Gun Range (Magnum/Pistol)

[Reeva!]

So I've been screwing around in creative mode trying to figure out a meta for myself that's easy enough to use in normal SP or even a PvE server, but I had extra time on my hands so I thought I would test out some other things, like the Magnum, I've never crafted a Magnum legittly because of the rarity of its parts, so I whipped out a bunch of Magnums, and combined all their parts into a 600 quality Magnum, now the first problem I have with this gun: It can't shoot farther than 30 meters, I whipped out a random pistol from the creative menu and decided to compare it, obviously the damage is lower but when I made it 600 in quality, it could shoot much, much farther than the Magnum. I decided to go to the desolate mine-infested biome (don't know its real name) and I stood ontop of a building with a 600 quality Magnum, Hunting Rifle, and Sawed-off Shotgun, and then I took some test shots at cars (since if you shoot them, or a zombie hits them, they explode, they don't just break) The shotgun can shoot farther than the Magnum and the Pistol. The Magnum needed 4 shots to make a car explode, the Shotgun needed 1, at close range, I tested it at farther ranges, 15 - 20 meters, still 1 shot. This is basically 66% of the Magnum's range and it does more damage. I decided to have some target practice on Vultures and Snakes, since they're hard to hit and actually offer a challenge to shoot at. (I never used the Hunting Rifle against anything, I was too shocked at the Shotgun results and completely forgot about it) It's a straight up pain in the♥♥♥♥♥to attempt to shoot anything farther than 10 meters with any gun, but the Magnum takes the cake on frustration, the shotgun however, is weaker, but still kills them within 1 shot, from a reasonable distance away. And get this, a shotgun has a slight chance to instakill a zombie when you hit its torso (if you upgrade the traits of course) but a Magnum doesn't require a headshot to kill a zombie, Yet, I had to shoot a snake twice (both shots hit) for it to die.

The question is why would I want to make a Magnum when the shotgun outclasses it in almost every way (except long-ish range damage against zombies) AND it's easier to maintain/obtain, the ammo is much easier to get as well, even if you're making slugs instead of shells. Remember, I used a 600 quality Magnum, if I had gotten that Magnum legitly it would most likely not even pass 150 quality, since the random pistol I took was worse than the Magnum in range, I made it 600 quality too, and that dramatically increased the range of the pistol, far beyond the Magnum, but not as much as the Sawed-off Shotgun. So if a 600 quality Magnum is THAT BAD, what's the point of bothering to make it? This goes without saying that I had to super rare Enforcer magazine (basically the Magnum's schematic) that is hard enough to get as well.

All I wanted to say is, if I had gone through the hell on earth that is, crafting this gun by myself without cheating, I would have been way more dissapointed than I am now, the regular pistol outclasses this gun, damage isn't everything, especially if you don't want to get close. (nobody is gonna aim for a zombie from 30 meters away with a Magnum, so they'll obvs be closer)

Maybe improve the range of the Magnum, or decrease the range of the 2 Shotguns, I'm guessing the long barreled shotgun can shoot even farther, because.. it's a long barrel shotgun, and increase the spread of the Shotgun. Seriously I 1 shotted a car that was too far for the Magnum to even hit.

EDIT: should probably state the block durability was 25%, but it doesnt matter, it'd just be more shots but the same results as now. and this aint about blocks :P

[YamaKami]

The biome in question is formaly called the "wasteland" biome. The metric you missed with the guns here is skills/perks. There is also drop off on each gun, that is presumably different for each gun too, and AFIAK skills effect this as well as accuracy. Also the shot gun has a wide spread so at point blank on something as braod as a car all pellets will hit for max damage. Usually not the case when firing at a zombie (also was it long barrel or a sawed off shotgun?)

Magnums have stopping power and the head shots they deal are strong. Shotguns get worse at range due to spread. Also you can easily find parts for them on the whights corpses for future reference.

I see a very flawed test that forgets to take too much into account. Leaving you with a skewed view of how effective the magnum actually is.

[Minotaur]

I'm hosestly like rolling with two Shotguns, one with Slugs for anything that is glowing lol

The positive thing about not having a Magnum, no kick when shooting the damned thing! Not sure if that's a problem anymore, but it was for me in the past with certain patches..

