The Zap Gun is the most expensive weapon in the store apart from the Jetpack, and it is the one crews regret buying most often.
The reason is simple: it stuns, it does not kill. For 400 credits you are buying time, not a solution.
What it does
The Zap Gun fires an electric arc that stuns an entity and holds it in place. It runs on battery, so the effect is not unlimited.
A stunned entity is a window. You walk past it, or you leave the room, or you get your teammate out from under it. What you do not get is a corpse.
That distinction decides everything about when this gun is worth buying.
What it does not do
- It does not replace a shovel. A shovel costs 30 credits and kills what it hits. The Zap Gun costs more than thirteen times as much and leaves the entity alive.
- It does not solve the entities that kill most crews. Coil-head, Ghost Girl, the Giant, the Earth Leviathan and the Jester are answered by avoidance. A stun window changes nothing about any of them.
- It does not pay for itself. Four hundred credits is a meaningful fraction of an early quota. Money spent here is money not spent on lights, walkie-talkies and the quota itself.
How it compares
| Option | Price | What happens to the entity |
|---|---|---|
| Shovel | 30 | Dead. Does nothing to five entities |
| Stun Grenade | 30 | Stunned for a few seconds |
| Zap Gun | 400 | Stunned, and it costs battery |
Read that table as a question about what you are actually buying. The Zap Gun is a reusable Stun Grenade that costs thirteen times more and needs charging.
That is a real advantage late in a cycle, when you are deep on a moon and one grenade is not enough windows. It is not an advantage when you could have bought thirteen shovels.
When it earns its price
The Zap Gun is a good purchase in exactly one situation: the quota is already handled and the crew has credits to spare.
At that point the problem you are solving is no longer “can we pay” but “can we go deeper safely,” and a stun window on a threatening entity is genuinely useful for that.
Crews farming expensive moons late in a cycle are the ones who should own one.
When to skip it
Skip it on day one. Skip it while the quota is tight. Skip it if nobody in the crew has used one, because the first time you discover it stuns rather than kills should not be during a chase.
Buy lights and a shovel first, then a Radar Booster, then walkie-talkies. The Zap Gun comes after all of that, if it comes at all.
Related guides
- Best weapons — what to buy before you think about a Zap Gun.
- Best equipment tier list — the full buying order.
- Best loadout — who should carry it if you own one.