:brow:
It would be funny if in Inbound, since the tram says “remember to take all personal belongings with you as you leave the carriage” there was a briefcase underneath one of the seats
That’s a minor suggestion I’d like to see included. Toss it out a window, leave it there, or carry it with you into the test chamber? Your choice! 
I was quoting Freeman’s mind. 
Well hopefully the tram has windows now, it was a slight OH&S hazard before. 
Not sure if this has been mentioned, but make the MP5 Alt fire able to be picked up by barnacles?
Not quite sure that would work, except for blowing the things tongue off, considering they explode on contact…
Damn you no-tongue barnacles! I just contradicted myself. Again.
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Pre-placed bullet holes in some of the later maps where there has clearly already been fighting.
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Signs of both alien and human casualties. In both HL and HL2 half-decomposed corpses were ubiquitous and dull, and were only ever scientists or citizens. Soldiers and aliens would be a good inclusion.
Basically, it felt extremely unrealistic to walk through a pristine battlefield, even though there might be a few destroyed buildings here and some rubble there. Placing bullet holes along with gibs, corpses, a human grunt trying to crawl away (for you to choose whether or not to finish off) makes the whole area feel far more alive. You’d be smoothing out the transition between obvious level design and real life.
I don’t know how well this would fly with the minimal performance demands, but keep as much detail from firefights as possible. Draw the line at shells or even gibs, but blood-splatter, bodies and bullet holes remaining make it more detailed. I realise that Half-Life is all about a linear journey and you almost never backtrack, but on the odd occasion where you do - it’s an amazing immersion tool.
How about the HECU using proper radio discipline and jargon?
And on that note, MORE GRUNT RADIO CHATTER. It’d really work well with the atmosphere, especially in military-heavy areas such as On a Rail, Power Up, and We’ve Got Hostiles. Naturally becoming more and more panicked, as things start going wrong.
For examples, think of some of the chatter in Prototype for the sort of thing I’m talking about.
Such as, just to throw out another example, say you’ve just wiped out a squad of grunts and are progressing through the area, coming up on another group, you start hearing snippets of their conversation.
“Stiletto 2, Stiletto Actual. Contact lost with Stiletto 4 in sector two-alpha. How copy, over?”
“Solid copy, Stiletto Actual, proceeding to check the area. Out.”
Then of course, the second fireteam shows up/is ambushed by the player, and you have another fight on your hands.
Also, it might be worth it for the grunts to start radioing in contact with you to their superiors in addition to the standard. “SQUAD! GET FREEMAN!” that we’re all so familiar with. Just stuff like “Freeman engaged in sector yadda yadda.” Or “Confirmed contact! Open fire!”
It might also be interesting to hear acknowledgments over the radio when you’re calling down airstrikes/artillery in Surface Tension.
Yeah, Prototype had the coolest military radio I’ve heard in a game so far.
Following what Floyd suggested, there should also be spent shell casings scattered about the floor in such areas. I thought that was a cool detail when i was playing thru provenance.
Shell casings might be a little too much detail. Depending on how many it could deal a blow to performance.
As good as this suggestion is, it’s debatable as to whether or not it would be implemented at such a late stage of development (of course, more grunt chatter could already be within the mod).
Good ideas, and both implementable. I’m sure the devs have added decal bullet marks in some places, however it’s kinda hard to make them look natural and not added randomly. (maybe it’s easier in Source, I dunno)
The ragdolls would be nice, and I’m sure they’ve added Soldiers and Xenians (there were dead soldiers in HL, remember) In places where they make sense.
However, having lots of corpses would have to come at a price; played the
L4D2 demo? Notice how the corpse piles that were there before you arrived were static? Looks good, until you try to play with the ragdolls/throw an explosive.
That works too.
That’s the most dignified, detailed response I’ve ever seen Ram give. headasplode
:fffuuu: Wow, Very nice response -head also asplodes-
So long as you ask Ram a decent question, you’ll usually get a decent answer. However, the questions around mostly suck balls. Mostly.
I’m sure they do check into Headquarters occasionally, that’s what those huge bulky radios are for.
On that note, it’d be interesting to see the Commander run over to the radio and yell something like
“[hq codename], this is [squad name], target Freeman aquired, engaging. Over.”
Then after all the grunts are dead and the player is near the radio, the radiovoice will say something like “[squad name], this is [hq codename]. Send status report. wait a few second [squad name], Check in immediately. wait a few seconds [squad name], we’ll be sending reinforcements to your sector. Out.”
A little late HQ. Might have tried that BEFORE we all died!