Hitscan
A hitscan weapon doesn't fire projectiles but instead traces lines from the player and checks for collisions with other objects. Depending on the object, the hitscan weapon then generates an effect such as dealing damage, painting blood and bullet hole sprites, or generating a vector impulse commonly known as knock back.
In gameplay terms, this means that hitscan weapons have infinite velocity. Note that this doesn't make hitscan weapons instant. A weapon might delay tracing the line for a period of time. For example, melee weapons 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.
Visually, most hitscan weapons fire bullets with apparent velocity. This is actually a graphical effect applied to the line after the trace is made. 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, even if the shot killed the enemy some milliseconds earlier.
Below is a list of non-melee hitscan weapons in Team Fortress 2.
Scout hitscan weapons | Soldier hitscan weapons | Pyro hitscan weapons | Heavy hitscan weapons | Engineer hitscan weapons | Sniper hitscan weapons | Spy hitscan weapons |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
See Also
Hitscan on the Valve Developer Community