Talk:Immolator

	This is the talk page for Immolator. Click here to start a new topic.
	This page is reserved for discussion about the article itself, not for discussions about the subject. If you haven't yet, please read our Talk page policy for information and help on how to comment on talk pages.

I talk to myself

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Immolator "im·mo·late (m-lt) tr.v. im·mo·lat·ed, im·mo·lat·ing, im·mo·lates 1. To kill as a sacrifice. 2. To kill (oneself) by fire. 3. To destroy."

97.114.12.4 08:30, April 14, 2010 (UTC)

uh okay. Darkman 4 08:59, April 14, 2010 (UTC)

Aaaaand?... Klow 14:28, April 14, 2010 (UTC)

Immolator Hud Icon

The article states that the immolator's selection icon is in the final game's files and includes an image of said icon, but I've been unable to find any such thing. In fact, I was also unable to find this texture in the leak, and only found it in the modified "leaknet" files. I think this image may be third-party. Paynamia (talk) 01:20, 13 September 2018 (MSK)

You are correct. It looks like Leaknet's icon has been misidentified as being official. I've removed the icon and will review the other icons included with the patch. Marphy (talk) 05:43, 13 September 2018 (MSK)

Immolator, Cremators, Striders, and models

The article is quite old and isn't super well written, however, before rewriting it I decided to start a discussion here.

I believe we shouldn't describe the weapon as belonging to the Cremators, and we shouldn't include them in the 'Used by' part of the infobox.

I think it should instead include Striders (possibly Gordon Freeman too, I'll explain below) and here's my reasoning.

• There's a good deal of evidence connecting the Immolator and the Strider. First, the Immolator code references the Strider, such as describing // It's the Immolator's RangeAttack1, but it's the Strider's Range Attack 2. (interestingly, this line specifically is excluded from the SDK version of weapon_immolator.cpp, but remains in the 2003 version, lines 224-225). The Strider code, in turn, references the Immolator several times (2003's npc_strider.cpp: lines 91, 2245). The Striders in the leak are in fact programmed to spawn equipped with a weapon_immolator and drop them on death (2003's npc_strider.cpp: line 985). All in all, it would be fair to say that the Immolator was used by Striders as the secondary fire mode, before it was replaced with the warp cannon.
• The article describes the Cremator gun viewmodel and worldmodel as the Immolator models. That is not correct, as in the unpatched HL2 leak, the weapon uses the Guard Gun models for both (scripts\weapon_immolator.txt), and the Guard Gun HUD icon alongside a BLANK icon. The Cremator gun models themselves don't seem to point to the Immolator at all: the viewmodel present in the leak is called v_cremator.mdl (no worldmodel is present, but the Cremator texture folder includes a w_crematorgun material), its QC file in the repository leak is titled "Cremator gun" (hl2\models\Weapons\V_Cremator_gun\v_cremator.qcx, head comment).
• I don't believe there's any evidence showing that Cremators used Immolators, beside a semantic one. It is very unfortunate that the code for npc_cremator is lost, and we cannot judge if it was in fact using the Immolator. If it did, then the descriptions of the Cremators that we have in RTB don't match the behavior of the Immolator. To me, the Cremator gun model being present and named the way it is rather indicates they had their own weapon, which we also lost alongside the Cremator code.
• More of a trivia point, there is no weapon_immolator entities in the WC mappack. The only way to get one seems to be from the Striders. This means we can't accurately date the weapon based on maps.
• How do we know it was meant to be a usable weapon and not something like the Annabelle, the Alyx Gun, or the Citizen Package (the ration packs and suitcases are programmed as weapons)? Being able to pick it up isn't everything, and can be just the default result of how NPC deaths work.

Over the years, the community came to associate Cremators and Immolators, which is understandable since they're both about burning things and they're both cut. But I believe mistakes were made along the way. First people patched the leak so the Immolator used the Cremator gun model and icon. Missing Info restored the world model, and continued this association.

