However, like all weapons in Half-Life 2, it does have its disadvantages. The crossbow is an exceptionally powerful weapon, capable of killing most organic targets instantly. It is unlikely that the Resistance would possess the skills and equipment to manufacture scopes themselves, so one would have to be salvaged from somewhere instead, possibly from a combine sniper rifle or pre-Combine hunting and sniper rifles. Its rarity is most likely due to the difficulty of acquiring the materials needed for its construction, especially the scope which makes it so effective. The addition of an electrical current to Half-Life 2's crossbow is presumably why the weapon is so deadly against organic opponents the red hot bolts plow straight through organic material, and if the target is in front of a solid surface the bolt will literally nail the target to it. Its jerry-built nature, coupled with the fact that the Combine never use it and its ammo is usually found upon the dead bodies of citizens or in supply caches suggest very strongly the new Crossbow was invented and manufactured by the Resistance, as an answer to the Combine's sniper rifle. The crossbow's ammunition is fairly rare, the weapon itself even more so.
In Episode One, it is found on a shelf in the chapter Urban Flight. In Episode Two, the crossbow is found in the hands of a dead Rebel, right after the scene with the Barn Advisor. In Half-Life 2, the Crossbow is first discovered on the body of a burnt Resistance fighter overlooking an Overwatch outpost in the level Highway 17, right before the Petroleum Station bridge. This can be noticed when placing the rebar on the crossbow, it will emit some sparks. This has the effect of superheating the rebar. What appears to be a small 12v RayOVac Lantern battery is attached to the underside which apparently runs an electrical current through the bolt when it lies upon the firing mechanism.
After firing, the tension wire pulls back to accommodate the next rebar, which the user places directly onto the weapon. Third, the weapon does not have an ammo magazine. Second, the bolts are not fletched, but rather pieces of red-hot steel rebar about 12 inches (30 centimeters) long. First, it is obviously jerry-built rather than manufactured, constructed as it is from various scavenged parts. Current rating of 9/10 on moddb.This weapon is aesthetically different from the one seen in Half-life in a number of ways.*As this is a team project source code is not available at this time. We follow a development process that is very much based around SCRUM methodology in terms of iterative development and sprints, and currently are predominately focussed with gameplay mechanics over aesthetics. Within the coming months, my focus will be shifting to a large scale overhaul of the AI system as the current system does not behave in a way that compliments an RTS style of gameplay as well as we would like. Designing and implementing various new GUI elements using VGUI.Implementing various custom networked entities.Porting various elements from the Half-Life 2 singleplayer codebase and ensuring they are functional in a networked multiplayer environment.Development of a multi-threaded in-game system which interfaces with an external game updating utility using Win32 API.Development NPC special ability system similar to the “Smartcasting” feature found in Starcraft 2 utilizing client/server systems as well as dynamic GUI feedback.Development of new minimap systems for the Overwatch and Rebel player which display player, npc, and objective locations.Upgrades and modifications to the player revival feature such as GUI elements as auto-revival.
My major contributions to the current version of the game include but are not limited to: I joined this team about eight months into the projects development timeline. The core gameplay mechanics pit a coopertive team of players in a first-person perspective versus a single player controlling the game world / units from an birds-eye RTS perspective. This project is a hybrid FPS/RTS game created using the Source Engine and SDK. Tools Used: Microsoft Visual Studio 2008/2010, SVN, Mantis Bugtrackerĭownload: Overwatch ModDB (Requires Steam and any product using the Source Engine)