Pheropods

"I swear by the Pheropods myself!"

- Rebel

Pheropods (portmanteau of "pheromone" and "pod"), commonly known as "Bugbait" among the Resistance, are glandular sacks harvested from dead Antlion Guards and used to control Antlions.

Overview
Bugbait is highly valued in Antlion infested areas, and some Resistance members stationed along the Coast travel considerable distances to reach the Vortigaunt Camp where supplies of it can be obtained. The risk being high, some Rebels (such as Laszlo and Sandy) are not lucky enough to safely reach the camp.

Possessing Pheropods prevents regular Antlions from attacking. Being blind and only using pheromones to identify other living beings, they are fooled by the scent into believing the holder is an Antlion Guard. However, Antlion Guards are unaffected by Pheropods; they are either not fooled, or react aggressively to an unfamiliar individual's scent in their territory.

The Pheropods are first introduced at the end of the Half-Life 2 chapter Sandtraps, where a Vortigaunt comes from the Vortigaunt Camp to harvest it from the Antlion Guard Freeman has just defeated. The Vortigaunt explains that "the process is not entirely hygienic" and advises Freeman to stand aside. Afterward they enter the camp where Freeman is trained the use of Pheropods, after which he proceeds to Nova Prospekt, a journey during which Pheropods will be very useful against Combine forces.

Tactics

 * Pressing the primary fire button throws a Pheropod, while secondary fire squeezes the Pheropod to summon nearby Antlions. Throwing a Pheropod at an object or location will cause it to splat and form a small cloud of pheromones, identifying it as a target. This can be used to command the Antlions to go to a specific place or attack a specific target, such as a Combine soldier or a Sentry Gun. When the Pheropod is squeezed, it will summon four Antlions.


 * Throwing a Pheropod at Combine soldiers will stun them temporarily, in addition to summoning the Antlions to their position.


 * The Bugbait is useful in only the last two maps of the chapter Sandtraps and the chapter Nova Prospekt. After that Freeman leaves Antlion grounds and the weapon is more or less useless for the rest of the game, although it can be used to stun Combine Soldiers for a few seconds, which may be useful on occasion.

Trivia

 * When a Pheropod is thrown, it is destroyed and cannot be used again. Even so, Gordon's supply of them appears to be infinite.


 * Whether Antlions consider Gordon friend or foe appears to be determined by settings applying to the related levels themselves, not whether he possess any Bugbait or not, so even if cheats are used to get the Pheropods outside of the levels where he is supposed to have them, Antlions will still attack.


 * It is safe to use another weapon while in the possession of the Pheropods, but there will still be a need to switch back to it to command Antlions.


 * Whenever Freeman encounters an Antlion Guard while in possession of the Bugbait, regular Antlions are nowhere to be found, so it is unknown whether they can tell the difference between Freeman and a "real" Antlion Guard.


 * The Bugbait viewmodel is far more detailed than the worldmodel.

List of appearances

 * ''Half-Life 2
 * Half-Life 2: Episode One
 * Source Particle Benchmark
 * Half-Life 2: Episode Two