Lightning Gun

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The Lightning Gun is a weapon appearing in Quake Champions.

Summary

The Lightning Gun is a reworking of the original "Thunderbolt" and "Lightning Gun" weapons from the original Quake series. In Quake Champions, it's function and appearance seems largely unchanged from Quake 4. This weapon shoots a stream of electrical plasmatic energy, dealing high damage the longer it stays on the target.

Original Weapon

The Lightning Gun has several progenitors in the Quake series.

Thunderbolt (Quake)

The Thunderbolt, known within the community as the "LG" (short for Lightning Gun) was a gun found in the original Quake game. It did high damage the longer you stayed on the target, and arced immediately to targets as long as you were pointing in the general direction of your enemy. This made it a far easier weapon to use when seeking high damage, as other weapons, such as the Nailgun, had to be aimed specifically against a target. This came with a tradeoff, though, as the Thunderbolt would immediately discharge all of its ammunition if dischared in water or other liquid, causing a huge explosion that would kill the player. If the player use a Pentagram or Protection, two different damage boosting or negating things, then the explosion could be used to clear a room relatively quickly.

Of note is the fact that the Thunderbolt was the only Quake gun capable of shooting through walls.

Lightning Gun (Quake 3)

In Quake 3 Arena and Quake Live, the Lightning Gun returned mostly aligned with its previous incarnation. The range was limited somewhat, however, and its ammo consumption increased so that dependency on the weapon would eat through ammo faster than ever before.

Lightning Gun (Quake 4)

The Lightning Gun returned in Quake 4 as an experimental Strogg weapon. In this incarnation, it fired a single beam of energy, and had an even greater ammunition consumption rate. It made an appearance as well in Quake Live, though this time, it was the Strogg equivalent of the machine pistol.