City Scanner

City Scanners, often referred to simply as scanners, are lightly armoured, flying security cameras used by the Combine to monitor City 17's (and possibly other cities) residents. They are equipped with a searchlight and a camera used to take photographic images. The flash emitted when taking an image can temporarily blind a person, if they are looking directly at the flash.

Scanners are powered by a single Combine battery, which can occassionally be salvaged from a destroyed unit. Scanners are lightly armoured, and can easily be destroyed by gunfire or smashing into walls or being hit by objects. A critically damaged scanner will sometimes attempt to crash into its attacker.



As the name implies, scanners are generally used only in cities, and are rarely encountered anywhere else. They are also commonly seen patrolling City 17's Canals, searching for refugees. Scanners are also used for reconnaissance, and searching for wanted individuals. City Scanners are commonly found with the presence of Civil Protection officers, but do not play a direct role in combat. Instead, scanners help by locating targets and alerting other nearby units. In emergencies, scanners can be mass-deployed in the thousands from the Citadel, to perform a city-wide, and possibly out-of-city search. One such emergency was the detection of Gordon Freeman in City 17.

It also appears that parts salvaged from a city scanner were used in one of the more recent additions to Dog, the robot Eli Vance built to protect his daughter, Alyx, while she was young, as both machines maintain a similar "facial" design, though Dog's face possesses three face plates while scanners have four.

Appearances

 * Half-Life 2
 * Half-Life 2: Episode One