[The Civillian]

I HATE the sawn off shotgun, It is TERRIBLE, unless point blank....i mean putting the barrel in there face kinda close.

Normal shotgun for house clears, hunting rifle for everything else.

Never made a magnum, and honestly dont see the point.

Might give a X-bow with exploding arrows a blitz now it doesnt make holes everywhere lol.

Maybe a concreate kill pit I can just toss loads of explosives into on horde night :D

[Lemming]

I definitely wouldn't say the magnum is that bad...it does a lot of damage, has a good rate of fire, relatively quick reload, and good capacity.

That said, imo it suffers from being a pistol. I don't see the point in spending points on outlaw when I'm absolutely going to be buying better lead than dead and possibly boomstick. With the tightening of skill points since A16...yeah, I just can't see prioritizing pistols.

[YamaKami]

Originally posted by The Civillian:

I HATE the sawn off shotgun, It is TERRIBLE, unless point blank....i mean putting the barrel in there face kinda close.

Normal shotgun for house clears, hunting rifle for everything else.

Never made a magnum, and honestly dont see the point.

Might give a X-bow with exploding arrows a blitz now it doesnt make holes everywhere lol.

Maybe a concreate kill pit I can just toss loads of explosives into on horde night :D

Well if you find a 9mm early game and as a result have a higher pistol skill. Then a magnum makes sense. Now if you are aiming for shotguns, well then it makes less sense. In our PVE games we usually have a a rifle man a shotgun man and a pistol man. Before doubeling up on any. That way there is more parts to go around for each as well as ammo.

[Reeva!]

Originally posted by YamaKami:

The biome in question is formaly called the "wasteland" biome. The metric you missed with the guns here is skills/perks. There is also drop off on each gun, that is presumably different for each gun too, and AFIAK skills effect this as well as accuracy. Also the shot gun has a wide spread so at point blank on something as braod as a car all pellets will hit for max damage. Usually not the case when firing at a zombie (also was it long barrel or a sawed off shotgun?)

Magnums have stopping power and the head shots they deal are strong. Shotguns get worse at range due to spread. Also you can easily find parts for them on the whights corpses for future reference.

I see a very flawed test that forgets to take too much into account. Leaving you with a skewed view of how effective the magnum actually is.

i used a sawed off shotgun at exactly the same range as the magnum (roughly) and the shotgun seemed to fire much farther than the magnum, i tested the long barrelled too, it shoots just as far, from what i can tell. either the magnum is underpowered in terms of range or the shotgun is overpowered in terms of range, i get that a single pellet can hit a zombie with luck from far ranges, but not knock them the f over and take one of their limbs away (head, arm) from a range that the magnum cannot even reach, i wasnt exactly point blank, i tested it at point blank first, duh it's gonna do more damage, but farther ranges are a bit wonky.

[Reeva!]

Originally posted by Lemming:

I definitely wouldn't say the magnum is that bad...it does a lot of damage, has a good rate of fire, relatively quick reload, and good capacity.

That said, imo it suffers from being a pistol. I don't see the point in spending points on outlaw when I'm absolutely going to be buying better lead than dead and possibly boomstick. With the tightening of skill points since A16...yeah, I just can't see prioritizing pistols.

yeah i used a ton of console commands to get literally all the skills, and i made the guns 600 q, so the comparison between them is: magnum is a pieca sh*t, if you look at the gun itself compared to other weapons, too hard to get, and expensive to shoot with, not only in terms of ammo, but repairs as well, since if you repair something you take a bunch of its quality away (unless you upgrade The Fixer)

[Reeva!]

and since you get other parts of guns on zombies or in safes, you can easily get the quality back after repairing them and even increase the quality with ease, again.. i havnt really made the magnum myself, not because i didnt want to, or because i knew it was bad (to me, which i didnt) it's just that i've never found all the parts, i've only ever found the Cylinder, and this was in an air drop.

