Useless(?) BFG glitch (Classic Doom)

[ARMCoder]

The classic BFG9000 is famous for its great assortment of curious behaviours... and today I've had an hypothesis that I decided to try, to see whether it existed. That's it:

 

- Fire a projectile against a far away obstacle

- Switch to another weapon (eg pistol) while the BFG's ball is still airborne

- Aim at any enemies in sight

 

The effect that I saw is that, whenever the BFG's ball hits the obstacle, the BFG's tracers still work and hit the enemies, even if the player is currently wielding a different weapon.

 

Does anyone use this "hack" to his advantage? Is it any good for something? Just curious.

 

[Shepardus]

I didn't think anyone would consider that to be a glitch. Frankly, I'd be more surprised if that didn't work. It'd be like firing a rocket and having it not do anything because you switched weapons while it was flying.

 

One quirk with the game is that switching to chainsaw actually does have an effect, since having the chainsaw out causes enemies to not be knocked back by damage, even if that damage originated from a different weapon.

[TasAcri]

That sounds normal to me. The projectile should still have it's intended effects, regardless what weapon you are holding.

 

It might seem like the tracers hit where you aim the weapon but in reality they just hit where the camera faces, AFAIK.

[RjY]

I recommend reading the BFG FAQ. Section 4C explicitly mentions the trick.

Quote

Use 'combo' moves. Use the above 'distant wall' technique, but switch to a conventional weapon as you run into the room. Your traces still work, even if you have switched weapons. Blast 'em with both the BFG traces and something else at the same time. Special thanks to Dan Christensen for this suggestion.

 

[ARMCoder]

1 hour ago, RjY said:

I recommend reading the BFG FAQ. Section 4C explicitly mentions the trick.

 

 

Thanks! In a way, I'm not surprised at all that this behavior (along any other I could possibly grasp in my lifetime) was already scrutinized in depth at this point!

[fruity lerlups]

its intended to work that way so you dont have to just wait until your projectile hits before switching weapons