Chainsaw

File:D208saw.png

A chainsaw in a suspiciously empty passage on MAP08: Tricks and Traps.

The chainsaw, near where it is found in E1M2: Nuclear Plant.

The chainsaw mutilates enemies close enough to contact. At 525 hits per minute, it is roughly a quadruple-speed fist. It is often used, because it conserves ammo, its "rapid fire" works well on enemies with low pain chance which minimizes damage in melee situations, and because of its gory implications. When picked up, the message is "A Chainsaw! Find some meat!". The TV advertisement for the Super Nintendo port showed numerous instances of the player chainsawing Imps and Demons, intercut with images of butchers at a slaughterhouse/meat factory.

It is considered to be most effectively used against Demons and Spectres, since the player can more than likely kill them without taking damage. The chainsaw's disadvantage is its slow killing speed, compared to the berserk fist, which becomes a liability when facing multiple enemies and in open areas. Expert players confronted by a pack of Demons and Spectres back into a corner and chainsaw them down one by one (if the corner is less than 107 degrees wide, only one Demon can attack at a time).

It can also be used fairly effectively against Cacodemons, Pain Elementals, Lost Souls, and Imps. It is ineffective against Hell Knights and other demons with powerful ranged attacks.

The chainsaw is effectively rendered useless against Demons and Imps if the game parameter is set to Fast Monsters (such as in Nightmare difficulty), since these monsters' melee attacks are three times as fast.

The chainsaw first appears in a secret area of the level E1M2: Nuclear Plant, and appears again in secret areas of E1M3: Toxin Refinery and E1M5: Phobos Lab. It is finally found in a non-secret area on E2M6: Halls of the Damned.

In vanilla Doom, if a player has a chainsaw, they cannot switch back to the fists unless they have a berserk pack. Most modern source ports allow toggling of the fists and chainsaw by pressing "1" (as with the two shotguns in Doom II).

The chainsaw can be obtained via the cheat code idchoppers (and, in some source ports, idfa or idkfa).

Notes

Switching to the chainsaw means that there is a continuous buzzing from the chainsaw motor. When "fired", the chainsaw is shoved forward and the buzzing changes to a higher and even more unbearable whine. Like gunfire or a fist punch, attacking with the chainsaw will alert monsters in open areas, however merely switching to the chainsaw will not. Players who often want to provoke enemies into finding them can "fire" the chainsaw, without wasting ammo.

The chainsaw graphics are based on scans of a real chainsaw, a McCulloch Eager Beaver (borrowed by Tom Hall from his girlfriend).

Due to a limitation of the game engine, the chainsaw does not penetrate its victims; instead, it repeatedly re-aligns the player's position to give the effect of being 'locked' with the target. This can be observed by simultaneously sawing a demon and attempting to turn with the mouse.

If one presses the Escape key for the menu while "firing" the chainsaw, the weapon will buzz in a strange even higher pitch for a moment.

Data

Chainsaw data
Weapon number	1
Damage	2-20
Included ammo	Infinite
Shot type	Hitscan
Shots / minute	525.0 teeth
Sound	DSSAWUP (when selected) DSSAWIDL (idling) DSSAWFUL (firing) DSSAWHIT (doing damage)
Appears in	Shareware Doom Registered Doom Ultimate Doom Doom II/Final Doom
Thing type	2005 (decimal), 7D5 (hex)
Radius	20
Sprite	CSAW (before pickup) SAWG (wielded) PUFF (impact, miss) BLUD (impact, hit)
Class	Weapon Pickup

The chainsaw can inflict approximately 96.25 points of damage per second:

Seconds needed to kill1	Mean	Standard deviation	Min	Max
Barrel	0.27	0.10	0.11	0.69
Trooper	0.27	0.10	0.11	0.69
Sergeant	0.38	0.11	0.23	0.80
Wolfenstein SS	0.58	0.15	0.34	1.26
Imp	0.69	0.16	0.46	1.37
Chaingunner	0.80	0.17	0.46	1.49
Lost Soul	1.11	0.21	0.69	1.83
Commander Keen	1.11	0.21	0.69	1.83
Demon	1.63	0.24	1.14	2.40
Spectre	1.63	0.24	1.14	2.40
Boss Brain2	2.67	0.31	2.06	3.43
Revenant	3.18	0.33	2.51	3.89
Cacodemon	4.20	0.33	3.54	4.91
Pain Elemental	4.20	0.33	3.54	4.91
Hell Knight	5.25	0.31	4.69	5.83
Arachnotron3	5.25	0.31	4.69	5.83
Mancubus3	6.29	0.34	5.49	6.97
Arch-Vile	7.34	0.37	6.40	8.11
Baron of Hell	10.44	0.31	9.49	11.31
Spider Mastermind3	31.28	0.27	30.74	32.00
Cyberdemon3	41.66	0.28	41.03	42.29

1. This table assumes that all applicable calls to P_Random are consecutive. In real play, this is never the case: the monster's pain chance must be handled, as well as possible counterattacks and AI pathfinding, and of course the map may contain additional moving monsters and other randomized phenomena (such as flickering lights). Any resulting errors are probably most significant for small monsters.
2. Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map.
3. Due to errors in the line-of-sight algorithms of vanilla Doom (see Spider paralysis), it is sometimes impossible to keep the chainsaw in continuous contact with a wide monster.

Appearance statistics

The IWADs contain the following numbers of chainsaws:

Game	ITYTD and HNTR	HMP	UV and NM
Ultimate Doom	16	16	16
Doom II	7	8	8
TNT: Evilution	20	19	19
Plutonia	4	4	4

See also

• UV Tyson
• Chainsaw (Doom 3)

External links

• DOOM Weapon Damage Information by George Bell
• ROME.RO Photo Galleries: Eager Beaver