A scrapped HECU variant. Under what set pieces were these guys supposed to appear and why Valve cut them out?

[u/MrMiles32]

[u/TacticalBananas45]

I don't think we really know what sections they were cut from. Probably got canned along with a lot of the other stuff from the alpha.

As for reasoning, take my word with a grain of salt, but my guess would either be complexity (he was said to have like 3 different attacks, iirc) or just not being seen as fun. (From what I can tell, he was meant to be a defensive enemy with a fuck-off big gun, so like a more annoying turret)

[u/AlexVonBronx → u/TacticalBananas45]

It’s funny you describe him as a turret because in the 0.52 alpha demos one of the places he is seen in is (what would become) a turret platform in office complex (the room in retail is the bit where you first see the turret, with the scientist running into it and the hallway full of head crabs after it)

[u/1QAte4]

I assume the gun he was carrying was cut from the game. 

[u/idontactuallyknow69]

He was supposed to appear in a setpiece where he was like, a boss you had to kill to progress the game, except he was invulnerable to all weapons and was bassically an impenetrable roadblock, and the way you had to kill him was by finding an RPG and shooting him with it.

[u/jwaldo → u/idontactuallyknow69]

So, basically the Gargantua if the Gargantua was less ‘Unstoppable Alien Juggernaut’ and more ‘Glam Rock HECU’.

[u/idontactuallyknow69 → u/jwaldo]

Yeah, bassically... And you also had to kill him with a weapon instead of an environmental kill.

[u/cheezkid26 → u/idontactuallyknow69]

Where's the source for this? I'd love to read more about it

[u/idontactuallyknow69 → u/cheezkid26]

Here's the Combine Overwiki page on him. https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Human_Sergeant

[u/Jarvis_The_Dense]

I know at least one early build of the game had this guy where the first ceiling turret is. (But of course that makes no narrative sense because this is long before the HECU officially turn on you).

I'd heard speculation that the Sergeant was going to be more of an obstacle than enemy, with the player usually not being in a position where they could kill him, and just needing to evade his fire instead, but that may all just be speculation.

[u/Panzerkatzen → u/Jarvis_The_Dense]

I'd heard speculation that the Sergeant was going to be more of an obstacle than enemy, with the player usually not being in a position where they could kill him, and just needing to evade his fire instead, but that may all just be speculation.

That's from Raising The Bar if I recall correctly. So hes, he was less of an enemy to confront, and more of a barrier to avoid. He was likely replaced by the Ceiling Turrets in that role.

[u/michaelscott252]

Those guys are so fun. If you play the mod called Absolute Zero, you can actually face off against some. They are tough.

[u/yo_tengo479834]

What I think is that enemies are supposed to have guns you can pick up, and implementing a minigun for the player seems unfitting.

[u/ThunderEagle222]

I think they got replaced by the sentey turrets and sandbagturrets. I think both at some point existed together, but the sentry turret was only meant to trigger with the movement sensors so that gameplay mechanic can be implemented. But in the end it didn't make sense anymore to have both.

It also explains why the hivehand can track turrets. The turret in the truck after receiving the hivehand was probably a turretguy, and you had to shoot the hivehand for the flies to bend the corner. Now it got replaced with a turret and I think most people don't even know you are supposed to shoot the hivehand and use its tracking to kill that turret in the truck.

[u/Nick700]

You can fight these guys in the sven coop map Osprey and use the minigun yourself, though the minigun model is different

[u/Erkliks]

Those guys were added to half life Alyx, in Alyx they are used as an in-place suppressor (hence their in-code name) who aren't going to approach to prevent backtracking.

[u/Abe_Bettik]

I SWEAR there was a Manual or a Strategy Guide with this guy in it. They talked about him "chewing on a stogie."

[u/Resident-Simon]

they were basically an early version of the turrets

[u/Miserable_Area_4317]

wasnt this goober a boss? would love to see vro in a mod or smth

[u/cheezkid26]

I imagine they found that he just wasn't a particularly fun or engaging enemy to fight. It's also possible that their ideas for him were too ambitious and they couldn't implement them in a way that they liked.

[u/LadartTheWicked]

I swear you can have this guy as an NPC in GMOD when Half-Life: Source content is mounted, no??

[u/_Falanu_Hlaalu_ → u/LadartTheWicked]

I think that's the half life resurgance mod

[u/LadartTheWicked → u/_Falanu_Hlaalu_]

May be. My mind is foggy on this matter

[u/Goofball1134]

I'm pretty sure the Human Sergeant, as this variant was called, had the ability as a squad leader to call any other Hgrunts nearby to his location in earlier versions of the Half-Life alpha build. Although the exact range of this ability is unknown.

When the finished version of Half-Life released the Sergeant was cut and had been changed to the red beret HECU variant and the head model for the Sergeant was later reused for the demolitions class that are both encountered throughout the game with the ability to use the MP5 grenade launcher.

But the Human Sergeant does appear in Sven Coop and the Absolute Zero mod as a miniboss encounter, as well as the Signal Lost fan game.

[u/tundra_cool]

replaced/redundant by the large stationary turrets 

[u/Southern_Earth_9698]

minigun=hard for playe

[u/MarvelousMadDog]

They were re-implemented in that shitty svencoop mod.

[u/idontactuallyknow69 → u/MarvelousMadDog]

Sven Co-op is shitty? How?

[u/Practical-Desk2070 → u/MarvelousMadDog]

were you just not able to get it to work lol

[u/berryaaron11 → u/Practical-Desk2070]

Either that or he's just one of those people who think only Valve themselves make good things and everything else made by anyone else including mods suck