Weapons are used to fight the hordes of zombies that have overwhelmed Fairview and probably the rest of the world. Most survivors use these to rid the streets of any zombies they might encounter, although nothing stops them from using the same weapons against fellow survivors.
Anything that takes up one of your three weapon slots is considered a weapon, ranging from simple Pen Knives and Baseball Bats to fully automatic Shotguns, heavy Machine Guns and even High-Explosive (HE) Grenade Launchers.
The Basics
Firearms require various types of Ammunition to shoot, while the various Melee Weapons and Chainsaws available obviously don't need ammo to function. Most weapons have certain skill requirements, such as a minimum investment in the appropriate weapon type proficiency and partially some strength requirement as well.
Weapons may be found in the Inner City by looting them in various spots in houses, cars and dead bodies. Weapons cannot be looted in the same block as the outpost (Outside or Inside a building) as stated by Admin. Most weapons can be traded with other survivors via the Marketplace or found at the Credit Shop, with a few notable exceptions, all of which are listed as "Non-transferable". If you manage to loot a weapon, there is a small chance that it will be Master Crafted and grant you extra stat points when equipped.
Higher grade weapons generally use more expensive ammunition, requiring higher skill and weapon proficiency to use them effectively. All of them can only looted in later areas and are thus guarded by increasingly powerful zombies, but this is balanced out by their higher knockback, damage, speed and various other factors which make them far superior in battle than cheap gear.
Like every other type of item, weapons can be scrapped for their material value in cash, if you do not wish to or are simply unable to sell unwanted weapons.
Weapon Types
Looting Weapons
Melee Weapons | |
Pistols | |
Rifles |
Crowd Control Weapons
Chainsaws | |
Shotguns | |
Sub-Machine Guns | |
Assault Rifles | |
Heavy Machine Guns |
Other Weapons
Explosives |
Note: With the exception of melee weapons, every weapon in Dead Frontier has had its name changed, due to copyright laws. The real life name of these weapons will be listed in the weapon entry.
Specific Categories
Special Weapons | |
Craftable Weapons | |
Dusk and Dawn Weapons | |
Limited Edition Weapons |
Statistics
Formulas
Damage Per Second (DPS)
A list of DPS values for all weapons can be found Here. This list is not reliable, due to bugs with attack speed and hidden damage multipliers with certain machine guns (see Damage Per Hit Formula)
Knockback Power
A rough measure of the weapon's ability to knock back zombies. Weapons with higher fire rate and more pellet per shots (Shotguns, Sub-Machine Guns...) generally have higher knockback power, and as such are more suited to fighting multiple zombies at the same time.
Damage boosts, such as those from Implants, do not affect knockback power.
Stagger
A zombie can be staggered if it receives a hit (or a combination of hits in a single frame for multi-pellet weapons) that deals at least 1/50 of its remaining HP, with effect increasing the lower its HP gets. This causes it to temporarily stop moving and become more susceptible to the effects of knockback, even from weapons that have yet to meet the stagger requirement.
- Normal zombies and mini-bosses will get staggered for a significant amount of time, enough to get greatly pushed back by other players with high-KB weaponry. Most bosses will barely pause when staggered.
- Staggering a zombie does not interrupt its attack; if you are in the attack range of a staggered zombie, you will get still get hit as usual.
- Stagger condition is independent from knockback power; weapons with low knockback power but high DPH (such as bolt action Rifles) are able to stagger heavy target earlier than usual, but will not inflict knockback as well against weaker enemies.
Damage Falloff
Several weapons (primarily Shotguns and Sub-Machine Guns) have a limited range that they can do maximum damage/KB with, and thus inflict less against targets beyond this range.
- Beyond effective range, most Shotguns lose base damage/KB at a fixed rate of ~1.5%/m, and SMGs at a rate of ~2.083%/m
- Ex: A Mancini M1 (3m effective range, 2.5 damage per pellet) with 92% damage boost is used. At a distance of 9m, the damage per pellet will be:
2.5 * (1 + 92%) * (1 - 1.5% * (9 - 3)) = 4.37
- All projectile weapons have a maximum range of ~12m (may vary slightly depending on angle), beyond which they will cease to deal damage.
