Talk:BFG9000

&7
I'm trying to understand how the damage is calculated for the traces. It was hard enough finding out that the hypothetical damage of the traces is 5-120 (we should really mention that somewhere on the page, even though it's not actually possible to do; we did it for the hypothetical max total damage). Now, I can accept that the actual range of damage possibilities is 49-87. However, I want to know how this is. The damage for all of the other weapons I understand. For example, the player's bullet:

damage = 5*(P_Random %3+1);

Damage is a random number between 1 and 3, multiplied by 5. Simple. I've used this sort of function before in C. But the code for the tracer damage is weird. Bolded for emphasis:

for (j=0;j<15;j++) damage += (P_Random&7) + 1;

The damage of a ray is a random number between 1 and the number stored at the address "7" (?!), done 15 times with the results added together? What the fuck? The only other use of "&" I know of is the bitwise AND, and that makes no sense either in this context. Is there someone who can clarify what the &7 means? --Reaper with no name 04:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * According to this it means bitwise AND.   Ryan W 19:06, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Question about the secondary fire
When does the BFG shoot its Secondary Fire (the 40 "lasers" or hitscan traces)? Is it 0.457 seconds after the energy blast is launched, or 0.457 seconds after the ball "explodes"? 64.175.41.255 05:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * After the explosion &mdash; see section 3C of the BFG FAQ.   Ryan W 11:21, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Alternative BFG names
I think with the list of "alternative BFG name expansions" we're in danger of ending up with a list of every single expansion that someone once made up in school one day. It might be a good idea to find citations for the existing expansions to determine their notability. Fraggle 08:14, 16 May 2007 (UTC)


 * A few are mentioned in the BFG FAQ, although AFAICT the concept there is "here's a few representative examples" and not "we searched Usenet exhaustively and these are the three/four most notable expansions we found".   Ryan W 18:00, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Citations for "homages" section
The wikipedia article creates a bibliography by simply linking to its own articles about the works cited, so I'm not sure we need to do more. The last item I copied seems to be obscure, however (at least in English-language sources), so here are a few links:. Ryan W 23:34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)


 * There are many items listed here that are really obscure. The way some of them are described makes me (the reader) think that they're not even BFG references at all, but just boring coincidences. These include:


 * Magic: the Gathering (Unglued expansion) includes The "BFM" (Big Furry Monster).
 * The character Bob in ReBoot plays a guitar called a BFG (Big Fancy Guitar).
 * 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.).
 * 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.


 * It'd be great it anybody can provide screenshots, videos, interviews or even just a more detailed description with half-decent evidence that these are actual BFG-9000 references. But if not I would consider these all for deletion. Zack 20:17, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * US$0.02: Wikipedia has a much stricter original research policy than we do, so this list was basically imported with no checking of references. If some items turn out to be original research, however, it wouldn't be the first mess we've found in Wikipedia's video game articles (they have bigger fish to fry).  In theory, our own policy allows such unsupported statements provided that we also state whether or not they reflect time-tested community consensus, but your suggestion seems more rational in the long term.    Ryan W 12:16, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Additional comment: this entire list could possibly be merged into Doom references in other games, since that article now includes commercial games. Ryan W 16:45, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia has now removed the It's Walky!, Command & Conquer, and The Crims entries, but without saying why those three are inane while the others are relevant (nothing in their list has a citation). Ryan W 19:43, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Big Fucking Gun
While we all know what BFG stands for, I think that "technically" it's Big Fraggin' Gun, as that's the acronym mentioned in the Official Doom FAQ. I don't think the term used in an internal design document should be considered the "real" name any more than the Doomguy is named Buddy Dacote or something.


 * Well, that design document was at least written by the same people who programmed the game. Leukart himself says that the word "official" is complete hogwash (some republished versions of the FAQ omit his prologue), and indeed he includes quite a bit of data that couldn't possibly have been known at the time except by reverse engineering.    Ryan W 09:16, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

BFG 9000 one hit boss kill trick
Maybe I've missed it, but I havent seen any mention of the one hit trick I've seen on many demos where the player has fired only one BFG shot at a cyberdemon or spider demon, ran towards it and still holding run and forward in front of the boss while the BFG particle hits the enemy, and then the enemy instantly dies. I am not sure what exactly happens to cause this but I would have thought this needs to be mentioned as some sort of bug or trick that is exploited. Unless it is already here somewhere.


 * Hmmm. If it is not described in the FAQ, then it is definitely of interest IMHO.  Can you provide a link to one (or five) of these "many demos"?    Ryan W 09:00, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * After reading the FAQ, despite no specific mention, logic suggests that it is a case of the cyberdemon/spiderdemon absorbing every single blast radius trace from the BFG after detonation, however, this wiki says it would require a minimum of 2 full direct hits and 40 traces each to kill the cyberdemon and that makes sense considering the cyber needs 4000 points to kill it and the BFG does about 2500 damage average with direct hit and all traces hitting a single enemy, so how the one shot kill is achieved is still a little hazy, unless I have missed some previous damage the cyberdemon has taken, or unless the BFG does more damage than I think. The link to the best demo is Go2it, the first cyberdemon is disposed of in such manner. Nevertheless, it is a very simple "trick" (not really a trick), just something vital to achieve the best speedruns.


 * There are a couple of not-yet-documented problems with those graphs, but essentially your reasoning is correct. I see from the edit history that the sentence about "that much damage can never actually be inflicted due to the periodicity of the simplistic pseudorandom number generator" is from the original wikipedia version of this article, so I hope that it was based on arithmetic and not just eyeballing the source file (which is harder than it sounds, because most "damage dice" calculations use the low bits and not the high).  I believe spider masterminds are very occasionally killed with one shot in certain COMPET-N recordings.


 * My fast computer is down at the moment, so I'll have to find somewhere to install Plutonia before I can watch Ledmeister's walkthrough. However, many of the cyberdemons in that level are surrounded by arachnotrons, spiderdemons, barons, etc., and sometimes take a lot of damage before the player can get close enough to use the BFG as you describe.  (I seem to recall that Daniel Lindgren took advantage of this trend in FDGMDEMO.)


 * Of course, the lunge-and-circlestrafe strategy can be used against any cyberdemon, as you say, so I'm surprised it isn't mentioned in the Cyberdemon article.


 * By the way, Godfaith, you can sign your posts with  ~  .    Ryan W 11:14, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Addendum: I watched the above demo, but I'm afraid I don't see the phenomenon you describe. Every cyberdemon seems to take at least two shots to kill, including the first one.  Moreover, even if the first one were an exception, what you're really saying is that he dies in one BFG shot plus 3-4 mancubus volleys plus one SSG discharge &mdash; unlikely, but consistent with the data in our articles.


 * Persons who have actually beaten this level should feel free to download the demo themselves and correct me.  :>     Ryan W 08:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Possible 'technical' name
Guys I've just thought of a really cool name that fits for the BFG: BINARY FUSION GUN!!!

sprite question
Something I've wondered is: is the thing sticking up on the BFG in the sprite a handle or is it a lever you pull to shoot the gun?

70.36.177.121 03:01, December 20, 2011 (UTC)

I think that the BFG stands for Big Fat Gun, since I avoid swear words in my life.--Superchargecacodemons800 (talk) 01:31, April 24, 2017 (UTC)