Difference between revisions of "Heavy weapon dude"

Revision as of 12:35, 18 August 2014

For the chaingun wielding zombie in Doom 3, see Commando (Doom 3).

A friendly heavy weapon dude in the PWAD DSV3-War, by Samuel "Kaiser" Villarreal.

The heavy weapon dude (called a former commando in the Doom II manual, and sometimes referred to as a chaingunner) is the third and most powerful type of human which has been turned into a zombie during the invasion from hell. It is the first of the enemies introduced in Doom II to make an appearance in the game. The monster appears as a robust red-eyed bald man with a bloody mouth, wearing bloodstained, red body armor and boots over slate-gray pants, and carries a chaingun with its accompanying ammo belt. Its skin tone is a bit darker than that of the other former humans.

The Doom instruction manual says: Geeze, weren't shotgun zombies bad enough? At least when you fade these jerks you get a cool chaingun.

Combat characteristics

The heavy weapon dude attacks by firing its chaingun, which does slightly less damage per bullet than the player's chaingun and has a rate of fire that is also a bit lower. Once the chaingun guy begins to fire, it continues until its target dies or leaves its line of sight, or the monster is stunned (causing it to move immediately afterward) or destroyed. When killed, its right side rips apart, head exploding, and the right arm falls off as the other half of the body collapses backwards. It drops the chaingun, which contains 10 bullets, or 20 on the "I'm too young to die" and "Nightmare!" skill levels.

Tactical analysis

Because heavy weapon dudes employ a ranged attack that starts quickly and continues in rapid succession (even the spiderdemon pauses briefly in its tracks before firing, giving the player a fraction of a second to take cover), which cannot be dodged, the player must avoid spending any time within short or medium range of them, if possible.

Compared to the zombieman and the shotgun guy, the heavy weapon dude is exceptionally more dangerous, as the higher hit points mean it can survive a shotgun blast if the numbers come up low (the shotgun does 35 damage minimum, which is always enough to take out one of the other zombies if all the pellets hit). Continuous fire from the player's chaingun at close range almost always prevents the zombie from firing, while chaingun "tapping" normally limits it to retaliating with a couple of shots during the remainder of its existence. If there are multiple chaingunners in a clustered formation, usage of the rocket launcher or plasma gun is recommended. Since, like all monsters, heavy weapon dudes do not have any limits on ammunition used, multiple chaingun zombies at any good distance can quickly drain the player's health in the time it takes to cross a large room; in such a situation, it may be essential to remain in motion.

The heavy weapon dude's high rate of fire makes it a formidable presence in monster-monster battles; provided it survives the initial blow (given their 70 hit points, this is usually the case with an unharmed one), one of these zombies can often take down a healthy cacodemon or revenant. A heavy weapon dude can also sometimes defeat a mancubus or an arachnotron at close range, when the chaingun manages to continuously stun the opponent, preventing any return fire. Like all hitscan-firing enemies, heavy weapon dudes will gladly turn on each other if provoked.

Because of their unrelenting automatic fire, and their tendency to appear in large numbers, they are not enemies to be taken as lightly as other former humans are. They should be considered a high priority threat in cases where there are many in an enclosed area, even when there are more powerful enemies in the area. Close range encounters with heavy weapon dudes can quickly get you killed if they are not disposed of quickly.

Final Doom is noted for having a high number of these foes, especially on the ultra-violence difficulty.

Notes

• The heavy weapon dude was intended to fire almost exactly like the player's chaingun, however due to a idiosyncrasy of the source code it takes a tic to check if the player is in its line of sight. Since the check occur each time two bullets are fired, the heavy weapon dude also fires in burst of two shots just like the player.
• While the zombieman and shotgun guy are much less powerful than the pistol and shotgun of the player, the heavy weapons dude is close to the same power of the chaingun weapon.
• Taking into account the damage and rate of fire (but ignoring the accuracy) of the chaingun fired by a heavy weapons dude, it has 80% of the power of the player's chaingun.
• Internally the Doom source code gives the heavy weapon dude the type name MT_CHAINGUY, in reference to the chaingun.
• Called a "Clyde" in the Doom novel.
• Interestingly, when the heavy weapon dude dies, its chaingun can still be seen as part of its corpse, despite it also dropping the gun upon dying (which arguably makes more sense when the player is only grabbing the included ammo and less when the player also equips the chaingun).
• Final Doom's The Plutonia Experiment has the most amount of former commandos used in a single mainstream Doom title; almost every single level has them, with the sole exclusions being MAP11: Hunted (since it only contains arch-viles as enemies).
• The heavy weapon dude is one of the three enemies whose machine gun sounds like a shotgun being fired rapidly, along with the Wolfenstein SS and the spiderdemon (however the spiderdemon fires three bullets per shot similar to the shotgun guy's shotgun, whereas the same audio was perhaps accidentally applied to the heavy weapon dude and SS). In the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Game Boy Advance versions, the commando's gunfire noise is "corrected" to sound the same as the players' chaingun.

Data

Damage done by a heavy weapon dude's bullet

Appearance statistics

In classic Doom, the heavy weapon dude is first encountered on these maps:

The IWADs contain the following numbers of heavy weapon dudes:

Doom RPG

In Doom RPG, the chaingun zombie appears as the "commando" monster class. There are three variations, identified by color:

• Troop (yellow)
• Commando (blue)
• Assassin (normal colors)

Their attacks are capable of destroying jammed doors, much like the axe does, and will attack three times consecutively. They are weakest against plasma attacks.

Sources

• Doom II FAQ/Walkthrough by Tim Brastow, at gamefaqs.com