Charger


 * This article is about the device. For the Half-Life cut enemy, see Charger (Xen Creature).

In the Half-Life series, the Health and HEV Suit Chargers are devices that give the player health and armor points as long as he holds down the "use" key near them. However, these Chargers have a limited amount of supplies and will run out.

Health
In both games, Health Chargers are scattered throughout areas, and are placed around for the convince of staff in high-risk areas, such as in areas with dangerous creatures or machinery. The device can be used by anyone. The HL1 variant can has a keypad for dispensing a certain amount of healing (this doesn't affect gameplay), but the HL2 variant does not have one. Instead, it has a white line that gets smaller as more supplies are used up, as well as a spinning disk which twirls inward continuously until health liquid is depleted. The Health Chargers give you 50 percent health each time. On the other hand, the health chargers in the Source high-definition pack have devices that make more sense when in use. They contain a hypodermic needle on a mechanical arm connected to a small reservoir of medicine. Whenever a user is nearby, the arm automatically extends in front of him or her.

HEV Chargers
HEV Chargers appear in both games, but for completely different reasons. In Half-Life 1, there are dedicated HEV suit chargers scattered throughout the facility, hinting that HEV usage was widespread throughout the Black Mesa Research Facility. In addition, generic power sources (Ohm's) can also be used to draw power for the HEV suit, though these only appear in the more-neglected areas of the facility. Dedicated PCV chargers are made, but they only appeared in key parts of the facility controlled by the military, mostly after the Resonance Cascade. In the neglected parts of the facility, there are old HEV Chargers that have a different shape. These usually work like the "newer" models, but some are prone to exploding.

In Half-Life 2, "HEV" chargers are actually generic power sources used by the Combine. The Mk V HEV suit has been designed to specifically accept power from these sources. The only "original" HEV Suit charger is a front plate that can be found in Black Mesa East and the White Forest base. All types of power chargers have 75 percent power.

When the HEV suit is powered up by Dark Energy at the end of HL2 and during the Citadel in Episode One, the HEV suit can utilize HEV Chargers much more efficiently; it can easily go from 0 to 200 armor points without draining most of the charger. In addition, HEV Chargers can also heal a person while the HEV suit is powered up. However, this is only the case when the suit is charged with dark energy, doubling its power capacity. Finally, the charger in the source high-definition pack involves two spinning power coils, with, like the health charger, a robot arm with electricity running through it.

Gameplay
In Half-Life 1, Health and HEV chargers are the primary source of health and armor throughout the game, especially in Hard mode. Medkits and batteries do not provide enough health and armor to be an effective long-term source of healing and protection.

Things have changed somewhat in Half-Life 2. Medkits now heal 25 health, regardless of the difficulty level. This turns Medkits into the primary healing item. However, the HEV charger is still the primary source of armor, as Batteries are uncommon.

Trivia
Health and HEV chargers can be placed in Team Fortress Classic maps. They have much larger reserves than their Half-Life 1 versions.

In Half-Life 1, Chargers are actually brush-based entities that can be applied to any surface, but are dedicated entities in Half-Life. The brush-based version remains in the Half-Life 2 engine, but is not used. The maps in the WC mappack make extensive use of the brush-based entity version, as it was made long before the regular entity one was.