
Early during Half-Life’s development Valve intended the weapon to be a hypervelocity projectile weapon (as it is referred to by an unused HEV sound clip, saying "Experimental Hyper-velocity Projectile Weapon Acquired"), but later changed their minds and made it into a particle beam weapon.
However, it is weak against Combine armor since its particles will just bounce off them.Ī Gauss Gun (or coilgun) is a device that uses electromagnetism to accelerate projectiles, and has some similarity to a railgun. Beware that it is still possible to cause friendly fire. This weapon is still powerful, as it can take out combine soldiers or even Xen wildlife in a few hits. Damage-wise, the primary fire loses out to Gluon Gun since it does 10 damage per ammo spent, while Gluon Gun does 14, so only use it in desperate need. The secondary fire's recoil can be abused for a "Rocket Jump". It will not be catastrophically discharged if secondary fire is held for too long. It uses an unknown fuel source that can allow it to be used indefinitely. The vehicle-mounted Tau Cannon used during the time of the rebellion against the Combine is a more advanced model in several aspects:
However, if charged for more than 10 seconds, it explodes, causing 50 damage to the user, though the weapon is left unaffected. When released, it launches a penetrating beam that does significant damage. The secondary fire allows the player to charge the weapon by forcing Uranium into it. The primary fire consumes two ammo per shot and semi-automatically fires singular beams.
If not obtained there, it can be found in the Lambda Reactor Core supply depot at the end of the chapter Lambda Core.Ī particle accelerator custom-built by BMRF scientists, it consumes depleted Uranium 235 as ammo and fires devastating beams. Tau Cannon can be first found in the Half-Life chapter Questionable Ethics, on the second floor of the Advanced Biological Research Lab.