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Questions on Freeman's Durability

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What is that, ARMA? If you think ARMA is actually realistic, you're high. It just has crappy controls and a heavy camera bob that makes it look like 90% of your mass is in your head. The game's just an instant death fest otherwise where one bullet kills everything right away, and we've already covered why that's bullshit. It's about at realistic as Rainbow 6 otherwise, which is to say not at all.

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." -Stephen Colbert.

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It's ARMA3, which isn't 1-hit kill unless you headshot with high power, and don't glance off the helmet. Mostly 3-5 body shots, and then bleedout... (far more realistic than any other game out there) Did you even watch the video?

 

It's the most realistic game out there currently, apart from destructible objects. (you can't blow holes in the ground/rocks/buildings/etc. with nades/bombs/guns/etc., but that's a technology limitation)

Don't insult me. I have trained professionals to do that.

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What is that, ARMA? If you think ARMA is actually realistic, you're high. It just has crappy controls and a heavy camera bob that makes it look like 90% of your mass is in your head. The game's just an instant death fest otherwise where one bullet kills everything right away, and we've already covered why that's bullshit. It's about at realistic as Rainbow 6 otherwise, which is to say not at all.

Haha, I wouldn't be that harsh. If you don't think it's the most realistic shooter, what game would you nominate?

 

I like the head-camera bobbing, it feels smooth... well, not that I've played it.

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Well, I've only ever played ARMA II and it drives me fucking batty. I Only got it for Day Z anyway, but I figured if I was paying for it I might as well play the main game.

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." -Stephen Colbert.

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Hey, you did the exact same as me then! (I had the same reaction to the controls by the way)

Don't insult me. I have trained professionals to do that.

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Although on the other end, where Freeman kills everything super fast, it's total hogwash. Especially the HECU marines, who should be basically immune to most in-game hazards along with Freeman, and the Black Ops, who should be rather less durable but still more or less immune to shotguns and highly resistant to 9mm rounds. (NOT the other way around. Buckshot is LESS effective against armour than pistol ammunition. Freeman, I'm looking at you.)

 

Really, really old, I know, but...

 

I've found it easier to just assume that, in the "Freeman's Mind universe", the "MP5s" are actually HK53s, and Freeman just never noticed the difference since they look similar and he knows nothing about guns. That fixes the "why do the soldiers fold after only a few shots?" plot hole nicely enough. As for them being taken down by 9mm pistols and buckshot spewing shotguns... I dunno. I'll assume he's usually lucky enough to hit the face.

 

Are you saying you think the soldiers should be immune to the alien weaponry as well? Or at least Vortigaunt attacks? At least the thornets can possibly penetrate their armor or just poison them via their unarmored parts. The Vortigaunts may not even be throwing electricity at all now that I think about it. It's green, and Vorts in HL2 yell "Empower us!" or "Give us your essence!" in Half-Life 2, and the playable Vorts in Decay can heal themselves by damaging others. It might just be some pseudo-magical life draining beam that the HEV suit was specifically designed to protect against...

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Really, really old, I know, but...

 

I've found it easier to just assume that, in the "Freeman's Mind universe", the "MP5s" are actually HK53s, and Freeman just never noticed the difference since they look similar and he knows nothing about guns. That fixes the "why do the soldiers fold after only a few shots?" plot hole nicely enough.

 

Except now you're using a gun that could only stop a man who was sedated beforehand, and is still easily defeated by hard armour. The tiny 5.56mm bullets can, and will, be shattered into splinters by a hard armour plate without penetrating it. And there is hard plates of boron carbide in all military vests, protecting the chest and in particular the heart. Guess what the only part of the chest where a 5.56mm round can actually stop a man is? Oh, right, the heart. Also the only part of the chest where a medic can't do shit to save you if you get hit.

 

As for them being taken down by 9mm pistols and buckshot spewing shotguns... I dunno. I'll assume he's usually lucky enough to hit the face.

 

The footage says otherwise.

 

Are you saying you think the soldiers should be immune to the alien weaponry as well? Or at least Vortigaunt attacks?

 

Well, let's break it all down piece by piece.

 

At least the thornets can possibly penetrate their armor or just poison them via their unarmored parts.

 

To the former, "Not a hope in hell." and to the latter "It homes in on the chest, WHAT unarmored parts?"

