I was using the console command “host_timescale #.#” to pretty much simulate slow motion. A few times, I actually saw a soldier shooting before his weapon was lowered! (It was against his chest and pointed towards the ceiling.) I don’t know if my results are flawed to begin with, simply because of the method in which I’m getting the data. If that is not the case though, this is pretty annoying.
Grunts being “notified” of your presence by other grunts (if I’m right about the mechanic being used) should simply have a doubled reaction time. First they react to the notification, and then they react to your presence.
If that’s the case, yeah, reaction times should definitely be delayed until their weapons are in position.
Wow… That’s crazy. Can someone confirm this and post a video??
Just wanted to vent for a moment about the absolutely crazy range and accuracy given to the soldier AI’s. The soldiers can reliably hit me with their MP5’s at ranges so extreme I can’t even pick them out without zooming. This is at its worst outdoors when there’s lots of open space. I could empty all 150 rounds of my MP5 at these ranges and not stand a chance of dropping a single soldier, yet their bullets find me like I’ve got a homing beacon on my forehead.
Look, I’ve got no problem with accurate AI’s; these guys are soldiers and they ought to know how to aim. My issue is their weapons are unrealistically accurate at ridiculous ranges.
IMO, two things need to be done to fix this:
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The weapon accuracy needs to be reduced such that sniping me with an MP5 at extreme range is not possible. It’s an MP5, not a Barrett .50 cal for crying out loud. Cut the range about in half and that would do the trick.
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To stop the AI from uselessly wasting ammo after reducing their accuracy, script the AI to not fire until they’ve closed the range a bit.
Is this something that could be done without an insane amount of effort? Because right now it really makes playing against the soldier AI’s kind of silly and not much fun.
Oh, and before anyone thinks I’m bashing the mod, please understand this is constructive criticism. My hats go off to the mod developers involved in this project! You guys have done an absolutely phenomenal job bringing this classic game into the modern graphics era. The maps are great, the puzzles are great, and your effort shines. Thank you!
Chiming in …
- Remarkable (instantaneous) reaction time
- Incredible accuracy, even from long distances
Not the biggest deal ever but it does take you out of the game world a bit when you suddenly see red and chunks of flesh flying off of you because a grunt 250 yards away spotted you creeping along a scaffold the moment 10% of your profile crossed the threshold of a corner. Even the sharpest super-pro would need a bare moment to process what he sees. (Also made a bit worse by overhearing them say “sector secure!” a moment earlier. Also made even slightly worse still by the fact that the same grunt can’t see shit if he’s facing the other direction and doesn’t ever bother to look behind him. They’re at the same time really dumb and the ultimate reflex badasses.)
Also, I can’t hit a damn thing firing back at them at the same distance with the same weapon.
Lastly, as has been stated elsehwere, the first one I came into contact with called me “Freeman.” 
Don’t care for their chatter either as it makes them sound more like weekend warrior national guard types than highly trained professional soldiers.
Other than that, everything’s great. 
bring back suitzoom-shooting plz
that way I can snipe them back
Will there be a patch out for the all seeing Ai? I’m tired of not being able to hide when she soldiers are chancing me. They shouldnt know where i went if I turn the corner and they lose sight of me. I loved this game since it first came out back in the day so I’m glad I can play it.But now that the Ai is much better these days that would be great fix to a already awesome game.Thanks
This sounds like a pretty solid idea, but I have to ask - what do the numbers represent? Is that degrees off centre or some intermediate metric? What does, for instance, a bias of 4 actually mean for an AI Marine shooting at a target at 100 feet?
With the exception of a few events where HECU purposely have their back to you, the AI in general seems to have almost infinite spacial awareness - if you can see them, they will see you (on hard difficulty anyway). I noticed this in the osprey scene of Surface Tension. As you’re dropping down from the hole in the building the left most Vort will begin charging a shot the moment you appear to be falling from the hole.
I’m under the impression that the scene isn’t supposed to play out like that on hard, and that you’re supposed to instead see the Vorts charging on the HECU dropping in from the Osprey. Unfortunately because all enemies have this spacial awareness, all eyes are on you the moment you drop in.
The other thing is that HECU become tunnel visioned on you once they’ve sighted you. They ignore incoming threats unless they actually take damage from those threats. I’ve had instances where HECU would be closing in on me while conveniently ignoring the two alien grunts charging at them for example.
While this makes for an interesting challenge on hard it’s rather hilariously unrealistic. There are a two noticeable caveats:
-Stealth is pretty much impossible (stealth wasn’t really an option in hl1 so I guess that’s fine)
-The HECU will always have an advantage over the aliens
The last point is particularly important. Nearly all HECU is hitscan based. Exceptions are RPG and vehicle projectile units. Conversely, the only alien that isn’t projectile based is the Vort. What this means is HECU units will be firing / dealing damage instantly on aliens while aliens will be tanking damage/dying before even getting a shot off. Even the Vort is at a disadvantage since its shot has to charge up. This kind of ridiculous advantage probably lends a great deal to the perception that Xen isn’t putting up a fight to the HECU and really weakening the idea of the HECU being overwhelmed.
HL1 on hard was way harder.
Just use grenades to soften them up, then go to the back in the pipes and exit from the garage, kill the tank and mop everything else up.
It’s easy once you realize you shouldn’t go in head on.
It increases the cone of fire for AI, increasing the values makes them more spray and prey. Basicly it stops them being “Aimbots”
- Not sure how the min or max values work extactly.
I find that increasing the damage of the NPC 9mm compensates for the loss of accuracy, but still being able to be a formidable enemy to face. 
Try em and see what suits your tastes.
