A Shotgun Study
DeadlyFreeze
Join Date: 2002-11-04 Member: 6915Members
<div class="IPBDescription">breaking it down</div> I did this study because the lack of use of the shotgun in-game, for the amount of servers I play on I see the shotgun used about once or twice during a game, which is understand able do to the overall poor quality of the gun... I hope this opens some eyes on the NS team and changes the weapon a bit.
First off the the shotty spray, probably what makes this gun so worthless. Its great if your point blank into an enemy, but fighting a target that has long range abilities makes this gun about as useful as your knife.
(Note to "steps", a step is one short keystroke on the back key held for about 1 sec)
Spray at point blank:
<img src='http://home.attbi.com/~deadlyfreeze/b1.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
Spray at 5 steps:
<img src='http://home.attbi.com/~deadlyfreeze/b2.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
Spray at 10 steps:
<img src='http://home.attbi.com/~deadlyfreeze/b3.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
As you can see by 5 steps the spray is hitting nowhere near the center of the cross hair, at 10 its worse..
Cost: Shotgun cost 20 resources point, that’s 3 less then the GL and 7 less then the HMG. You would think for such a high cost it would be a better gun.. but im sure most ppl would stay with their LMG and pistol then a shotty.
Reload/Draw Time: The reload time is decent enough about 3 sec's to load 1 shell into the gun and your immediately able to fire.. to load the max amount it takes about 9 sec's. Drawing the gun is a different story, about 4+ sec's to be able to draw and fire compared to the 1 sec of a LMG, makes the shotty vary sluggish.
Capacity: with a clip size of 10 and a max of 50, the gun carry’s 60 rounds which is more then enough to get you around the map and back.
Fighting: As said above the gun is worth less at mid/long range, so its most likely you will only want to fight with skulks or gorg, anything else (onos/fade/lerks/offense towers) will most likely get you killed
Overall the gun packs allot of power, but when you use that power at any distance it works as well as a knife... until the shotty gets change I’m sure it will see allot of shelf life and that’s a shame. With the slim pickings of guns it sucks to see one never used.
First off the the shotty spray, probably what makes this gun so worthless. Its great if your point blank into an enemy, but fighting a target that has long range abilities makes this gun about as useful as your knife.
(Note to "steps", a step is one short keystroke on the back key held for about 1 sec)
Spray at point blank:
<img src='http://home.attbi.com/~deadlyfreeze/b1.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
Spray at 5 steps:
<img src='http://home.attbi.com/~deadlyfreeze/b2.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
Spray at 10 steps:
<img src='http://home.attbi.com/~deadlyfreeze/b3.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
As you can see by 5 steps the spray is hitting nowhere near the center of the cross hair, at 10 its worse..
Cost: Shotgun cost 20 resources point, that’s 3 less then the GL and 7 less then the HMG. You would think for such a high cost it would be a better gun.. but im sure most ppl would stay with their LMG and pistol then a shotty.
Reload/Draw Time: The reload time is decent enough about 3 sec's to load 1 shell into the gun and your immediately able to fire.. to load the max amount it takes about 9 sec's. Drawing the gun is a different story, about 4+ sec's to be able to draw and fire compared to the 1 sec of a LMG, makes the shotty vary sluggish.
Capacity: with a clip size of 10 and a max of 50, the gun carry’s 60 rounds which is more then enough to get you around the map and back.
Fighting: As said above the gun is worth less at mid/long range, so its most likely you will only want to fight with skulks or gorg, anything else (onos/fade/lerks/offense towers) will most likely get you killed
Overall the gun packs allot of power, but when you use that power at any distance it works as well as a knife... until the shotty gets change I’m sure it will see allot of shelf life and that’s a shame. With the slim pickings of guns it sucks to see one never used.
Comments
People, realize that a single man with shotgun is indeed mush, that a shotgunner with a LMG marine to cover him, however, is absolutely deadly:
The shotgun kills everything nearby, the LMG compensates for its (intended) lousy long range qualities.
For further studies, I suggest you try and play against [FoR]Storm to see how 'useless' the shotty is in her hands.
you DO know that those bullet holes are simply randomly generated client side effects right?
its a hitscan weapon, your not firing actually projectiles, think of it more as a triangle from the tip of your shotty to the wall.
By the way, the shotty is the most effective early gun, insta skulk kill and before there second hive thats the only reall attack class they have, not to mention its extremely effective at dealing damage to fades and onos.
The shotty, the way I see it, is to be used in the beginning in the game , until you've gotten more upgraded weapons.
However, most commanders throw one or two out, if even that, which I believe is the reason for its limited use.
But I agree to some extent, that the spread could be more focused for short to average range, but moronicly useless at long range (IMHO). Sort of like the spread of the LMG.
The shotty aint useless, its überkewl and looks sharp, does heavy damage to smaller critters and forefill its purpose perfectly, IMO.
Long live the shotteh <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
....
rofl
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ROFL
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Shotgun > <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo-->
Just give one person who can shoot decent a shotgun and he is a walking army for first 5-10 minutes, give him back up, he is 2 armies
The only reason the Shotgun is any worse then the HMG is due to the fact it doesn't hold enough ammo to keep up with the HMG, since it does only SLIGHTLY less damage for a full clip HMG as compared to Shotgun
Shotgun Kill > Pistol Kill, why? because, the skulk jumps, goes for the face, ~BLAM~, dead Skulk, and the responce "omg **obscenity** **obscenity** you suck **obscenity** omg so ghey that is bs"
Max damage from one shot from the LMG == 10
Max damage from one shot from the Shotty = 160
I have yet to understand why more people do not use this weapon. Perhaps it's simply because they can't aim.