 

The Vortigaunts may not even be throwing electricity at all now that I think about it. It's green, and Vorts in HL2 yell "Empower us!" or "Give us your essence!" in Half-Life 2, and the playable Vorts in Decay can heal themselves by damaging others. It might just be some pseudo-magical life draining beam that the HEV suit was specifically designed to protect against...

 

Unlikely, given that the game registers it as electrical damage. And electricity can totally be green, if the air contains the right chemicals and the bolt the right energy. (There's a right energy level for every chemical composition.) Basically, the more energetic the bolt the more blue-shifted the resultant light, though the centre of the bolt will always look white. All green means is it's more energetic than yellow electricity and less energetic than blue electricity.

 

As for the damage it does to targets, it should be one of only two weapons of the alien military capable of hurting human soldiers that isn't a melee weapon. (The vortigaunt claws and grunt melee could do it through blunt trauma.) An instant kill it likely is not, but the heat and blast from the electricity hitting their armour would likely stun them and cause considerable lung trauma, so a few consecutive shots would be fatal.

 

As for the others:

 

Headcrab:

Useless, no way a creature that size can bite hard enough to breach the helmet. Only the marines with berets are in any danger, and even then only if they let it get to their head. In fact, headcrabs in general should be useless. They'd never manage to latch on to somebody's head and if they did they'd be shifted off by the person's reflexes before they could bite, then killed barehanded in all of a second.

 

Houndeye:

Could injure them, possibly seriously, but it seems unlikely since the houndeye lets out that blast without hurting itself that it could have that kind of power and it's more likely to just knock the wind out of them then get shot a dozen times.

 

Bullsquid:

The bite could be harmful, maybe. But the poison spit would be unlikely to do anything since these troops are specifically meant to combat CBRN threats and their armour would likely be impermeable. Except for the idiots not wearing their helmets, they're just generally screwed.

 

Gargantua:

The marines are screwed if this thing attacks them. The fire might not kill them right away, it could easily take a while to bring them to a stop, but that just makes it an even more horrific way to go, and the melee attacks are so damned powerful there's no way they're surviving it.

 

Tentacle:

Ditto.

 

You know, I did make a mod that shows how I think it would work... Or at least is a rough approximation of it as well as the game can do it, and I put links up to it in the Valve games section of the site.

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." -Stephen Colbert.

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Except now you're using a gun that could only stop a man who was sedated beforehand, and is still easily defeated by hard armour. The tiny 5.56mm bullets can, and will, be shattered into splinters by a hard armour plate without penetrating it. And there is hard plates of boron carbide in all military vests, protecting the chest and in particular the heart. Guess what the only part of the chest where a 5.56mm round can actually stop a man is? Oh, right, the heart. Also the only part of the chest where a medic can't do shit to save you if you get hit.

 

They're still rifle rounds, and can kill with repeated hits, rather than just doing nothing like pistol bullets. It's not exactly realistic for soldiers to drop that quickly, but more so than soldiers in full body armor getting taken down by an MP5. Plus, he typically shoots his enemies a lot, and isn't most hard body armor only designed to stop a few hits?

 

The footage says otherwise.

 

Sometimes, but not always. Half-Life doesn't render specifically where the bullet hit, so for all we know Freeman can be getting some lucky hits in the FM-verse.

 

To the former, "Not a hope in hell." and to the latter "It homes in on the chest, WHAT unarmored parts?"

 

Why? They're alien hornets. We don't know how they work.

 

They don't specifically home in one the chest IIRC, they just home in anywhere. They might just home in on the arms or neck or legs. Also, even if they do that in-game, there's no guarantee that they always have to home in on the chest in-universe.

 

Unlikely, given that the game registers it as electrical damage. And electricity can totally be green, if the air contains the right chemicals and the bolt the right energy. (There's a right energy level for every chemical composition.) Basically, the more energetic the bolt the more blue-shifted the resultant light, though the centre of the bolt will always look white. All green means is it's more energetic than yellow electricity and less energetic than blue electricity.

 

As for the damage it does to targets, it should be one of only two weapons of the alien military capable of hurting human soldiers that isn't a melee weapon. (The vortigaunt claws and grunt melee could do it through blunt trauma.) An instant kill it likely is not, but the heat and blast from the electricity hitting their armour would likely stun them and cause considerable lung trauma, so a few consecutive shots would be fatal.

