I actually love everything they did with the hgrunt. I have no complaints. The particular part in the game you are talking about I threw grenades out of one of the man holes, went to the manhole that comes up behind the tank, RPGed it to death(taking cover between shots), and mowed down the hecu as they came around the wall. After that I just picked up the stragglers by pieing around the corner.
Well I didn’t record precisely in what order and how many marines / grunts came, but what do you mean, my mistake of failing to exit the garage and destroy the opsrey??? when was I supposed to destroy the osprey???
There are marines EVERYWHERE. I cannot survive long enough to get a clear shot at the osprey before dying. And I’ve never seen that osprey before, so obviously I couldn’t destroy it.
Oops I accidentally double posted cause my iphone didn’t load up the posted message.
Okay, guys, I did a test.
I edited skills to make the HECU marines deal 0 damage.
There is an airplane that dropped marines. Which is fine.
What is NOT fine, is that that plane keeps dropping marines OVER & OVER & OVER & OVER again indefinitely after I kill the marines.
In most games these events are scripted to run once, twice, or maybe thrice.
But not… INFINITELY.
The only solution is to destroy that plane with either 3 rockets (assuming I have 3 rockets handy) or my Tau Gun (assuming I still have Tau ammo).
Shooting over 6 clips of mp5 will not kill it.
There was almost no way for me to kill that plane on Hard when I could barely survive the 3 marines he kept dropping at me, as he comes back as soon as 1 of the marines is dead (i.e before they are all dead).
This is not cool. Whoever designed this map: I can honestly say, this is NOT cool. Terrible, terrible game mechanics. I attached a screenshot just to show you how freakin ridiculous the body count is. Btw, this is only one angle, there are more bodies on the other side of the container, and some bodies disappeared (hence the guns with no bodies next to them, because too many bodies are generated.
That’s how it’s meant to be. You either take down the Osprey early, or you’re just screwing yourself. I’m pretty sure there is a cache of rockets somewhere around there too. Gotta check. Either way, that’s exactly how that scene was in Half-Life. They did an exact re-creation of it.
If there’s anyone to blame, it’s Valve.
I don’t remember how valve put it, but I know that HL1 was one of the first FPS I played (after Final Doom and some Quake that I never finished) and if this was exactly the case, Valve made the necessary destruction of that plane much easier and obvious, because I had never experienced trouble in Surface Tension at the time.
Then again, I probably played on Medium and not Hard back then. Wow, it’s been like what, 11 years?
The destruction of any osprey was never required in the Half-Life I played.
really I understood that Osprey had to die as well, even back then. It’s obvious the plane needs to go down as SOLDIERS KEEP SPAWNING FROM IT. If the problem isn’t solved by attacking it. attack the source.
No, you don’t have to take down this Osprey either. It just makes your life a helluva lot easier, especially since the HGrunts in this game are about 3 to 5 times more lethal than they used to be.
My strategy for that sequence:
Drop from building, crossbow both Vorts.
Sprint to vort corpses. Osprey is unloading grunts.
Turn laser off on rocket launcher, get off four shots in quick succession while Osprey is dropping grunts. Osprey dies. (4 shots on Hard)
Run to rocket ammunition. HECU are closing in.
Use crossbow, shotgun double blast, and MP5’s M203 on remaining soldiers as they round the corner. Problem solved. (Tau Cannon also works)
Took a few tries but I did it.
Interesting,
I tranq the Aliens, Drop three Successive MP5 Underslung grenades into the repelling soldiers, and charge up a Permanently grounding flight plan via the Tau Cannon.
^ This guy is fucking pro. I’m going to try this shit next time I get to this sequence.
i shot down osprey bifore he unloaded any soldiers on my speed run( easy )
on hard it unloaded 2 soldiers.
It isn’t. You don’t need to destroy it, it’ll drop Marines about three or four times and then fly off. It will not drop infinite numbers of them. That plane CANNOT hold infinite numbers of people. And yes, I got killed fighting them the first time because from where I’d taken shelter, I didn’t even know the Osprey existed.
I got Black Meas yesterday afternoon and I’ve been playing it on hard.
I do like the intense difficulty. EVERY enemy is dangerous and I have to take each one seriously. Even a headcrab can make a dent in my health if I don’t notice it and that can cost me against a stronger enemy.
I like that the marines are lethal. Killing them is satisfying and they are genuinely threatening.
That said, their reactions probably do need some tweaking. In HL1 you could employ a bit of stealth at times. If you say killed a marine with the crossbow before he detected you then his buddies wouldn’t be alerted to his death. Something like that might be nice. The ability to try and sneak through certain areas as opposed to fighting adds an extra layer to the game.
OH MY GOD, that fucking sequence. I thought there was certainly a finite amount of grunts- I was firing from the bottom of the building for literally an hour. I was about to just cheat, when I decided to make a break for it and found that motherfucking plane.
Needless to say, I fucked up that bitch mofo style! 
A finite number of people would make a lot more sense.
I’m still laughing by the number of bodies after looking at my screenshot.
You cheated, though, so it’s not a valid argument.
I just fired the hivehand until the initial grunts were dead, then ran out like a maniac, dodging in and out of cover and launching rockets until it crashed.
And then I didn’t even get to watch it crash because I was too preoccupied with the soldiers.
I took a similar approach with the Hivehand, but I followed up with the Tau instead of Rockets. I got through this on my third attempt, so it wasn’t too hard. The Hivehand seems to have a larger search radius (or just a better homing system) on its projectiles than in the original, which makes it infinitely more useful for shooting around corners from behind cover. As a result, I took very minimal damage.
I’m sure it smelled of nothing but roses and jasmine in that plane on the way to Black Mesa.