City Scanner

"Oh hell, Gordon! Were you followed again?"

- Barney Calhoun

The City Scanner, or Scanner Type I, often referred to simply as Scanner, is a lightly armored, flying security camera used by the Combine to monitor City 17's (and possibly other cities) residents. Its Synth counterpart is the Shield Scanner.

Use and equipment
Scanners 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 occasionally be salvaged from a destroyed unit. Scanners are lightly armoured so can be destroyed easily by gunfire, impacting against walls or being hit by objects. A critically damaged scanner will frequently attempt to kamikaze dive into its attacker.



As the name implies, scanners are generally used only in cities and are rarely encountered anywhere else. They are commonly seen patrolling City 17's Canals, searching for refugees. Other applications include reconnaissance and searching for wanted individuals. Scanners help by locating targets and alerting other nearby Combine units. During emergencies, scanners can be mass-deployed in thousands from the Citadel, to perform a city-wide, and possibly out-of-city search such as when Gordon Freeman was detected in City 17. City Scanners can also be used for mine deploy as seen the Half Life Episode one level Exit 17.

Interestingly, it appears that parts from a salvaged 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; both machines have a similar frontal design, though Dog's face possesses three face plates while scanners have four. Dog could have been modified with parts from an earlier scanner model; or it was a standard scanner that had simply been adapted for this purpose.

Behind the scenes
The City Scanner went through several incarnations before its current version.


 * It started as a Synth under the name "Recon Synth".
 * Another kind of Scanner, called "Wasteland Scanner", was to be in the Wasteland/The Coast chapters. It was to be seen in areas such as the Air Exchange. It was likely a Synth.
 * Later, it was called "Combot" and was throwing deadly gas as a defense. This version is present in the 2003 leaked playable Half-Life 2 Beta.
 * Also, sound files in the leaked files also indicate that the City Scanner could talk directly to the people via prerecorded messages.

Gallery
 Image:recon synth.jpg|The Recon Synth. Image:Wasteland scanner.jpg|The Wasteland Scanner. Image:Combot1.jpg|The Combot, panels open. Image:Combot2.jpg|The Combot's side. Notice how its tail is shorter than the final City Scanner. 

Trivia

 * When you do npc_cscanner cheat on Anticitizen One and "Follow Freeman!" chapters in 'Half-Life 2'' spawns a Shield Scanner.
 * City Scanners sometimes drop 15 AP (armor point) HEV batteries after they are destroyed. This probably serves as their power source.
 * Both types of Scanner's A.I. sometimes does not bother fighting Zombies.
 * Scanners are not directly met in Episode Two; they are only seen on the route to White Forest.