Weapons

**Weapons** are another key element of Dead Ahead, as they are used to fight off zombies that follow the player, most notably the Boss.

## Gameplay

Weapons can be used by pressing an orange-red button in the left bottom corner of the screen. Tapping it will make the player fire a shot from their current weapon at the zombies following them. Weapons are always fired behind the player and never to the front, given that all idle zombies on the road are essentially harmless. After firing up all of its ammo, the gun cannot be used for some time while it reloads. Weapons reload automatically, but will not do so until it is emptied.

Weapons cannot be fired under these conditions:

* If the player is accelerating;
* While the player is in the air after leaping off a ramp;
* While the player is on top of a vehicle obstacle;
* While the player is being boosted, either by Nitro or the 1000m boost power up.

Each weapon has three characteristics in range from 1 to 10 which determine their efficiency:

* **Damage** determines the power of a weapon's shot;
* **Speed** determines how quickly a weapon reloads;
* **Ammo** determines how many shots a weapon can fire.

Another hidden characteristic, which can't be changed for any of the weapons is **firing speed**. The only way to find it out is to see a weapon in action. However, it's safe to assume it depending on the gun's type. There's a total of 5 weapon types:

### Pistols

**Pistols** are weapons that fire a single bullet with each tap. They usually have low-to-mid damage and ammo count, and specialize in single target prioritization.

### Shotguns

**Shotguns** are weapons that fire a spread of pellets with each tap. They usually have mid-to-high damage, low-to-mid ammo count, slow firing speed, and specialize in making double and triple kills, and dealing burst damage to a single target.

### Machine guns

**Machine guns** are semi-automatic weapons that can be used by both tapping and holding down the fire button. They usually have low-to-mid damage, high ammo count, fast firing speed, and specialize in holding opponents back via knockback from chip damage.

They are the most common weapon type, with 6 total guns in the category.

### Grenade launchers

**Grenade launchers** are weapons that shoot a powerful explosive with each tap. The shot covers a large area the center of which is horizontally relative to a zombie closest to the bike. The explosive can target up to 6 enemies who are selected randomly, with only the closest zombie being a guaranteed hit. Zombies off-screen can also get killed.
Grenade launchers all have very high damage and low ammo count. They specialize in annihilation of large groups of enemies.

### Railguns

**Railguns** are weapons that fire a straight penetrative laser with each tap. The shot can hit any number of enemies. They usually have high damage, and low ammo count.

The Railgun category only contains its titular weapon.

Each of the above categories, with the exception of railgun, has an achievement and/or an objective tied to it.

The damage, speed, and ammo of each gun can be improved via individual upgrades, which cost some coins. A total of two improvements can be made, each giving a weapon a new status: from basic, to "advanced", to "super". Upgrades don't necessarily affect all stats.

"Advanced" upgrade always costs a half of the weapon's regular price, and "super" upgrade is equal to it. That means that if you wish to have a maxed out weapon you'll have to spend x2.5 of its initial price on it.

## Trivia

* Speed is the only weapon stat that uses consistent "shop value"-to-"real value" conversion for every gun.
	+ Inconsistency with damage and ammo is believed to be an intentional tactic in order to trick players into making poor investments. For example, Submachine Gun has 30 shots, and is labeled with 7 bars in the shop. However, maxed out Nailgun also has 30 shots but is labeled with 6 bars. It also makes it hard to read damage scaling. For instance, Railgun and Combat Shotgun are both labeled with 9 bars, but in reality the former does almost 3 times the single hit damage of the latter.