Magazine
A set of shells a gun can fire in quick succession before a long reload, the mechanism behind autoloaders and autoreloaders.
Also known as clip, drum, clip size.
A magazine gun holds several shells at once. It fires them one after another separated only by the intra-clip reload, then stops for a full magazine reload that can run to thirty seconds or more.
This turns the gun into burst damage. A four-shell magazine at 390 alpha can remove 1,560 hit points in ten seconds, enough to delete most opponents outright, at the price of being defenceless afterwards.
Clip damage, the magazine's total, is the number that actually matters when deciding whether a trade is survivable.
Related terms
AutoloaderA magazine gun that must empty its clip before reloading it, all at once.AutoreloaderA magazine gun that refills one shell at a time, so it can fire a single shot and keep loading in the background.Intra-clip reloadThe short delay between two shells of the same magazine, which sets how fast a burst is delivered.Alpha damageThe damage a single penetrating shell deals, before the plus or minus 25 percent the game rolls on every shot.