 

I know that the game classifies it as electrical damage, I'm just saying that in light of later games, it may have been retconned into something else.

 

Bullsquid:

The bite could be harmful, maybe. But the poison spit would be unlikely to do anything since these troops are specifically meant to combat CBRN threats and their armour would likely be impermeable. Except for the idiots not wearing their helmets, they're just generally screwed.

 

Their tail strike is pretty disproportionately powerful as well. It can launch and gib people in game, so I guess bullsquids are really, really strong. I'll never know how the ones in On A Rail managed to slaughter so many troops alone though.

 

Gargantua:

The marines are screwed if this thing attacks them. The fire might not kill them right away, it could easily take a while to bring them to a stop, but that just makes it an even more horrific way to go, and the melee attacks are so damned powerful there's no way they're surviving it.

 

It should also be pointed out that it has more health than an Abrams tank in game...

 

As for the damage it does to targets, it should be one of only two weapons of the alien military capable of hurting human soldiers that isn't a melee weapon. (The vortigaunt claws and grunt melee could do it through blunt trauma.) An instant kill it likely is not, but the heat and blast from the electricity hitting their armour would likely stun them and cause considerable lung trauma, so a few consecutive shots would be fatal.

 

I think it's very plausible that the thornets could do what they're shown to do when you take into account that we know so little about them. They're probably super durable and super poisonous. Not exactly an ideal weapon, but effective enough here. Grunts and Vorts are also shown punching right through steel doors and concrete, so I have no doubt they could decapitate a human with a strike.

 

You know, I did make a mod that shows how I think it would work... Or at least is a rough approximation of it as well as the game can do it, and I put links up to it in the Valve games section of the site.

 

Interesting. I'll check it out. But again, I think you might be underestimating the thornets a bit in terms of pure damage.

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They're still rifle rounds, and can kill with repeated hits, rather than just doing nothing like pistol bullets. It's not exactly realistic for soldiers to drop that quickly, but more so than soldiers in full body armor getting taken down by an MP5.

 

I didn't say it wasn't a step up, I just said it still wasn't realistic. Especially since the bullets are going to fail pretty spectacularly to penetrate into the chest because of the boron carbide trauma plates.

 

Plus, he typically shoots his enemies a lot, and isn't most hard body armor only designed to stop a few hits?

 

A few hits from something bigger, but from a 5.56, there just isn't enough damage being done. Especially since, believe it or not, the *shards* of broken boron carbide plates will stop a 5.56. It just isn't big enough, the bullet can't withstand the impact at all. A ten-second Google search will turn up civilian-legal plates that will hold up to a dozen hits.

 

Sometimes, but not always. Half-Life doesn't render specifically where the bullet hit, so for all we know Freeman can be getting some lucky hits in the FM-verse.

 

You can see the inexplicable tracers, and where his gun is generally pointing.

 

Why? They're alien hornets. We don't know how they work.

 

We know they'd have to pierce, chew or claw through kevlar and chainmail to penetrate the armour of the marines. At their speed and size that's simply not possible.

 

They don't specifically home in one the chest IIRC, they just home in anywhere. They might just home in on the arms or neck or legs. Also, even if they do that in-game, there's no guarantee that they always have to home in on the chest in-universe.

 

Except we do see them homing in specifically for the chest. Both in-game and in Freeman's Mind, they home in on the chest.

 

I know that the game classifies it as electrical damage, I'm just saying that in light of later games, it may have been retconned into something else.

 

And you're against accepting it as electricity and chocking the rest up to their religion? That's how I've been handling it. Besides, for all we know, the electricity is flowing out from the targets to them, which would explain everything you mentioned and still do plenty of damage.

 

Their tail strike is pretty disproportionately powerful as well. It can launch and gib people in game, so I guess bullsquids are really, really strong. I'll never know how the ones in On A Rail managed to slaughter so many troops alone though.

 

The gibbing is just a gameplay mechanic that wasn't handled right, you can gib somebody with pretty ridiculous weapons in-game and we can't use it as an example.

 

It should also be pointed out that it has more health than an Abrams tank in game...

