BFG9000



The BFG9000 (BFG-9000 in Doom RPG) appears as a large, solid metal gun which fires large balls of green plasma. Arguably the most powerful weapon in the game, it is capable of destroying nearly any player or monster with a single shot.

The abbreviation BFG stands for "Big Fucking Gun", as explained in section 14 of the Doom Bible. Other expansions of the name that circulated before that document was made public include "Big Fragging Gun" and "Big Fun Gun". Characters in the Doom novels refer to the BFG as a "big freaking gun". In the Doom movie, BFG officially stands for "Bio Force Gun", although Sarge calls it a "big fucking gun".

The BFG first appears in a secret area of E3M3: Pandemonium, and again in secret areas of three of the next four levels. It is finally found in a non-secret area on E4M5: They Will Repent. When picked up, the BFG contains 40 cells (80 on the I'm too young to die and Nightmare! skill levels). It expends 40 cells per shot.

Despite its tremendous power, the weapon can be used correctly only with practice, due to its staggered firing sequence and nonstandard blast damage (see below). The BFG FAQ includes an extensive section on deathmatch tactics.

Technical
When the trigger is pulled, there is a pause of 30 tics (about 0.857 seconds) before a green plasma ball is ejected. If the plasma ball hits a solid object, it explodes and causes 100-800 hit points of damage to the target, in round multiples of 100.

After a further pause of 16 tics (about 0.457 seconds), blast damage is calculated: 40 invisible rays are emitted by the player in a cone-shaped area (about 45° half-angle) in the direction the plasma ball was fired. (If the player has turned around, the direction of the blast damage rays does not change &mdash; they are still traced in the direction of firing of the original plasma ball. If he has moved to another location, their origin moves along with him.) Each ray causes 49-87 points of damage if it hits a solid object within 1024 map units. Even Cyberdemons and Spider Masterminds, normally immune to blast damage, are affected by these rays.

Therefore, the minimal damage of the weapon is 49 points (if an object is hit by one ray and not the plasma ball) and, hypothetically, the maximal damage is 800 + (40 &times; 87) = 4280 points (if the plasma ball hits an object for full damage and all 40 rays also hit the object for full damage). However, that much damage can never actually be inflicted due to the periodicity of the simplistic pseudorandom number generator used by the Doom engine.

Data



 * 1) This table assumes that all applicable calls to P_Random are consecutive. In real play, this is never the case: the monster's pain chance must be handled, as well as possible counterattacks and AI pathfinding, and of course the map may contain additional moving monsters and other randomized phenomena (such as flickering lights). Due to the large number of consecutive calls for the blast area, however (see the function A_BFGSpray in p_pspr.c), the resulting error may not be observable.
 * 2) Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map.

Imitations and homages
Many subsequent first-person shooters implemented similar weapons, but few were quite as notorious as the BFG9000. In addition, due to its reputation, the BFG has been referenced or parodied in many other places:


 * Quake II and Quake III both include the "BFG 10K" (later copied by Skulltag). In Quake II, the projectile sprites are exactly the same as Doom's.
 * Doom 3 also includes the BFG 9000. It looks and behaves like Quake II’s BFG.
 * In the hack-and-slash RPG Sacred, one character, the Seraphim, has a combat art called "BeeEffGee".
 * Magic: the Gathering (Unglued expansion) includes The "BFM" (Big Furry Monster).
 * A character in the movie Jason X mentions using a BFG.
 * In the 1995 computer game Jazz Jackrabbit, one character's gun is called the "LFG-2000".
 * In the RPG Adventure Quest, the "BFG" weapon is an obvious clone of Doom's BFG.
 * The character Bob in ReBoot plays a guitar called a BFG.
 * In the game Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, the Archer and Tigress characters have a turbo attack called "BFG", which fires a huge green burst shot forward.
 * There was originally a quest in the second EverQuest expansion, The Scars of Velious, which resulted in an item called "Breezeboot's Frigid Gnasher", using the image of the BFG9000. The item lore calls it "Model 9000".
 * In the 1999 space simulator FreeSpace 2, the largest red- and green-colored beams in the game are referred to internally as BFRed and BFGreen.
 * In the platform shooter Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, there is a level called "The Nefarious BFG" (a reference to both the weapon and to The Notorious B.I.G.).
 * It appears in the PSP game Infected as the BMFG (Big Mother Fucking Gun).
 * In the television series Eureka, the episode "Alienated" referred to a high-tech gun called the "BMFG."
 * The M249 SAW is an unlockable weapon in the FPS game Black, where it is called the "BFG".
 * Version 3 of the tabletop RPG Cyberpunk introduced a new class of lightweight, large-bore, man-portable gyrojet weapons known as Ballistic Flechette Guns (BFGs).
 * Magnum Research, Inc. produces a line of powerful revolvers called the Magnum Research BFR. Officially, this stands for 'Biggest Finest Revolver'.
 * Duke Nukem: Zero Hour contains a weapon called the BMF Thunderstrike.
 * A "BFG" is the preferred weapon of SEMME agent Joyce (who apparently keeps it in hammerspace) in the webcomic It's Walky!.

Appearance in the Doom movie
The BFG in the Doom movie is identified, on a computer monitor, as "Bio Force Gun version 3.14". Unlike in the games, this gun is not labeled as '9000'. When it first appears, Sarge calls it a "big fucking gun". It has no apparent magazine, suggesting that it is recharged in its special storage system. The gun fires a blue (rather than green) blast of plasma, which obliterates the target and burns away at the surrounding areas for several minutes. The flash damage does not appear to be part of this weapon: when it is fired at Reaper, he dodges the main blast and is either not attacked by any other energy or is immune to that energy.

Appearance statistics
The IWADs contain the following numbers of BFG 9000s:

Trivia

 * Roald Dahl's novel The BFG predates Doom by over a decade, but is completely unrelated. Roald Dahl's "BFG" stood for "Big Friendly Giant".
 * The Games Workshop tabletop wargame Battlefleet Gothic is sometimes also referred to as "BFG".