Ancient Web: Tony Fabris Documented Doom's BFG Down to the Code

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

The BFG9000 is one of the most recognizable weapons in Doom, but a player watching its enormous green projectile could easily misunderstand how the game actually calculated damage.

Read Tony Fabris's BFG FAQ.

Fabris's surviving reference is labeled HTML version 2.1.1, August 15, 1999, with a copyright note dating the underlying article to 1998. It is much more specialized than a general Doom strategy guide: it documents the precise behavior of one game mechanic, the differences between direct impact and the secondary effect, and the implications for competitive play.

The FAQ used the game's own code as evidence

The introduction credits contributors including Bernd Kreimeier, American McGee, and Randy Pitchford. Fabris says Kreimeier helped locate details in Doom's publicly released source code that settled questions about timing, damage, and range. Pitchford contributed information about the related BFG10K in Quake II.

The table of contents is an inventory of technical questions that would have seemed obsessive to a casual player. How many targets can the secondary effect reach? Does altitude matter? What if the player who fired dies before the blast occurs? What happens when two shots are launched close together?

Another section covers deathmatch tactics—the defensive positioning, angles, and timing needed to exploit or survive the game's unusual attack calculations. It also records discussion of tricks dubbed the Silent BFG and Level One Strafe.

The FAQ distinguishes the familiar BFG9000 from an earlier design, and includes appendices discussing Quake modifications and the Quake II weapon. That broader perspective shows how a piece of game terminology was carried through related software with different behavior.

This is separate from the Doom Help Service's general index, which happens to link the FAQ. Its subject is the collaborative reverse engineering of a particular digital mechanism, not the whole support network.

The copyright note permits complete, free electronic redistribution while requiring attribution and preservation of the text. It is a period artifact of fan documentation built around evidence rather than unfounded playground rumors.

Every projectile on screen represents code, calculations, and design decisions. Fabris turned those hidden choices into a long, carefully attributed document.

Explore the original BFG FAQ and contributor notes.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.