Mortar Synths *spoilers*

ríomhaire

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I have watched little pre-release footage of HL2. But I have checked "ent_show_responce_criteria"ed the things you see on the way to Breen's office.
Big ones = Crab Syths
Small ones = Cyclers (Or something like that)
I thought that there were supposed to be Mortar Synths. It would help if anyone had a pic.
 
A 'Cycler' is an entity used to show the animations of a model. As there are no entities for Crab and Mortar Synth in HL2, they used Cyclers, with the model attached to it.
They are Mortar Synth, though.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Thank you for clarifiying that for me. How were they supposed to attack?
 
I think they lobbed Dark Energy 'shells' out of that 'catapult' thing on there backs, maybe an acid attack close up. However that is purely conjecture supported by absolutely nothing whatsoever. makes sense though ;).
 
Jandor said:
I think they lobbed Dark Energy 'shells' out of that 'catapult' thing on there backs, maybe an acid attack close up. However that is purely conjecture supported by absolutely nothing whatsoever. makes sense though ;).
Or headrcab bombs. Which doesn't make as much sense as your theory, granted but still...
 
Isnt there some sort of minigun on its chin?... (Speakin from memory.. may be wrong). If you look in the SDK you can see its attack animations and stuff =)
 
i have no clue what yous are talking about. Could someone take a screenie for me?
 
I think Mortar Synths would catapult energy orbs or such at their enemies. The Crab Synths seem to do a head-on charge at the enemy. They also have some kind of minigun attached to them, I beleive.
 
Theres animations for both of them in SDK. Crab thing kinda looks it runs towards out, and Mortar looks like... well, mortar. You cant tell what is it shooting though.
 
They have what appears to be a gun on their head and a little cockpit for someone to sit in perhaps? or maybe thats just machinery, but i do remeber one of its animations was to charge. So i guess it could be similar to an antlion guard, with a spear on the front (if it isnt a gun). Just speculation now.
 
In my view Crab Synths were like tanks, with the minigun and charge attack, whilst Mortar Synths would have been the back up artillery, firing from afar, thus no need for such a large build and armour. I could never get Mortar Synths or Crab Synths in a map for some reason, has anyone else managed that?
Also, I think the cockpit was just imagination, I dont see anything remotely cockpit-like and considering its a Synth, wouldnt expect one.
 
I remember from the alpha that there was some squid like thing. It looked like a squid, but it had been completely shelled out of all its organs and replaced with machinery. It was an underwater enemy, and I think "scanner" was in its name...

Wish I knew what that was supposed to be.
 
Absinthe said:
I remember from the alpha that there was some squid like thing. It looked like a squid, but it had been completely shelled out of all its organs and replaced with machinery. It was an underwater enemy, and I think "scanner" was in its name...

Wish I knew what that was supposed to be.

you're talking about the "shieldscanner" ?,you can spawn a dead one in garrysmod .
 
I think those are the things that cover the window in the E32003 vids at Kleiner's Lab, not sure though.
 
Crab Synths had animations for charging, and had a vulcan cannon in their belly.

The shells for the Mortar Synth are still in the code. They fired two types of ordinance; 'Energy' shells, which seemed to be standard explosions, and 'Beam' shells, which fired a shell and a 'chaser', which were connected by a beam. Goodness knows what it did when it landed, though.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Angry Lawyer said:
Crab Synths had animations for charging, and had a vulcan cannon in their belly.

The shells for the Mortar Synth are still in the code. They fired two types of ordinance; 'Energy' shells, which seemed to be standard explosions, and 'Beam' shells, which fired a shell and a 'chaser', which were connected by a beam. Goodness knows what it did when it landed, though.

-Angry Lawyer

Someone mentioned that the Supression Cannon was supposedly a Mortar Synth, never check it out myself, but that second shell sounds a bit like it...
 
subtlesnake said:
Wow, so much cool stuff that we'll never see.
The expansion can fix that. Since we weren't with Alyx the entire time, and since we are playing as her in the expansion, we might face the synths as enemies in the expansion. :O
 
In response to getting Mortar and Crab synths into a map:

You can use the 'monster_generic' entity, but you have to use scripted sequences entirely to make them do anything. the NPC_Mortarsynth (name slips my mind) dosn't work, neither does the Crab Synth alternative.
 
monster_generic makes my game crash ;( . I tryed it before
 
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