The Tau Cannon's nickname in the community ('Gauss Gun') refers to the weapon's codename which is quite literally gauss, which in turn may be a relic from earlier stages of game development.The Vortigaunt also features animations prefixed 'TC', which depict the Vortigaunt carrying and firing a weapon, suggesting that at some point, a Vortigaunt would be able to use the Tau Cannon. The Scout Car also contains an animation, ' tau_levitate,' which shows the Tau Cannon detaching from the Scout Car and floating to the front left of it. Also the ' script_tauremoval' Half-Life 2 entity means that a vortigaunt originally should have detached the Tau Cannon from Scout Car. When the Tau Cannon alternate fire mode was used the reactor would be fed more depleted Uranium-235 fuel without being fired, and the energy would be stored in a set of spinning capacitors, which will cause a catastrophic discharge if it is held for too long.Д«esides being mounted on a Scout Car, the Tau Cannon was first intended to be one of the weapons that could be used by player as an identical model, but it was cut out of release version, likely due to its similarity in function to the OSIPR.ДЄn unused sound clip ( gettauoff.wav) can be found in the game's files of a citizen talking about detaching a weapon - deduced to be the Tau Cannon due to the name of the file - from the Scout Car, suggesting that at some point in the game's development, the Tau Cannon was to be detached from the car for the player to take with them after leaving the car at Lighthouse Point. Though the early Tau Cannon prototypes used normal household batteries as an initial power source for the particle accelerator, a micro-fission reactor generated the deadly particle beam. The evidence for the weaponвЂ™s real name can be found in a game of Half-Life: Deathmatch: in the game console a kill from the weapon is recorded as being a death by вЂ tau_cannon.вЂ™ When the Opposing Force: Capture the Flag multiplayer game was released the key configuration menu included the option to bind keys to particular weapons the weapon in question is listed as the Tau Cannon. The weapon uses the same ammunition as the gluon gun, which is obviously an energy weapon, giving further evidence to the weapon not being a true Gauss Gun. Early during Half-LifeвЂ™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.ДЄ 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.ДЄ 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.

Is the gauss rifle a heavy weapon