Yup, guess you can just have it set to a low hp then have the player find a stash of GL rounds just down the tunnel. Should provide a fair bit of challenge aiming-wise without being too frustrating. You could also give the player the option of cover-hopping to get closer to the improvised auto-gun (using believable rubble/over-turned tram etc…)
Yeah, now you’re catching on. I apologise for being rude, I just don’t want a (imo) good idea to be discarded over a false problem.
Half-Life had breakable crates. I imagined the remake would be a combination of breakable (mostly for pretty physics because you get to see the autocannon knock them around and shred them) and unbreakable crates, plus maybe the sandbag walls as per HL1 would. That isn’t my design choice though, I’m just a proponent of the LAV = Autogun arrangement. How or if it’s implemented is ultimately at Text’s at discretion.
It just hit me that since Text used Joel’s scrapped version of OaR for the launch pad fight in ST Uncut, it wouldn’t be good design philosophy (in my opinion) to use it again for the extended outdoor fight.
I’m not sure how I feel about this.
Please, I don’t think I read your last reply to my comment, so no offense taken. Besides, I never disagreed with this idea (granted I may not have read your earlier comments properly). Just sucks that the sandbag cover won’t work well, according to Text 
I didn’t know that the health could be set by the mapper (my bad, i don’t know much in hammer)
If the LAV actually made it to OaR maybe you can put scenes vortigaunts trying to destroy the LAV but it survives. Pretty much like the battles in ST Uncut. There you can have a battle with a LAV afterwards with a few marines.
The tunnel is relatively narrow so the fight would look odd and many still feel that the APC just doesn’t fit at this point in the game, hence the discussion about turning it into an Auto-gun instead.
There is no autogun in Black Mesa, that’s why the LAV discussion even exists.
It’s M2, LAV, or none at all.
LAV or M2 but I’m going on M2 but if they found a way to make LAV consistent in the tunnel like it’s outside while it is firing at them, maybe it can have both at a same scene.
Isn’t it possible to use an “hidden” LAV, like covered with something (so that you can only see the cannon)?
In theory yes, but it would likely end up being very crude. Plus when the LAV is destroyed, it spawns a physics model, which would probably spaz out since it’d be massively clipping with the map.
The Source engine lets you tweak fade times, so it may be possible to have the physics model disappear almost immediately. As long as it’s very much out of sight, it won’t look strange.
You can’t tweak fade times or any values at all for gib models. They’re beyond a developer’s control as they’re handled by the engine at runtime. It’s the reason I had so much trouble with the LAV being thrown into the Marines on ST Uncut’s C2A5I. In the end the only way I could control the trajectory of THAT gib was by having a massive invisible train set to drive straight into the wall 0.5 seconds after the LAV is destroyed. It collides with the LAV’s gib and shunts it into the wall with it.
The only way to make the gibs work properly with a clipped LAV would be to have a trigger_multiple surrounding it, firing every 1 second, triggerable only by prop_physics - and with the output “OnTrigger, !activator, kill”. This would mean any physics objects which enter the volume disappear immediately. I can then have a nice little scripted explosion which plays when the LAV is destroyed (to obscure the actual gib disappearing), and then a prop_dynamic_override which uses the LAV’s gib model. Prop_Dynamic doesn’t have physics, so I can set this prop to be disabled by default, and enabled when the LAV is destroyed. This should create the (non glitchy) illusion of an autogun gib, I hope.
So yeah, as Someguy said, it’s pretty much 50 Cal, clipped LAV (to create the illusion of autogun) or just LAV. An LAV could quite easily make sense as I’m setting most of F and G (B2) outside, it can simply be by an entrance to the tunnels or something like that - so the issue of having an LAV in a very small, confined space wouldn’t really be a big deal. I’m more concerned about it for gameplay purposes, in all honesty. I’m still just very uncertain that OaR is a good time to introduce the armoured elements. NOT from a storytelling perspective but from a gameplay perspective. They’re one of Surface Tension’s many great surprises and wildcards.
I’m not sure why you mentioned this - I’m certainly not planning on reusing that track in any way, shape or form, nor do I remember anyone bringing it up ever in this thread. It’s not something Black Mesa did and it’s definitely not something I plan on doing.
