Xen has a human breathable atmosphere due to the fact that aliens from Xen are able to breathe on Earth without assistance.
I was actually trying to make things subtly different as far as the atmosphere of xen not being posionous but having a high level of oxygen…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity
Why are all the other dead scientists wearing helmets?
Why if the gravity on xen is different meaning the atmospheric pressure and therefore the weight of air components (oxygen nitrogen and carbon dioxide) are in exactly the same quantities. read this.
The air you breathe is made up of lots of other things besides oxygen! Oxygen only makes up about 21% of air. About 78% of the air you breathe is made up of another gas called nitrogen. There are also tiny amounts of other gases like argon, carbon dioxide and methane. Plant and animal life on earth can’t survive without air.
If we use weight of air particles by there mass… Xens Air would be extremely high in Nitrogen and Oxygen and little else.
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/molecular-mass-air-d_679.html
If you took a helicopter up to the top of mount everest you would have to adjust to the change in the air and the atmospheric pressure…This can take days to adjust… This is no where near comparable to gravitational states that we witness in xen… So if you think the air is the same…ok
It is not so much as the composition that is important, it is that at higher altitudes there is less air. Air is about 20% oxygen, but the higher up you go in altitude, the thinner air will have less oxygen. That’s what makes breathing more difficult at higher altitudes.
It’s only a game that was made a long time ago but I provide you with some real life physics to take into account… It really don’t bother me if it makes 100% sense but the same air as earth on xen… sorry that is ludicrous…
lol 
I would say that xen life breathes nitrogen it’s the only gas in abundance in both scenarios… It would also help to explain why they are so different. But I don’t have anything concrete here just that Oxygen and nitrogen are heavier but because there would be less air pressure due to low gravitational forces this would effect the light weight gasses much more I think but I am no physics professor… The weight of the components would change relative to their mass… That is all I can tell you.
Remember, Xen is not in our dimension so our laws of physics and such need not apply; Mossman mentions that Xen was used as a “dimensional slingshot”. It’s possible that the Xenian atmosphere is virtually identical to ours and the dead people in the HEV suits with helmets were from the first “away team” (as it were) and they did not know if the composition of atmosphere.
Anyway, there was no helmet in HL1 so I very highly doubt that it’ll be there in BM.
Correct.
think the HEV suits helmet would be a nice feature, for xen purely because xen is a hostile atmosphere even if you can breath the air, there is bacteria and viruses in that air that could be like the black plaque to humans, a air filtration system would be required at least, now that’s in RL thinking. game play wise it would be a fun feature to have a helmet that is picked up in xen if given the right features.
idea
with out helmet: player suffers from the atmosphere of xen best way to show this is to heavily blur the outer area of vision as well as colors being dulled. this will not affect game play much but will give a sense of hostility to the environment.
with helmet: the blur is removed and the colors are returned to full.
yeah doesn’t sound that good on text but sounded good in my head.
Also it would settle the does Gordon were a helmet debate by saying both yes and no.
EDIT: think this discussion should be moved to the xen topic.
While the helmet effects and sound-muffle would be cool and contrast the “tightness” of the suit with the spacious areas of Xen, It didn’t happen in the original Half-Life, and would probably be too big of a change.
Besides, Your-Name-Here pretty much confirmed it won’t be in the game.
Hey, this is a PC game. There can always be mods!
I wanna cast my vote for a Vort uprising, though. Or at-least a foreshadow or allusion. Besides, Half-Life 2 follows up on this idea, and it was only cut from the original because of GoldSrc limitations.
LOL
Whoops stinkin’ touch screens[/SIZE] Fix’d!
Xen
uh a lot of things in BM didn’t happen in half life one. so I think that argument is out the window.
think the vort uprising was talked about in the xen topic but never went any where.
How about the one where the developer told you no helmet, and the one where the moderators said anymore posts about helmets will be deleted? 
I didn’t post about helmets, the topic is implied but can be on anything.
