Remember that giant fan on blast pit, and how the controls for it were UNDER the fan? so anyone who had to turn on the fan would have to make make a mad dash for the ladder, climb like hell and pray to god that the giant blades doesn’t cut him in half. This would NEVER pass any modern day safety inspection!
I think in the black mesa mod the controls should be in a little control room or something. what do you think?
One of the aim of the game is to provide excitement, danger and fun. How would the control room provide that?
also here is the place for those questions 
Dont you think the devs might have considered that already in the past five years of development time?
I see your point but could their be a way to add danger but still make it realistic?
Yes, but I thought it would be fun to talk about.
We’ll see when it gets released.
Seconded.
What excellent and thoughtful discussion. Thanks. Really.
@OP: You aint been watching Freeman’s mind have you? 
If it was up to me, I’d have the controls where they are. Keep the workers on their toes
Yes and maybe there could be a little rave party going on at the top of the fan
To be honest I always hated that part of the game, I remember I left the game for a while back in the day, because that shiz kept cutting me in half. Must replay to see if 10 years has improved me any.
The devs have said many times that a lot of Half Life levels have been redesigned to be more…logical.
Pretty much.
I mean if OSHA saw that, they’d flip.
The way I’d handle that fan (and this is by no means a suggestion as to how it should be):
The controls are still under the fan, but there is an exit underneath leading to another part of the facility and the ladder is there for maintenance when the fan is off. During the RC, the exit is destroyed leaving only one exit from the control area: up the maintenance ladder.
Yeah, the aliens are normal, it is a research facility after all. But the safety of the fan is just too worrying.
The controls are placed below the fan so that the cafeteria manager doesn’t have to shell out so much of the company budget for meat.
I wonder how many health and safety inspectors get into top secret bases? lol. Still common sense would dictate that the fan/control setup would be a tad unsafe.
The worker take this big stick, and they use it to poke the fan controls without having to go down under the fan. There. Problem solved.
I would say that the controls located under the fan blades are a manual backup switch, to be used if the main control unit (located in a control room) isn’t working. It would explain why they are DIRECTLY on the fan. If the fan serves important cooling purposes you need something like an on-button, like on the tv, in case the remote control is broken or without batteries. They COULD have made a ladder out of reach of the fan-blades to turn it on, that is true.
But maybe they all gather at that place once a month, watch the worst employee turn on the fan, and after wiping off the blood of their faces they do some bodyflying.
WEEEHEEEE
They could have put the switch above the fan and then everything you said is still true. Lol.
Well but then you would have a remote switch again wouldnt you? Probably needing a cable, and the longer a cable the more likely it will break in case of a catastrophy. I don’t know I’m overanalyzing anyway.
Maybe it’s just an emergency off switch in case somebody got stuck down there with the fan down? Since that part of the facility was likely built during the cold war, they probably saved some money and just mass ordered regular switches, not off-only switches.
Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.
