Pistol

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Revision as of 20:34, 16 November 2008 by 201.29.68.100 (talk) (Data)


The pistol in the initial view on entering MAP01: Entryway.

The pistol is the player's default weapon, and fires bullets. Each player enters the game with a pistol, fifty bullets, and his fists, with the pistol selected as the active weapon. None of the monsters carries a pistol, though the trooper appears to be armed with a rifle that fires pistol bullets.

Combat characteristics

The pistol fires individual bullets, each inflicting 5-15 points of damage. If the player holds the fire button down, the marine fires the pistol repeatedly. As with the chaingun, the initial shot accurately strikes the object in the centre of the screen, but if the trigger is held down, subsequent shots have a dispersal (standard deviation around 2°, to a maximum of ±5.5°).

Tactical analysis

The pistol is an extremely weak weapon, doing damage at a rate barely 10% greater than the fists, and generally should not be used if any better weapon is available.

Accurate fire is possible if the player repeatedly taps the fire button, and the pistol is, together with the chaingun, the preferred weapon to hit very distant targets.

Notes

  • Because neither players nor monsters can drop a pistol, it is the only weapon (apart from the fists) that does not have a "pickup" sprite. An icon for the pistol can be seen in the Doom Collector's Edition and Final Doom instruction manuals, but this graphic does not appear in the game.

Data

Pistol data
Weapon number 2
Damage 5-15
Included ammo 50 (at player spawn time)
Max ammo 200 (400 with backpack)
Ammo type Bullets
Shot type Hitscan
Shots per minute 150.0
Sound DSPISTOL
Appears in Shareware Doom
Registered Doom
Ultimate Doom
Doom II/Final Doom
Sprite PISG (wielded)
PISF (firing)
PUFF (impact, miss)
BLUD (impact, hit)
Damage done by a single bullet
Shots needed to kill1,2 Mean Standard
deviation
Min Max
Barrel 2.30 0.50 2 4
Trooper 2.30 0.50 2 4
Sergeant 3.24 0.72 2 5
Wolfenstein SS 5.17 0.88 4 8
Imp 6.11 0.90 4 9
Chaingunner 7.09 1.01 5 10
Lost Soul 9.98 1.19 7 14
Commander Keen 9.98 1.19 7 14
Demon 14.80 1.40 11 20
Spectre 14.80 1.40 11 20
Boss Brain3 24.40 1.44 20 28
Revenant 29.23 1.43 25 32
Cacodemon 39.02 1.98 35 44
Pain Elemental 39.02 1.98 35 44
Hell Knight 48.61 2.36 42 55
Arachnotron 48.61 2.36 42 55
Mancubus 58.31 2.61 51 63
Arch-Vile 68.05 3.10 62 75
Baron of Hell 97.09 4.37 87 106
Spider Mastermind 290.61 12.57 265 313
Cyberdemon 387.37 16.72 355 414

  1. This table assumes that all calls to P_Random for damage, pain chance, blood splats, and bullet 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. The target must be close enough to compensate for the weapon's recoil.
  3. Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map.

See also