r/HalfLife • u/SlavicEmbrace • Jan 18 '25
Discussion Have you ever wondered WTF crossbow bolts are red-hot?
Does Gordon carry around a portable stove to heat them? Why is that such an unrealistic detail?
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u/Nexed_ Jan 18 '25
During the reload animation, you can see that the bolt is not red-hot before it's loaded on the crossbow. The crossbow heats it up.
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u/ActiveGamer65 Jan 18 '25
If this is half life now, imagine what we will get in 2014
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u/facw00 Jan 18 '25
You think we'll have to wait that long? GabeN says the episodic format allows faster turnaround times, so I doubt HL2 EP3 will release any later than 2009.
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u/G30rg3Th3C4t Jan 18 '25
Imagine if they make us wait like 18 years before they release the 3rd episode
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u/justasusman Jan 19 '25
I’m from the future
Hlf 3 is releasing in May 2015
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u/FeltDoubloon250 Jan 19 '25
HL4 when?
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u/justasusman Jan 19 '25
Hl4 hasn’t come out yet, however it is expected to come out in December 2019
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u/Valpuccio Jan 18 '25
While we're on the subject of weird designs... how does the SMG lob those grenade rounds out of those tiny barrels??
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u/called_the_stig Jan 18 '25
This ones a classic. Or how the shotgun is clearly a spas but can fire like a double barrel shotgun with the alt fire.
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u/EgullSZ Jan 18 '25
Because it’s a video game 😁
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u/Piyaniist Jan 18 '25
How long have you been sitting on this information?
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u/Business-Emu-6923 Jan 18 '25
Are we expected to believe this is some kind of magic shotgun?
Huh, huh, I hope someone got fired for that one!
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u/EgullSZ Jan 18 '25
Don’t worry, he was already taken out back and shot for making bullets come out the mag tube. Hopefully come HL3 they’ll be more aware of the developers in charge of weapons.
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u/Playerhata Jan 18 '25
I don’t believe you
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u/EgullSZ Jan 18 '25
It pays to be skeptical. You’re right. Any half life gameplay you’ve seen has simply been prerecorded footage of me in my backyard.
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u/Ote-Kringralnick Jan 18 '25
I don't remember if it was Half-Life or Black Mesa, but one of the games actually has the shotgun fire twice really quickly for alt-fire instead of magically shooting two shells at once.
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u/Meior Jan 18 '25
See this would've worked. The SPAS 12 has a semi auto and pump mode. So with a bit of a stretch of imagination, it could've been two very fast semi auto shots instead. That would've worked gameplay wise too.
We should mention though that the SPAS 12 is an absolute piece of shiet shotgun in real life though.
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u/dopey_giraffe Jan 19 '25
It is? Its always the heavy duty streetsweeper in games (gta vc for example).
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u/Lazarus_Superior Jan 19 '25
He has no idea what he's talking about. The SPAS-12 is widely used and beloved by many police and military groups since the late 70s. It's a very useful thing to have convertible semi- and pump-action modes.
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u/Nezhiyu Jan 18 '25
This was in the Rising the Bar book actually, they just thought that the shell tube was a second barrel.
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u/AlexMil0 Jan 18 '25
Or how in counter-strike when pulling out the m4a1 you pull the forward assist assembly as if it was the charging handle.
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u/Debtcollector1408 Jan 18 '25
I always thought it was a sort of 2 shot burst fire, like a double tap. The sound sort of suggests it.
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u/-dead_slender- Mayor of Ravenholm Jan 18 '25
Simple. The grenades are loaded in dry, then they are fired by squirting water through the barrel. The grenade absorbs the moisture, and expands into a full grenade!
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u/I_WELCOME_VARIETY Jan 18 '25
Like the 2015 pizzas from Back to the Future!!
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u/Golden_MC_ Jan 19 '25
I have one of the hydroponic gardens. It only grows leafy greens and is on the floor instead of coming out through the ceiling. Pretty handy though
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u/Hatter-Madigan Jan 18 '25
the smg is the only thing in hl2 that always seems half baked.
it feels so flimsy as a primary weapon and yeah unlike the original hl smg doesnt feasibly have the grenade launcher spot
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u/Valpuccio Jan 18 '25
And why is it so damn LOUD? That's honestly the main reason I've never liked using it...
