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[Brutal Half-Life] Stealth tactics

By specman17

Ever wanted to ghost your way past the Marines, Xens, and Zombies in your way? Well now you can.

Award

Created by

specman17
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Category: Gameplay Basics, Modding or Configuration, Weapons

Languages: English

Posted

Oct 31, 2021 @ 7:07pm

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Guide Index

Overview

The introduction

Your arsenal

The tactics

The conclusion

Comments

The introduction

So you want to be a ghost in Brutal Half-Life. Lets go through some basics:

If youre not using cheats this guide is only effective for those who have passed Lambda Core, as that is when you get a suppressed pistol and crossbow you can actually hold onto.

If you are using cheats to jump straight in and dont want to just gun your way through Black Mesa Research Facility with your full arsenal, keep reading.

NOTE: THIS GUIDE ONLY APPLIES TO BRUTAL HALF-LIFE (THE SUPPRESSED GLOCK IS UNOBTAINABLE IN VANILLA HALFLIFE). YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Your arsenal

To effectively ghost your way through the enemies you will be facing in the halls of the Black Mesa Research Facility, you will also need to know the tools youre using. They range in power and efficiency but overall allow you to quickly and quietly move through the facility with military precision.

Your fists and your boot: The most simplistic your arsenal gets, punching and kicking at your enemies until they fall over. It will only work if you manage to isolate enemies AND get the drop on them, as they will probably turn around and shoot you (which will alert other enemies if youre not already spotted).

The crowbar: The tool of the working class, now held by the mighty person known as "you". Can be used to quickly bash in enemies heads if you manage to get the drop on them, just remember that it is essentially a slightly more powerful form of your fists though. Also works great with the boot.

Suppressed glock: The gun of choice used by the Human Assassins, and you probably stole this off their dead body or used sv_cheats 1. If you have already done one of those things you can right-click to attach the suppressor, it also works while being dual wielded but it is better to just use one for the sake of accuracy.

Crossbow: The ultimate in sniper, as far as experimental weapons in a research facility go. Youll have to make do with this because you dont get Shephard's military-grade sniper rifle. Point at their head, scope, and fire and watch their head fall off.

Now that you know the tools of your trade, lets continue to the next section and talk about how to effectively use them.

The tactics

And now, to discuss the actual tactics you will need to use (or at least keep in mind) to sneak around the Black Mesa Research Facility.

General tactics:

Stay low (crouched). Enemies wont hear you and might not see you if you arent right up in their face. Even if an enemy isnt nearby or has a sightline, stay low so they wont pause or be alerted while in another room.

Never fall near enemies. Doing this is the fastest way to alert every enemy in the same room as you. There are not many places where this can happen, but it can and will get you spotted by 3+ enemies and then youll have to fight out the hard way. Basically, stay off boxes until you eliminate every enemy in the vicinity.

Never let enemies fire their gun. If an enemy turns around you will have to act fast and kill them before they can get a shot out. If they fire then you may as well give up on sneaking your way past them because everyone will be at least on alert or already rushing towards you to join the fight.

Take advantage of some of the AIs quirks. You can often see fractions of an enemys head (like in the lobby of Questionable Ethics) or their arms, which can be used to get shots on them with a weapon like the suppressed glock or the crossbow. They wont be alerted.

Keep your distance and stay in control. Enemies cant get the drop on you or hurt you if you eliminate them before they even know youre in the area. Shoot from afar with the crossbow and usually the suppressed glocks can help you at short-medium range if you want to get up close and personal. Always know enemy locations and the best way to get past them for maximum success.

Enemy sightlines. Generally enemies will not see you unless youre making noise or are right up in front of their face, so just make sure they dont see you (or if you can see their face/head, exploit their quirks like stated in one of the tips above).

Cover. The Black Mesa Research Facility has a lot of places where you can just alternatively take the path of sneaking past enemies to get a better ambush point, or just wait for them to pass by. You can also use these if youre the type that pops out of cover, shoots one person, and then goes back into cover. All of these pieces of cover are tools just like your weapons are, use them wisely.

Melee tactics:

Rush. The only real way to get to your target if you want to be fast and not get spotted, if youre really good you can deal with both of them quickly enough that both of them die before they are able to shoot you.

Long jump. To add on to rushing, make use of the long jump module if you have it to gain huge amounts of distance to quickly get near enemies, they wont even see you coming. The landing will alert them 100% so be ready.

Use the kick wisely. Kick their torso or face to maximize efficiency, hopefully it will knock them down so you can deal with other targets. If you want to be very risky you can down multiple enemies with a few kicks and then deal with the ones standing up first.

Suppressed glock tactics:

Don't dual wield. Its not useful and it will make your aim a lot worse than if you were just using one pistol. The mag size is better and thats good, but that would make it only decent if you were going to go in and clear rooms - even then there are better guns for the simple task of loud roomclearing, not ghosting them.

Keep medium to long distance from enemies. If you are far enough away from an enemy they wont even be alerted if you hit them or shoot someone near them (needs a bit more testing but generally works every time ive tried). They might make a pain sound or say theyre being shot but it wont alert anyone, they will simply stop in place.

If in close quarters aim for the head. A no brainer (pun intended) but there are a few that might not realize you can still win stealth battles in close quarters combat by pointing and clicking the mouse on an enemys head. Trying to do this to the gas mask grunts probably isnt very smart though.

Make sure to right click after changing weapons. A mistake i have made several times is switching between weapons and forgetting to reattach the suppressor to my glock. It gets removed after a weapon change and you can mess up a great stealth mission if you just happen to slip and fire an unsuppressed weapon. Basically, right click every time you press 2.

Crossbow tactics:

Use at long range for the best effect. If you are anywhere closer than 25+ meters you may as well just use the suppressed glock, as it would be a faster and potentially safer option than the crossbow.

Remember you can get away with being up close as long as you stay out of sight. The crossbow is dead silent to enemies but they will probably pause and turn around when they see their buddy that was talking to them drop dead. Trying to turn over to them and snipe them definitely isnt a good option as you will be caught in the middle of trying to load another bolt.

Click on their head. This one doesnt need an explanation, but here for those who have no common sense.

Use the scope. Dont try to noscope enemies, while it looks cool for your 2014 MLG SWAG 360 Noscope CSGO compilation it will probably not work against the Marines or idle Zombies, especially at the longer ranges. You will end up alerting them and will then also probably end up dead if you did this in a room full of enemies.

Reload whenever you finish a group of enemies. Another common sense one but also something you might not think to do while ghosting your way through enemies. You might end up going to shoot a Marine in the face and then end up with another 5 of them on you because the gun wasnt loaded and he shot you.

Now that you know how to effectively use the tools of your trade, lets continue to the final section.

The conclusion

So now you know how to be the ghost of the Black Mesa Research Facility. In theory you now know how to effectively sneak through hallways and tunnels without ever being seen by an enemy, and those damn Marines will probably never know you were even there in the first place.

Keep trying if you dont succeed, or alternatively just whip out those dual MP5s and go to town on those Marines (or with a plasma rifle/machinegun if that's your style). Just remember the goal is to have fun.

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