The Drillhound is a weapon in Rift Apart. It is a carbine weapon that fires a robotic hound that is capable of drilling through the ground before leaping at an enemy to attack them. Though it has a low rate-of-fire, its relatively strong range and high damage makes it a valuable weapon early on.
The weapon can be purchased from Mrs. Zurkon at Zurkie's, Scarstu Debris Field, after completing "Locate the Part to Repair Clank", for 10,000 bolts. At level 5, it upgrades to the Drillpack. In challenge mode, the Omega Drillpack can be purchased for 150,000 bolts.
Characteristics[]
The Drillhound is a two-handed weapon that resembles a handheld drill, with a predominately yellow and grey color scheme. When upgraded to the Drillpack its coloring changes to orange, and it gains a radar dish at the top of the handle.
Gameplay[]
Pulling 
will simply fire the Drillhound at a nearby enemy, while pulling and holding will cause the Drillhound to drill through the ground, before letting go of to cause it to pounce at an enemy. Using it in this way can give it much greater range, though it is important to aim at the ground in front of an enemy to cause it to drill through and reach them. Multiple Drillhounds can be deployed at once. The Drillhound is best against medium enemies, large enemies, and bosses, and Ratchet and Rivet can take advantage of its range to hit enemies that are located further away.
The raritanium upgrades to the weapon improve its basic functionality while mostly maintaining its role. The max ammo upgrade addresses one of the biggest shortcomings of the weapon, making it the most important upgrade to prioritize, while the upgrades to the Drillhound's movement speed is a significant improvement.
Once fully upgraded with XP, it becomes the Drillpack. This changes the weapon, in causing it to deploy three hounds at once. It does not otherwise change its role, as it remains a powerful weapon against single targets, but one less suited to dealing with swarmer enemies. The weapon remains useful for a long time, before it is outclassed by the Warmonger, which fires more quickly and has no range limitations.
Behind the Scenes[]
Concept art of the Drillhound.
Concept art for the Drillhound reveals that an alternate design of the robots themselves was proposed, with them not resembling a drill at all.
A drill-based weapon had been proposed all the way back in the first Ratchet & Clank game in the form of the cut Revolverator.
The Drillhound robots themselves bare a strong resemblance to the cut Hound of Doom weapon from Going Commando.