What’s funny is people are suggesting all these effects to go with wearing a helmet. I don’t think they understand how expensive post-processing can be. We have people who play our game with DX8 class hardware. Any more post processing and their system would catch fire LOL. Anyway moooooving on…
I recall reading some of that. (I lurked here for a while before my account finally went through.) I don’t recall any devs commenting on it, though… As something that was planned, scrapped because of limitations at the time, and something that is almost central in Half-Life 2, I suggest that it be brought back. …To a certain extent. Even if maybe some Vorts fire with you at Controllers in a certain sequence (After it’s made clear the Controllers are in-fact …controllers.) Anywho, I think that’d be neat. BUT, the devs are gonna do what they deem fit, and I’m sure it’ll be great! My opinion has been stated, and my vote has been cast! :freeman:
To try to show that controllers are indeed influencing Vorts AI is easy to acheive but it would require destroying something that the controllers used to focus their powers…
Again we are on the non canon trail…
The only thing that is clear is that xen has a lot of discrepencies and is unclear… That works for the level in some ways but in other ways it lets it all down a bit compared to the earth based levels.
It would be good to get some clarification from valve on xen and some answers on certain aspects on debates that have raged for many years but in other ways that is also part of it’s charm.
The problem is episode 3 never made it out… or the next installment with xen concept art… To gain a better understanding… Black Mesa xen will probably be nothing like episode 3 or half life 3 xen so in terms of canon and xen it may aswell go out the window.because the xen we will visit in episode 3 or Half life 3 overwrites what xen originally was because it has been influenced by the combine… But perhaps the combine will be defeated by episode 3… I think Valve just make it up as they go along…It’s a load of nonsense that is just that and they will change it for what they think will make the better game… But one has to wonder if all the weird plot holes is what is causing the final chapter to be delayed and trying to recover a train wreck.
The reason Xen is so confusing from a story perspective, is because once you are there, there is no more exposition. I mean, the Half-Life series as a whole is known for letting players read between the lines… But now you can’t drop many hints by voice (Except for the Nihilanth rantings) and you can’t drop hints via signs (like the Seven Hour War papers in Eli’s lab).
If they want to make the story of Xen more clear, hopefully something or someone will talk. Either the Nihilanth will have more to say, a scientist will talk to you via radio, or a Vort will speak up (assuming they learn languages very fast, or can do it through the Vortessence).
The only other way I can see the Vorts rebelling the controllers, and having it make sence,
is having some shed their shakles, or having some that just aren’t wearing them when you “meet” them, and those ones are rebelling, while ones with shakles are fighting them, and/or the player… I think that’s they key way to do it, without disrupting cannon too much.
Oh, and apologies for any typos. I’m on a touch screen, and don’t have a lot of time.
isn’t much canon to disrupt in xen, they could make it a whole new area and still fit canon do to how it was set up, well it would still need to be floating islands, but still xen didn’t have much going for it.
I personally think that unless they add something like the vort uprising or lets say some back up help in the form of surviving scientests that xen will be empty.
main problem with it was all you knew is you where to kill something tahts it, you know nothing of the land so how are you to learn things. (sorry starting to ramble) most hated thing about xen is you are never given any hints when you get there nothing to show that you are going the right way accept that the next map loaded, its alien yes but it had no drive to it. there needs to be some sub plot in the area.
idea for vort uprising which probibly will never happen, (seeing as the devs don’t seem to like the idea). player enters xen game goes as normal, till about half way through at which point the vorts stop attacking unless a controller is near… then as the player gets closer to the tower the vorts start “helping” the palyer by attacking the a-grunts, and charging the players armor, once again as long as there are no controllers near by.
this could open up a game play option where a player can snipe the controllers in an area and cause a battle so as to make their job easier.
So, snipe the Controllers to gain allies? I like that mechanic!
As you said, though… That is unlikely to happen.
Do Vorts stay hostile after you kill the controllers, or do they revert back to docile?