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Half-Life 2 Hints
Scanner (Type I)
Health: 30
Damage: 25 from suicide dive
First Seen: Point Insertion, Section 1
These little mobile cameras don't attack you, but hover around you occasionally and temporarily blind you with their annoying little spotlights. They'll only be able to damage you by diving at you and exploding (which they sometimes do after you heavily damage them), but this is fairly rare.
You can start damaging these scanners as soon as you find large objects like barrels or paint cans to throw at them. After you get a crowbar, you can try whacking them as they pass close to you, but it's probably easier to shoot them down with the pistol or SMG. Once you get the gravity gun, it can be used to grab onto a scanner and then throw it into a wall or something else solid to smash it.
NOTE: Scanners sometimes drop armor batteries when they're destroyed, so always watch for those. In fact, when there are scanners in the area, you can save your game right before smashing them and then keep smashing them and restoring your save until you get a battery.