I plan on having one other song on my mod bringing it to a total of 2 songs. As I haven’t made any real development progress in the past week, I figure out of courtesy I can at least make this reveal.
My good friend (who chooses to remain anonymous for now) is writing a song for me to use during the ambush in the Turntable Room on the B1 map. He’s a very talented songwriter, and I have every faith in his ability to write a really good piece for me to use during that fight. He’s working with me to write an action piece which fits nicely during the fight and also resembles the style of the rest of Black Mesa. We’ve already had one meeting where we had a pretty detailed discussion about what to do and what fits. He’s played Black Mesa a few times and we went over a very detailed walkthrough of Black Mesa’s OaR (including Uncut) and HL1’s OaR. I’ve asked him to seek inspiration from The Year of Death and parts of the Max Payne 3 Soundtrack, whose overall percussive/electronic sound I think would fit extremely well during this battle.
We had quite an interesting discussion about OaR’s musical progression too and I came up with a pretty cool idea, which, if he manages to pull off this song correctly - could be a very neat little element. He’s currently written the bones of the song, and the plan is to have it be a predominantly electronic sounding track with quite a few piano stings and influences. This will make it slot in beautifully with the planned overall musical progression of OaR, which will look like this if it all goes according to plan:
On a Rail 1: Piano piece --> The Year of Death: Piano dominant, electronic influence --> Work in Progress: Electronic dominant, piano influence --> On a Rail 2: Electronic piece
The electronic influence takes over more and more as Gordon approaches rocket launch.
I thought it was a really cool bit of musical progression, just figured I’d share it with you lot.
I’m dedicating most of today to B map development, so let’s see how that one turns out!
I only brought up the music because I was listening to it, and then remembered reading somewhere that Joel had originally planned to use it for the launch pad fight, but determined the song to be too long, and then created OaR 2 as it stands. Music for the turntable ambush seems like a really cool idea if implement correctly, but I have faith in your anonymous friend.
It was removed both because Joel thought it didn’t fit the battle that well and (mainly) because of community backlash. It was in the first video ever seen of the finished game that was leaked by a site…
Ah. I never did follow any of the leaks. Didn’t want to spoil anything. Good to know there was a more solid reason than what I thought.
Tangent over, back to OaR uncut.
Just realized this just a bit ago. Subsequently I have one more bit of feedback for A1 for you. I’ll also be editing my feedback post a few pages back so you can easily find it later.
And I was thinking; there is a lonesome bullsquid here surrounded by lots of stuff. But my real attention is on the back wall.
I say, what would we be looking at if those double doors were turned into an elevator with a broken button? Barnacles nearby perhaps? Some military crates with a gernade/satchel pickup?
And it would make quite a bit of sense too because it’s right down the hall from your rendition of the rocket room. If that was the original intent of this room though then I must have obviously missed something…
This sounds really well-thought out! I’m getting more and more hyped for this mod. 
Wondering why there would an elevator to this area, as there isn’t anything of real importance here to justify one. It’s a simple storage area. There’s no easy/safe access to the rocket room from here either, as there was in HL1. It would be quite perilous negotiating the rails, unless you’re using a tram, which would be cumbersome. IMO, an elevator at the end of the hallway with the locked doors, outside of the rocket room, would be a more appropriate location for one (though, the ceiling pipes and fire sprinkler would need rerouting) https://i.imgur.com/e6nghiF.jpg.
My god.
I actually didn’t think about this, but now that you mention it, there’s no easy access to this area from anywhere else on the floor, period. This whole section is enclosed within a flat loop of track, which means you can’t safely get to the other side without going up or down a floor.
I suggested that location because I thought it would be really easy to implement, but inside that storage area makes a whole lot of sense. It’s easy to picture some sort of service elevator within that area and since we haven’t even gone in there yet we don’t know how tall it is - barnacles, the whole nine yards for that room. The pipes wouldn’t need any real reworking because you can put the implements anywhere within that space.
EDIT: Alternatively there are three steel doors near the bull squid in the main room. One of those would make a plausible service elevator.
The Vorts have a nasty habit of standing on the other side of doors if you close it when they are focused on you, trapping you inside some of the rooms that have one entrance.
https://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/612758392971647925/235C1242BA37B2D64FA3049C62D272EC4ACF9F21/