Stun Baton

Stun Baton
Production information
Type	Melee stun weapon
Affiliation	Combine
Technical specifications
Damage	10 (HL2 with H.E.V. suit) 40 (HL2:DM, to NPC and without H.E.V. suit)
Rate of fire	75 swings per minute (HL2)
Operation	Shake to toggle charge, swing to strike
Range	Close
Usage
Used by	Civil Protection
Counterparts	Other melee weapons
Game information
Entity name	weapon_stunstick

The Stun Baton, or Stunstick, is an electrified baton used by Civil Protection officers to enforce the law on unruly citizens with an iron fist. The stun baton appears in the first and third chapters of Half-Life 2, Point Insertion, and Route Kanal. The stun baton makes a reappearance in Half-Life: Alyx as an earlier version of the weapon used by an earlier version of Civil Protection.

Overview

Stun batons are similar in use and appearance to those used by police officers in modern times, though considerably more brutal. The small electrical device contained within the tip is to electrocute anyone hit with the baton. When activated, the end emits an electrical blue glow. It will stun citizens, causing pain and confusion. The stun baton is approximately 22 inches long and manufactured from a gray metal.

Often, stun batons are to beat citizens who do not comply with Combine rules and regulations or who disobey Civil Protection officers no matter how trivial they may be. For instance, during the chapter Point Insertion, an officer will beat Gordon Freeman if he throws the can at or past the Civil Protection officer instead of into the bin. Stun batons are also used in Civil Protection raids to subdue targeted citizens or Resistance members. Guards use Stun Batons to restrain and harass citizens within City 17.

The stun baton was to be within Half-Life 2 as a usable weapon but removed in the retail version. It is possible that the stun baton was going to be Gordon's melee weapon, and was later replaced with the Crowbar due to it's iconicity associated with Freeman.

The stun baton is in Half-life 2: Deathmatch. The usable stun baton only has one level of damage and cannot have its stun mode toggled on or off. It is very similar functionally to the Crowbar. Although, the Crowbar does significantly more damage and has a slower attack rate. Players who spawn with Combine player models spawn with the baton.

Stun batons have different settings of power. Proven by the fact that on the streets, being hit by a stun baton only hurts and blinds Freeman for a second, during an apartment raid, they can be seen incapacitating citizens in one hit and can kill or incapacitate the player in three hits.

After Freeman gets his HEV suit, they only deal ten damage per strike while still deal one-hit kill on citizens or any NPCs with less than forty health and deal massive damage on other NPCs who have a good amount of health. Freeman's invincibility is because the player is invulnerable to damage before the apartment raid. This invulnerability is disabled during the apartment raid.

Behind the scenes

• There is a cut HUD icon in the Half-Life 2 files for the Stun Baton. The icons do not represent the baton but the words "STUNSTICK ICON".

Trivia

• Interestingly, while Freeman cannot use the baton as a weapon, he can pick it up and use it as a battery, recharging the HEV Suit's power by 7%. However, the stun baton will simply disappear once it is dropped if the enemy is killed from range.
• In Half-Life 2, the stun baton deals forty damage to NPC's and to the player without the HEV Suit. If the player has an HEV Suit it only deals ten damage, though the console says it does forty damage.
• In Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, the stun baton will take three hits to kill a fully healed enemy, albeit very slow. It is statistically worse than the crowbar against fully healed enemies, taking longer to kill them, but is more effective against enemies who are already damaged.
• Despite the stun baton being meant to do as its namesake, stun, it's classified as a kill in-game due to game restriction. When used by Resistance NPC by spawning through console command, they do not emit blue glow.
• In Half-Life Alyx the stun baton takes on a different appearance form the previous titles. whether this is just a simple redesign or a different/earlier version use by the civil protection is unknown
• In a cut trailer for Half-Life: Alyx, Breen can be seen using a pen in the style of a stun baton.

Gallery

Cut HUD icon.

Cut alternate icon, without caption.

Half-Life 2: Deathmatch HUD icon, a vector glyph used in-game through the font "HalfLife2.ttf".

Cut alternate icon (vector glyph front the font "HalfLife2.ttf"), also present in the game files as a texture.

Worldmodel.

Cut Half-Life 2 viewmodel. It can be found in source models.gcf.

Half-Life 2: Deathmatch viewmodel.

Early blue-eyed officer with a Stun Baton.

Civil Protection officer wielding a Stun Baton.

The "pick up that can" officer about to send a >B can on the ground.

Civil Protection officers beating Citizens with their stun batons during an apartment raid.

Ditto.

From Left: unused view model, world model, and the HL2: DM view model.

A group of earlier Civil Protection officers welding an earlier model of the weapon in a Half-Life: Alyx concept art.

List of appearances

• Half-Life 2 (First appearance)
• Half-Life 2: Deathmatch (Non-canonical appearance)
• Source Particle Benchmark (Game files only) (Non-canonical appearance)
• Half-Life: Alyx

References

The Half-Life Wiki has more images related to Stun Baton.