Subscribe to download
Combine APC

After the 2020 update broke part of its functionality, it seems like some recent update restored it.

If you have issues with your view/controls, please read the FAQ! Who could forget the famous APCs from Half-Life 2? Being loud, shooting rockets, powering forcefields and on the whole just being a huge annoyance to the one free man.

So why not turn it around for once? This is quite an extensive SENT, so let's start with the

• Fully drivable APC as seen in HL2
  
• Supports up to ten players: One driving, one gunning and eight passengers
  
• Drivers can lock and unlock the passenger bay (called "hatch"), start and stop the engine (and with it the handbrakes), toggle the siren and switch between a high gear and a low gear
  
• Gunners have access to a bullet firing turret similar to an emplacement gun and laser guided missiles as well as an advanced zoom
  
• Switching seats between gunner and driver is easily doable, allowing one player to operate the APC alone (although a bit uncomfortable)
  
• Easy to spawn by just pressing its icon in the "Vehicles" / "Half-Life 2" tab - or just search for "Combine APC".
  
• Script hooks allow server admins and scripters to define who is allowed to do what with the APC – without touching the APC code itself.
  
• For those that need to remotely blow up their APC, there's zapc_sd. Look at any APC, fire the bind/execute the command in the console, watch the self destruction do its work.
  
• A softer approach might be zapc_sa, which is an uncanon and rather "unserious" feature, allowing you to enable some kind of car alarm on an APC. Usage is similar to zapc_sd: Point and shoot. You can turn the alarm off by toggling the siren inside the APC.
  
• For those who want ultimately unserious features, there's +zapc_repair: As you fire golden beams of healing glory towards the APC, it gets repaired. What might happen if you fire that beam for too long?

Because of all those features, it might be a bit difficult to get the grasp of the controls, so here's the list. If you have enabled hints, you will also receive them the first time upon entering the driver/gunner seat (just as in sandbox).

Driver:

• Left mouse button (+attack): Starts/Stops the engine and releases/applies the handbrake. IF the engine's on, the handbrake's off.
  
• Right mouse button (+attack2): Toggles between the "high gear" and the "low gear". In the first, you're faster, but might have some issues getting up hills. In the second, you are way slower – but more powerful, allowing you to climb quite steep ramps.
  
• "R" (+reload): Toggles the siren. In case the alarm was toggled on an APC, this will turn it off.
  
• Alt (+walk, called "Walk (Move slowly)" in the options): Unlock/lock the hatch. People can only get in and out if the hatch has been opened. If the hatch is closed, passengers inside won't see much outside – this might lag a little, but it's still better than not seeing anything at all.
  
• Shift (+speed): Switches to the gunner seat (if empty)
  
• Ctrl (+duck): Toggles between first and third person.

Gunner:

• Left mouse button (+attack): Fire turret.
  
• Right mouse button (+attack2): Fire a rocket. Rockets will always try to hit the position your turret is currently aiming at – you can guide them using the turret.
  
• "R" (+reload): Reload the turret.
  
• Shift (+speed): Switches to the driver seat (if empty).
  
• Ctrl (+duck): Toggles between an "accurate" and "less accurate" firing mode. The accurate mode can lag on certain servers but the crosshair is always accurately in the middle of the screen. In the less accurate mode, the crosshair will show you where the bullets and the rockets will hit, which might cause it to move away from the middle of the screen.

The APC adds a new hook called 'ZAPC_CheckAccess' on the server. It will always pass at least three parameters: The player to be checked, the action he wants to perform and the APC he wants to perform it on. By returning "false", you can deny the action. So far, the following actions (and their parameters) have been defined:

• "personal": Called to check if a player is allowed to enter a driver/gunner seat. This will also be called once a player is already inside – in case the check fails, the player will be kicked out.
  
• "destruct": If a player is allowed to execute zapc_sd on said APC
  
• "alarm": If a player is allowed to execute zapc_sa on said APC
  
• "repair": If a player is allowed to execute +zapc_repair on said APC
  
• "tool": If a player is allowed to use this tool on the APC. Passed as additional parameters are the trace and the toolmode (similar to ENT:CanTool). Note that duplicating is always forbidden – in addition, this relies on ENT:CanTool. If the gamemode does not support this (sandbox does), this hook won't be called and has no effect!

As example: If you want to disallow anyone to destruct, alarm, repair and tool an APC, use the following snippet:

Every APC passed is the prop_vehicle_zapc SENT. To access the driver/gunner, use apc.Driver/apc.Gunner, the passenger pods (normal prop_vehicle_prisoner_pod) are in a table called "Passengers". If you've got any question about customizing the APC, feel free to ask (or check the source).

(The screenshots suck, I'm aware.)

I really hope that if I put it in here, in big and bold, the questioning ends once and for all. I'm not going to answere these questions anymore beginning in Septembre 2013.

Subscribe to this addon, check under "Vehicles", "Half-Life 2" and click the "Combine APC" one. Or search for "Combine APC". If that doesn't work, it's likely another addon preventing you from spawning it.

No. Just no. Whatever you want with NPCs, no.

• My view is bugged! Some poorly coded addons might abuse some lua functionalities. If you have issues with the view (under the APC, can't move, etc.), please use the command zapc_dumphooks in the (server) console, zapc_dumphooks_cl on your client and send me the results (for example, upload it to pastebin and post the link in the comments). I'll see that I can fix the issue. If you know which addon has caused this, then make sure to let me know its name/a link to it too. Remember: The more details I have, the better your chances that I can (or will) fix it.
  
• About NPCs: It's not an NPC, nor will it ever be. NPCs won't use it and it won't do stuff on its own.
  
• I can't get into the passenger bay/The hatch thing is broken! The passenger bay works this way. If you try to enter the APC, it will check if you are allowed to (per default, unless anybody added a script that forbids that using the API, everybody is). If you are allowed to enter the APC and there is space in the gunner or driver seat, it will place you in the free seat (driver first, gunner later). If you are not authorized to (or there's no space) and the hatch is opened, you will be placed in the passenger bay. So: Driver/Gunner first if possible, passenger bay otherwise if hatch opened. If both fail, you'll get a audio feedback that you can't enter the APC.
  
• My weapons are invisible after I leave the APC! I'm not doing anything with your weapons so it's highly unlikely that I can do anything about it. As far as I have heard, it's a common problem with the jeep under certain circumstances (which the APC is based on), so there's little I can do.

For the miniature sized 1:10 version, check out the Pet APC.