 

You know, I didn't even know it was vulnerable until I started modding Half-Life.

 

I think it's very plausible that the thornets could do what they're shown to do when you take into account that we know so little about them. They're probably super durable and super poisonous. Not exactly an ideal weapon, but effective enough here.

 

Except it's just not physically possible for something that small and that light to penetrate layers of kevlar and chainmail.

 

Grunts and Vorts are also shown punching right through steel doors and concrete, so I have no doubt they could decapitate a human with a strike.

 

Okay, two flaws with this. One is that Black Mesa falls apart on its own so that's not as impressive as you think, two is that a human neck is pretty obscenely durable so that would take a lot more than you think. Granted, they are likely very strong and do plenty of damage, I certainly gave them a lot of power in my mod, but it seems unlikely they're *that* strong.

 

Interesting. I'll check it out. But again, I think you might be underestimating the thornets a bit in terms of pure damage.

 

For the record, I know it says it works in Source and it does partially, but the original Half-Life was better than the incredibly lazy remake (in terms of gameplay features, at least) because when they remade it the new version lacked GoldSrc-exclusive features and didn't add any new ones. It turned out to be much better for modding, so if you have the GoldSrc version use that. Or, better yet, play my mod of Black Mesa, which actually makes use of Source's new features.

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." -Stephen Colbert.

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A few hits from something bigger, but from a 5.56, there just isn't enough damage being done. Especially since, believe it or not, the *shards* of broken boron carbide plates will stop a 5.56. It just isn't big enough, the bullet can't withstand the impact at all. A ten-second Google search will turn up civilian-legal plates that will hold up to a dozen hits.

 

I know that such armor exists, I was just under the impression that not every soldier would be wearing that much. Anyway, how many bullets would you say it would take for a 5.56 rifle to "get through" standard military body armor whenever HL is set, around late 90s/early 2000s?

 

You can see the inexplicable tracers, and where his gun is generally pointing.

 

I never recall that being enough for me to see exactly where the bullet hit, especially at long (for the game) range.

 

We know they'd have to pierce, chew or claw through kevlar and chainmail to penetrate the armour of the marines. At their speed and size that's simply not possible.

 

They could also use acid. Keep in mind that their speed is likely just a gameplay convenience, like HL2's powerful but unrealistically slow crossbow. Also note how the soldiers in Half-Life fold to about ten 9mm or 5.56 rounds, yet can also take several shots from an M2 Browning or even autocannon before going down.

 

Except we do see them homing in specifically for the chest. Both in-game and in Freeman's Mind, they home in on the chest.

 

Most of the time, yeah, but it's plausible that in-universe they could be hitting other spots.

 

And you're against accepting it as electricity and chocking the rest up to their religion? That's how I've been handling it. Besides, for all we know, the electricity is flowing out from the targets to them, which would explain everything you mentioned and still do plenty of damage.

 

They have actually demonstrated supernatural powers, so it's not just their religion. I also don't know that the explanation you proposed would heal them from bullet wounds, like their attacks are shown to do in Decay, but to each their own.

 

The gibbing is just a gameplay mechanic that wasn't handled right, you can gib somebody with pretty ridiculous weapons in-game and we can't use it as an example.

 

So why is them gibbing enemies just excused as a gameplay mechanic while thronets mostly hitting the torso isn't?

 

Freeman himself can only gib with the experimental weapons and explosives.

 

Okay, two flaws with this. One is that Black Mesa falls apart on its own so that's not as impressive as you think, two is that a human neck is pretty obscenely durable so that would take a lot more than you think. Granted, they are likely very strong and do plenty of damage, I certainly gave them a lot of power in my mod, but it seems unlikely they're *that* strong.

 

That's a rather weak excuse considering they are consistently shown to be that strong (e.g. a Grunt opens a set of heavy blasts doors with his bare hands). I highly doubt the human neck is more durable than the steel and concrete barriers that the aliens repeatedly and effortlessly smash through.

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I know that such armor exists, I was just under the impression that not every soldier would be wearing that much. Anyway, how many bullets would you say it would take for a 5.56 rifle to "get through" standard military body armor whenever HL is set, around late 90s/early 2000s?

