The Magnussen Device doesn't make sense.

Well, think about it, the Flachettes vapourise people, they are going to do reasonable damage to a small ball of junk made from old man-hacks with a bit of plaster on it.
 
Those fletchettes are awesome. I guess they must only vapourise organic matter or somesuch...
 
Litter the area around with tripwire anti-tank mines that jump up and explode.


And if thats too advanced, dig a deep hole with a simple leg trap at the bottom, cover and disguise the top?.


Build a "tangler", a launcher that fires two iron balls with a chain or wire between them at the legs of striders, tying their legs up to cause them to fall.

Use crude catapults like the handheld ones for the Magnusson devices so all the rebels can get in on the action?.


I dunno, theres enough solutions which are probably more effective and efficient, considering White Forest was a fairly substantial rebel base that had been occupied for a good long while.

Gordon had to suffer for game play reasons, valve wanted the last fight to be frustratingly annoying. :)
 
Eh? Catapults are impossible to aim. How are you going to build a tangler anyway? If you have something that accurate you might as well build giant cannons.
 
When I first heard of the "strider busters" (as they were known, back in the day), I thought it would be some kind of armour-piercing round for the RPG. Maybe like a non-guided rocket that flies a lot faster than a normal one, and explodes after it penetrates the skin. That would make sense, because you could launch it up at the strider's soft(ish) underbelly. As for the Magnussen Device... I dunno, they could have used some kind air-powered cannon to launch it, but those wouldn't be portable. They would take a while to build, but no longer that a network of mini teleporters p: They'd have been screwed without Gordon, but I suppose they didn't know the Combine were coming, so they probably thought they had longer to work on it.
 
Strange little infinite devices that you launch onto them which you can then shoot. Awesome idea.
 
Assuming the little round widgets are made out of spare combine parts (judging from the mock strider Im geussing they know were to get em from), then Magnusson who is by all appearances to much of an egotistical ass to realize or let on when he needs help, was making them laboring under the assumption that combined with his Telebox he'd be able to somehow magic them onto the striders. Then, having realized how stupid that was, simply proceeded to fill a room full of spare Magnussons under the assumption that since he had nothing better to do as the citadel was still up and his rocket was grounded, would figure out a launching mechanism and a firing means other than via 'bang bang pow'.

Then Gordon showed up with the gravy gun and it all worked out spledid.
 
Herr Mike said:
Well, I actually liked the fight, and perhaps it did make it more interesting than just blasting them with rockets. It was just something to talk about, really. :naughty:
Click to expand...

I enjoyed the last battle as well...well...after I won. It was extremely frustrating but I felt very rewarded.

If Magnusson was the genius he claimed to be, you'd think he would've thought to put a blasting cap on that explosive device instead of requiring you to put out another weapon to shoot it! How the hell do explosive fletchettes harmlessly guide the Magnade off a Strider's body while bullets don't? Why did he not build a launcher for the device but place place teleporters on every building to transport them? Come on, it doesn't take a PhD in Sci-Fi Physics to forge a barrel or grab some PVC pipes and attach an air canister to it! Instead he leaves the gravity gun to be the only available item that may wield it's power to neutralize the striders and thus forth the entire rebel army was useless in fighting striders.

But the thing that was on my mind throughout the fight was: If the Combine had unlimited resources like we're supposed to believe...how come I'm only seeing two units? Okay...I've played the map over and it turned out beta-testers couldn't handle fighting the Overwatch soldiers and gunships alongside the hunters and striders. It blew my mind to know that VALVe opted for a plothole for gameplay purposes.

If not a nuke...they could've at least launched rockets or used the Supressor beam that we shut down at that museum nexus. (Don't tell me there is just one! All that tech couldn't have possibly been wasted on targeting no more than six rebels!)
 
I was never frustrated by the final battle, yeh I did die a few times and yes, I was collecting a Magnusson when one of the houses blew up with me in it, but that is all half of the fun, a massive battle with bullets, lasers and explosions everywhere...
 
The flashlight could've been explained by some weird reaction to the explosion. With the new shotgun soldiers it should be pretty obvious there are many different regiments of the the Overwatch with different fatigues, insignias and fighting specialties. With sending only two units though to thwart the greatest threat to your empire though...it's just a lapse in logic.

Oh...how come in HL2 the grav gun didn't instantly smash crates with the primary fire but in the expansions they do?
 
OMG! This candy doesn't make sense! It says "Watermelon" on the wrapper, but when I open it, do I get a watermelon? NO! Just some square piece of shit!

At least, that's what I compare this to.

You could also say that the gravity gun doesn't make sense for the same reason, but that doesn't have anything to do with how much you know about the story. We haven't even been conscious for 20 years, so how are we to say that this wasn't some work-in-progress by Magnuson in Black mesa? Maybe it was some new weapon to destroy tanks easily with foot soldiers. There's no way for us to know (Though I doubt that particular theory.) Now that my post has come, and late at that, you may all rest...

