Super shotgun
From DoomWiki.org
Template:Doom 3 weapon also in
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).
Contents
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.
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 shotgun pellets only spread horizontally, which makes it more useful than the SSG in cases where you can see the monster only through a narrow horizontal spot. The super shotgun is also a bad choice 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 stronger enemies such as barons of hell or bigger groups of weaker monsters.
Notes
- Unlike the other weapon firing/loading animations which were created from digitizing models, the super shotgun's sequences appear to be drawn instead since they lack the light reflections. It could also be the case that the setting when photographing the super shotgun was different and the person who posted the above theory is a retard.
- When a player has both the shotgun and the super shotgun, the 3 key will toggle between the two weapons. However, the number "3" in the ARMS section of the status bar responds only to the original shotgun, and will not light if the player has only the super shotgun. This behavior is exclusive to Doom II. If the super shotgun is somehow introduced in a level for the first Doom, the weapon may be picked up, appearing on the marine's hands, but cannot be selected afterward once the user chooses another available weapon, or the player runs out of shells.
- Later versions of Doom have a different sound effect when the Marine reloads the gun after firing it.
- In the Playstation and Saturn ports of Doom the Super Shotgun takes up a number "4" slot in the ARMS section, making a total of 8 numbers present instead of 7. In that regard the Super Shotgun appears next when cycling through the weapons in those ports, as well as Doom 64. However, while weapons have to be cyclically accessed in the Xbox version of Doom II (from the Xbox port of Doom 3), the Super Shotgun instead sits between the Chainsaw and the Fist (the list from start to finish goes: Fist, Pistol, Shotgun, Chaingun, Rocket Launcher, Plasma Gun, BFG9000, Chainsaw, Super Shotgun, and back to Fist)
- It has a different appereance in the European and American versions of Final Doom for PlayStation.
- In Doom RPG, It is found in a secret room in Ore Processing, supposedly a gift from one staffmember to another because the said gifter could not get a gaming console. He describes the the shotgun as "something less 'virtual'."
- In the Saturn port, the Super Shotgun fires much faster than in other ports.
- In Doom Classic the Super Shotgun appears on the weapons list as "dblshotgun", but it is not possible to get the super shotgun in the original Doom. However, in the PlayStation and Saturn ports, it can be used in Ultimate Doom by using the 'All Weapons' cheat code.
Data
Super shotgun data | |
---|---|
Weapon number | 3 |
Damage | 5-15 (per pellet) 100-300 (total) |
Included ammo | 8 (16 on skill 1 & 5) |
Max ammo | 50 (100 with backpack) |
Ammo type | 4 shotgun shells |
Shot type | Hitscan |
Shots per minute | 36.8 |
Sound | DSDSHTGN (firing) DSDBOPN (opening) DSDBLOAD (reloading) DSDBCLS (closing) |
Appears in | Doom II/Final Doom |
Thing type | 82 (decimal), 52 (hex) |
Radius | 20 |
Sprite | SGN2 (before pickup) SHT2 (wielded/firing) PUFF (impact, miss) BLUD (impact, hit) |
Class | Weapon Pickup |
Shots needed to kill1,2 | Mean | Standard deviation |
Min | Max |
Barrel | 1.00 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 |
Zombieman | 1.00 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 |
Shotgun guy | 1.00 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 |
Wolfenstein SS | 1.00 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 |
Imp | 1.00 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 |
Heavy weapon dude | 1.00 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 |
Lost soul | 1.00 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 |
Commander Keen | 1.00 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 |
Demon | 1.00 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 |
Spectre | 1.00 | 0.00 | 1 | 1 |
Romero's head3 | 2.00 | 0.00 | 2 | 2 |
Revenant | 2.00 | 0.00 | 2 | 2 |
Cacodemon | 2.22 | 0.41 | 2 | 3 |
Pain elemental | 2.22 | 0.41 | 2 | 3 |
Hell knight | 3.00 | 0.00 | 3 | 3 |
Arachnotron | 3.00 | 0.00 | 3 | 3 |
Mancubus | 3.19 | 0.39 | 3 | 4 |
Arch-vile | 4.00 | 0.00 | 4 | 4 |
Baron of hell | 5.18 | 0.38 | 5 | 6 |
Spiderdemon | 14.96 | 0.39 | 14 | 16 |
Cyberdemon | 19.55 | 0.59 | 19 | 21 |
- 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.
- Assumes that target is close enough to be hit by every pellet. (This is extremely rare in real play, however, especially during speedruns.)
- 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:
Game | ITYTD and HNTR | HMP | UV and NM |
---|---|---|---|
Doom II | 19 | 20 | 20 |
TNT: Evilution | 33 | 34 | 34 |
Plutonia | 39 | 39 | 39 |
Other games
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.