Super shotgun



The super shotgun, also called combat shotgun in the manuals or otherwise simply double-barreled shotgun, is often abbreviated to SSG, and is a sawn-off, break-open, double-barreled shotgun, in contrast to the original shotgun which is pump-action and single-barreled.

Not featured in Doom, the super shotgun was the only new weapon introduced in Doom II, appearing first on MAP02: Underhalls in single player mode, and in two locations on MAP01: Entryway during multiplayer games. A super shotgun contains 8 shells when picked up (or 16 on the "I'm Too Young To Die" and "Nightmare!" skill levels).

Combat characteristics
The super shotgun takes the same ammunition as the shotgun, but uses two shells per shot. However, whereas the shotgun fires 7 pellets in each shot, a super shotgun blast has 20 pellets. Each pellet still does 5-15 points of damage (for a total of 100-300 points of damage per shot, provided that all pellets hit the target). The super shotgun is thus nearly three times as damaging as the standard shotgun per shot, a good bargain since it only uses twice as much ammo each time.

Tactical analysis

One well-aimed blast almost

always kills two imps, one demon ,

or one spectre, and often inflicts

additional damage to nearby

monsters, whereas a shotgun

burst is less reliable at dispatching

an imp in one shot or a demon in

two. The devastating firepower

afforded by the super shotgun can

enable the player to hold his own

against crowds of humanoids or

tough monsters ( hell knights ,

arachnotrons, mancubi ). It is often

sensible to prefer the super

shotgun over the rocket launcher

in such situations; the super

shotgun is similarly powerful,

shells are more plentiful than

rockets, and a short-range rocket

blast can harm the player.

The SSG is even slower to reload

than the shotgun (approximately

twice the time), meaning that any

enemy not killed by the first shot

will have plenty of time to

retaliate. Some speedrunners ,

however, take advantage of the

reload time by quickly

circlestrafing to line up multiple

monsters within the "damage

cone". The blast-and-dodge and

circle strafing tactics described for

the shotgun are even more useful

for the super shotgun.

However, a point-blank shot

from a super shotgun is

more damaging to monstars with

blast-damage immunity like

Cyberdemon or Spiderdemon,

because the super shotgun

has no splash damage effect.

The wide spread of the pellets

makes the super shotgun

ineffective and wasteful at longer

ranges. If shells are the only

plentiful ammo, or if sniping at a

distance is required, it is advisable

to switch back to the shotgun. The

super shotgun also becomes

overkill and wasteful for dealing

with lone humanoids scattered in

mazes. This is usually a problem

when starting a level and the

super shotgun is picked up before

the regular shotgun.

Regardless, the SSG is a very

potent and powerful weapon in

the right hands, and it serves as a

great alternative for the bigger

weapons when facing lone

enemies smaller than a baron of

hell.

Data



 * 1) This table assumes that all calls to P_Random for damage, pain chance, blood splats, and pellet dispersal are consecutive. In real play, this is never the case: counterattacks and AI pathfinding must be handled, and of course the map may contain additional moving monsters and other randomized phenomena (such as flickering lights). Any resulting errors are probably toward the single-shot average, as they introduce noise into the correlation between the indices of "consecutive" calls.
 * 2) Assumes that target is close enough to be hit by every pellet. (This is extremely rare in real play, however, especially during speedruns.)
 * 3) Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map.

Appearance statistics
The IWADs contain the following numbers of super shotguns:

Doom 64
In Doom 64, the super shotgun reloads much quicker, nearly as fast as the regular shotgun. It does not have the reloading animation that is present in the PC versions of Doom either, which is also the case with the normal shotgun. In addition, the gun knocks the player back a bit when fired.