And the rocket would have been a work-in-progress too, for maybe 10 years. (Hell, with the supplies at hand, that might be right.)
 
The rocket doesn't make sense. It has no maneuvering jets or flaps. How does it maneuver so well?
 
because its a game.. i lvoe the rocket, its so cool that you can control it :)
 
Narvi said:
The rocket doesn't make sense. It has no maneuvering jets or flaps. How does it maneuver so well?
Click to expand...

The little sense that stems from it is: How come you can't turn the laser off like the first game?

Seriously...you'd think that troops would need to fire and instantly take cover to avoid being hurt from fire, because we sure as hell get hurt waiting for the rocket to land on it's target, or when we pull back and aim the laser in our vicinity.
 
Emporius said:
bouncing-betty mines ftw
Click to expand...

Bouncing Magnussons! They pop out from the ground propelled by a spring and fly up and hit the strider while attached to a real bouncing betty that propels high enough and blows up as the magnusson reaches the strider. Hehe.

Or we could hire bomberman and he could lay magnussons.
 
Herr Mike said:
Just for the sake of discussion.

So he invents this thing, which we have to assume uses considerable resources, with no clear way to propel it? What's more, it's apparently useless against anything but striders? It doesn't occur to anyone that they might be better served making a modified RPG?

They can't exploit any of the striders weaknesses? Yes they are wicked cool but they are slow, easy targets on spindly legs. Dig pits. Mine the area. Turrets. They've got the tech to build a helicopter, how many would it take? 2? Striders have no defense against an airborne attack.

Instead the fate of the world hinges on launching mines with the gravity gun (only one exists, good thing Gordan showed up!) and instead of even having a proximity fuse or something the mines MUST BE SHOT afterwards!!

Of course, when you're dealing with the combine, you don't have to be smart. Despite beating all of humanity in mere days, they do not grasp the concept of bombing, or missiles, or massed assault.

Joe (Combine soldier, former human): You wanted to see me, Exalted Ones?

Advisor: Yes. We see you humans have large amounts of these big rocket looking things. What are they?

Joe: Uh, rockets.

Advisor: Hmm. These over here are marked as 'nuclear'. Do they explode?

Joe: Uh, affirmative. They would easily wipe out, say, a rebel base. Or a city.

Advisor: Hmm. Dismissed.

Advisor 2: Did you understand anything he said?

Advisor: No, I just heard staticky radio sqwaking.

Advisor 2: We should have asked that Breen guy.

Advisor: Oh well. We'll just load them up with headcrabs like the others.​
Click to expand...

I think you do not understand the gravity and the urgency of the situation-

By losing the Citadel, the combine were in many way screwed- It is possible they had a whole array of super mega death beams of mass destruction, all rendered unusable by the destruction of the core in city 17.

Also, remember that at the beginning of the game ALyx talks about the impossibility of launching the rocket when the combine was intact.

And the rebels didn't know the combine were attacking white forest until too late. The magnusson device was a project far from completion, maybe it was merely an idea he toyed with in his spare time- not something created with the express intent of guarding his rocket from an army of striders.

So, you must understand that both faction were desperate, and improvising. The combine were cut off from their own homeworld and with their whole city 17 power grid system turned off. The rebels didn't know what the **** until the strider showed up.

If it wasn't for the coincidence of Gordon (and his g-gun) being there just at the right moment, humanity would have been screwed.
 
Nah, it was all part of a very carefully laid plan to boost morale. Nothing better to show the troops they actually stand a chance than having a single man blowing up a Strider with a single bomb and ONE bullet, all the better if it was Freeman. In fact Magnusson was about to develop a fool-proof way to launch and detonate the MD's but dropped the project as soon as he knew Freeman was heading for the base and concentrated on getting the rocket ready...

For God's sake, it's a game, if we think throughly about it many many things doesn't make any sense at all. Anyway, everybody seems to be just commenting and not actually complaining, which would be foolish since none of us had anything to do with the MD concept.
 
ShadowJustice said:
I think you do not understand the gravity and the urgency of the situation-

By losing the Citadel, the combine were in many way screwed- It is possible they had a whole array of super mega death beams of mass destruction, all rendered unusable by the destruction of the core in city 17.

Also, remember that at the beginning of the game ALyx talks about the impossibility of launching the rocket when the combine was intact.

And the rebels didn't know the combine were attacking white forest until too late. The magnusson device was a project far from completion, maybe it was merely an idea he toyed with in his spare time- not something created with the express intent of guarding his rocket from an army of striders.

