Super Soldiers | Buffed Combine Transhumans
As you may have guessed, turns the disposable mid-to-late game fodder into fast, enduring, genuinely threatening infantry, to feel like you’re fighting the biomechanically-enhanced transhuman super soldiers they were always meant to be.
Combine Soldiers suffer from a disconnect between presentation and performance. They’re narratively framed as elite transhuman enforcers in Breen’s Nova Prospekt speech and multiple scripted sequences, yet in-game they fold quickly, deal pitiful damage (except for those pesky Shotgunners), and are easily outpaced.
I’ve never liked how fragile and "unlethal" they always were, so I made this addon to address that by comprehensively buffing them to threat status, as well as introduce some other miscellaneous additions for the sake of immersion and consistency I couldn’t help but put.
- Soldier and Elite HP is multiplied by 1.5x, going from 50 & 70 to 75 & 105 respectively, making them considerably beefier.
- Soldier and Elite melee damage is significantly buffed, going from 10 & 15 to 20 & 25 respectively. They now consistently out-melee Zombies and pack a serious punch if you get up in their face.
- Movement and other actions are sped up by 1.25x.
- Fire rates and reloads are sped up by 1.25x and 1.5x.
- No more exaggerated flinch animations, or that ridiculous bugbait_hit panic animation which renders them useless, sorry.
- Weapon damage dealt by enemies across the board is mildly to moderately increased, since the increased damaged output mainly comes from the increased firerate. Pistol (3 -> 4), SMG (3 -> 3.5), Shotgun (3 -> 4), Pulse Rifle (3 -> 4.5), Grenades (75 -> 100), Combine Sniper (20 -> 50).
- Combine Balls are a serious threat, going from a pitiful 15 damage that bounces off of you to sudden death depending on your difficulty. Elites actually have more going for them now other than insane health.
- Hard difficulty’s damage take multiplier is set to 2.0x instead of 1.5x in base Half-Life 2, consistent with the Episodes. This affects every other damage source as well, so technically, not only the Soldiers are buffed here.
- Easy difficulty’s damage inflict multiplier is set to 1.25x instead of 1.5x in general, consistent with Black Mesa. Easy mode no longer makes everything as fragile.
- Combine Snipers now actually use Combine Soldier voicelines instead of that of Metrocops. This has always bothered me.
- Episode-consistent radio on-and-off sounds and restored melee grunts.
Is this balanced for everyone? Probably not. These changes are intentionally aggressive. The difficulty spikes may be excessive to some. Does this somewhat restore friction and danger to some more experienced players? Hell yes. Enjoy^2.
Uses 732.cfg
I used epicplayer40’s Soldier Finger Animation Fix as a base for the sped-up animations in order to incorporate that fix as an extra. Credits to him.
Pair this mod with Hds46’s Aggressive Combine AI if you wanna absolutely maximize brutality to masochistic extents. WARNING: uncontrollable difficulty, especially in Nova Prospekt and Uprising chapters. I decided to try this myself once and NO LONGER recommend. But if you’re up for Hell, go for it, I guess.
Required items:
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Script MultiLoader — Steam Workshop
Metrocop HP Consistency — Steam Workshop