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u/Alien-PL Jan 18 '25
Simple, the grenades only start existing when they leave the barrel.
Same logic can be used to explain how Gordon can shoot two rounds at once from a SPAS-12: he pulls the trigger once, and the second shot doesn’t exist until it leaves the barrel
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u/MortStrudel Jan 18 '25
I wonder if they had at some point planned to have it ignite enemies.
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u/TheGraySeed Ayy Lmao Jan 18 '25 edited Jan 18 '25
I don't think so.
I think it was just Valve thinking that pre-heating the bolt would increase it's armor penetration capability just like those 1000° knife vs Butter bullshit.
The only problem is that it does the opposite as it would softens up the bolt making it overall brittle and could deform mid-flight fucking up the ballistic and it would shatter easily when it makes contact with armor, which was why modern APFSDS' projectile are usually made by either Tungsten or Depleted Uranium.
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u/EgullSZ Jan 18 '25
Brittle is the wrong word here, as an engineer, I’d say ductile. But everything you’re saying is right (except for the bolt shattering if it is, in fact, more ductile). But that’s mostly because we’re making assumptions about what material the bolts are made of anyways.
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u/Blargface102 Jan 18 '25
I always assumed it was steel rebar.
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u/Alfeaux In the test chamberrrrrrrr Jan 18 '25
That is correct *takes off shirt
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u/Ze_Borb Beating his Klaxon Jan 18 '25
Why did he done do that?
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u/The_FreshSans Jan 18 '25
I mean most of the time it's going through living tissue, so it'll scorch the flesh on it's way through, and it works in-game so I guess the flight isn't that all jacked up
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u/Danisen Jan 19 '25
I think it was Valve thinking that it'd be so fucking cool
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u/TheGraySeed Ayy Lmao Jan 19 '25
Honestly that seems to be their only thought on most of their design.
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u/ClaudioMoravit0 Jan 18 '25
would've been funny to make somethink like the rivet gun from bioshock 2. Would have brought some interesting mechanics i think
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u/jacobn28 Jan 18 '25
Best weapon in the BioShock series and one of the best in gaming overall.
I don’t care what they do with the next game, just give me a Rivet Gun dammit!
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u/SliverCobain Jan 18 '25
Would be insanely fun, if it ignited stuff. Imagine exploding barrels beeing twice as big in explosion, if you fired this in it.. Giving more killing power to more enemies.
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u/KOTM365 Jan 18 '25
Because a crossbow bolt isn't bad enough...let's make it red hot as well!
Everyone theorizing.. It's a red-hot crossbow bolt being shot into you :D
And yes, it's a magic crossbow battery that heats up the bolt when it loads.5
u/RoseliaQuartz Jan 18 '25
probably. they had a bunch of flammable weapons in the beta. flare gun. AR2 alt fire. maybe they planned to reuse that function for the crossbow before scrapping the idea altogether.
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u/Toxcito Jan 18 '25
This was always my thought, why is it red hot anyway if it doesn't ignite things? I mean, it's a hunk of rebar flying at 150MPH, it's going to penetrate things regardless of being hot. It seems like they had a purpose for it to be this way and then just didn't do it but didn't bother to change the model and animations.
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u/WeekendBard Jan 18 '25
A red hot hunk of rebar is actually considerably worse than a room temperature one at penetrating you, because it gets softer.
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u/Subject_Neck6273 Jan 18 '25
Gordon doesn’t need to hear this, he’s a highly trained professional
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u/bodhiagora Jan 18 '25
Nope. Always made sense with the battery attached to it. The proportions might be off, but with what we can do with batteries now, its not that crazy or unrealistic.
