Xen Creature behavior (warning, wall of text ahead)

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#1

One thing I’m abit curious about, is the relationship between the different species which was mostly ignored in the original half lfie 1 (this is just about the the barnacles, headcrabs, bullsquids and houndeyes).

as we all know a certain part of Xen forces only contained wild animals, they all seemed like happy friends in half life 1 (apart from bullsquids being loners and attacking their relatives aswell as hunting headcrabs).

In Half Life 2 however it was clearly shown that their are extremely agressive towards each other (like barnacles eating headcrabs, which they havent done in Half life 1)

If you take into acccount, that all these 4 species (as named above) are carnivors, some additonal things would happen:

1.) as seen in Half Life 2 Headcrabs don’t fear to attack larger animals (antlions), so i find it safe to assume that they would attack species of the same size during the black mesa incident aswell (like houndeyes for example)

2.) barnacles eat pretty much everything they can get their tongue on, and considering they can eat a human they should also be able to attack other species of the same size.

3.) The relationship between bullsquids and houndeyes seems also unclear to me, I’m pretty shure a bullsquid would not fear to attack them

if you wondering why I’m asking this, certain gamepaly scenes scenes during Half Life 1 would change quite alot if the creatures start attackign each other (would be pretty cool and fun though)

An easy example would be a room filled with headcrabs and barnacles, while in Half Life 1 it would be tricky to doge both headcrabs and barnacles, the barnacles would kill most of the Headcrabs in Half Life 2 for you.

So I would like to ask, how much thoughts and interpretations have you put into ecological system of Xen, especially the food chain?
Will you change certain situations to make the game more realistic from the additonal informations you could gather from Half Life 2 ?

#2

I believe the recent twitter update (“manta ray poop chute”) reveals that biological realism is indeed a priority for this project. It also might enlighten you to read the “underwater barnacles” thread in which highly qualified award-winning biologists discuss the real-world implications of fictional speculative biology at great length.

Cheers and enjoy!

#3
  • Barnacles won’t change so they will eat anything that stick to their tongue.
  • Headcrabs are the same like HL2 so same behavior.
  • Only bullsquids and houndeyes are more mysterious because they are brand new but I can say that bullsquids will hunt any prey at sight but for houndeyes, they could be more friendly than any other but I can make mistakes.

EDIT: It’s not so long after all :slight_smile:

#4

I do believe this isn’t as much of a wall of text. But Mont_Blanc is right although we can’t be sure 'bout the bullsquids and Houndeyes. Although the things he said 'bout the Bullsquids are pretty much the exact same things the Bullsquid did in half life.

#5

Well i decided to cut the existing text by 50%, forgot to change the thread name though :3

I’m looking forward to see bullsquids and houndeyes back in source graphics, I kinda missed them in Half Life 2

#6

Fix’d.

#7

Really? I thought you’d have more than that to contribute to this thread, Captain Science.

also :facepalm:

#8

Ram, would you mind changing my user title to Captain Science? I rather like it.

#9

I agree. You’d be a fool not to use that title instead.

#10

Well, whatever works.

#11

Don’t forget the Combine are a combination of different conquered species, so perhaps it’s normal to see differences between them.

#12

I believe it would be Señor Ciencia (or Ciencio?).

#13

You could make enemies immune to each other damage, so they would attack each other, but not kill.

#14

Or change the ai to make headcrabs avoid barnacles. I don’t know what that would require coding wise, though

#15

•Barnacles consume anything their tongues touch. That much is clear.

•Bullsquids and Headcrabs are sworn enemies unless a greater threat comes into play (such as the player).

•Grunts and Xen aliens will attack each other regardless of the player entering the scenario.

Those are pretty much the only conflicting creatures in the game. Whether or not it’s changed is up to the devs.

#16

come to think of: Why are they sworn enemies? please don’t come up with food cause I’ve never seen the bullsquid eat a headcrab or anything

#17

War. War never changes.

#18

Thats mostly likely a result of 1998 GoldSource limitations - bullsquids definitely devour those little head-humping buggers with relish (although apparently not if the headcrab is hiding behind a crate at the time… :wink: ).

#19

If I were to venture a guess… I would say that it’s because Bullsquids were supposedly territorial creatures and seeing as Headcrabs plus Bullsquids both live in Xen, war would break out.

Oh damn, I would like to see how placing a couple of Bullsquids and the Gonarch together would play out :stuck_out_tongue:

Edit: @Max von Bek, I doubt their diets consist of headcrabs seeing as you teleport in front of a bunch of Bullsquids that were only drinking from the healing pools. I could be wrong though >_>

#20

You also see Bullsquids eating human corpses though.

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.