So, you must understand that both faction were desperate, and improvising. The combine were cut off from their own homeworld and with their whole city 17 power grid system turned off. The rebels didn't know what the **** until the strider showed up.

If it wasn't for the coincidence of Gordon (and his g-gun) being there just at the right moment, humanity would have been screwed.
Click to expand...

Yeah, because Magnusson is a dumbass!
 
Other things that doesn't make sense:

A Magnade doesn't detonate on impact when hitting a Strider, yet it does when it hits anything else.
The Hunters defuse the threat of the strider-buster by shooting their high velocity, super sharp exploding fletchettes at them to gently guide the highly volatile object down.
 
If your going to be thrown into the fire by propelling these things whilst being shot at, your might as well go up to one and use a hacksaw
 
Narvi said:
The rocket doesn't make sense. It has no maneuvering jets or flaps. How does it maneuver so well?
Click to expand...

IT DOES IT DOES IT DOES

RPG_rocket_fly.jpg
 
The Magnusson device is Bullsh*t it its best.

And second, do you honestly think you could just make a helicopter out of scraps? No, you can't. Its a similiar scenario to assuming you could build a super-computer out of rocks.
 
DoctorWeeTodd said:
Other things that doesn't make sense:

A Magnade doesn't detonate on impact when hitting a Strider, yet it does when it hits anything else.
The Hunters defuse the threat of the strider-buster by shooting their high velocity, super sharp exploding fletchettes at them to gently guide the highly volatile object down.
Click to expand...

This is perfectly reasonable: The Magnusson device has to latch on to a strider to take effect: its not that dissimiliar to a leach-if you throw the leach at the wall, it explodes or dies, while if you carefully place it on the subject, it robs the subject of whatever valuable its body has to offer. Now, the flatchlettes disarm the the Device using the not-so-convential method of complete disintagration.
 
AHTDestroyer said:
The Magnusson device is Bullsh*t it its best.

And second, do you honestly think you could just make a helicopter out of scraps? No, you can't. Its a similiar scenario to assuming you could build a super-computer out of rocks.
Click to expand...

Does that helicopter look like a junkheap? No, it looks fresh from the factory.
 
Katamariguy said:
Does that helicopter look like a junkheap? No, it looks fresh from the factory.
Click to expand...

Are you retarded? That russian Model is ancient, even in our age of discovery. You have to be idiotic to see that as "fresh out of the factory". Just look at the rust developing out of the front wind-sheild, and the rotor! They probably used a scrapped chassis and then modified it's exterior a little and basicly Re-invented the internal parts. Trust me, the resistance is extreamly resourceful and clever. I mean seriously, just have a glance at Dog: A growing child made that in times of little resource and hardship? An ordinary foot-soldeir probably knows the fundementals of quantum-mehcnics and could probably construct a super-computer out of common house-hold appliances.
 
You know I'm almost sad this guy is banned, because I really have no idea what the hell he's even trying to convey here. Even reading back it's one of those things where you furrow your brow and say "Son, I am disappoint."
 
Hard to trust him when Alyx didn't build Dog; Eli did. You know, the guy wearing the Harvard sweater.
 
/related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjL6xBBQ8ps

Somali made helicopter made from a van.

And using a helicopter to fight Striders is retarded anyway. They would be easily shot down by striders and would stand no chance against combine flying bugs and helicopters. The effort to make service a helicopter in battle is way to high, for such little utility.
 
AHTDestroyer said:
Are you retarded? That russian Model is ancient, even in our age of discovery. You have to be idiotic to see that as "fresh out of the factory". Just look at the rust developing out of the front wind-sheild, and the rotor! They probably used a scrapped chassis and then modified it's exterior a little and basicly Re-invented the internal parts. Trust me, the resistance is extreamly resourceful and clever. I mean seriously, just have a glance at Dog: A growing child made that in times of little resource and hardship? An ordinary foot-soldeir probably knows the fundementals of quantum-mehcnics and could probably construct a super-computer out of common house-hold appliances.
Click to expand...
4ji1j.jpg
 
How did you guys take out the team of striders /hunters? I did a rather kamikaze approach where I just took the car and ran all the hunters down and then I used the MD I had on the car to take out the striders. They were ignoring everything behind them, so I could park, read the paper, shoot the MD up there and blast them to hell :) Hunters are a very cool unit imo.
 
Do-de-doo... Reading old threads... Hm, what's this?
This Thread said:
Argument about "plot hole" concerning realism in a sci-fi videogame
Click to expand...
BUT GUIZ WHERE DOES GORDAN PUT ALL OF HIS WEAPONS!?
 
Yeah, who needs logic?

Personally, I would have no problem if they wrote in the "Magnussen Button" which just killed all the Combine when it was pressed. With could only be done with the Gravity Gun, of course.
 
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