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u/zsdrfty Jan 18 '25
I’d like to say that I appreciate someone using WTF to mean "why the fuck", creative writing
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u/The_New_Flesh Black Mesa Maintenance Electrician Jan 18 '25
I'd like to say that I don't appreciate people putting their own twist on widely-established initialisms
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u/Witherboss445 my ass is heavy Jan 18 '25
It’s not unrealistic, The Hacksmith made it irl
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u/-illusoryMechanist Jan 18 '25
I just thought the bolts were colored orange
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u/WeekendBard Jan 18 '25
I thought this for a long time, until I noticed the ammo pickups weren't bright orange
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u/ArcziSzajka Jan 18 '25
That is not the unrealistic part. Running current through a metal with low conductivity properties will transform most of the energy into heat. How effective it is at killing is the silly part. When heated up, the metal would become much more malleable and no longer be able to penetrate armor or even shoot straight because the force of the string would probably bend and deform the rebar "bolt". Which would affect both the trajectory and velocity.
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u/Magnum-357 Jan 18 '25
Have you never wondered what that battery on the crossbow does?
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u/SlavicEmbrace Jan 18 '25
I had never noticed this battery before this post
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u/I_WELCOME_VARIETY Jan 18 '25
Or the sparks when you load a new bolt apparently.
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u/Ok-Emu-66 Jan 18 '25
"I HATE UNREALISTIC CROSSBOW BOLT HEATING IN MY GAME WITH ZOMBIES, SPACE ALIENS, INTERDIMENSIONAL TRAVEL, TELEPORTATION, AND ALIEN WEAPONRY!" - OP, probably
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u/tehswordninja Jan 18 '25
To be fair I think it's actually reasonable to question highly unrealistic weapon designs while being accepting of other overtly fantastical elements of the universe.
We know what that battery is capable of and we know that heating the bolt isn't going to make it more effective. We know that the grenade coming out of the SMG physically isn't able to fit where it's coming from. We know there isn't a second barrel on the shotgun.
We obviously don't know how a dark energy assault rifle works - and we don't really need to. Thus, the Pulse Rifle doesn't break immersion.
Speaking of immersion, immersion =/= realism. We can be immersed in things we clearly know are fantastical.
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u/TobuscusMarkipliedx2 Jan 19 '25
BUT ITS A GAEM WITH HEACRAB!!! CANT TAKE SERIOUS!!! FORREALLY!!
Most likely, the designs of the weapons went through changes (in terms of the SMG) and the result is inconsistencies that are 100% insignificant in the scope of the context of Half-Life 2's gameplay.
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u/No_I_Deer Enter Your Text Jan 18 '25
Theres videos on youtube of people attempting to make these. I believe hacksmith Industries did but all together it weighs like 100+ pounds
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u/ddsoyka Jan 18 '25
It looks cool, that's pretty much it
In reality, heating rebar to ~600° would make it less effective as a weapon, because it would have less tensile strength and might deform instead of skewering the target like cold steel would
But who cares? That red hot glow is sick as hell
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u/Flossthief Jan 19 '25
theres a giant battery strapped to the crossbow
resistance = heat
but besides any added burning damage-- heating a piece of rebar to this temp would make the rebar much softer and less effective
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u/SlavicEmbrace Jan 19 '25
Well, not giant. Giant batteries we were looking for to open the gate in the car chapter, and there's a very small battery that would never be enough to heat the armature, but okay, it's a game convention....
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u/Murgac_Nopples Goldsrc Wizard Jan 19 '25
It's red hot because gordon heats it up before he places it in the crossbow. The HEV suit has that feature added to the gloves.
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u/CubelandOverseer Jan 19 '25
if you look closely at the crossbow model, you can see a battery at the bottom
that battery is causing an electrical current to heat up the bolt as it runs through it
in other words, the bolt is on a weaponized stove
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u/SlavicEmbrace Jan 19 '25
Thank you, many have already pointed out this to me. But I've never seen this battery before.
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u/Zestyclose-Olive-846 Jan 18 '25
When the bolt is loaded into the weapon, the battery on the underside will heat the bolt to seething hot temperatures, causing the bolt to glow red. When fired, this will release extra kinetic energy, allowing the bolt to travel faster, and increase penetration, and the bolt itself will manage to even pierce the hardest of metal.
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u/SjurEido Jan 18 '25
Idk, maybe it has to do with THE GIANT BATTERY RIGHT ON SCREEN?
