Continuing our deep dive into the weapons of LiveFire League, it's time to talk about standard weapons — the classic trio: Shotgun, Machinegun, and Minigun.

These are present in almost every military shooter. Simple, honest weapons without overly complex features. They even share the same projectile model — similar to the Blaster's energy bolt, but grey and slower.

Shotgun

A weapon that's usually devastating up close but useless at ten meters. I tried to make it more versatile by tightening the spread angle. Up close, it's deadly — one shot, one kill — but the time between shots is long.

My main inspiration was creating a hybrid of the Shotgun and Super Shotgun from Quake II.

Primary fire: Generates 5 pellets with a narrow spread and increased damage. You could almost call this a "sniper mode". The Shotgun also performs well with blind fire — you'll often hit an enemy with a random shot, or even kill them with a stray pellet.

Alternate fire: Fires 9 pellets with a wider spread, but each pellet deals reduced damage. Still, a point-blank shot won't be stopped by body armor — and even if it doesn't kill, the knockback can easily send an enemy into a bottomless pit. This mode consumes 2 rounds and has a longer reload time.

Technical implementation: The spread is generated so the first pellet flies straight toward the crosshair. The others are generated in pairs, with a set angle of deviation to the left and right. Each pellet in the spread gets the same index — this is used to check for the "One Shot — Two Kills" achievement.

Early concept: I wanted to implement pellet ricochet off walls, but at the time it was technically too difficult. Now I think it would be unnecessary — because the next weapon handles that role...

Machinegun 

A mid-range workhorse. Performs well on both offense and defense. This is the first automatic weapon in the arsenal.

Inspiration? Pretty much every assault rifle and automatic weapon from every game I can remember.

Primary fire: Fires in bursts. If you hold down the trigger, accuracy drops quickly — but you can fire in controlled 2-4 round bursts for precision. It won't deal massive burst damage, but it keeps the target under pressure and forgives low accuracy.

Alternate fire: Launches a grenade that bounces off walls and detonates either by timer or on impact with a living target. This is my first area-of-effect projectile. It allows you to hit enemies hiding around corners. Sometimes grenade trajectories get pretty funny — especially when the shooter blows themselves up.

Design decisions: Before adding the grenade launcher, I had to decide whether to use the same ammo pool or create a separate mechanic. I chose the simple path: same ammo, but 10 rounds per grenade.

Technical challenge: Dynamic walls caused grenades to get stuck (especially interesting when they got stuck in the Gauntlet's shield). The solution? Increased grenade speed.

Another challenge — area-of-effect reactions: Explosions affect not only characters but also interactive objects — doors open, glass shatters.

The primary fire implementation was straightforward — the Machinegun is essentially the Blaster with a higher rate of fire. But not as high as...

Minigun

Heavy weapon. Completely unsuited for aggressive attacks because it slows the shooter while firing. However, it has a high rate of fire and a huge magazine — making it ideal for holding positions, controlling zones, or surprise attacks.

Also worth noting: the barrels need to spin up before firing.

Main inspiration: the Chain Gun from Quake II.

Primary fire: Continuous fire that quickly destroys accuracy — but accuracy isn't really the point here. The goal is suppression, not precision.

Alternate fire — Turret Mode: When deployed, the character loses the ability to move. However, the fire rate increases dramatically, and incoming damage is reduced by half — turning the player into a living turret.

Technical challenge — weapon switching: The most complex part was handling weapon switching while in Turret Mode. This required adding special checks for that weapon and forcing turret mode to deactivate when switching weapons.

Balance notes: The Minigun fires bullets with lower individual damage compared to the Machinegun and Shotgun.

Summary

The three standard weapons cover three engagement distances:

Alternate fire modes add depth without overwhelming the player.

Next time: Heavy weapons.

Question for you

Which of these three would you take into battle — and why? Also, what do you think about alternate fire modes? Do they add depth or just complicate things?

Thanks for reading!

— AlexAnniken