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Air Exchange

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Airex reactor.jpg
Air Exchange
General information
Constructed

After the Seven Hour War

Destroyed

During the uprising

Location

The Coast

Builder

Combine

Usage
Era(s)

Combine occupation

Faction

Combine

Game information
Map(s)
  • airex_0102
  • airex_03040506
  • airex_rough puzzles
  • airex_start
  • proto_airexchange001
  • testroom_light_

      airex01

Designer(s)
"She pointed out a mounded shape, just visible through the enveloping smog; it looked like the shell of a vast slumber beetle; a streamlined mountain of corroded metal. From the density of the fumes, the stink of the air and the burning in his eyes, he suspected he had arrived at what Eli had called, "The Air Conditioner"."
Alyx vignette[src]

The Air Exchange[2] (AirEx),[3] also known as the Air Conditioner,[4] is a location and chapter cut from Half-Life 2. It was to be set after the Depot, at the end of the Wasteland / Coast chapters, and before the Borealis,[5] as the penultimate location of the third day. Prototyped and having all its maps made,[1] it was never finalized in order to let the team concentrate on areas more fruitful for gameplay.[6]

Overview[edit]

The AirEx industrial tower.

Like the Citadel, the Depot and possibly the Weather Control, the AirEx was to be one of the many Air Exchanges spread on Earth by the Combine.[source?]

Similar on the surface to common Earth factories, the Air Exchange was to be a fortified Combine facility garrisoned by Transhuman Soldiers and Stalkers. The role of the facility went through many changes throughout the game’s development. Its first drafted role (and most popular amongst fans) was to terraform the regional air with noxious, murky gasses to make it breathable for the Advisors. but with the expense of rendering it toxic for human life and forcing most of City 17's inhabitants into wearing respirators. The second story draft for the Air Exchange (likely during the 2002 development period) was to have it suck Earth's atmosphere through a portal to operate dimensional turbines to generate power for other dimensions. Captain Vance, the leader of the Conscripts, was to play a compromised and dangerous role protecting the facility (airex_03040506 also features several visgroups named after Vance and a command center).[7] Trucks of unknown use were to be found in the facility, along with refineries.[1]

Early versions of the Air Exchange seemed to be much more focused on solving various puzzles with the facility's air mechanisms such as the vents. The map airex_rough puzzles, one of the earlier Air Exchange maps, contains several visgroups with various puzzle concepts, mostly revolving around using air jets to push the player to inaccessible places.

In this chapter, early concepts have Gordon Freeman arriving by train and crashing into a small depot located before the Air Exchange. There he was to meet Alyx and her pet alien Skitch. The three would embark their journey towards the facility before being ambushed and assumedly intersected by a squad of Combine Elites.[4]

While Vance and his Conscripts were to launch an attack on the Weather Control, three chapters after the AirEx chapter, it is likely that attack was to take place at the middle of the chapter, do to several visgroups named after Vance and a command center in airex_03040506. Eli was also to mention the AirEx existence to Gordon during his slideshow.[8]

Inside the facility, Gordon was to reach the top of the industrial tower where there was located what seemed to be a control room and then jump into a pool of industrial solvents at its base. Then he was to go inside the main reactor of the facility, protected and operated by Stalkers, and sabotage its core (its design is almost identical to the Lambda Core from Half-Life), making the Air Exchange completely nonoperational and triggering the human uprising in City 17. Then, Gordon was to reach the shore, then the Arctic regions, and eventually reach the Borealis.

Fate[edit]

Late 2002 whiteboard listing the AirEx.
  • The AirEx is a part of the storyline set between the Depot and the City 17 street wars that was completely cut, the game's timespan having been reduced to three days instead of the original four. However, some elements were recycled: destroying an important facility to trigger the uprising was merged with the Depot/Nova Prospekt levels in the final game.
  • The AirEx was still in the plans by late 2002[9]; the most recent AirEx map found in the WC mappack, temp3 (an overview of the AirEx, with a different design of the reactor's exhaust), was last modified in February 2002.[1]
  • It is uncertain whether or not the AirEx exists in the final storyline of the game, but as there are no in-game references to it, it is quite likely that it does not. This is especially true as its effects were to force the remaining human population to wear gas masks apparently at all times, as seen in other related early concepts. The fact that no humans are witnessed wearing said masks means that the idea was almost definitely removed completely.

Gallery[edit]

Concept art[edit]

Skybox and environment maps[edit]

Screenshots[edit]

List of appearances[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

  • Air Exchange mod - complete chapter on the Half-Life Project Beta website (does not contain everything; requires the leak)