Demonstration of the Gray Zapinator's projectile effects.
The Gray Zapinator is a pre-Hardmode-only magic weapon purchased from the Traveling Merchant for 17. It is only available once the Eye of Cthulhu, Eater of Worlds/Brain of Cthulhu, Queen Bee, or Skeletron has been defeated. Unlike the Zapinator, the Gray Zapinator does not autofire. Meteor armor's set bonus will reduce the mana cost of the Gray Zapinator (and Orange Zapinator) to 0, although the stated mana cost will not change.
The weapon fires a laser beam which behaves very erratically. Upon striking an enemy, the projectile slows down by 40%, decreases its current damage and knockback by 10%, and can choose from an assortment of special effects as described below. The laser beam will disappear after hitting eight enemies or after 60 seconds.
Its best modifier is Mythical.
Special effects
Upon hitting an enemy, the beam can do any (and perhaps more than one) of the following things:[1]
| Effect |
Chance
|
Disable tile collision (i.e., gain the ability to move through blocks)
Teleport up to 16 tiles left or right |
5*1/20 (5%)
|
Disable tile collision
Teleport up to 16 tiles up or down |
5*1/20 (5%)
|
| Disable tile collision |
50*1/2 (50%)
|
Move the projectile backwards along the current trajectory up to 39 ticks[2][3]
(i.e., teleport to the location that would normally only be reached after reversing direction and waiting up to 39 ticks, or 0.65 seconds)
(applied before the general 40% velocity decrease per hit) |
66.67*2/3 (66.67%)
|
| Shift direction slightly to the right of the screen |
14.29*1/7 (14.29%)
|
| Shift direction slightly to the bottom of the screen |
14.29*1/7 (14.29%)
|
Multiply current knockback by 10
(applied after the general 10% knockback decrease per hit) |
5*1/20 (5%)
|
Multiply current damage by 10
(applied after the general 10% damage decrease per hit) |
2*1/50 (2%)
|
| Teleport up to 4 tiles left or right[3] |
14.29*1/7 (14.29%)
|
| Teleport up to 4 tiles up or down[3] |
14.29*1/7 (14.29%)
|
| Mirror trajectory vertically |
7.14*1/14 (7.14%)
|
| Mirror trajectory horizontally |
7.14*1/14 (7.14%)
|
Slow down to between 0.05% and 10% of the current velocity
(applied after the general 40% velocity decrease per hit) |
10*1/10 (10%)
|
These effects are applied in the given order. While it is possible for a projectile to trigger all of them at once upon hitting an enemy, it is also possible that none of them are triggered.
Notes
- The damage increase effect can also apply to critical hits.
- Because the Gray Zapinator gains effects on hit, following hits can give the same beam new effects, which can lead to stacked damage and knockback modifiers, causing some beams to deal thousands of damage and/or extreme knockback.
- Only the front of the beam deals damage. Enemies can walk through a beam without taking damage if they do not touch the front.
- The Gray Zapinator cannot be purchased after entering Hardmode, as the Traveling Merchant sells the Orange Zapinator instead.
Tips
- The player should use caution when using the Gray Zapinator near the post-Golem Dungeon. The erratic nature of the shots may hit a Cultist, unintentionally summoning the Lunatic Cultist.
- The Gray Zapinator is extremely risky for use in the Underground Jungle, as its teleporting shots may break off-screen Larvae and spawn the Queen Bee even when not inside a Bee Hive.
- Despite its low rarity, it can be a very effective weapon throughout pre-Hardmode, given the luck required to benefit from the projectiles' behavior.
- It can be ideal for the Eater of Worlds boss fight because the projectiles do not disappear after hitting an enemy, allowing them to pierce multiple segments.
Trivia
- There is a 5.87% chance that none of the special effects occur upon hit. The general 40% velocity and 10% damage and knockback decrease is still applied in this case.
- The odds of triggering all possible effects at once are 1 in 5,647,152,000,000.
- The Zapinator's name and sprite resemble the NES Zapper, an electronic light gun accessory for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
- The erratic behavior of the projectiles along with the tooltip, 'It might be broken', are most likely references to the fact that NES Zappers were inconsistent when used in their respective light gun games on the NES.
- Like the Zapper, the Zapinator has both gray and orange variants.
- The Zapinator was first introduced in the Desktop-Release to instantly kill enemies for testing purposes, and it was removed with the 1.0.1 version. Later on, the item was added to the Nintendo 3DS
version. The Zapinator was re-introduced to the 
Desktop version, 
Console version, and 
Mobile version as the Gray Zapinator and Orange Zapinator in 1.4.0.1.
History
References
- ↑ Information taken from the Desktop 1.4.4.9 source code, method
Damage() in Terraria.Projectile.cs.
- ↑ A tick is a time unit countable by the software. Most of Terraria's updating logic happens every tick. A tick has the length of 1/60th of a second, hence there are 60 ticks in a second and 3600 ticks in a minute.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 The teleportations will not take effect if the new location is within blocks and the projectile is incapable of moving through blocks.
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