 

More than anything a civilian could ever buy. As in, more than the twelve I just mentioned. Civilians are strongly restricted from purchasing quality body armour just like they are weapons. Even if we assume the same strength, although the military would call those plates "light", that's still a dozen 5.56mm bullets. And yes, those are "light" plates that can stop a dozen bullets. That is totally a thing.

 

I never recall that being enough for me to see exactly where the bullet hit, especially at long (for the game) range.

 

Then my eyes are just sharper than yours.

 

They could also use acid.

 

Even worse explanation. See, in reality, there is no magical super-powered movie acid that dissolves all of everything in seconds. In reality, acid takes a damned long while and materials that are chemically different react differently. Acids that can dissolve metal are frequently more or less useless against flesh, for instance. No acid in this world can eat through both kevlar and metal, much less kevlar, metal and flesh. Even if they could, chemical reactions are just NOT that fast.

 

Keep in mind that their speed is likely just a gameplay convenience, like HL2's powerful but unrealistically slow crossbow.

 

Keep in mind they're living creatures and there's a limit to how fast a living thing can move. Even if they're being launched the acceleration would kill them if they were moving fast enough to penetrate armour, even if it didn't the impact certainly would.

 

Also note how the soldiers in Half-Life fold to about ten 9mm or 5.56 rounds, yet can also take several shots from an M2 Browning or even autocannon before going down.

 

And this doesn't apply as an argument. The game's health system is unrealistic, no shit.

 

Most of the time, yeah, but it's plausible that in-universe they could be hitting other spots.

 

Could hit, yes. But that doesn't change where they home in on, and where they home in on is the place they are by far the most likely to hit.

 

They have actually demonstrated supernatural powers, so it's not just their religion. I also don't know that the explanation you proposed would heal them from bullet wounds, like their attacks are shown to do in Decay, but to each their own.

 

Likely in the same way they healed Alex's puncture and bludgeoning wounds in episode 2, just without the fancy visual effects.

 

So why is them gibbing enemies just excused as a gameplay mechanic while thronets mostly hitting the torso isn't?

 

Freeman himself can only gib with the experimental weapons and explosives.

 

Because gibbing makes NO sense from a physics perspective and just about all the weapons that do it in-game are completely incapable of such in real life. A hand grenade is NOT that powerful, or anywhere even remotely close to approaching sort-of not really resembling a level similar to that powerful, a 40mm grenade is even less powerful. Neither of them is capable of even taking off a limb in real life. If a grenade went off in your hand you would lose your bare hand, and likely most of your upper arm, but no other part of your body would be severed. Yet in-game it blasts an entire fully-armoured human body into little giblets. That is physically impossible. There is no chemical explosive powerful enough to make it possible. Gibbing is done in Half-Life because they couldn't do complex wound graphics like severed or mangled limbs and somebody being totally intact after being, say, crushed by a giant chunk of concrete or being hit with artillery would be ridiculous. It's purely a visual effect, moreover the result of a technical limitation, and should be completely ignored at all times.

 

That's a rather weak excuse considering they are consistently shown to be that strong (e.g. a Grunt opens a set of heavy blasts doors with his bare hands).

 

Are you assuming they're locked? Because if they're not locked that's just "super-human", not "hulk-like". You could roll open doors that heavy manually with a couple guys.

 

I highly doubt the human neck is more durable than the steel and concrete barriers that the aliens repeatedly and effortlessly smash through.

 

You're using the word "repeatedly" wrong. A vortigaunt does it once, a grunt does it twice. And for the vort, it's not even close to effortless.

 

And a human neck doesn't need to be as strong as steel or concrete. (And for the record, sinew is as strong as iron and the neck is mostly made of sinew.) It just needs to not be locked in place. See, the human body owes a big part of its durability to its low weight, when it gets hit it just moves away from the hit and takes a LOT less damage as a result. This is why being punched in the face is painful, but being punched in the face while your head is against the ground is LETHAL. I don't doubt they could do a lot of damage, even with the grunt's ridiculously broad arms distributing the force over a huge area, but decapitation is essentially impossible with a blunt weapon strike because of the way the human body is built.