The Leaknet patch gives the Immolator a blue beam and "plasma" fires - it's a separate unfinished type of fires that uses cyan particles and its own damage type - but the Immolator doesn't deal "plasma" damage in the code, and doesn't even spawn fire entities - it simply ignites things with regular burn damage (DMG_PLASMA damage type exists, but the Immolator uses DMG_BURN).

I believe this came about as the result of thinking the Immolator should have the plasma fire and blue beam graphics, because the Cremators apparently used plasma (based on Cremator sound files), but it stems from the conclusion that it's related to Cremators in the first place. Leaknet also included a simple Cremator entity equipped with the Immolator, further strengthening this association. To me this is circular logic: give Cremators Immolators, because the Immolator is the Cremator gun, give it HUD/model/fx/damage type it didn't have, because Cremators used plasma.

But I think there's no actual evidence showing Cremators used Immolators. There is proof Striders used them, and it can be picked up and used by the player. And there are Cremators having a weapon, and a viewmodel for one suggestion it was obtainable. We may be dealing with two pieces of two puzzles: a weapon - the Immolator - that is given to Striders, and we have its entity and we know how it works, and it doesn't have its own assets; and a weapon - the Cremator gun - that has its own assets that show it was usable, and we don't have the entity for it. We have some idea of what Cremators did based on sound files, text descriptions, and FGD keyvalues, but none of it matches how the Immolator we know, works.

I think overall the article should say something like this:

The Immolator is a weapon cut from Half-Life 2. It can be found in the playable Half-Life 2 leak. The leaked source code indicates that it was the Strider's secondary weapon before the Warp Cannon.

Overview

The Immolator is an energy weapon that fires a green beam with a bunch of growing secondary beams at the point of impact. Anything caught in the radius of the secondary beams gets burned, including the player.

In the playable leak the Striders spawn equipped with this weapon and drop it upon dying, allowing the player to pick it up; this can be witnessed in the map d3_c17_14. Based on the available source code, the Immolator's ranged attack served as the Strider's secondary attack at one point. The retail game still includes the console variable strider_immolate, although no code is associated with it.

Trivia

*In the playable leak, the Immolator uses the Guard Gun models, likely as a placeholder. Its only sound effect is also a placeholder, using a 'punch miss' sound.

*The Cremator weapon model is present in the leak and is used for the Immolator in several popular leak-based mods, such as Missing Information. However, it is unknown if it is related to the Immolator or was meant for another cut weapon.

Gallery

[pic with the burning zombies or a new one similar to it]

[a new pic with picking it up from a Strider, with the original 'BLANK' Immolator HUD icon - the one present now is from a modded game, there's no such icon in the leak]

The rest I think shouldn't be included. There's a bunch of issues right now like saying Noclipping to the Strider's head, then pressing the Use key results in the player seeing through the creature's eyes (that's not how it happens - the player gets stuck in the top of the Strider, and it happens by merely touching the Strider, and in fact that's how the map d3_c17_14 is meant to play out). I think this is baggage. It also says the Striders used a "giant" immolator, but we don't know if it wasn't just the regular kind, assuming everything I said above is correct.

We've spent 20 years thinking these things are connected, so I'd like to be careful before bringing a wrecking ball to the article. Maybe I overlooked something. That's why I opened this discussion. Cvoxalury (talk) 09:43, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

Very interesting. The only source I've found listed on this wiki for the claim that Cremators wield Immolators is a reference to Raising the Bar page 73, which makes no mention of the Immolator by name, rather calling their weapon "a large spray hose". Could this indeed be a misconception two decades in the making... 86.75.115.1 12:50, 9 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't have anything else to add. I've independently verified everything brought up here, and I've found nothing to contradict what you've proposed. Feel free to start going forward with these changes, and that will entail making a new "Cremator gun" article. We can handle the nuances of the language used to address the long-standing confusion surrounding these weapons as we go along. Marphy (talk) 00:08, 10 September 2026 (UTC)