Lunatic Sniper Rifle
 | |
| General Information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | 1915 Hou Yi type Anti-Material Rifle |
| Manufacturer | Lunar Defense Corp |
| Tactical Information | |
| Caliber | 20x155mm Lunatic |
| Capacity | 4 |
| Durability | 500000 |
| Estimated lifespan | 250 |
| Fire mode | Semi-automatic |
| Stock damage | 450 - 500 |
| Sight type | Scope |
"You do not spark joy"
The 1915 Hou Yi type Anti-Material Rifle (aka Lunatic sniper rifle or Lunatic marksman rifle) is a heavy, semi-automatic, 20mm sabot, anti-material rifle with a 4 round internal magazine. It and its ammunition is quite expensive, but it can deal significant damage to all but the most well armored targets in the mod.
Background
Very little information is known about this weapon. Beyond its appearance, it is capable of firing rounds that not only reach escape velocity, but remain accurate enough to hit very small targets in, at least, low orbit, from the surface. It is at least implied to have been produced and put into service by the Lunar Defense Corp, the Lunar Capital's military defense force.
Other than that, everything from its name, ammunition, and fire mode have been extrapolated from what we can see or fictionalized entirely.
Mechanics and Play
The devastating 20x155 Lunatic sabot round deals at the very least 450 damage, which is absurdly high, even for some of the strongest bosses in both vanilla and NTM. It can easily one shot a Wither, can kill Mask Man in ~9 shots, and can consistently damage Balls-O-Tron. The latter two of these also have very high defense stats and damage caps that would normally make it difficult to inflict damage of such scale with a handheld weapon.
The round also sports perfect accuracy and a high velocity, which pairs well with the scope's FOV of 0.2, which gives it one of the highest zoom factors in the mod (though not by much), making this weapon one of the most performant snipers in-game.
Although the durability of 500,000 seems like a lot, the rounds have a high wear, which makes it actually have an estimated lifespan of only about 250 rounds, assuming only the default round is used and no maintenance at all occurs. As the weapon is quite powerful and expensive, it is best to save it for choice encounters with tough or high value targets.
Trivia
- It is an obscure and obtuse reference.
- The quote is referencing a quote from Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix, spoken by the eponymous Marie Kondo, but the reason for its inclusion is this short comic, dubbed The Cleaners by Wool, which depicts a fairy maid from Touhou making the quote and wielding a Barret .50 caliber sniper rifle.
- The comic itself was apparently commissioned for the Danmaku!! card game.
- It was originally going to be chambered in .50 BMG, which is why it is still defined in the class with actual .50 BMG weapons, but it was quickly deemed both illogical since .50 BMG isn't nearly powerful enough to reach escape velocity, but also that at the time it didn't have enough performance in terms of damage and accuracy to warrant using. Thus, a new caliber was added specifically for the weapon.
- It was also going to be a single-shot weapon, since the gun didn't appear large enough to have any magazine capacity, but it was ultimately changed nearly last minute to use a 4 round internal magazine to make the weapon more worthwhile.
- Hou Yi (sometimes "Houyi") is a character from Chinese mythology, who was the archer who shot down 9 of the 10 suns, hence this weapon having his namesake.
- His characterization varies between versions of the story, in some he is a hero who was gifted the elixir of immortality and had it stolen by either an apprentice and/or his own wife (Chang'e), in others he is crowned a king and becomes a tyrant and Chang'e steals the elixir of immortality to spare the people. Whatever the case was, he never became immortal and was eventually killed.
- The reason why the casings eject so fast and far is because of the force of recoil.
- After impacting something solid, the projectile explodes, though small and it doesn't damage blocks. This was to take into consideration the kinetic impact.
- The combination of nitanium and energy powder in the recipe are in essence replacements for gunpowder and primer, respectively, as normal gunpowder wouldn't be nearly powerful enough. The energy powder is set off by the firing mechanism, which then allows the nitanium to react and propel the projectile to ludicrous velocities.
- The incendiary and explosive variants of the sabot round were craftable in the original PR, but were possibly removed because they're redundant.