[03-02-07] Protective Boots (~3%/s) - Auto Use

Learn about Protective Boots in Duke Nukem 3D. Discover their function, limitations against hyper-acid, and sporadic lifespan. Understand weapon types and damage mechanics.

Protective Boots appear as a pair of black boots.

Boots are useful items that allow you to ignore damage when you are walking across damaging surfaces, such as acid, lava, and electrified floors. They don't protect well against the Atomic Edition's hyper-acid. They also have a sporadic life span and run out quite quickly, so be sure not to waste time on damaging surfaces if you don't have to. See section 02-04-11, Environmental Damage Sources, for more information on dangerous floor surfaces.

Weapons and Ammo

Like items, weapons are found everywhere in the game, and can even be dropped by certain enemies. Weapons have different strengths and weaknesses, and can be more effective against one enemy than the next. There are several categories of weapons:

• Non Gun - Includes weapons that can't be "shot" from guns. This means that a weapon in this category doesn't have infinite range and has a different function (like Pipebombs).
• Bullet - Bullet weapons hit their target head on, without any travel time. This makes Bullet weapons easier to aim at short ranges, but at long ranges, they have more trouble hitting the target.
• Projectile - Projective weapons are not "instant damage" - that is, they have a short period of travel before reaching their destination. This is notable because some enemies (Sentry Drone comes to mind) have the ability to avoid projectile weapons. Additionally, an enemy could wander behind an environmental feature (like a box, wall, etc) and not be exposed to the projectile.
• Explosive - Ammunition from this weapon explodes on impact, dealing splash damage in a given radius. Splash damage is extra damage that is dealt from the blast. A direct hit from an RPG blast, for example, deals 240 damage to the target and 120 to everything around it in a certain radius. Explosive weapons are also used for blowing up walls and other environment obstacles.

There are then several other fields that give information about the gun, as follows:

• DAMAGE: The damage of the weapon is given. Each hit from the weapon takes this number off from the health of the target. Enemies don't always seem to take full damage from every weapon, there may be a degree of randomness involved in the damage calculation. Once you reduce the enemy's health to 0, it dies.
• WEAPON PICKUP: When you pick up a weapon, you get a set amount of ammo for that weapon as well - this field displays that amount. If you already have a weapon and try to pick up the same kind, you will get this amount of ammo. If you are already full on Ammo for that weapon and possess the weapon as well, you will ignore the weapon, otherwise if you lack the weapon you will pick it up.
• AMMO PICKUP: When you pick up ammo, you get this much added to your stockpile for that weapon, to it's maximum capacity.
• MAX CAPACITY: This value is the maximum amount of ammo you can have for that weapon.

A physical description of the weapon and ammunition follow, as well the enemies that it is most effective against. Finally an overall description of the capabilities of the weapon follows.