 

And the funny thing is that Newton's first and third laws basically mean super strength is a WORTHLESS power. Seriously, if they had the strength to break concrete walls or smash down steel doors, the first law says that once they accelerated like that (which is ALL strength does) they would stay in motion and that means they'd be throwing themselves. And that's assuming they could use it in the first place, and there's NO way they could ever use it since there's no surface that would ever provide enough traction for them to exert that much force without slipping and falling. Third law says the opposite force has to go somewhere, once you exceed your own inertia you need to rely on traction and there just isn't enough. Sorry, super strength can never be a useful power, physics won't allow it.

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." -Stephen Colbert.

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More than anything a civilian could ever buy. As in, more than the twelve I just mentioned.

 

Armor that could let the user take a dozen rifle bullets before folding was standard in the US military in the late 90s? I was under the impression that such armor being standardized happened around 2004.

 

Even worse explanation. See, in reality, there is no magical super-powered movie acid that dissolves all of everything in seconds. In reality, acid takes a damned long while and materials that are chemically different react differently. Acids that can dissolve metal are frequently more or less useless against flesh, for instance. No acid in this world can eat through both kevlar and metal, much less kevlar, metal and flesh. Even if they could, chemical reactions are just NOT that fast.

 

I know that. But the aliens aren't of this world, and we don't know what they have. The time it takes for soldiers to die is abridged for gameplay convenience. Same thing with bullets.

 

Keep in mind they're living creatures and there's a limit to how fast a living thing can move. Even if they're being launched the acceleration would kill them if they were moving fast enough to penetrate armour, even if it didn't the impact certainly would.

 

They DO die after impacting their target...

 

And this doesn't apply as an argument. The game's health system is unrealistic, no shit.

 

That was just me pointing out that what happens in the game world isn't necessarily the same thing that happens in gameplay.

 

Could hit, yes. But that doesn't change where they home in on, and where they home in on is the place they are by far the most likely to hit.

 

In gameplay.

 

Likely in the same way they healed Alex's puncture and bludgeoning wounds in episode 2, just without the fancy visual effects.

 

Antlion extract and magic?

 

Because gibbing makes NO sense from a physics perspective and just about all the weapons that do it in-game are completely incapable of such in real life. A hand grenade is NOT that powerful, or anywhere even remotely close to approaching sort-of not really resembling a level similar to that powerful, a 40mm grenade is even less powerful. Neither of them is capable of even taking off a limb in real life. If a grenade went off in your hand you would lose your bare hand, and likely most of your upper arm, but no other part of your body would be severed. Yet in-game it blasts an entire fully-armoured human body into little giblets. That is physically impossible. There is no chemical explosive powerful enough to make it possible. Gibbing is done in Half-Life because they couldn't do complex wound graphics like severed or mangled limbs and somebody being totally intact after being, say, crushed by a giant chunk of concrete or being hit with artillery would be ridiculous. It's purely a visual effect, moreover the result of a technical limitation, and should be completely ignored at all times.

 

I know that. But I don't see why this particular unrealistic aspect is excused while thornets appearing to hit the torso most of the time in-game absolutely has to be the case.

 

Are you assuming they're locked? Because if they're not locked that's just "super-human", not "hulk-like". You could roll open doors that heavy manually with a couple guys.

 

I was.

 

You're using the word "repeatedly" wrong. A vortigaunt does it once, a grunt does it twice. And for the vort, it's not even close to effortless.

 

I was counting the expansions, where we get other scenes of this happening, like Vorts destroying a concrete wall in Opposing Force, or Grunts smashing more crap like that in Decay.

 

And a human neck doesn't need to be as strong as steel or concrete. (And for the record, sinew is as strong as iron and the neck is mostly made of sinew.) It just needs to not be locked in place. See, the human body owes a big part of its durability to its low weight, when it gets hit it just moves away from the hit and takes a LOT less damage as a result. This is why being punched in the face is painful, but being punched in the face while your head is against the ground is LETHAL. I don't doubt they could do a lot of damage, even with the grunt's ridiculously broad arms distributing the force over a huge area, but decapitation is essentially impossible with a blunt weapon strike because of the way the human body is built.

 

I was thinking that the Vorts with their super strength and claws could actually decapitate people, while the Grunts could "only" kill or cripple people in a single hit. They're ridiculously, almost cartoonishly strong. Also note that, if anything in Black Mesa is built to last, it's the walls/doors.

