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This article appeared in Quake II  

!Q2-Technician
Technician (Q2)
Health

200

Attack Damage

Hyperblaster: 1 per bolt
Shock Prod: 6-12
Utility Claw: 5-10

Drops

Cells

Found in

Quake II
The Reckoning
Ground Zero
Call of the Machine

[Source]


An almost completely robotic brute, controlled by a brain that floats around inside it’s metal body in a red preserving fluid. This creature moves about by hovering on four jets that sit under its body and is equipped with three weapons: a shocking prod, a flesh-ripping claw, and a laser blaster. Use energy armor if you’ve got any.

—Quake II Manual

In Quake II, a Technician is a floating mechanoid, comprised of two halves; the upper half is a transparent tube, containing a head or brain floating in a red liquid, cybernetically linked to a respirator and all of its other equipment. Its lower half is purely mechanical, sporting a hyperblaster for ranged attacks (much weaker than the hyperblaster available to the player, thankfully) and two tool arms - a utility claw and an electrical prod of sorts, which the Technician can use as improvised weapons.

The Technician first appears in the Ammo Depot in Unit 2, and while it is not among the most common foes in the game, it is present in all of the official PC single-player campaigns (although not the Nintendo 64 or PSX versions).

Behaviour and Attacks[]

Hyperblaster: The Technician fires a volley of seven hyperblaster bolts, each dealing 1 damage. They can be reliably dodged by strafing.

Tool Arms: If the Technician finds itself in melee range, it may attack with either of its two tool arms. The Technician must turn away to present its chosen tool arm to its target before delivering a strike, then it will turn back to face its target - if it wishes to deliver another strike, it must keep turning back and forth like this, resulting in a very slow attack rate if it stays in melee range. The two tool arms deal similar damage - a random amount up to 12 - but there is a significant difference between the two. The utility claw is a typical melee weapon, but the shock prod is actually a long-ranged hitscan weapon, even though the Technician will only use it once it reaches melee range. In other words, if you provoke a Technician into taking a melee swing at you and then step backward to dodge it, then you would dodge its claw but you wouldn't dodge its shock prod.

Technicians will only infight with other flying Strogg, i.e. a Flyer, Icarus, Daedalus or Hornet. Strogg on the ground might accidentally hit a Technician, or vice versa, but it won't cause them to deliberately start fighting each other.

In the original release of the mission pack Ground Zero, Technicians may strafe sideways while firing their hyperblaster volley, although this behaviour hasn't carried over in the 2023 remaster.

Strategies[]

  • Technicians aren't very challenging foes. They can be regarded as being similar to Flyers with more health but a larger target. A single Technician can be dealt with by the Shotgun, Super Shotgun or Machine Gun without much trouble. If the player desires to kill them more quickly, then the Chain Gun, Hyperblaster or Railgun can be used. As for its own attacks, its hyperblaster is easily avoided by strafing, and with each bolt only dealing 1 damage, the occasional hit isn't a big problem so long as you dodge most of them.
  • While its melee attacks are slow and unwieldy, it is not very wise to attempt to "dance" with a Technician in the same way as a Gladiator (i.e. moving close enough to provoke its melee swing, then stepping back before it strikes, then repeating the process). This is due to the fact that the Technician's shock prod is actually a long-ranged hitscan weapon that can't be dodged by strafing, so if it chooses its prod as a melee strike instead of the claw, the player will take damage.

Appearance statistics[]

Campaign Easy Medium Hard/Nightmare
Quake II 46 53 59
The Reckoning 13 20 25
Ground Zero 10 10 12
Quake II 64 - - -
Quake II PSX - - -
Call of the Machine 94 102 107

Sounds[]

Sounds
The Technician spotting an opponent
The Technician being injured
The Technician being killed

Trivia[]

  • The Technician's face is visible from both the front and the back of its upper half, although it can't see with its back-face.
  • The Technician's name and its improvised melee attacks suggest that it is not primarily designed for combat, probably fulfilling more of a maintenance role.
  • While the manual description recommends that players use energy armor - i.e. the Power Shield - against a Technician, there's really no particular reason why the Technician warrants such a tactic more than any other Strogg would. While it is certainly arguable that the Power Shield should always be switched on, its value is most obviously shown against the most powerful non-energy weapons such as railguns and rocket launchers.
  • The Technician's electrical prod is a surprisingly effective weapon, in and of itself. It isn't terribly powerful, but it has a long range and hits its target instantly regardless of whether they are dodging. It is rather fortunate that the Technician only uses it once it finds itself in melee range, and fortunate that it's mounted on the flank of the Technician so that it has to clumsily spin around in order to use it. This would soon become quite a notorious weapon if it were wielded by some of the more combat-oriented Strogg.
  • There is a largely unused animation for the Technician in which it begins idle, sitting on the ground with its arms retracted, and then extends its arms and takes off into the air. This animation is not used in the original Quake II campaigns, but one Technician can be seen to do this in the level Surface Infiltration in Call of the Machine, released as part of the 2023 remaster.

Gallery[]

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