[Reeva!]

i really hope they buff magnum instead of nerfing shotguns, in a sense, it makes sense for the shotgun to be able to shoot that far, just with Very little damage and accuracy, but the magnum should be able to shoot farther than the shotgun, it's the strongest gun ingame, and i will admit, shooting with it is fun (when i cheat in 500 bullets) :P

[Reeva!]

Originally posted by The Civillian:

I HATE the sawn off shotgun, It is TERRIBLE, unless point blank....i mean putting the barrel in there face kinda close.

Normal shotgun for house clears, hunting rifle for everything else.

Never made a magnum, and honestly dont see the point.

Might give a X-bow with exploding arrows a blitz now it doesnt make holes everywhere lol.

Maybe a concreate kill pit I can just toss loads of explosives into on horde night :D

by the time you are able to craft and fully assemble the magnum, all other weapons you have should be MUCH stronger, unless you got really high quality parts (like if you upgrade Quality Joe) so stick with them, magnum aint worth it, yet* :P

[Reeva!]

Originally posted by Minotaur:

I'm hosestly like rolling with two Shotguns, one with Slugs for anything that is glowing lol

The positive thing about not having a Magnum, no kick when shooting the damned thing! Not sure if that's a problem anymore, but it was for me in the past with certain patches..

it doesnt really have that much of a kick, i only got the game recently so idk how it was like on earlier versions, but the recoil is almost nothing, i just tested it, it's exactly the same as the pistol.

[YamaKami]

Originally posted by Naomi:

and since you get other parts of guns on zombies or in safes, you can easily get the quality back after repairing them and even increase the quality with ease, again.. i havnt really made the magnum myself, not because i didnt want to, or because i knew it was bad (to me, which i didnt) it's just that i've never found all the parts, i've only ever found the Cylinder, and this was in an air drop.

Dead whights (the zombie formerly known as "feral" in A15) is where you get the parts.

Also here is some copy pasts to digest form wikipedia re magnums

The limiting factor is the bullet's trajectory; the best hunting bullets are heavy, so relatively slow, meaning a significant drop-out of trajectory at ranges beyond 100 yards (91 m); with a 50 yd (46 m) zero, the point of which the "line of sight" and the "bullet trajectory" meet, drop-out at 100 yd (91 m) is about 2 inches (5.1 centimetres), and drop-out at 150 yards (140 m) is more than 8 inches (20 centimetres); with a 100 yd (91 m) zero, drop-out at 150 yd (140 m) is more than 6 inches (15 centimetres).[27] Experts recommend limiting hunting ranges to 100 yards (91 m) when shooting .44 Magnum cartridges, less if practical accuracy requires it.

[Reeva!]

i was talking about 30 metres :P by 30 metres i meant 30 coord's, like if you check your map and you move around your coords change, i used those numbers, 30 coords, that's how far i shot, magnum couldnt hit it at top quality, fully upgraded traits, sounds like a bit of a rant right now, i know, but knowing all this you just said, i dont see that in the magnum, it should still be able to shoot farther than the shotgun. aiming with a long barrel shotgun is actually perfect for that sort of range, i get kills easily, sawed off is inaccurate as it should be, but, it can still shoot farther.

[Reeva!]

even if the trajectory gets wonky, what's happening to the magnum is bullet-desapation (no that's not a real term ^^ i aint english and that sounds right to me) The bullet has no possible way of shooting that far, but those mechanics dont apply to the shotgun, even if it's inaccurate i can see where the bullets each hit, in the ground they make particle effects, but the magnum doesnt, it's like the bullet vanishes :/

[Torriador]

My opinion of the magnum, is that is an awesome feral killer.
By the time you are able to assemble (even a low-quality) magnum, your pistol skill should be at least mediocre. They are more accurate at the same range as a sawn-off shotgun, and are meant to be aimed for longer ranges (up to 50m). Keep in mind they were not intended to be hand-held sniper rifles.

The knockdown capability easily surpasses the base threshold of most zombies, and a solid headshot (x4 dmg) will knock down the radiated ones, for another followup (or 2) to the head for a kill.
(it's either [{x4 headshot} * {x3 prone}] = x12 dmg, or [{x4 headshot} + {x3 prone}] = x7 dmg)