Rifle Firearm

Rifle Firearm or Firearms is a survival skill that involves the use of a hunting rifle to hunt animals.

A firearm's ability to attack from a distance means that a player can attack animals from positions of relative safety.

Overview

The hunting rifle is a tool used to fire rifle rounds at targets. The high-velocity rounds travel in a straight line and can cause massive internal injuries to the first object they encounter, potentially killing animals instantly. If a shot hits the targeted animal (indicated by a spurt of blood) but fails to immediately kill it, the round will still usually result in a bleeding wound that will leave a blood trail on the ground. Over the course of several game hours, the wound will eventually kill the animal. Expended rounds disappear.

• The rifle currently has a maximum range of approximately fifty paces with a Beginner Firearms skill. Targets beyond the maximum range cannot be hit.
• Hitting a fleshy target will produce a blood spray effect.
• Hitting a solid target will produce a smoke effect often accompanied with a "clank" sound.
• Hitting most environmental targets will produce a snow scatter effect.

Equipment

Players need certain types of equipment before they can start practicing the firearms skill.

Hunting rifle

The hunting rifle is an aimable tool used to fire rifle rounds at targets. The rifle's condition will degrade about 1.333% per shot. Rifles can be repaired by using a firearm cleaning kit to keep the weapon in optimal condition.

Rifle ammunition

Rifle ammunition for hunting rifles is only renewable with the Ammunition Workbench, which can be found in the Bleak Inlet region. The rifle holds a maximum of 10 rounds at a time, and can be loaded with 5 round stripper clips; rounds will be loaded individually if there are 6 or more rounds in the magazine or if the player has fewer than 5 rounds. Loading will continue until interrupted by clicking or canceling or until the magazine is fully loaded.

Hunting

Main article: Hunting

Hunting animals to kill and then harvest their flesh is an efficient means to acquire food and materials in The Long Dark. Shooting animals with projectiles, such as rifle ammunition, is the most effective way to kill game while completely bypassing the animals' natural defenses. Rifle shots move too quickly to be blocked or dodged and can be fired from outside the animal's zone of perception.

Critical hits

Critical hits are random occurrences, but are more likely in an animal's designated critical areas. Shots to the head and neck seem to have the best chance to cause a critical hit, with shots to the front shoulder and chest being second. Shots to the feet are immune to critical hits.

Bleeding

Direct hits to an animal with a rifle round that are not a critical hit will cause a bleeding wound. Animals will bleed out according to which area they were shot in. Multiple shots to the same area will not make the animal bleed out any faster. However, shooting an animal in an area that bleeds faster than a previous wound it has already received will cause it to bleed out as if the faster wound were caused when the first wound was.

	Hit zone
Animal	Head	Chest	Hind	Foot
Rabbit	Instant	Instant	Instant	Instant
Deer	Instant	45 minutes	60 minutes	240 minutes
Wolf	Instant	Instant	60 minutes	120 minutes
Bear	60 minutes	240 minutes	360 minutes	480 minutes
Moose	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Skill levels

Players can increase their firearms skill by scoring a hit on an animal. This does not require players to kill the animal to obtain experience.

A limited increase can be obtained from the research book Frontier Shooting Guide, which allows players to increase their firearms skill by 5 skill points with 4 hours of research.

A limited increase can be obtained from the research book Advanced Guns Guns Guns!, which allows players to increase their firearms skill by 10 skill points with 25 hours of research.

Once players have reached a new skill level, they unlock the effects described in the table below.

Level	Skill points	Effects
1	0	Basic rifle skill
2	10	Critical hit chance increased by 10% 2 additional percent of condition per repair action
3	25	Accuracy range increased by 20% Critical Hit chance increased by 15% 3 additional percent of condition per repair action
4	50	Damage increased by 10% Accuracy range increased by 30% Critical Hit chance increased by 20% 5 additional percent of condition per repair action
5	100	Damage increased by 20% Accuracy range increased by 40% Critical hit chance increased by 30% 5 additional percent of condition per repair action Per-use condition degradation reduced by 50%

Trivia

• The rifle can't be used with a sprained wrist.
• Bullets are more likely to cause a critical wound, reducing bleed-out time.
• Bullets cause less bleeding than an arrow, creating additional bleed-out time.
• Firing the rifle indoors will cause temporary deafness.
• The rifle is dropped during a struggle with a bear.