Part of my "EDC" in the game is a pistol, which I keep in my tool belt for quick access. For space-saving reasons, I don't carry any extra rounds for it—only the fifteen rounds the pistol will hold.
I use the pistol rarely and primarily for two occasions: 1) when I get cornered by zombies and need quick killing power and 2) sometimes for dogs.
In determining which weapon to carry for such cases, I came up with the following requirements:
- Had to be able to deliver multiple rounds quickly—quicker than the crossbow, my primary weapon
- Had to have enough power to drop at least two zombies without a reload
- Had to be cheap and easy to maintain (as in replacement parts and ammunition-costs)
Requirement #2 is the tricky one because the Feral Zombie has a maximum health value of 2800. I haven't been able to test the pistol against a feral yet so the jury is still out on that. If the "DamageBonus.head" modifier in the XML file is a multiplier, then the pistol I'm currently carrying can drop a feral with nine rounds:
- 2800 max health / (56.36 points of damage per round X 6)
Even if I'm wrong about the damage bonus for head-shots, the pistol meets my requirements a vast majority of the time.
For the comparison, I have a pistol with a quality of 563 compared to a 44mag with a 600 quality. Counting all 15 rounds of the pistol, the total damage is 845.4. Counting all 6 rounds of the 44mag, the total damage is 867.78. That makes them relatively similar in amount of maximum damage delivered.
The advantages of the pistol over the 44mag then become traits other than maximum damage, such as:
- Maximum number of deliverable rounds
- Expense per round
- Availability of parts and rounds as loot
The full pistol, individual parts, and the 9mm rounds can be found in more loot boxes and with a higher probability than the 44mag pistol, parts, or rounds. Also, the 9mm rounds cost only 1 unit of gun powder versus the 2 units for the 44mag.
