Assault Captain
From Duke Nukem Wiki
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The Assault Captain (also known as the Lizard Captain) is a stronger version of the Assault Trooper. It is first encountered in the first level of L.A. Meltdown, Hollywood Holocaust.
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[edit] Description
The Assault Captain's job is to lead the Assault Troopers in battle. Ruthless and cunning, it directs minor battles with ease. It is the same species as the Assault Trooper; its only distinguishing feature is its red armor (which apparently signifies leadership, or at least a higher level of authority than green).
Twice as tough as its underlings, and carrying a small wrist-mounted cloaking device in addition to its laser blaster, the Assault Captain is the master of sneak attacks. Often cloaking itself before the player has seen it, it can come as a nasty shock when it strikes.
[edit] Appearance
The Assault Captain is almost identical to its weaker counterpart, the Assault Trooper. It differs only in the colour of its armor, which is red instead of light green.
Furthering the similarity to the design of the Predator (from the movie of the same name), the Assault Captain also has a wrist-mounted computer terminal which allows it to turn invisible for a short time. This computer terminal, however, cannot itself be seen on the sprites, and is only inferred to exist by the animation of the Assault Captain using it.
[edit] Combat analysis
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The Assault Captain behaves exactly like the Assault Trooper but has an added feature: its cloaking device (often incorrectly referred to as a teleporter due to the animation used for it).
When the Assault Captain uses its cloaking device, it activates it by using the computer terminal located on its wrist. It then disappears in an effect that looks like a teleporter flash. Once cloaked, it is completely invisible, cannot be harmed or attack, and cannot be collided with. The invisible Assault Captain may roam about.
It will automatically become visible again when the player has passed the spot where it became invisible, so that the Assault Captain is now behind the player. The cloaking device has a time limit, so it will become visible again anyway after a certain length of time, even if the player does not pass the spot it disappeared at.
The Assault Captain has twice as much health as an Assault Trooper. Like the Assault Trooper, Assault Captains can also "play dead".
[edit] Data
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[edit] The Assault Captain in other games
 An Assault Trooper (foreground) and an Assault Captain (background, teleporting) in Duke Nukem 64. |
- In Duke Nukem 64, the Assault Captain is drawn differently, has blue armor, and is identical in appearance to the Assault Trooper. Its laser blaster shot has also been redrawn.
[edit] Trivia
- An Assault Captain that has come back to life after playing dead will have the same health as the Assault Trooper.
- A common bug can cause a shrunken enemy to behave like a normal (unshrunken) enemy. Because of the shrunken enemy's small size, therefore, it is difficult to kill.
- The bug is caused when the enemy flinches after being shot in its shrunken state.
- In the USER.CON file, there is an unused definition (CAPTAINSTRENGTH) that sets the Assault Captain's health to 50. This is not used in GAME.CON file in any way, which instead sets its health to twice that of the Assault Trooper (TROOPSTRENGTH), i.e. to 60.
- The lasers that the Assault Captain fires can reflect off mirrors.
- The Assault Captain will sometimes drop a Pistol clip when killed, even though its weapon is a laser blaster. It is unknown why it would be carrying a Pistol clip around at all, since it appears to have no use for it.
- The obvious explanation is that it gives the player a source of Pistol ammo.
- An unused tile (1705) shows a map mode view (top view) of the Assault Trooper (and possibly also the Assault Captain). This is likely a remnant from an abandoned plan to make the enemies appear in the map mode view.
- It appears to be based on the design of the Predator (from the movie of the same name).
- This similarity is stronger with the Assault Captain than with the Assault Trooper, since the Assault Captain also has a wrist-mounted terminal and can turn invisible (the Predator can also do these things).
[edit] See also
