV zombie nearby.

  1. As I have said, I wish the head shot bug was a feature. The problem is lore and how could it be explained. I think it can be explained with baby headcrabs, by having the body gib and the torso gib not spawning on death. with it being replaced with a few meat chunks, orange chunks of metal, and 2-4 baby headcrabs.

The reasoning behind this is a concept. The Gonarch can lay headcrabs forever but baby headcrabs are the bottom of the food change so more mature ones with hosts are used to incubate them with only the mature one being exposed to hostiles, if the main controller dies the baby ones take over, until the hosts death at which point they burrow out and attack anything nearby trying to claim a host.

This goes on the well we don’t see it off of xen because we do not see baby headcrabs in the wild outside of xen.

#226

That’s so cool! This says really good things about enemy variety in Xen.
Though I have to admit, I’m not all that surprised about ZEVs being added. It almost seems like a must-have, y’know? No way all those HEV guys died by falling.

I wonder if we’ll see any new types of Vortigaunts? Maybe an armored Battle-Vort with shock amplifiers.

#227

What would be cool for the ZEV would be something a bit like the Zombine, with zombie sounds mixed with HEV suit sounds and quite distorted. Would also be a nice use for unused lines like “HEV General Failure” and so on

#228

Indeed, cause the HEV is created for humans and to heal human beings, but if it detects strange DNA in the system, it’s gonna give a HEV General Failure and such!

#229

Loot ME$A:

1147×794

626×693

#230

Oh well, looks like I was right with the little theory I had on Facebook about the Supply pod

#231

Probably because It is using the MP HEV suit model, not the single player one.

This was mentioned back in January, on Page 7 but no-one commented on it, they re-added the Poison and Fast headcrabs from HL2 to Black Mesa (they’re not on stable, I checked). They’re missing sounds.

npc_headcrab_black and npc_headcrab_fast

1920×1080

#232

Do you reckon that they are going to retroactively put Poison and Fast Headcrabs into Xen? Or is this just some unrelated thing that happened by accident?

#233

I can’t see it being an accident.

Plus with the Xen Houndeye variants, it fits.

#234

doesn’t make sense though as the poison and fast headcrabs are implied to have been engineered by the combine. And the combine don’t gain access to xen until after freeman kills the floating baby thing that I can’t remember how to spell their name.

#235

Except it’s never actually implied in game, it’s a common misconception. The combine merely harvested them and put in canisters to strike remote rebel hideouts. Also another point showing they’re not combined-engineered is that they look nothing like the other synths, they attack combine forces (which every other synths doesn’t) and vorts eat them (I don’t see vorts eating modified headcrabs with god knows what’s inside them)

#236

I know it wasn’t said in game, it was said in raising the bar and the prema game guide. Also would you engineer a bioweapon which is designed to have plossible deniability to have your marks on it? Even she shells do not have the marks on them like all other combine items do.

#237

The Combine never really struck me as big on secrecy or deniability in general, and if that was really their goal they are doing a pretty terrible job of it considering that the shells are clearly made of Combine materials and nobody else on Earth has the ability or for that matter the desire to create anything like them. But then again basically nothing else about the Combine made any sense to me either, and I never really thought of Black Mesa as occupying the same continuity as Half-Life 2, so as far as I’m concerned the new varieties of headcrab are just a kind of neat thing to have added but not worth reading much into.

#238

Yep, at the end of the day, the extra varieties of headcrab Valve made serve the same purpose as the other variations CC are apparently adding to Xen (HEV zombies, different Houndeyes) - they make enemies that become trivial or played-out through repeated exposure and more powerful weapons interesting again. So I’m not opposed to seeing them included if they’re used and introduced well.

#239

Can somebody find if the zombie HEV spawn somewhere already or it will be on xen only.
Also not sure but they added a zombie animations, drag_sci,

#240

by the fact that it is bugged in a few ways I am guessing it is a xen update item that slipped through. was likely meant either A as a surprise when we got to xen or B left in for people like me who checked the files or in my case on a whim after seeing a tweet tried an NPC create line.

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.