Talk:Zero Point Generator
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Research[edit]
The following is collected research on the topic of the Zero Point Generator, specifically in regard to the notion of it being the Tau Cannon.
It is ambiguous as to whether or not the ZPG is the Tau Cannon. First, it should be noted that the "Zero Point Generator" name is sourced in Day One from its skill.cfg file. It's worth showing a comparison between Day One's skill.cfg and the final game's skill.cfg: Image
Going by this logic of the name changing here in skill.cfg, for the ZPG to be the Tau Cannon, then it's also suggested that "Tau Cannon" would have been the previous name for the Gluon Gun, as indicated by the entry just below the ZPG. However, Valve are on record from contemporary remarks that the internal name for the Gluon Gun was "always" the Egon: https://web.archive.org/web/20090117025659/http://protoncharging.com/gb/1999/01/10/gb-fans-found-at-valve-software/. The "Egon" name didn't appear in skill.cfg until the final release's skill.cfg, although that certainly doesn't mean it wasn't already in their internal non-Day One build by that point.
In addition, another problem with that assumption is that Valve had already announced the Gauss Gun weapon. It was mentioned as early as February of 1998 specifically as the "gauss gun" in this interview: https://web.archive.org/web/19980210190819/ogr.com/specials/halflife_interview.shtml
And even more than that, we have visual evidence that the "Gauss Gun" of this description is, in fact, the final Tau Cannon as one of the few pre-release images we have of the weapon where it was identified by name came in this E3 1998 (May of that year) preview: https://web.archive.org/web/20000311172524/http://www.contaminated.net/wavelength/models/articles/e3_1998.html
Direct link to this specific pre-release Gauss Gun image: https://web.archive.org/web/20000311160500/http://www.contaminated.net/wavelength/models/articles/e3/shots.html#gauss
So the purported "Tau Cannon" in Day One's skill.cfg cannot be the final game's Gauss Gun as it was always described as being a weapon that fires through walls, matching the final weapon's behavior and ergo not using the Gluon Gun's early "wide" and "narrow" modes. At the same time, the Gauss Gun was named and described early. We know it was functional in-game as early as March 1998 as Gabe and Dario described using it by then in deathmatch: https://web.archive.org/web/19990127200453/frag.com/halflife/3-14-98.txt
And just to throw in one final source which doesn't help clear up the situation at all, here's an IRC chat log close to HL1's release in which someone specifically asks Valve about the whether or not the Egon, Zero Point Generator, and Gauss Gun are separate weapons, but Dario and Gabe only mention the Egon and Gauss Gun (which Gabe corrects as being the Gluon Gun and Tau Cannon) and don't acknowledge the ZPG at all: http://thombs.com/Far2Cool/articles/article003.html
So there are two major questions that leave the ZPG's actual intention ambiguous:
- 1. When did the name "Tau Cannon" come in?
- 2. When did "Tau Cannon" formally replace the previously announced "Gauss Gun" name?
Marphy (talk) 02:39, 16 May 2023 (MSK)
Additional Source on the Gauss being the Zero Point Generator and the Egon being the Tau Cannon[edit]
In the SDK, the definitions for the Gauss Gun and Egon Gun still have comments above them matching the Day One naming.
As for when they changed to their final names, that is an unknown. No Day One build updates the names to match the final counterparts and there's 2 months worth of time to change it.
Theuaredead (talk) 23:13, 15 May 2023 (EST)
