Pumping the shotgun sounds weak.
Just as an audio gripe that I have with all combat shotguns within the game, all of them when racking the slide sounds weak. Compared to the amazing gunfire of the weapon, it doesn’t match up to the epicness that this gun could become and sounds more like someone using a NERF gun.
Pump Action or Semi-Auto? Which type is the Combat Shotgun supposed to be?
Now with the design of the gun itself and for all of the models seen within the game, the gun itself appears to be a pump-action shotgun. You can see the fore-end on the bottom of the gun and the slide groves that goes towards the trigger finger. Upon first glance, one would assume with each shot of this gun would require to rack the slide.
So why is the racking animation only used when reloading and loading special ammunition? The gun is designed to be loaded like a semi-auto shotgun.
Meaning, you can load one shell into the chamber by pulling on the bolt on each side of the gun then topping off the magazine tube. Additionally, you could load the magazine tube and then pull the bolt to force the shotgun to pull back the action to load a shell that was from the magazine tube into the chamber.
This gun is similar to the SPAS-12 shotgun where the gun can be switched from one mode to another, which I’m certain that is how this gun was animated like. But to have all of the current shotgun variations within the game act the same way without any differences just seems like an afterthought of what these guns could of been. Same goes for the auto-guns and lasguns on how there are 3 different variations but no animations to give it a distinct feel to the gun itself.
The fact that there is STILL no pump action shotgun on any of these variants is insulting to say the least. Especially when the Scab/Dreg do their signature racking slide of the shotgun to audibly telegraph when they are about to fire. So why not let us rejects have that satisfaction of pulling a Reverse UNO card onto them back?
Reload animations doesn't make any logical sense...
When using any of the combat shotguns, they all share a common issue. No matter what the different models you use, the reload animations doesn’t seem to align on how a real shotgun works.
As the shotgun is completely empty of any rounds in the gun, it would make sense to load all of the shells into the gun’s magazine tube and then pump the fore-end (or racking the shotgun) in order to load one of the shells into the chamber.
Additionally, when a new special kind of ammo is to be used (rather it be wide spread shot, hard hitting slugs, or fire/dragon’s breath shot), it again makes sense to load that special round into the gun and rack the shotgun.
But when a round is in the chamber of the shotgun and partial or no ammunition within the gun’s magazine tube, racking the shotgun makes NO SENSE what so ever as you already have one in the chamber. What you’d be doing is topping off the magazine of the shotgun, then racking the action to remove the unused shotgun shell out from the gun. When doing partial reloads, you are simply topping off the shotgun’s magazine, NOT DOING A COMPLETE RELOAD!
Within the game, it would make sense for the Zealot and Psyker to do this reload as they are probably not proficient with any kind of firearms due to a lack of training or not using a gun like it in the first place. Psykers especially since they have powerful abilities that they could use instead of firearms. And for Zealots, well they prefer to use melee weapons over firearms. Unless its a flamethrower, then they will be a happy fanatic.
A VETERAN SHOULD KNOW BETTER not to perform this act of heresy as reloading the gun in this manner wastes ammunition. He can quickly top off the magazine then flip the gun back to the firing position to continue engaging the enemy.
Wasting ammo like this makes both the Omnissiah and the Emperor frown at you for doing this. The Omnissiah for watching you ill perform a weapon that it has blessed and the Emperor for giving the enemy another chance to live. Shame on you.
Videos of Real Life Shotgun Reloads
How a Franchi SPAS 12 works
How to load a Shotgun
Note: Video starts with Pump Action Shotgun, then the Semi-Automatic Shotgun
In-Game videos of Shotgun Reloads
Take note that all of the shotguns down below, the type of shotgun firing style and reload of the firearm is the exactly same. In addition, they all have the exact same faults as mentioned above.
Lawbringer MK VI Combat Shotgun
Agripinaa Mk VII Combat Shotgun
Kantrael Mk IX Combat Shotgun
