Combat and weapons

Weapons behave like the real thing. Magazines, rates of fire, recoil and damage come from the real guns and calibers, and bullets lose their punch over distance.

Against the dead

Aim for the head. A head shot from anything that fires a bullet ends a stray or a bolter, while a body shot can take half a magazine. Shotguns are the close-range answer. Melee is quiet: an axe or a sledge to the skull usually finishes one, a knife sometimes does, and a bat mostly knocks it down. Every swing costs stamina, and heavy weapons tire you quickly.

Aiming

Hold RMB to aim. With your fists or a blade, aiming locks you on to the infected in front of you, and with a gun you get assisted aim onto them. Recoil and sway settle down as you get used to a class of weapon: every kill with it builds your mastery.

Magazines

Magazines are items. Load them from your rounds in the inventory, reload with R, and the magazine you take out keeps what was left in it. See Magazines and reloading.

Dirt, wear and jams

• Every round you fire leaves carbon and copper in the action. A rifle is heavily fouled after about 1,250 rounds and a pistol after about 850; a suppressor, subsonic rounds and handloads foul it faster. Going down in sand or mud with a gun in your hands puts grit in it, and swimming washes the oil out. Hover a gun in your inventory to see its Fouling (clean, light, moderate or heavy) and when you Last cleaned it.
• Every gun also wears as you fire it, and a neglected one wears faster: a heavily fouled, dry gun loses condition about twice as fast, and rain on an unoiled gun rusts it. A dirty gun, a worn gun and a dry, unoiled action all jam more, and they add up: a clean, oiled factory gun in good condition stops about once in 4,000 rounds, while a worn, filthy one can stop every hundred.
• Rain and wading make a gun wet, which doubles its jam chance for a few minutes. Bitter cold below about 14 °F makes it worse again.
• A clean, oiled factory gun in good condition, on a good magazine and fed sound rounds, stops about once in 4,000 rounds. Each of those three can let you down on its own, and each fails its own way (see What caused it below).
• Homemade guns jam far more than factory ones. Melee weapons wear too, and one worn to nothing breaks in your hands.

What caused it

• The gun. A worn, dirty or dry gun throws stovepipes (a spent case caught standing up in the port), fails to extract (the empty case stays in the chamber and the next round jams against it), and when it's filthy its bolt drags and fails to feed. A pump short-strokes, a bolt action sticks a case, a break action sticks a shell, and a revolver light-strikes a round or its cylinder binds on carbon. A crossbow's worn string can jump off the cam.
• The magazine. Magazines wear too: every round through one tires its spring, grit gets in, and the feed lips bend. A worn magazine fails to push the next round up (failure to feed), and one with bent lips can let two rounds go at once (a true double feed). Hover a magazine to see its Condition. Right-click it to Clean it out with a cleaning kit patch (it only gets you so far), or Fit a new spring with a Magazine Spring (salvaged from dead magazines and guns), which brings it nearly back to new. Or just carry another one: drums, long sticks and homemade magazines misfeed more than a good standard one whatever their condition.
• The round. Factory ammunition kept dry almost never fails, and most of what you scavenge is fine, but some lots are old stock (tarnished, a dud now and then), water-damaged or corroded (green cases: many won't fire). Long enough in the water soaks every round you carry. Rough handloads feed badly, and subsonic 7.62x39 often won't cycle an AK (a suppressor helps). Right-click a stack of rounds and Inspect the rounds to see what you have. A bad round is a dud (click, no bang), a hangfire (click, and it goes off a moment later), or a squib: a weak pop with hardly any kick that leaves the bullet stuck in the barrel.
• From Firearms 40 you can tell what caused a stoppage, and the HUD tags it (GUN, MAG or AMMO). Inspect on a gun shows how often each cause is stopping it, and the next round's odds of not firing.

Clearing a jam

• The HUD names the stoppage and how to clear it. A failure to feed: tap the magazine and rack it (R). A stovepipe: rack it and it's swept out (R), a little quicker.
• A double feed or a failure to extract doesn't clear with a tap-rack. Hold R to lock the slide back, strip the magazine, rack it clear and reload. It takes three to seven seconds, and a double feed puts a round on the ground. An experienced shooter sees it for what it is; a new one wastes a tap-rack finding out.
• A dud: rack it out (R). But a click can also be a hangfire, which goes off a moment later, so keep the muzzle somewhere safe and wait a few seconds before you rack. Rack it too soon and it can go off in the action, which knocks the gun about. A revolver turns past a dud with the trigger, and the same rule applies.
• A squib is the dangerous one: the trigger still works, and the next shot drives a second bullet into the first and bulges the barrel (on a badly worn gun it splits). A bulged barrel caps what field repairs can bring back until a gunsmith fits new parts. Stop, hold still and rod the bullet out (R, about seven seconds). That needs a rod: the one in a gun cleaning kit, or a straight steel rod.
• A revolver's light strike: pull again and the cylinder turns past it; a binding cylinder: open it and clear it (R). A bolt action that sticks a case, a pump that short-strokes, a stuck shell in a break action and a crossbow string off its cam all clear with R. The Firearms skill and the Immediate Action perk make every clear quicker.

Keeping them running

A gun cleaning kit field-strips the gun in your hands and cleans it: the fouling comes out, the action is oiled, and a worn gun comes back to about 70%. It takes longer for a rifle than a pistol (12 to 26 seconds). A kit holds ten cleanings, shown as Patches left on it; a bag of gun cleaning supplies (patches and solvent, made from cloth and gun oil at a workbench) fills the emptiest kit you carry back up. Gun oil wets a dry action, drives the water out after rain and wipes a little fouling off. A weapon repair kit restores more condition, and a whetstone hones blades. Field work can only take a weapon so far, though. For a full service or overhaul, use the Gunsmith tab in crafting at an armory bench, which needs weapon parts salvaged from other guns and leaves the gun clean. A rare gun can be kept alive by stripping a common donor of the same kind.

Cleaning kits, supplies and gun oil turn up at gun stores, police stations and military kit, in toolboxes, trunks and camps, and at Haven's quartermasters.

Inspecting a gun

Right-click a gun in your inventory and choose Inspect, or press ; with it in your hands. You see its condition and what repairs can still bring back, its fouling and how long since it was cleaned, how likely it is to jam right now and what would help most, what's in it and in which order it fires, the spare magazines or speedloaders you carry and where, how it compares with other guns of its class, what armor stops it, what's fitted to it, its serial and provenance, and what a trader or the Exchange would give for it. From the panel you can clean it, oil it or repair it (if it isn't in your hands you draw it first, and it stays there), check the load with it in your hands, or take the magazine out.

Attachments

Scopes, grips and suppressors fit from your inventory: use one while the weapon is in your hands. A suppressor cuts a gun's report right down, which keeps a fight small. Most attachments are made at an armory bench.

Armor

Vests and plates have protection levels: soft armor stops handgun rounds, rifle plates stop rifle rounds, and a plate cracks where it is hit. A round the vest stops still bruises you; one that gets through wounds you as if you wore nothing. Nothing covers your head, arms or legs. See Body armor and plates.

The Firearms skill tree ends in Dead Calm (C): a breath let out, and the sights go still. See Skills and levels.