Shotgun Shell Shambles

[ShadyXMR]

Have there ever been instances in which you have gotten to within a few feet in front of an Imp face to face, aim your shotgun right square at him, pulled the trigger, and not killed him? Every once and a while this happens to me no matter what port I'm using, if one at all.

Is there some piece of code in the engine that accounts for this or is it just a random occurance or something?

[Lüt]

It sucks. It seems to happen to me all the time. It's especially annoying when I run up to an almost-dead hell knight, baron or revenant, shoot the shotgun point-blank into the very center of the dude, and maybe two drips of blood fall and about 18 pellets hit the wall behind the guy. Then of course I get my ass kicked.

[deadnail]

All the damages in Doom are calculated as they happen.

There are two values involved, for simplicities sake a and b.

a = 5
b = 3

With this example, the damage done is at least 5 and at most 15, could be anything in between though.

a = 4
b = 9

This would be at least 4 and at most 36.

a = 15
b = 10

This would be at least 15 and at most 150.

Get it? If the weapons don't seem to do consistent damage its because they don't. This is why sometimes you can survive a rocket to the face with zero armor and most times you can't. It puts a little bit of randomness into the mix.

[Lüt]

He's talking about the "bullets" of a shotgun blast going through the guy they were supposed to hit. Bullets don't have random damage anyways.

[Katgut]

He's talking about the "bullets" of a shotgun blast going through the guy they were supposed to hit. Bullets don't have random damage anyways.

This is what happens with fixed-point math; the bullet traces aren't seen to intersect the thing, hence it's not hit.

Once again... Fixed point math sucks...

[Zaldron]

VECTORS FOR EVER!!!!1

That sounds way too nerd-ish...

[Zaldron]

OK, I swear I didn't added a "1" at the end of that phrase. It's starting to affect me...

[Linguica]

Maybe you were running towards the imp, and the shotgun sprite was shifted all the way to the right or left. Then you lined the enemy up with the sprite, and the pellets missed because you were aiming off-center.

[AirRaid]

Thats a possibility. Thats why those lovely things called crosshairs were invented. :)

[ShadyXMR]

Thanks deadnail. I assume that those charts that I occasionally stumble upon which state that it takes one shotgun blast to take care of an Imp, seven for a Cacodemon, two for a Demon, etc. can be somewhat ignored.

Maybe you were running towards the imp, and the shotgun sprite was shifted all the way to the right or left. Then you lined the enemy up with the sprite, and the pellets missed because you were aiming off-center.

Definetly possible, and it has happened to me before, although the instances I have in mind were ones in which I was CERTAIN that I had the barrel pointed right at him, not the sprite.

Thats a possibility. Thats why those lovely things called crosshairs were invented. :)

When I play I aim according to where the barrel's pointed, i.e. horizontally only, like the original DOOM.

[Liam]

Thats a possibility. Thats why those lovely things called crosshairs were invented. :)

Out of curiosity, does anybody use the crosshairs you get with source ports? I haven't yet...

/me goes to play Zdoom

[Lüt]

Oddly enough, I use crosshairs but only in Heretic.

[ShadyXMR]

I use them only in deathmatch.

[Liam]

Oddly enough, I use crosshairs but only in Heretic.

The weapons in heretic do seem strangely harder to aim straight...

[Lüt]

The weapons in heretic do seem strangely harder to aim straight...

Yeah, and it's also the only game where I can use JHeretic all the time, since it supports 99% of the levels made for Heretic, as opposed to like 10% of the levels made for Doom.