 

And the funny thing is that Newton's first and third laws basically mean super strength is a WORTHLESS power. Seriously, if they had the strength to break concrete walls or smash down steel doors, the first law says that once they accelerated like that (which is ALL strength does) they would stay in motion and that means they'd be throwing themselves. And that's assuming they could use it in the first place, and there's NO way they could ever use it since there's no surface that would ever provide enough traction for them to exert that much force without slipping and falling. Sorry, super strength can never be a useful power, physics won't allow it.

 

There might be some magic involved here, at least with the Vorts, due to the weird powers they often show. Though the more likely explanation is that no one was thinking of this and just thought it would be cool to have the Vortigaunt smash through a steel door to introduce himself. The Grunts are about seven feet tall and really broad. That wouldn't let them punch through concrete, but combined with their physiology it would still make them pretty strong.

 

Then my eyes are just sharper than yours.

 

Actually, looking back, I don't see any tracers being fired out of the pistol or shotgun at all. Or at least not ones that are easily visible, in these videos OR in the game. So yep, I'm still assuming he gets lucky and hits the face or other unarmored part.

Edited by Guest (see edit history)

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Armor that could let the user take a dozen rifle bullets before folding was standard in the US military in the late 90s? I was under the impression that such armor being standardized happened around 2004.

 

The game is set in the 2000s.

 

I know that. But the aliens aren't of this world, and we don't know what they have. The time it takes for soldiers to die is abridged for gameplay convenience. Same thing with bullets.

 

Problem is, they'd still need to have something physically possible. And something that could eat through materials that varied is already impossible, then doing it fast enough for it to mean anything is even more impossible.

 

They DO die after impacting their target...

 

But they need to survive the impact to make it through the armour. I'm not just talking about their life, I'm talking about their body, and the armour is tougher than they many, many times over. There's no speed at which they'll penetrate because they could never survive an impact even close to that hard.

 

That was just me pointing out that what happens in the game world isn't necessarily the same thing that happens in gameplay.

 

And it's still not an argument.

 

In gameplay.

 

If gameplay is all you have as a source, and it is, then it's what you go with. They home in on the chest in gameplay and there's nothing contradicting it, therefore they home in on the chest. By your logic, maybe the thornets are bright green. They aren't in-game, but if you can ignore gameplay when there's nothing contradicting it then they can be bright green just as easily as they could home in on parts other than the chest.

 

Antlion extract and magic?

 

They stated directly they can heal wounds without extract, hers were just too severe. Maybe they'd be using the electricity they drain from targets to power that healing magic crap. Or maybe Decay is just a non-canon DLC and nothing in it matters.

 

I know that. But I don't see why this particular unrealistic aspect is excused while thornets appearing to hit the torso most of the time in-game absolutely has to be the case.

 

Because there's NOTHING to contradict the thornets homing in on the chest, and there's PLENTY to contradict gibbing. That's the important part.

 

I was.

 

If the doors were locked they could not possibly open them no matter how strong they were as their arms would not hold up to the force. They're clearly not durable enough to withstand breaking the locks because you can hurt them with bullets. Breaking the locks would also be extremely loud. They opened them, therefore they were not locked.

 

I was counting the expansions, where we get other scenes of this happening, like Vorts destroying a concrete wall in Opposing Force, or Grunts smashing more crap like that in Decay.

 

Assuming those are even canon, there's not much doubt about Opposing Force or Blue Shift but Decay is unlikely to be canon and we know Uplink is non-canon, you can't rely too much on visual effects in-game because all the ones shown are clearly physically impossible. Like objects being smashed into pieces bigger than the original object, that's a common one. Or just being smashed like that instead of crushed to begin with. Like with gibbing, it's unlikely to be representing something as spectacular as the visual effect given.

 

I was thinking that the Vorts with their super strength and claws could actually decapitate people, while the Grunts could "only" kill or cripple people in a single hit. They're ridiculously, almost cartoonishly strong. Also note that, if anything in Black Mesa is built to last, it's the walls/doors.

 

Vortigaunts have tiny, tiny claws that account for little here regardless of strength. No amount of force will make those decapitate.

 

There might be some magic involved here, at least with the Vorts, due to the weird powers they often show. Though the more likely explanation is that no one was thinking of this and just thought it would be cool to have the Vortigaunt smash through a steel door to introduce himself. The Grunts are about seven feet tall and really broad. That wouldn't let them punch through concrete, but combined with their physiology it would still make them pretty strong.

