Gauss rifle

Gauss Gun
Type	Sniper Rifle
Ammunition	2mm Gauss Rounds 10 round capacity

Wha?!..Six....sixty two?! That's impossible....
― Cardan upon seeing the Gauss gun

The Gauss Rifle (real name: Project 62 or Item 62) is a weapon created by researchers and weapon smiths within the Zone, appearing in one form or another in all three STALKER games. It plays an especially important role in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat.

Background

The first designs for the rifle came from a covert weapons research program in the Chernobyl Zone of Exclusion, before the Zone even came into being. The project that eventually birthed the Gauss rifle focused on creating weapons based on the principle of projectile acceleration via an electromagnetic field. Cardan, one future stalker, was one of contractors involved in its development, as a designer. The entire project was scrapped in 2004, as a compact-enough power source could not be found. The testing workshop in Zaton was sealed, with the test Gauss cannon and all documentation.

After the Zone came into being in 2006, the Clear Sky faction took prototype versions of the weapon (with no great problem, as they were part of The Group) and remade one of them to function as the non-lethal EM1 Rifle, using pieces of the Flash artifact to power it, solving issues with power supply once and for all.

After the faction's downfall at their failed assault at the Chernobyl NPP, the Monolith obtained the EM1 Rifle and used it as a basis to produce their own version of the Gauss rifle in limited quantities. The Monolith adapted solutions introduced by Clear Sky. The result of their efforts was an incredibly powerful sniper weapon that virtually outclassed every available firearm in the zone in terms of raw power and accuracy.

Overview

Unlike traditional firearms, the Gauss Rifle does not launch projectiles using combustion, but rather uses a series of electromagnets powered by fragments of a Flash artifact to fire special, ferromagnetic slugs at high speeds, capable of completely ignoring protective armor, even the armor of the Exoskeleton cannot stop a Gauss round at any range.

This setup makes it the epitome of sniping weapons, and excels in that role. With pinpoint accuracy, zero recoil, and almost invisible muzzle flash, the Gauss is perfect for sniping from any distance. However, the extreme damage of the shot is off-set by an extremely low rate of fire – it can only fire once every two seconds, and reloading adds another four seconds to the delay, the longest of any sniper rifle.

Apart from a custom barrel and internal mechanism: it uses traditional parts from firearms such as a folding skeletal stock, receivers styled in the way of a traditional assault rifle and a modified SUSAT scope as a sight mount, the scope has been modified for increased magnification.

Appearances

Shadow of Chernobyl

The Gauss Gun is in its prime in the original game, used regularily by Monolith snipers late in the game. Despite its common use in Pripyat and Chernobyl, it's very difficult for the player to get his own Gauss Gun in perfect condition, but even in a half-broken state it's capable of dealing enough damage to kill even a Pseudogiant.

NPCs using the Gauss Gun are not too extreme – the Gauss deals enough to likely induce critical bleeding, but the medkit can heal faster, and so long as the player's suit has a higher than 50% bulletproof statistic, only a headshot will result in guaranteed death for the player. By the time the player reaches Pripyat, where they first encounter the Gauss Gun, they will likely have a suit with 40-60%. However, the Gauss Gun does noticeable damage to armor and suits cannot be repaired unless the player has at least four Pellicle, Battery, or Spring artifacts.

Note

A stalker named Vampire in the Dark Valley stalker camp will claim that he has a Gauss gun and can get it for 800 rubles. It is fake and upon payment he will retreat into the barn, if the player attempts to follow him in those inside will become hostile. (Recommended you view his link if you fell for his trap and want revenge).

Clear Sky

In S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, the precursor to the Gauss Gun was being used by Scar, protagonist, to incapacitate Strelok's psy-protection. That weapon is named EM1 Rifle. "EM" stands for "Electromagnetic".

Call of Pripyat

In Call of Pripyat, only one copy of the Gauss Gun is found, used by the first Monolith Preacher who is encountered in Pripyat. Despite the belief that the Gauss gun is an instant kill to the player, a fully repaired exoskeleton with armor upgrade (30%) could block one shot. However, it is still guaranteed death if the bullet is stuck on the head, and thus making the Gauss sniper an unparalleled threat, one that must be taken down immediately in order to survive.