FYI: Jetpack+shotgun = Godly (Dodge acid rockets and hammer fades with heavy damage for each round fired, hover above onos while blasting them with buckshot and shoot down lerks like you're hunting geese)
I won't build much more than the shotty as the command, and that's only for people who can aim. I tend to upgrade weapons and jetpacks before spending money giving HMGs to newbs who are just going to rush out and die anyway. I'd rather invest those resources into our base than a gun that's going to be laying on the ground in a few seconds.
Maybe if they made the shotgun cheaper it would be used more frequently. It's just cost prohibative for anyone but those with elite aiming abilities. If it cost less, I'm sure more people would learn to use it. On the other hand, jetpacks are only 9 resources and it's been my experiance that half the NS player population haven't even tried using jetpacks yet.
N00b: "Gimme HA!"
Me: "Currently researching jetpacks"
N00b: "OMG! Jetpacks suck! Gimme HA!"
Me: "I'm not spending 50 resources to research an item that costs 25 each just so I can give it to some newb who's going to die regardless. Jetpacks cost 25 to research and 9 to build, you can have one of those"
N00b: "J00 suck! Gimme HA! Gimme Comm!"
Somedude: "Are jetpacks really any good?"
*Moments later*
Somedude: "Hey, these jetpacks are pretty spiffy, I hadn't tried them before"
N00b: "OMG! Jetpacks kickass! I'm all fast and junk"
*rolls eyes*
--Fox
<b>According to the Frontiersman manual:</b>
Serieux (shotgun)
Use: Big damage, short range. Cone of fire helps take down fast opponents.
Data: The TSA "Serieux" model shotgun shoots a cone of accelerated metal fragments. Up close, it has proven very effective against the Kharaa. The Serieux was designed by French covert ops for insurgency missions as a powerful, easy to use and manufacture weapon for rebel and guerrilla groups. Its relatively basic design makes it a cost-effective upgrade early on in an engagement.
Damage
16 per fragment. 10 fragments per shot.
Clip
10
I had it backwards. 10 pellets, but they do 16 damage per shot. 160 damage max. I don't find it very "cost-effective" though if it's not much cheaper than the HMG.
I find it bizzare that the LMG does less per hit than the pistol (LMG does 10 per hit, pistol does 20!). Maybe make the pistol do 5, or 10, and upgrade the LMG a bit, to 12 or 15, and require a resource cost to "beam" in new marines. *shrugs* Just some ideas. Pistols being stronger than LMGs don't make sense to me is all.
Deadlyfreeze: If you find yourself alone as a Marine, something is very wrong. Marines should never be alone(I'd like to see that new bot script in to make marine bots automatically follow other marine bots instead of wandering by themselves). If I ever was though, I'd rather have a shotgun than an LMG.
--Fox
Obviously you have never fired a shotgun before <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
In games and movies the stereotypes are born, which the audience then believes is like the real thing
Obviously you have never fired a shotgun before <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
true, but the shotgun is meant for close quarters
And in early game, marines without HA die too fast to skulks for it to be a sound investment.
20 RUs? For a marine who will certainly die in ~2 minutes?
Wasted money.
Killing aliens is not really a good strategy IMO.
What is better?
Killing skulks on the way to your base from theirs?
or
Taking their hives?
Aliens spawn. Fast.
You kill one of them, it is -0 enemy resources.
They kill a marine with a shotgun -21 resources.
Why give out shotguns when they do not even give such a great benefit of killing a few skulks, when LMGs work fine?
That being said, shotgun is only useful late-game.
HMG or shotgun? Not a contest.
Ive been accused of aimbotting so many times when using the shotgun/jetpack combo its not even funny. I litteraly flew around the alien hive location for 10 minute attacking the hive and the aliens. Needless to say they were extremly **obscenity** that iw as able to kill them long range with that shotgun.
I was playing in a game yesterday, I had a good commander, but no one else was doing anything to help the team. So basically, the commander focused the majority of his attention on me. Equipped with HA and a shottie, he ordered me to secure the area around a Hive. I couldn't have done this without his help of constantly dropping ammo and health, but I managed to take out 3 Fades and 7 Skulks, set up a forward base, and wreck havok on their Hive before I died.
Morale of the story: shotties are utterly godly, and most likely the most cost-effective weapons in the game.
Anyways, the shotgun is very very very good (in the right hands, including mine), simply use a handgun and shotgun, go out with full ammo and a team, and you will become a very strong force to reckon with.
Use the handgun while the alien is at distance, he will be forced to come at you, and then you whip out the shotgun and paint a silleioute (however you spell that) of him on the wall with blood.
Now this does take timing of course...but cmon...it aint that hard, and its super effective just before they are working on that second hive, then follow the shottie up with seige and your human team is killer.
Not everyone can use a shotgun. Most newbies can't use a shotgun for crap. Experienced players + shotun = ownage. I've played lots of other games, and I consider my aim to be pretty good, but I still kinda suck with the shotty <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
Gimme a shotgun, and all that damage is applied at the same time. <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->