Ammo Balancing in Half-Life : Alyx

A major part of the core tension of Half-Life: Alyx comes from the player's limited resources. Your ammo is constantly running low, and every missed shot or poorly used weapon, matters. This all comes from spot on ammo balancing. There's no "magic bullet" to achieve this perfectly every time, but Half-Life: Alyx does include several dynamic systems that try to remove any outliers, and keep players in the perfect levels of danger. These two systems are Ammo Removal and Ammo Drain.

Todo: Page under construction

Ammo Removal

Point_Template can be used to spawn ammo items when needed

hlvr_player_ammobal_removeat_pistol			"60"
...
hlvr_player_ammobal_removeat_shotgun		"12"
...
hlvr_player_ammobal_removeat_rapidfire		"150"

Point_template

Potential Visibility Set

(temporary text) "the syringe testing was more interesting than I thought (only tested in normal difficulty): If you have full health, no syringe in pocket, there is a 50/50 chance of dropping (not every second spawn) If you have less than full health, no syringe in pocket, guarantied drop If you have syringe in pocket (health does not matter), you will have the 8-counter "chance" shared with the rest of the ammo"

Ammo Drain

hlvr_player_ammobal_min_pistol				"20"
hlvr_player_ammobal_max_pistol				"60"
...
hlvr_player_ammobal_min_shotgun				"8"
hlvr_player_ammobal_max_shotgun				"12"
...
hlvr_player_ammobal_min_rapidfire			"90"
hlvr_player_ammobal_max_rapidfire			"150"

hlvr_player_ammobal_drain_pistol			"4"
...
hlvr_player_ammobal_drain_shotgun			"6"
...
hlvr_player_ammobal_drain_rapidfire			"4"

sk_zombie_max_additional_ammo_shots			"18"
sk_headcrab_max_additional_ammo_shots		"4"
sk_barnacle_max_additional_ammo_shots		"8"
sk_combine_max_additional_ammo_shots		"16"

Best Practices

The Combine Locker prefab is often used to efficiently spawn ammo

Pacing scavenging can help reduce fatigue

My Output	Target Entity	Target Input	Parameter	Delay
Ouput_OnHackSuccess	[locker_template]	ForceSpawn		0.00

See Also

• ai_attached_item_manager
• Prefabs and Instances
• Trigger Player Out Of Ammo