- The greatest damage loss possible at 12m is 13.5% for shotguns with 3m effective range. Some weapons have even greater stated maximum falloffs, but those are not realistically achievable and will not be listed here.
Aggro Generation
As all firearms and Chainsaws generate a large amount of sound and lighting with each attack, those using them are bound to attract the attention of zombies. There are three components to this:
- Noise Chance: The chance per attack that the weapon will generate a "noise" that will cause nearby zombies to progress 1 step in the zombie behavior chart (Calm -> Disturbed -> Enraged). Some "loud" weapon types may have a low Noise Chance per attack, but that is negated by their fast attacking speed.
- Noise Range: The radius at which the "noise" will attract zombies.
- Can Generate Horde: The capability of the weapon to attract an "artificial" horde when used excessively, separate from natural ones that occur over time; even when strictly silent weapons are used, you will still have a chance to counter an aggro spike. Additionally, there is a cooldown after each aggro spike that prevents another one from occurring, regardless of method and the nature of the spike.
- Generally speaking, using these weapon types sparingly with pauses in between will minimize the chance of "artificial" hordes.
Weapon | Noise Chance | Noise Range | Can Generate Horde |
---|---|---|---|
Melee Weapons | None | None | |
Pistols | Low (~18%) | Average | |
Rifles | Low (~18%) | High | |
Chainsaws/Flamethrowers | Low (~18%) | Average | ✓ |
Shotguns/Sub-Machine Guns/Rifle-caliber Machine Guns/Explosives | High (100%) | Average | ✓ |
Attack Speed
Each weapon class tends to have 1 or 2 specific set of attack rates, denoted by their Attack Speed. Due to bugs within the game, all weapons have a lower attack speed than their coded attack rate might suggest:
- The theoretical values are the values coded in game, which can "theoretically" be achieved by a machine running the game perfectly. Since the Unity version DF runs on simply does not work well with modern machines, the theoretical values can never be achieved, and are only here for reference.
- The actual values reflect the fire rate most common among modern computers after taking the firerate issue into account; it is unlikely that your fire rate will deviate much away from these numbers.
- The list below reflects the most common fire rates correlating to the Attack Speeds displayed in Inventory, with only a few exceptions.
Attack/Firing Speed | Attacks per Second | |
---|---|---|
Theoretical | Actual | |
Very Slow | 1 | 0.968 |
Slow | 1.5 | 1.429 |
Average | 2 | 1.875 |
Fast | 3 | 2.727 |
Very Fast | 8.571 | 6.667 |
Super Fast | 12 | 8.571 |
F***ing Fast! | 12.245 | 8.696 |
Insanely Fast! | 30 | 15 |
Accuracy
See Stats_and_Levels#Accuracy for more information
Weapon Accuracy | Reliable Aim onscreen | Perfect Aim onscreen/reliable aim offscreen | Pinpoint Aim |
---|---|---|---|
Very High Accuracy | 35* | 40* | 44 |
High Accuracy | 59 | 69 | 79 |
Average Accuracy | 80* | 100* | 119 |
Low Accuracy | 124 | - | - |
Very Low/Ultra Low Accuracy | N/A | - | - |
*Not yet tested exact number
Critical Hit
See Stats_and_Levels#Critical_Hit for more information
Weapon Critical Hit Chance | Critical Hit "Rate" X% @ Y Critical Hit Points |
---|---|
Very High | 80% @ 79 Critical Hit Points |
High | 80% @ 112 Critical Hit Points |
Average | 40% @ 112 Critical Hit Points |
Low | 20% @ 112 Critical Hit Points |
Very Low | 4% @ 114 Critical Hit Points |
Very Low (Miniguns) | 2% @ 114 Critical Hit Points |
Zero | 0% @ 124 Critical Hit Points |
All items (18)