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Omega11

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Right, well, we were talkinga bout bomber in another thread. And then I started thinking of Mortar Synths (that you see in the end of HL2) and then asked.

"Why do the combine all of a sudden have a new group of Synths?"

Which sparked my theory that the combine have recently taken over a new planet, but I want to hear what you guys have come up with... Discuss...
 
They're not new, as far as we know they're not even from Earth.
 
They don't all of a sudden have a new Synth. Think about it. We've been in City 17 for 4 days, and Earth has been handed over to a more human based occupation force to manage the populace. At the end of Half-life 2 we only just began to see the backbone of the Combines forces...I'm sure there's alot more we haven't seen.

Also, Hunters are probably wasteland based.
 
MMM k, My guess was (because we don't see them in Half-Life 2, but we do see them on conveyor belts in the end) was that the combine had taken over a new world, studied the planet's species, then sent out the blue-prints for the synths. Eventually, they got around to making them. It could also be that they started building Striders and Synths first, rather than the other forces, maybe they're going down a list?
 
What exactly am I looking at??? I see a citidael, and some guy on that little board... that's about it :S
 
The Mortar Synths and Crab Synths aren't new; they simply haven't been deployed.
 
Its normal for armies to keep a secret weapon in reserve. In WWI, the Germans had chemical warfare. In WWII, the Soviets had rocket launchers, America had atomic bombs, Germany had assault rifles...everybody had a secret weapon in that war!
 
What exactly am I looking at??? I see a citidael, and some guy on that little board... that's about it :S
It's a sceen from Follow Freeman. You see a few rebels running across the walkway shown and some sort of wierd energy ball thingies hit them and explode.
 
So will we se those crabs in action??

...I WANT BOMBERS...

can someone picture that "bomber" wiht good graphic card...pleaseee!!
 
It's a sceen from Follow Freeman. You see a few rebels running across the walkway shown and some sort of wierd energy ball thingies hit them and explode.

I always saw that as a case of friendly fire. There's a Combine soldier up and in front of that rebel, on the rooftop... a rebel below launches a rocket at it, accidentally hits the bridge, and chaos ensues.

Or it could be an Elite's energy ball, hard to tell in the pic, but I always thought it was a rocket (You don't see Elites when you get there a minute later)

Certainly not a synth, what would it be if Valve were to let us see an enemy attack, and then not let us fight it?

It happens with the gunships, striders, headcrabs (that zombification guy in Route Kanal), metrocops, soldiers, antlions, etc.

Look where you first see those enemies attacking, they're attacking someone else so players have a good idea of their capabilities when they actually engage them.

Even the tentacle in Half-life 1, with that poor old scientists guy getting sliced.

My point is, it's not a synth.
 
no, there are probably hundreds on synths on earth. just that they have not been deployed or we have not seen them.
 
I think the Synths are for heavily armored posts rather than slaughtering a few rebels. The Crab Synths especially look rather slow, it just wouldn't be practical to deploy it simply to kill rebels. The same goes for the Mortar Synth, we don't know the extent of it's capabilities, perhaps it has much the same effect as an atomic bomb! Now we all know that Combine like to bomb their own cities with headcrabs but perhaps they didn't want to kill so many overwatch soldiers with something far more powerful.

I believe Synths are the creme de la creme of Combine forces so we just haven't seen any posts that are powerful enough (Or heavily defended enough) to even overcome a gunship. Perhaps with the destruction of the gunship in Little Odessa and the uprise of the rebellion we may see more of them. Also the arctic base in Ep 2 may warrant a synth for its destruction... we can always hope! :)
 
It's a sceen from Follow Freeman. You see a few rebels running across the walkway shown and some sort of wierd energy ball thingies hit them and explode.

I'm pretty damn sure those were rockets. I remember the rocket sound effect playing and everything...
 
it was most definitely a rocket. and i think the crab synth was the tank of the combine..

if you see the model viewer, it has a fully built engine with blue streaks on it, an ammo pack and one hell of a bunch of cannons..
 
