Wirehead Studios

I've been doing some messing around for fun with shotguns in Quake 4 and Halo lately, and was wondering, just for reference, what the spread values are for the Doom 1, 2, Quake 1, and 2 shotguns are. I know the spread of the Q3 and Q4 shotguns is 7 degrees and the Doom 3 SG is 11-22 (depending on single or multiplayer) what about the others?

I might just have to re-install Gen and open up the pk3's to check for myself.

You can't look in the pk3's to find the values.  Q3 doesn't use .def files for weapon spreads, it's hard coded into the game.  It's also a units calculation, not an angle calc, though it can be converted to an angle calculation.

Also, some weapons have more complex spreads - Doom's shotgun only spreads horizontally, for example, while the Q2 Super Shotgun sends two separate spread cones, which varies with vertical aiming since the yaw angle value separating the blasts approaches zero when you approach straight up or straight down with your aim.

If you just want basic angle values I'm sure I can dig them up as I have the source code to all the games.  Just do me a big favor... before I do that, let me know if you want to know anything else like number of pellets, damage/pellet, etc, so I only have to dig through one time.  ;)

Actually, yeah, it would be good to know the damage and number of pellets although it looks like most of that info is available in the armory section of the Gen website. Also, can you check and see if I was right about the Q3 shotgun? At first I thought it was the same as the Q4 shotgun, but after playing Q3 the other day, it looks like it's a bit different than I thought.

Anyway, I currently have the shotgun in Halo modded to be about as close as you can get to the Q3 shotgun in the Halo engine. I compared screenshots (with Q3's FOV set to Halo's 70 degrees) and the spread is almost identical, and deals out the exact same proportions of damage (165 total per shot, which is equivalent to 110 damage in Quake because of Halo's shield system).

The results are pretty nice. It's a lot more effective beyond point blank range, it's more skilled, and less overpowered than the original Halo shotgun. However, I'm considering trying more of a Quake 2 SSG style configuration, I just need to get an idea of the spread values.

Whoops!  I never got you this info.  I'll get on it.

Phoenix's Generations Shotgun Data

Here's some fun facts about all the shotguns in Generations Arena, per Gnam's request.  This information is technically accurate as of the closed beta, but should also be accurate to .99f as I don't think I've tinkered in the shotgun code.

Spread values are a maximum perpendicular unit value calculated at 8192 units distance.  So, if you have a horizontal spread of 1000 units, it means at 8192 units from the shooter, the pattern can reach a maximum of 1000 units width.  Spread calculation is done forward, then perpendicularly calculated up and right, so that 8192 and 1/2 of the spread value forms a right triangle with 8192 as the adjacent side to the angle, and 1/2 the spread value as the opposite side.

Degree angles are approximations calculated on the following formula:

MaxHorizontalAngle = 2 * InverseTangent( ( Horizontal Spread * 0.5) / 8192 )
MaxVerticalAngle   = 2 * InverseTangent( ( Vertical Spread   * 0.5) / 8192 )


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Doom Single
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Damage per pellet:  8
Number of pellets:  9
Maximum Damage:     72
Horizontal spread:  550  (3.8453 degrees)
Vertical spread:    110  (0.7693 degrees)

Fun Facts:  Doom shotgun angles are approximations at in the current build.  I plan on using the above formula to retro-adjust my code to more closely match the angle values in Doom.  The Doom Single Shotgun never had vertical spread.  This minor vertical spread was added for Gen on artistic license.  Pellet count on the original shotty was actually 7 pellets.  I changed it to 9 to make the pattern a little less "gappy" and compensated by adjusting the damage value slightly.  For Oldschool mode it will get 7 pellets.

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Doom Double
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Damage per pellet:  8
Number of pellets:  22
Maximum Damage:     176
Horizontal spread:  900  (6.2883 degrees)
Vertical spread:    750  (5.2419 degrees)

Fun Facts:  See above note on shotgun angles.  Damage values for both shotguns are "skewed averages".  The actual damages in Doom were a random selection of 5, 10, or 15 units per pellet.  This damage behavior gives the Doom Single Shotgun a damage range between 35 and 105 points of damage, and gives the Doom II Combat Shotgun a damage range between 110 to 330 points of damage (the above pellet count is accurate to Doom II).  Yes, this insane damage will return for Oldschool mode.

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Slipgate Single
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Damage per pellet:  4
Number of pellets:  6
Maximum Damage:     24
Horizontal spread:  300  (2.0980 degrees)
Vertical spread:    300  (2.0980 degrees)

Fun Facts:  It's the weakest shotgun in the game, has the tightest pattern, and the fastest firing rate.  A Keel bot on Nightmare will make you hate this gun.

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Slipgate Double
===============

Damage per pellet:  4
Number of pellets:  14
Maximum Damage:     56
Horizontal spread:  1050 (7.3338 degrees)
Vertical spread:    600  (4.1946 degrees)

Fun Facts:  This is the weakest double shotgun with the fastest firing rate of all the double shotties.  In Quakeworld, the pattern is generated client-side, but only data about one pellet is transmitted.  This gives the illusion of the gun patterning in a small square when in reality the damage traces pattern exactly the same as in Quake 1.  This has resulted in multiple requests for the bird to make an extremely tight patterning Slipgate Double Shotgun, when in reality Quakeworld was lying to its clients about the shotgun pattern!

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Strogg Single
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Damage per pellet:  4
Number of pellets:  12
Maximum Damage:     48
Horizontal spread:  375 (2.6223 degrees)
Vertical spread:    375 (2.6223 degrees)

Fun Facts:  It does exactly twice the damage of the Slipgate single shotgun, with exactly twice the pellet count and patterns marginally wider.  It also takes over twice as long to refire.

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Strogg Double
=============

Yaw offset Right Barrel:  5 degrees
Damage per pellet:  6
Number of pellets:  10
Maximum Damage:     60
Horizontal spread:  750 (5.2419 degrees)
Vertical spread:    375 (2.6223 degrees)

Yaw offset Left Barrel:  -5 degrees
Damage per pellet:  6
Number of pellets:  10
Maximum Damage:     60
Horizontal spread:  750 (5.2419 degrees)
Vertical spread:    375 (2.6223 degrees)

Max Total Damage:   120
Min Horiz. Angle:   5.2419 degrees
Max Horiz. Angle:   15.2419 degrees

Fun Facts:  Strogg's SSG actually fires two independent shotgun blasts that are 5 degrees left and right off-center, giving a 10 degree angle between both blasts.  The YAW angle for each pattern is multiplied by the COSINE of the Pitch angle.  If Pitch is zero (looking flat across the map) YAW is multiplied by 1.  If Pitch is 90 or -90 (you're looking straight up or down) YAW is multiplied by 0.  Anything inbetween will be a fraction between 0 and 1.  Thus, if you aim flat, the shotgun will pattern its widest.  If you aim vertically, both barrels will shoot along the same axis and the shotgun will pattern much tighter.  This gives the proficient marksman a bonus when aiming at targets above and below.  If you aim flat, you have the widest patterning lead thrower in the game.

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Arena Shotgun
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Damage per pellet:  10
Number of pellets:  11
Maximum Damage:     110
Horizontal spread:  700 (4.8929 degrees)
Vertical spread:    700 (4.8929 degrees)

Fun Facts:  This is the only double-barreled shotgun to use one shell per shot.  This shotgun also boasts the highest ammo capacity of any of the double-barreled shotguns at 200 rounds.  Vanilla Q3 bots that favor this gun seem to gain the highest frag counts.  Notable examples include Sorlag and Bones.