Weapons

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

While most weapons of similar proficiency level have relatively equal DPS, they all have different characteristics that make them better (or worse) at certain tasks. Weapons can be roughly divided into 2 types:

Looting Weapons: These weapons specialize in dealing high single target DPS cost efficiently, to the point of frequently overkilling weaker zombies. They excel at silently eliminating small amount of zombies in looting scenarios and dealing precise damage to bosses/bandits, but can get overwhelmed by larger hordes.
Crowd Control Weapons: These weapons inflict large amount of DPS and knockback against hordes, keeping you safe when grinding or fighting boss nests. As the damage is split into smaller chunks, they deal significantly less overkill damage against hordes compared to looting weapons and thus will net more EXP. On the other hand, they are typically not as ammo efficient, quiet or accurate, and some even have mechanics that reduce their DPS against single target.

Weapon Types

Looting Weapons


	Melee Weapons
	Pistols
	Rifles

Crowd Control Weapons


	Chainsaws
	Shotguns
	Sub-Machine Guns
	Assault Rifles
	Heavy Machine Guns

Other Weapons


	Grenade Launchers
	Flamethrowers

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
	Event Weapons
	HCIM Weapons

Statistics

Formulas

Weapon Formula

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

Shotgun range 2 — Effective range illustration
* Red: Shotguns (3m)
* Yellow: SMG (7m)

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 ~9%/m, and SMGs lose those at a rate of ~2.083%/m. This continues until they reach their Max Falloff penalty.
- Ex: A Mancini M1 (3m effective range, 2.5 damage per pellet) with 92% damage boost is used. At a distance of 4m, the damage per pellet will be:

2.5 * (1 + 92%) * (1 - 9% * (4 - 2.5)) = 4.15

All projectile weapons have a maximum range of ~12m (may vary slightly depending on angle), beyond which they will cease to deal damage.

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. This is 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%)	Low
Rifles	Low (~18%)	Average
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
Attack/Firing Speed	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 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

Special Abilities

Several weapons have special effects that allow them to inflict status effects on zombies, or perform better again certain zombie types. The following lists all the special abilities currently available:

Status Effects

PvE Armor Penetration: Against zombies with armor (ex: Armored Evolved Long Arms), deals full damage to armor and also a portion of damage to the targets' HP.
- 100% PvE Armor Penetration ignores armor entirely and deals no damage to armor.
- All guns at point blank range, as well as Melee Weapons, Chainsaws, Grenade Launchers and Flamethrowers ignore zombie armor by default.
Flame Projectile: Gun only. Shoots slow moving flame particles instead of hitscans. Flame can pierce through multiple projectile with 100% PvE Armor Penetration, but cannot stagger zombies.
- All weapons with Flame Projectile deal Fire damage; this is resisted by zombies with Fire Damage Resistance.
Slow: Reduces zombie movement and attack speed for a short while. Multiple slow effects stack. Has reduced duration and effect against bosses.
- Most weapons with Slow deal Cryo damage; this is resisted by zombies with Cryo Damage Resistance.
Stun: Prevents zombie from moving and attacking for a short while, and interrupts their attacks/scream actions. Bosses are immune to stun. Most commonly found on Chainsaws and Grenade Launchers.
Elemental Resistance Penetration: Exclusive to weapons with special damage type. Decrementally reduces elemental resistance of the target in damage calculation only.
Pierce: Gun only. Shoots hitscans that can pierce through multiple targets, similarly to Flame Projectile.

Attack Method Modifiers

X Enemies Hit: Melee/Chainsaw only. Increase (or decrease) the amount of extra targets the weapon can hit in a single attack. Extra targets take 12.5% of the original damage.
- Normally, Melee/Chainsaws can hit the main target plus 2 extra ones, equivalent to 3 Enemies Hit
Enhanced Melee Damage Radius & Range: Melee/Chainsaw only. Increases the reach and radius of the weapon.
Burst Fire: Gun only. Fires multiple times per mouse click, ammo is consumed accordingly. Damage per shot in a burst may or may not be distributed evenly, depending on weapon.