Doesn't look like a rocket to me. Maybe someone else can get a better screenshot. I don't have HL2 installed ATM.
 
Yeah, me too...

I'm surprised no one brought up the Hunter, because, we've never seen it earlier, and it most likely has it's own purposes, most likely just in the forests and rebel bases (Project Up North).

Also, I thought you fight the crab and mortar synths in EP1??? never played that one yet so whatever, but, my bad. They're probably all gone now that the citidael has exploded. :( damn. . . In the mean time, what about that Bomber screeny?
 
What about the Bomber screeny?

It's blurry and Vague, classic Valve style.

And no other synths in Episode One.
Only new enemies are Zombine, Stalkers, and the advisers, sort of...
 
You can spawn Hunters in Episode One and fight them. Their AI is incomplete and they have no sounds and they're pretty tough, not to mention the lack of skin. So it isn't much fun. I tried it anyway, though, once.
 
I'd still want to fight them, those things look way too bad ass.
 
Can u noclip to the area where the mossman transmission comes from ... spawn a hunter ... take a screenshot ... and be like "ZOMG U DO GO TO TEH ARCTIC BASE IN EPISODE 2!!!11" ?
 
I'd still want to fight them, those things look way too bad ass.

Yep. Their ability to go into houses is going to add a whole new dimension to the combat. It also seems that you're going to have to get pretty good chucking things at them with the Gravity Gun.
 
Only if you're an idiot and watse your ammo (not you, Demo player)
It was awesome though when it's like, running at you, and you flash it in the eye with the flashlight, and it like, pulls back. Or when it's eye looked in two different directions! Awesome, fluid, spectacular, dark teal creature!
 
It's going to be very intense, fighting them. Really looking forward to it. :)
 
yes indeed. i love to see how the soldiers and hunters will work together. btw, i wonder how the hunter will be deployed. via dropships?

eh, i hope this doesn't count as spam, here is a small pic..

543942334_1b6ea8a3c5.jpg
 
eh, don't ask. continue with discussion on hunters. as i was asking, i wonder how they will be deployed..

headcrabs - shells
combine - dropships
strider - dropship
apc - dropship
rollermine - dropship
manhack - combine
hunter - dropship?
 
the striders, apcs, and rollermines are deployed by dropships? as far as i know we didnt see this anywhere in the game and u didnt even fight striders in the countryside in half-life2...u only see them in the city where they can just walk down the street from the citadel
 
You see striders being carried by a dropship during Episode One (Undue Alarm). Remember that dropship flying in a narrow corridor that crashes? Anyway I can't remember any specific time when we saw an APC being carried but that's what I always assumed was going on.
 
You can see APC's being carried during Route Kanal, IIRC.
 
You see striders being carried by a dropship during Episode One (Undue Alarm). Remember that dropship flying in a narrow corridor that crashes? Anyway I can't remember any specific time when we saw an APC being carried but that's what I always assumed was going on.

i think that was more of a ditch attempt to get the strider out of the citadel b4 it blows. in the screenshots from episode 2 u see the striders almost in an armored column on that bridge. im pretty sure they are going to white forest. why wouldnt they just bring them there in dropships? i dont really think they use them for striders normally.
 
In Follow Freeman, you see dropships carrying striders to the courtyard battle in front of the Nexus, and several times before too (when you first meet up with Barney again), at the sniper bit.

In Water Hazard, you see them carrying an APC, you can shoot it and the dropship will drop it.

As for rollermines, the first part of Sandtraps, with that rebel barricade battery puzzle, it drops 2 rollermines on the road, probably as a distraction from the Combine troops in the 2nd dropship.

I read somewhere that the Hunters will come in packs of 3, so maybe 3 per dropship?
 
I read somewhere that the Hunters will come in packs of 3, so maybe 3 per dropship?

I think you could fit alot more than that in a dropship, seeing as they appear to be about the size of a human even when fully stretched out. I think I could fit 12 of them in a dropship if they folded their legs up.
 
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