Z-750 binary rifle

The Z-750 Special Application Sniper Rifle, commonly known as the binary rifle, is a Forerunner energy channel weapon. It is often carried by Promethean Knight Lancers and Crawler Snipes.

Overview
The binary rifle is a weapon used by Forerunner Promethean Knight units and certain types of Crawler units encountered on Requiem. Originally designed to combat the Flood at extremely long ranges, the Z-750 Binary Rifle is equipped with twin, core-mounted particle accelerators which fire ionized particle beams containing jacketed antimatter particles. The incredible power and accuracy of this weapon make it highly lethal, allowing it to neutralize most targets with a single shot, disintegrating the body of the target. The binary rifle became critically necessary when dealing with large Flood Pure forms.

Design details
The weapon possesses an angular design and metallic casing. It appears to be held together, at least partly, by energy fields as indicated by its self-assembly process and floating sights. Orange highlights can be seen while the weapon is self-assembling and throughout the casing once assembly is complete; these highlights grow brighter when the weapon is fired. The sight through the scope is tinted orange and has two zoom levels, 5x and 10x. The rifle emits a highly visible orange beam from its barrel when aiming, allowing opponents to trace the user's location.

Gameplay
The Binary Rifle is a weapon of extreme rewards and extreme penalties. An excellent anti-personnel weapon, it can instantly kill a fully-shielded SPARTAN-IV in a single shot placed anywhere on the body, and can take down most Covenant or Promethean infantry in a single body shot as well. On harder difficulties and against higher ranked Sangheili or Promethean Knights, it takes a few shots. This still makes it more powerful than other sniper weapons. The Binary Rifle is capable of destroying most light armored vehicles with one or two direct shots, and even heavy vehicles with only a few more. Though this is ill-advised, as ammunition is limited. In addition to this, the weapon has a much higher zoom level than its sniper weapon counterparts, allowing its operator to engage targets from extreme ranges. However, the line of fire created by the scope's orange laser sight can be seen by every player, thus giving away the location of the user. This can be negated by only aiming with the weapon when intending to shoot or by blocking the laser sight with nearby objects and surfaces in your peripheral vision when scanning an area beyond with zoom. Additionally, the Binary Rifle has a slow rate of fire (roughly one full second between shots) and a long reload time (roughly four seconds without Dexterity), leaving the user vulnerable. It holds a low ammunition capacity of 2 rounds per magazine with a total of four magazines (five with the Ammo upgrade). When fired in scope, the Binary Rifle's aiming reticle recoils in a random direction, making it difficult for snipers to reacquire their target if they miss. When unscoped, the Binary Rifle's reticle is grossly enlarged, much like sniper rifles in other modern first-person shooter games and unlike other sniping weapons in Halo. This makes no-scoping incredibly unreliable unless fired at extremely close range. Quick-scoping is an option to combat this effect, though the user will need to unzoom from the second zoom level, which can cost precious time in close quarters combat.

Production notes

 * An early concept for the Binary Rifle was later repurposed for the creation of the Lightrifle.
 * The Binary Rifle was originally named "Attach Beam" during its early development stage. Said weapon is still in the game's files; it looks like an untextured Lightrifle which fires sniper rounds and has the reloading animation of the Sniper Rifle from Halo: Reach. It makes almost no sound when fired. The "Attach Beam" was merely a placeholder until the Binary Rifle was eventually finalized.

List of appearances

 * Halo 4
 * Terminals
 * Spartan Ops
 * Halo: Silentium
 * Halo: Spartan Strike