Hitscan

“

How's that bullet feel? Feel good? Huh? Huh? Click to listen — The Sniper

”

Hitscan attacks instantly damage targets in their path. Unlike projectile weapons, hitscan weapons are not code-rendered physical objects but are infinitely-thin lines drawn on the server that are then rendered client-side visually as projectiles. Depending on the object hit and client settings, the hitscan weapon then generates an effect: dealing damage or painting blood and bullet hole sprites.

Players don't see enemies dying before bullets are fired, however, because the client predicts the enemy's death and displays it with proper timing. All hitscan attacks emit from the crosshair, despite what is suggested by the view model, likely to aid Snipers for close-range headshots. In technical terms, this means that hitscan weapons have infinite velocity, but this does not mean that they damage instantly after firing.

Melee weapons, with the exception of the Spy's and the Engineer's melees while working on a building wait .25 seconds after input before they trace a short line to see if anything should be struck. This prevents the weapon from hitting or killing a foe before the melee animation completes.

There are two main types of hitscan attacks: those that make contact with the bullet-based hitbox (the eponymous 'bullets' and the Showdown taunt attack) and those that make contact with the enviromental/projectile hitbox (melee weapons, the Chargin' Targe bash, and most other taunt attacks).

Bullet-based weapons (a list of which is given below) fire infinite lines. All bullet-based weapons with the exception of the Ambassador are affected by bullet-spread during a 1.25 second heatup after firing a bullet, which causes bullets to move off-course to varying degrees. Certain bullet-based weapons fire multiple bullets in different directions, but all still are fired from the same spot on the crosshair. The effect of this is masked by 'bullets' that are visible only after passing a certain point or, in the case of the Heavy's primaries, appear to fire at different times than when they actually do.

List

Here is a list of bullet-based hitscan weapons in Team Fortress 2.

Scout	Soldier	Pyro	Heavy	Engineer	Sniper	Spy
Scattergun	Shotgun	Shotgun	Minigun	Shotgun	Sniper Rifle	Revolver
Force-A-Nature			Natascha	Frontier Justice	Sydney Sleeper	Big Kill
Shortstop			Iron Curtain	Pistol	Submachine Gun	Ambassador
Pistol			Brass Beast	Lugermorph		L'Étranger
Lugermorph			Shotgun	Sentry Gun

Demonstration

The following is a model-by-model video rendering of the bullet-based hitboxes:

See Also

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Hitscan on the Valve Developer Community