This thought popped into my head this morning..

[kacation_man]

This is an occurrence in many games.. but the exploding barrels... what is in them and why are they in so much of an abundance that they are all throughout the half life world?

what is the material in them that makes them explosive? I would not assume gasoline... one should think its to precious of a resource to just stash in random places..

all hte barrels are marked the same, they must be coming from the same source..


while im sure all of this has absolutely nothing to do with any of the story what so ever and its just a tool/weapon added into the game by valve to make it fun to blow shit up with the gravity gun.. I still had to wonder why it was the same kind of explosive barrels are placed all through out the half life world...

just a random thought..

i suppose this could have been something to work into the story, but i would think its far to late for that maybe.. idk, valve had done some pretty impressive stuff..

 

[kineaesth]

 

[Reflex]

Where'd you find that?

EDIT: Nvm i figured it was www.notmydesk.com

 

[kacation_man]

hahah

works for me

 

[Acepilotf14]

Concerned is always awesome.
Also, mythbusters already busted that you can't make a barrel(filled with explosive substances) explode with small arms fire.
At the very least you need a machine gun with incinerated rounds.

 

[kacation_man]

i was going to mention that.. but we are also playing around in a world filled with portals gravity deifying weapons.. so i put that aside.

 

[NamelessHenchman]

Concerned is always awesome.
Also, mythbusters already busted that you can't make a barrel(filled with explosive substances) explode with small arms fire.
At the very least you need a machine gun with incinerated rounds.

Did they test that on a metal barrel? Because, you know, the episode I saw them do it showed them shooting just a plastic can full of gasoline(or something like that) and imho you'd need to shoot up more an' a few metal barrels containing stuff that a spark could ignite.

Not arguing that it's all that plausible, just sayin' because Mythbusters "bust" something, it can't happen..

And I yea, the barrel placement of Hl2 has Doom written all over it. Not that I'd complain, it gives player the chance to set off some pretty impressive physics explosions..

 

[kacation_man]

mythbusters isnt always accurate, i remember seeing an episode where they tried to blow up a car by firing assault rifles at its gas tank, which was a plastic gas tank..

not to mention they did a test once to see if the "myth" about cds "blowing up" in a cd drive was true or false, they "busted" it, but thats complete BS because I have actually done it before with a really old cd drive, we where to lazy to try and clean all the shattered pieces out of the CD drive so we just threw it out ( when i say we i mean me and my dad )

 

[Tagaziel]

They tested if it could explode AND WOUND A HUMAN

Selective memory FTL, you twat.

 

[kacation_man]

whatever : /

 

[Adabiviak]

Explosive barrels are a given part of any good FPS infrastructure. I miss them whenever I play a game that doesn't have them.

 

[Shift]

Because its a game.

 

[kacation_man]

Explosive barrels are a given part of any good FPS infrastructure. I miss them whenever I play a game that doesn't have them.

this is true to a degree.. i can live with out them... I'd prefer a game to have no explosive barrels over explosive barrels that either take to long to blow up, take a lot of ammo to ignite/explode, or blow up far to easily.

 

[ríomhaire]

Concerned is always awesome.
Also, mythbusters already busted that you can't make a barrel(filled with explosive substances) explode with small arms fire.
At the very least you need a machine gun with incinerated rounds.

Didn't they get it to blow up using tracer rounds?

 

[kacation_man]

that'd be a long shot i should think.

 

[Maestro]

Concerned is always awesome.
Also, mythbusters already busted that you can't make a barrel(filled with explosive substances) explode with small arms fire.
At the very least you need a machine gun with incinerated rounds.

*Cough* Incendiary.

As for the sparking on metallic objects that's also a non-possible. Copper doesn't spark.

The short answer for what I'm about to say is: it's a game, and it's a cool game mechanic. Read further if you would like an in-depth explanation.

No, tracer rounds wouldn't do it. For something like gasoline to explode (I exclude crude oil because it doesn't blow up like that) you need a proper fuel-air mixture to ignite it. It has to be gasoline because diesel doesn't explode except under high compression, and gasoline floats which, last I checked, the only thing that blows up and floats and is found in drums is gasoline.

To go into a further analysis, gasoline needs to be in vapor form to explode. Simply hitting a barrely (even with tracers) would not do this. At the most it would be a stream from the puncture that would give off small amounts of vapor (though nowhere near enough to make an explosion as spectacular as the one in HL2). So thus it can't blow up unless you were to open the drum, poor it out, and then ignite it with a flame.

So the long answer's conclusion is: it's a game, and it's a cool game mechanic.

 

[Cpt Tenacious]

Not like we haven't seen this thread 9001 times.

 

[ríomhaire]

*Cough* Incendiary.

As for the sparking on metallic objects that's also a non-possible. Copper doesn't spark.

The short answer for what I'm about to say is: it's a game, and it's a cool game mechanic. Read further if you would like an in-depth explanation.

No, tracer rounds wouldn't do it. For something like gasoline to explode (I exclude crude oil because it doesn't blow up like that) you need a proper fuel-air mixture to ignite it. It has to be gasoline because diesel doesn't explode except under high compression, and gasoline floats which, last I checked, the only thing that blows up and floats and is found in drums is gasoline.

To go into a further analysis, gasoline needs to be in vapor form to explode. Simply hitting a barrely (even with tracers) would not do this. At the most it would be a stream from the puncture that would give off small amounts of vapor (though nowhere near enough to make an explosion as spectacular as the one in HL2). So thus it can't blow up unless you were to open the drum, poor it out, and then ignite it with a flame.

What if there is vapour in the barrel?

 

[kacation_man]

this had gotten a little out of hand.. i was simply interested as to why the same barrel containing the same substance was scared throughout all of the half life universe, despite the fact that i knew it was a simple game mechanic. not as to how it could explode... i think thats a pointless argument because there are far far far to many variable to play with in that situation.

 

[half-ben]

The g-man planted the barrels there to aid gordon in exploding them and sometimes dying when a combine soldier rolls one on to him when it's on fire