Rifle (SLASH'EM)
) 
| |
|---|---|
| Name | rifle |
| Appearance | rifle |
| Damage vs. small | 1d2 |
| Damage vs. large | 1d2 |
| To-hit bonus | +1 |
| Weapon skill | firearms |
| Size | two-handed |
| Base price | 150 zm (+10/positive enchant) |
| Weight | 30 |
| Material | iron |
- For the weapon in dNetHack and its derivatives, see rifle (dNetHack).
A rifle is a type of weapon that appears in SLASH'EM, SpliceHack, SlashTHEM and Hack'EM. The rifle is a two-handed launcher that uses the firearms skill and is designed for use with bullets. It is made of iron. In Hack'EM, it appears as a "broken crossbow" when unidentified, similar to the item in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack.
Two other "rifle" weapons exist in the same variants as the standard rifle: the assault rifle and the sniper rifle.
Contents
Generation
Rifles are generated differently across variants.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, rifles are not randomly generated, though they can be wished for or found in bones.
Soldiers have a 1⁄2 chance of being generated with a rifle and 2 different stacks of 3–27 bullets as ammo.[1]
SpliceHack
In SpliceHack, rifles are not randomly generated, though they can be wished for or found in bones.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, rifles are very rare and make up 1⁄1000 of weapons randomly generated on the ground, in general shops or as death drops.
Weapons outlets, used armor dealerships and gun stores can also stock rifles. Gun stores have a 1⁄25 chance of generating a rifle on each square.
Generation details for monsters are the same as in SLASH'EM.
Hack'EM
In Hack'EM, rifles are not randomly generated, though they can be wished for or found in bones.
Gun stores can stock rifles, and have a 1⁄25 chance of generating a rifle on each square.
Shopkeepers have an effective 7⁄40 chance of being generated with a rifle and 2 stacks of 3–22 bullets as ammo.
A rifle can be created at a forge by combining a pistol and a crossbow.
Description
The rifle has a range of 22 squares with a base rate of fire of -1, and has a +1 to-hit bonus.
Rate of fire
The impact of a rifle's enchantment and the hero's firearms skill on its rate of fire is detailed in the table below:
| Enchantment | Unskilled/basic | Skilled | Expert |
|---|---|---|---|
| +2 or lower | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| +3 to +5 | 1 | 1 | 1d4-2 (min 1) |
| +6 to +8 | 1 | 1d4-2 (min 1) | 1d5-2 (min 1) |
| +9 | 1d4-2 (min 1) | 1d5-2 (min 1) | 1d6-2 (min 1) |
Strategy
While rifles have a fantastic maximum range of 22 squares, which is the second-longest of all firearms behind the sniper rifle, it is very rare for a hero to shoot at targets more than half that distance away. Furthermore, as a two-handed firearm with a negative rate of fire, rifles are much less attractive for a mass majority of use cases compared to assault rifles or submachine guns.
Origin
A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, distinguished by having a barrel cut with a helical or spiraling pattern of grooves (referred to as "rifling"). The invention of rifling separated such firearms from the earlier smoothbore weapons (e.g., arquebuses, muskets, and other long guns), greatly elevating their accuracy and general effectiveness. The class of firearm was originally termed the "rifled gun", with the verb "rifle" referring to the early modern machining process of creating grooves with cutting tools.
Most rifles are designed to be held with both hands and braced against the shoulder via buttstock for stability. Like all typical firearms, a rifle's projectile (bullet) is propelled by the contained ignition of the propellant compound within the projectile, originally using black powder; nitrocellulose and other smokeless powders are the standard for most modern rifles, although other means of propulsion are used such as compressed air, which is designed for air rifles used in vermin control, small game hunting, competitive target shooting and casual sport shooting (plinking). The raised areas of a barrel's rifling are called lands, and they make contact with and exert torque on the projectile as it moves down the bore, imparting a spin; when the projectile leaves the barrel, this spin persists and lends gyroscopic stability to the projectile due to conservation of angular momentum, increasing accuracy and hence effective range.
Rifled firearm technology has existed since the early 16th century, but early muzzle-loading rifles were rarely used in a military setting, since they were far slower to load and far more expensive to produce than contemporary smoothbore (non-rifled) muskets. By the mid-1800s, industrial fabrication processes made rifled barrels practical to mass-produce, while the prior invention of breech-loading firearms meant that rifled weapons were no longer slower to load than their smoothbore cousins. As a result, the rifle soon became ubiquitous in armies of the time. Given their default tile and the fact that soldiers can carry them alongside weapons such as assault rifles and grenades, the rifles seen in variants of NetHack are likely to be some type of mid-20th century semi-automatic service rifle, such as the M1 Garand.
