| |
| Gunner Commander | |
| Health |
325 |
| Attack Damage |
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| Found in | |
| [Source] | |
| “ | If the Gunner is the fighting elite, the Gunner Commander is the elite of the elite. The Gunner Commander is more lethal, shooting projectiles from a modified form of the ETF Rifle. The Commander is issued with Power Armor as standard, and has multiple melee attacks. | ” |
—iD Vault | ||
The Gunner Commander is a new enemy introduced in Call of the Machine, a new expansion released as part of the 2023 remaster of Quake II. It is a humanoid Strogg resembling a large Gunner, armed with an ETF Rifle replacing its right forearm and a rapid-firing Grenade Launcher replacing its left. It is faster and has more base health than the original Gunner, but has considerably more overall durability thanks to its Power Shield, and it may also perform melee attacks.
They are an uncommon enemy - four are encountered throughout OPERATION: Ruined Earth, and another is encountered in the Junkyard.
Behaviour and Attacks[]
ETF Rifle: A rapid-fire projectile weapon dealing 4 damage per hit. Its projectiles completely bypass a target's conventional armor, delivering damage directly to the player's health, instead of distributing it between health and armor as other weapons do. Strafing can allow a player to dodge most of the projectiles from this weapon, although the Gunner Commander can lead its shots to some extent.
Grenade Launcher: A rapid-fire grenade launcher much like that of the original Gunner, although it only fires three grenades per volley whereas the original Gunner fires four. The Gunner Commander also tends to launch his grenades at a higher trajectory. These projectiles are easier to avoid by strafing, since the Gunner Commander doesn't tend to lead them towards the direction the player is moving.
Melee: When finding itself in melee range, the Gunner Commander may deliver a swift kick, dealing 15 damage and hurling its target backwards. Alternatively it can crouch and perform a spinning punch that has a radius of effect, potentially hitting several foes at once.
Very rarely, the Gunner Commander might continue fighting after suffering enough damage to kill it; it'll be knocked down, but get back up again and fight on with an additional 180 health remaining.
Power Shield[]
The Gunner Commander's power shield greatly increases its durability, especially against non-energy weapons. It functions the same way as the player's Power Shield does, essentially reducing the amount of damage suffered by its health at the cost of consuming some of its cells.
When struck by a non-energy weapon, one-third of its damage will be suffered by the Gunner Commander's health, one-third will be suffered by its cells, and the remaining one-third will go to waste. So, for example, a Railgun shot that normally deals 125 damage will deal 41 damage to the Gunner Commander's health and drain 41 cells from its power shield, with the remaining chunk of damage going to waste. Therefore, it would take five Railgun shots to deal enough damage to fully deplete the power shield and deal a little over 200 damage to the Gunner Commander's health in the process, with the sixth Railgun shot killing him. This would normally be a total of 750 damage inflicted to an enemy without a Power Shield.
Energy weapons are more effective; one-third of the damage will be suffered by the Gunner Commander's health, and the remaining two-thirds will be suffered by its cells. For example, the Plasma Beam normally deals 15 damage per hit, but against the Gunner Commander each hit will deal 5 damage to its health and deplete 10 of its cells, with none of the damage going to waste. Therefore it will fully deplete the power shield in 20 hits, having also dealt 100 damage to its health in the process, and then it would require 15 more hits to deplete its remaining 225 health. The energy weapon therefore kills this enemy more efficiently, having dealt only 525 damage to achieve the kill, whereas the Railgun effectively had to deal 750.
Strategies[]
- Strafing is helpful to avoid damage from both of the guns wielded by this enemy; its grenades are easily avoided by continuous strafing. However, the Gunner Commander can "lead" its ETF Rifle shots to some extent, towards the direction the player is strafing, so a player might have better luck if they are ready to change direction once its flechette volley begins. Using cover for "peekaboo" attacks can work well too.
- As described above, its Power Shield is more susceptible to your energy weapons than your non-energy weapons, these weapons depleting the shield twice as quickly as conventional firepower. A Gunner Commander can be killed with 30 Hyperblaster shots, 35 shots from the Plasma Beam or Blaster, or a single well-placed BFG10K shot. Non-energy weapons take longer: the Railgun would require six shots, or seven shots from the Super Shotgun, Grenade Launcher or Rocket Launcher. A little over 100 bullets from the Chain Gun or Machine Gun would be required.
- When the first Gunner Commander in OPERATION: Ruined Earth is encountered in Echoes of the Past alongside a retinue of Gunners and Enforcers, the advice above isn't too helpful because the player will not yet possess any energy weapons (besides the Blaster). However, the terrain is well-suited to encourage infighting among the Strogg; the player can retreat back into the pipe from which they entered the area, and allow the Gunners and Gunner Commander to hit each other and the Enforcers with grenade volleys. A single wayward grenade can soon cause a massive brawl amongst this particular group of foes. The same goes for the first Gunner Commander encountered at the start of Strogg Mining Intake; he's accompanied by several Hyperblaster Guards and it's a fairly straightforward matter to get the Commander and the Guards to hit each other and begin infighting. The Gunner Commander can be reasonably expected to defeat all the Hyperblaster Guards by himself, but they can distract him for a while, and chip away at his power shield.
- Occasionally, the Gunner Commander may suffer enough damage to kill it and be knocked down, but then get up again and fight on with 180 health remaining. Therefore, if you see a Gunner Commander go down, make sure it's really dead.
Appearance statistics[]
| Campaign | Any difficulty |
|---|---|
| Quake II | - |
| The Reckoning | - |
| Ground Zero | - |
| Quake II 64 | - |
| Quake II PSX | - |
| Call of the Machine | 5 |
Death Messages[]
Sounds[]
| Sounds | |
|---|---|
| The Gunner Commander talking | |
| The Gunner Commander spotting an opponent | |
| The Gunner Commander being injured | |
| The Gunner Commander being killed | |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The Gunner Commander animations were created post-release being designed for md3 format, and possibly designed for Quake III Arena. The textures for it was created for the Quake II Remaster. An early idea for the remaster was to give the Gunner Commander proximity mines to make them more distinct.