As in such, in hands of player, its effects are quite staggering. Even without the headshot, the Gauss gun could kill a bloodsucker in one shot, although it would be mostly limited to far-ranged attack (i.e. when visible while there is no detection of hostiles). Yet, the slow fire rate does hampers players in the most battles with mutants where it takes on close range - there are better weapons to deal with mutants (such as free RPG-7u in Volkhov AA Complex). Also, scope with 8x magnification isn't helpful in game (there is no place to make use of such a big magnification). This, along with quite expensive ammo and heavy weight of weapon itself makes gauss gun quite cost-inefficient weapon, overall losing with SVDm2 and SVUmk-2 in terms of sniper weapon and with RPG and Bulldog 6 in terms of weapon for mutants. However, for heavily armored player, along with multiple upgrades and/or artifacts to compensate the weight, Gauss gun could be used as sub-weapon that is limitedly effective in single or far-ranged mutant hunting.

Suspected of being the reason some of the helicopters have failed en route to the Chernobyl NPP, a main quest leads to the player discovering the creation of the Gauss Gun. Depending on how you complete the quest, the player can keep the Gauss Gun – though the ammunition is by far the most expensive, at 2000 rubles per battery (though the number of charges inside depends on the quest solution).

In Call Of Pripyat, there are two types of batteries available for the gauss rifle. One can be purchased from Cardan with six charges per pack. The more advanced version can be found only in stashes. The Ecologists buy the Gauss rifle for 29,000 Ru. Once sold, it cannot be retrieved.

Bugs:

In version 1.6.02 ("Radioactive Edition" double DVD version) the following bug has been encountered: The locked door to the workshop under the Iron Forest anomaly is for some reason open before the quest to find it is initiated. After picking up the documents, not having the gun, returning to Cardan, and giving him the documents resulted in the Gauss Gun spawning. This happened before the trip to Pripyat, and the X8 lab. This bug will give you the Gauss Gun at an early stage, but for gameplay reasons it might be better not to use this exploit. What actually happens when you meet the Monolith Preacher is uncertain. It is also worth noting that the pseudogiant did not spawn in this scenario. The problem seems not to be unique, as several encounters are described in, among others, this thread on the official Steam forums. Some of the posts indicate that this exploit could prevent further main quests from spawning, and so it is strongly advised one does not initiate this glitch.

Trivia

• Parts of the Gauss rifle appear to be salvaged from some assault rifles: the stock is identical to the one of the G36, the grip is a recolored SG-550 pistol grip, and the scope is a SUSAT with increased magnification.
• This weapon is very similar in appearance to the M72 Gauss Rifle from the game Fallout 2. It uses 2mm ammunition just like in Shadow of Chernobyl and has only minor cosmetic differences (such as wood furniture instead of polymer or plastic) and both weapons are extremely powerful and accurate. Of course since Fallout 2 was released in the 90's it would be safe to assume the weapons in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. are a homage to the Fallout series and not vice versa.
• In Shadow of Chernobyl, the Gauss Rifle is substantially weaker than it is in Call of Pripyat. In the later game, a hit anywhere will kill even an exoskeleton-wearing opponent. However, in SoC, you must still achieve a headshot for a guaranteed kill against enemies wearing armor.

• In real life, the Gauss gun is actually more correctly referred to as a Coilgun but both names are often used interchangeably. The name "Gauss" is a reference to Carl Friedrich Gauss, who formulated mathematical descriptions of the magnetic effect used by magnetic accelerators. Today the alias "Gauss rifle" has become widely popular in both real life and in fiction. Sadly weaponizing such technology remains only theoretical as current Coilgun technology has an extremely poor level of efficiency to the extent that inherently inefficient Railguns are actually more efficient and practical to create and a number of such prototype weapons have existed for some time.

• The battery on the weapon's texture reads 2.54mm, the XML string for the inventory reads 2mm, and the texture for the battery itself reads 9mm.

• Surprisingly the Gauss Rifle has iron sights and its even possible to remove the scope by editing the weapon's .ltx file. However the iron sights aren't aligned, most likely because the Gauss Rifle was never intended to be scopeless.
• If the player sells the Gauss rifle to Hawaiian after acquiring the A Friend of Freedom Achievement, the rifle could be bought again for a cheaper price than it's sold for (requires confirmation)

Gallery

Shadow of Chernobyl

Gaussfirst.png

First person view

Reloading

The Gauss gun's world model as seen in all games.

Third person view