 

They have magic-looking powers, therefore can do anything, is a non-starter argument. It's more likely they just had it happen without thinking because the first Half-Life had, like, NO thought put into it at any point. And even with their strength, the grunt's arms are just too broad. It'd be like getting hit by a speeding moped. Sure, it'd do a lot of damage, but it's not fully incapacitating much less an instant kill and you could defend against it pretty well by just putting your arms out and pushing down, then you'd just get thrown and most of the damage would be from the fall and not the impact.

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." -Stephen Colbert.

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The game is set in the 2000s.

 

Wasn't that only stated in the PS2 game manual? Regardless, we don't know when in the 2000s.

 

Problem is, they'd still need to have something physically possible. And something that could eat through materials that varied is already impossible, then doing it fast enough for it to mean anything is even more impossible.

 

I guess you're right. But keep in mind that this wouldn't be the only physically impossible thing we've seen from aliens in this series.

 

But they need to survive the impact to make it through the armour. I'm not just talking about their life, I'm talking about their body, and the armour is tougher than they many, many times over. There's no speed at which they'll penetrate because they could never survive an impact even close to that hard.

 

By that do you mean that their body will shatter before it damages the armor in any way? Because the thornet doesn't have to survive the hit (and it doesn't). In Black Mess, it explodes upon hitting the enemy, and does damage presumably via Xenomorph style acid "blood". That's been my head canon for how they work in HL for a while now.

 

And it's still not an argument.

 

It is, because you keep insisting that the thornets have to be hitting a certain spot.

 

If gameplay is all you have as a source, and it is, then it's what you go with. They home in on the chest in gameplay and there's nothing contradicting it, therefore they home in on the chest. By your logic, maybe the thornets are bright green. They aren't in-game, but if you can ignore gameplay when there's nothing contradicting it then they can be bright green just as easily as they could home in on parts other than the chest.

 

Because there's NOTHING to contradict the thornets homing in on the chest, and there's PLENTY to contradict gibbing. That's the important part.

 

The fact that it kills the soldiers contradicts your logic that they impact the armor and don't do anything.

 

They stated directly they can heal wounds without extract, hers were just too severe. Maybe they'd be using the electricity they drain from targets to power that healing magic crap. Or maybe Decay is just a non-canon DLC and nothing in it matters.

 

I don't like to assume something as non canon if it doesn't contradict anything, especially when the Vorts' lines in HL2 support their attacks working like that.

 

Assuming those are even canon, there's not much doubt about Opposing Force or Blue Shift but Decay is unlikely to be canon and we know Uplink is non-canon, you can't rely too much on visual effects in-game because all the ones shown are clearly physically impossible. Like objects being smashed into pieces bigger than the original object, that's a common one. Or just being smashed like that instead of crushed to begin with. Like with gibbing, it's unlikely to be representing something as spectacular as the visual effect given.

 

By your logic then, nothing we saw happen actually happened. Even if they're impossible, scripted sequences are not game play, they can't be so easily dismissed, graphical limitations aside.

 

Vortigaunts have tiny, tiny claws that account for little here regardless of strength. No amount of force will make those decapitate.

 

Their claws are rather large in the first Half-Life.

 

They have magic-looking powers, therefore can do anything, is a non-starter argument. It's more likely they just had it happen without thinking because the first Half-Life had, like, NO thought put into it at any point. And even with their strength, the grunt's arms are just too broad. It'd be like getting hit by a speeding moped. Sure, it'd do a lot of damage, but it's not fully incapacitating much less an instant kill and you could defend against it pretty well by just putting your arms out and pushing down, then you'd just get thrown and most of the damage would be from the fall and not the impact.

 

I'd file the Grunts' cartoonish proportions under "graphical limitations". In-universe, the scripted sequences, as well as their melee damage in-game compared to other weapons, shows them to be much stronger than you seem to think.

 

They don't just have magic-looking powers, they continually do things that should be outright impossible.

Edited by Guest (see edit history)

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I thought of something that might account for the damage the hornets do... Impact it could cause them to release an amount of white/red phosphorous... Would be able to cause significant damage, even through most armor plates.

Don't insult me. I have trained professionals to do that.

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