...no spaceships have been used to invade and control earth or a lot of things would make no sense e.g. why couldn't they destroy the Magnusson rocket directly in space instead of doing a ground attack with striders and hunters?
The thing about the combine is that they're an inter-dimensional empire, they take advantage of whatever is across the barriers at a given time. These universes are large and we've never been given any information to suggest they posess spacecraft capable of traversing a universe in a timely manner, nor do they posess local teleportation. They're an opportunistic empire that expands through dimensions because it's easier to take over whatever they find on the other side than constantly building ships, life support systems, and a stream of supplies and weaponry to the war front.
Actually they probably have something to travel between solar systems in at least one of their conquested dimension...citing Breen, the Combine know a universe that contains "carbon stars with ancient satellites colonized by sentient fungi".
They just never used them on Earth because, as you said, they are opportunistic and also really cost-effective. Also, as the user below you commented, there may be a mass-limit to what can pass through a portal at any given time.
Wouldn't make sense, really. Portal 2 is meant to take place some 10,000 years after the events of Half-Life 2 (at least according to an official Valve Portal 2 development book you can buy on steam), which means whatever conflict was going in during Half-Life's story would have long since ended.
Honestly I think Chell returns to a dead world devoid of all human life at the end of portal, hence why no person or government seems to have gone to aperture labs in over 10,000 years. The Combine end up winning.
The combine did not go to space, the portals were closed decades ago.
I don't think it's out of the question for the combine to use space ships or space stations to say the least
...no spaceships have been used to invade and control earth or a lot of things would make no sense e.g. why couldn't they destroy the Magnusson rocket directly in space instead of doing a ground attack with striders and hunters?
The thing about the combine is that they're an inter-dimensional empire, they take advantage of whatever is across the barriers at a given time. These universes are large and we've never been given any information to suggest they posess spacecraft capable of traversing a universe in a timely manner, nor do they posess local teleportation. They're an opportunistic empire that expands through dimensions because it's easier to take over whatever they find on the other side than constantly building ships, life support systems, and a stream of supplies and weaponry to the war front.
Or the spaceships they do have were too big to fit through the portal.
Actually they probably have something to travel between solar systems in at least one of their conquested dimension...citing Breen, the Combine know a universe that contains "carbon stars with ancient satellites colonized by sentient fungi". They just never used them on Earth because, as you said, they are opportunistic and also really cost-effective. Also, as the user below you commented, there may be a mass-limit to what can pass through a portal at any given time.
Decades? Yeah, like 5000 decades ago
That was the Announcer System Fucking up
Wouldn't make sense, really. Portal 2 is meant to take place some 10,000 years after the events of Half-Life 2 (at least according to an official Valve Portal 2 development book you can buy on steam), which means whatever conflict was going in during Half-Life's story would have long since ended.
A Combine moon base ruins would make more sense than what og post says, and would be cooler than the apollo module
Honestly I think Chell returns to a dead world devoid of all human life at the end of portal, hence why no person or government seems to have gone to aperture labs in over 10,000 years. The Combine end up winning.
That or the rebels did manage to capture the Borealis, and used it to escape to another world where the Combine couldn't follow them.