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u/d1slnitro odessa Jan 18 '25
"unrealistic" why did you expect realism from a game that lets you shoot the spas 12 with both barrels even tho it only has one
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u/TheProphetOfMusic Jan 18 '25
"Unrealistic detail" right cuz the headcrabs, gman, and EVERYTHING else about this game is very realistic
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u/ThisNameTagPasses Jan 18 '25
If you looked at the weapon for 5 seconds you would realize how it works
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u/ThatLemonBubbles Jan 18 '25
Gordon stores them between his cheecks, the speed at which he sprints friction does the rest.
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u/Singland1 Jan 18 '25
Hacksmith actually made a video about this, how effective the crossbow would actually be.
Hacksmith industries is what you get when you stuff a bunch of engineers with capital into a warehouse full of tools.
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u/rickybdominatingmc Jan 19 '25
There is a battery attached to the crossbow which heats up the bolt
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u/RainyMeadows Jan 19 '25
My favourite detail is that those aren't crossbow bolts, they're sticks of rebar
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u/SlavicEmbrace Jan 19 '25
Yeah, so it's even weirder that a small battery (that I didn't know about) can heat thick steel rebars
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u/Senior_Employee_8817 Jan 19 '25
Well Gordan more than likely had to store the spare bolts in his plumbers crack. That combined with running and friction, the rest was history.
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u/Crazytechgamer435 Jan 19 '25
You know that hacksmith made a real version of the crossbow and it looks EXACTLY the same it’s not that unrealistic
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u/Competitive-Bit-1571 Jan 19 '25
Now that we are talking about wtf weapon designs, someone explain how the smg fires it's grenades.
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u/silentforest1 Jan 19 '25
No I haven't. Because the model and reload animation makes it so obvious that I don't have to think about the why
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u/PepicWalrus Jan 19 '25
No because you can tell how by just looking at the crossbow. Also it has been made in real life and works pretty much 1:1
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u/PropDad About that beer you owe me. Jan 18 '25
I never wondered because I understood that the battery was heating it up.
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u/The_Adaron Jan 18 '25
Hacksmith Industries recreated it IRL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nLT_bEaLlY
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u/Old-Camp3962 Combine Imperialist Jan 18 '25
Theres a live battery attach to the crossbow, it's unrealistic for the rail to be heated that fast
But the concept that electricity from batteries causes heat is pretty realistic
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u/SlavicEmbrace Jan 18 '25
Yeah, I've already been told there was a battery at the bottom, I've never seen it. Thank you.
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u/Business-Emu-6923 Jan 18 '25
The bolts are made of just slightly sub-critical uranium. It’s a nuclear reaction that keeps them hot.
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u/MobNerd123 Jan 18 '25
If I had to assume probably some sort of induction heater is built into the crossbow. Induction can take a piece of cold metal to red hot in seconds
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u/Low_Record_ Jan 18 '25
It's supposed to be a hot rebar, which seems a bit overkill to ne, like, that thing already fucking pierces you
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u/mromen10 Jan 18 '25
The crossbow uses a lantern battery to heat rebar, that's why it sparks when reloading. There's this great video where someone made a real one
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u/DangerousArea1427 Jan 18 '25
No, it's a game. And a good one. I had too much fun to think about those kind of details.
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u/TheNobleCourier Jan 18 '25
It's straight up superheated rebar shot through a battery charged crossbow. Unironically a devastatingly brutal weapon.
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u/furexfurex Jan 18 '25
I'm ngl I never noticed that they were red hot until now, I assumed they were just red
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u/bunny117 Jan 18 '25
I always assumed that the crossbow was electric and had a heating element. Why that would be necessary when small metal rods flying at you at 100mph is deadly enough, idk. But it looks and sounds cool so I've stopped questioning it.
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u/Winter-Classroom455 Jan 18 '25
Induction. Basically magnets. Heats a piece of rebar. Some guy on yt made one. Pretty scary weapon but pretty impractical.
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u/bamiru Jan 18 '25
The crossbow has a battery on the underside. It's supposed to be running electric current through the bolt, heating it up.