Seconded, and also what’re the default values?
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That fight against the Osprey is pretty ridiculous, I’ve found it the hardest part of the game by a significant margin (except perhaps the jump to the 357 ammo in Residue Processing…). The issue for me is the frequency with which the Osprey brings more soldiers, I usually haven’t polished off all of the preceding four before it turns up again - and if/when one of them pops round the corner while you’re trying to aim your RPG, it’s farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies.
The really weird thing is that there’s a pair of alien grunts lurking in the hangar right next to the landing pad, but the HECUs don’t care, they just ignore them and go straight for Freeman (and the grunts just sit there counting their hornets). The distraction of the marines fighting the xenos would be just enough opportunity to either nail the Osprey, clear the landing pad before it returns, or just take the brave, brave Sir Robin option.
A related issue is that the second Garg totally ignores the two HECUs right in front of it who’ve shot out your air vent, it goes straight for the player. Not that this is a difficult sequence - I’ve never died during it on my two playthroughs - just that it’s a similar behavioural issue.
bias 1
biasmax 1
biasmin -1
These two posts sum this entire problem up pretty nicely!
That’s actually a big problem I have with the AI. The original Half-Life wasn’t exactly a stealth game, but it allowed me to get the drop on a LOT of enemies. If I snick behind a Marine, he wouldn’t react to me. If I snuck up on a Bullsquid doing something else, I could close in on it until I’m basically touching it, and well within range to blow a double-barrel shotgun shell right up its non-existent ass. It’s very rare that this happens and I more or less have to know where enemies will spawn… Or where they are likely to, but at least it gives me a reason to sneak around.
In Black Mesa, if I can see one inch of one Marine’s backpack with my sniper scope at 100 paces, every Marine in the whole area will know where I am. What’s more, I’m not sure if the “crouching also puts your suit into stealth mode, minimising movement noise” is even true in Black Mesa. It doesn’t seem to work in Blast Pit, and it certainly doesn’t work on the Marines, and that’s kind of disappointing.
Again, this isn’t about difficulty. No part of Black Mesa was too difficulty after a few tries. It’s just that it makes fights come off really weird, stilted and unnatural.
Yes, but by how much? What do the numbers actually mean? How accurate is someone with a biass of 4? Is that a lot or a little? Let me give you an example from, say, World of Tanks. In that game, a cannon’s accuracy is given as metres of spread per 100 metres of distance. Say for instance you have a cannon with an accuracy of 0.46. What this means is that if you’re shooting at a target 100 metres away, your shots will land somewhere in a roughly half-metre-diametre circle around where you’re aiming.
So what does “4” mean at, say, 10 metres of distance? Does that mean that the Marine will usually shoot 4 degrees off centre? Does it mean his shots will land in a 1.4 metre circle around me? Or does it mean something else entirely that’s not directly representative?
I’m not asking to be difficulty, honest. But I’m really bad at judging empirical evidence, so trying various number settings will be difficult for me.
That actually does mimic the original’s MP5K/M16 quite well, because both weapons have crap for accuracy, but seem to deal significant damage. Replaying Half-Life, Opposing Force and Blue Shift showed me that the SMG more or less relies on wasting ammo with horrible accuracy and tries to make up for it by shooting faster and hoping for luck to land more hits than the pistol.
The Half-Life 2 SMG is actually considerably more accurate, at least from playing around with it now.
I honestly don’t see where you guys are coming from when you claim the marines “snipe you”. I mean do you think any bullet hitting you at long range is unrealistic? If they’re far away most of their shots miss. You are generally a lot more accurate if you pulse your shots.
I do think the reaction times and awareness are a little too much, but I’d hate to see them nerfed too. They’re not easy opponents, and I like that.
HECU aim is very frustrating.
I have finished HL2 without taking a damage, did same for HL2 EP1 and HL2 EP2 (except the last striders fight). I wanted to do the no damage run in Black Mesa too, but it is too much frustrating to do so. Vorts reaction time is over the top, but HECU is plain annoying. Please make it more realistic or the game won’t be fun at hard difficulty for people who care about getting hit.
GG
I may have just gotten used to it, but on my second normal playthrough I seem to be dodging most attacks.
Not sure why, just seems like all of a sudden the marines are so much easier than they were. Might be me knowing ahead of time how to deal with them.
Actually, I think a large part of what creates the perception of accuracy is that the Marines are prone to shooting at long range a lot. I don’t remember the Marines in Half-Life shooting from across an open field. Mostly, they’d go from cover to cover and charge your position. It’s understandable that if they waste enough ammo at long range, some of that will hit me, but I kind of think that they shouldn’t be so prone to doing that.
I’m noticing the same behaviour in Half-Life 2, actually - “every chickenshit Metro Cop” will fire his pistol or SMG at me from a mile away and, of course, mostly miss. But they hit just enough to be annoying when they come in large numbers.
Yep, their awareness is annoying. Sometimes when low on health and ammo the best option would be to sneak up on them but that doesn’t seem possible. I’d say leave their accuracy alone though. Sure it’s not realistic but it’s balanced. They only have MP5 and the shotgun while we have the glock, the magnum and the crossbow. I’ve only played on hard so far but fights mid/long range with some cover and 3-4 enemies is possible using just the glock.
You end up with low health and sometimes it takes more than one try but come on, there’s save/load and there’s a lot of health in the game so making it any easier would make it boring, unless they could use a magnum or a more accurate weapon. Also, they don’t use grenades often enough. I think it would be nice if they became more realistic when it comes to awareness, but sometimes threw grenades instead of just rushing the player like a madman with a shotgun.