- "Just a few days ago, you were probably swapping war stories with one of these guys. Now it's time to swap some lead upside their head."
- ― Doom instruction manual
The Zombiemen (also known as Former Humans, Troopers or, sometimes, Former Soldiers in the game manuals) is a possessed and/or undead former soldier which has been turned into a Zombie during the invasion from Hell, encountered in the classic generation of DOOM, DOOM II, and FINAL DOOM. This is the very first enemy the player will encounter in the classic games, introducing the combat basics.
Physical Appearance[]
The Zombiemen appear as soldiers in a bloodstained tan uniform and body armor, with green-dyed hair and red eyes, carrying semi-automatic rifles.
Combat Characteristics[]
The Zombiemen will make one of three different sounds when alerted: they will either make a short bark, a ferocious roar, or a low growl. When in pain, they will make a groaning sound and will make a soft moaning sound while they are active.
The Zombiemen are equipped with an assault rifle that fires bullets that are slightly less damaging than the player's bullets. When the Zombies attack, they aim their rifles at the player for 10 tics and fires a single pellet. The Zombiemen's weapons have a wide dispersal (standard deviation around 9°, to a maximum of ±22°), and will most likely miss at medium to long ranges. After firing, the monsters move again.
When killed, the Zombiemen falls hard on their backs and will emit one of the two kinds of moaning or a low pitched scream as various bits of blood and flesh are blown off from their midsection, their lower jaw partially torn away, and dropping an ammo clip containing 5 bullets (or 10 on I'm Too Young To Die and Nightmare!). If they subsequently respawn or is resurrected, the Zombies will drop another clip when they are killed again. They can also be gibbed if attacked with powerful weaponry, such as a rocket launcher.
Tactical Analysis[]
With only 20 health, lowest movement rate, and lowest damage they can provide to the player, the Zombiemen overall serves as the least threatening enemy in the series. Despite this, they play an important role in the bestiary, introducing the player to the absolute basics of combat (firing on enemies and picking up their loot). Therefore, beginner players can utilize any form of weaponry including the Pistol to take them down effectively.
In most cases, an armed player should never need to back down from a single Zombieman, although large groups can slowly drain the player's health during the time it takes to kill them all (as in Evilution MAP09). The dispersal of the shots from their rifles means that they are barely a threat at medium to long ranges. Their hitscan attacks miss frequently, but even with a lucky hit, the player will only suffer from very minimal damage, especially on higher difficulties. Thus, unless in poor health, strafing is not usually necessary to avoid their attacks as with Imps and other monsters.
In an emergency, or when conserving bullets during a Tyson run, the fist is effective in the short term if the player's footwork is good (two blows will usually knock one down, while a single Berserk attack will certainly finish them, often gibbing them). As they are extremely weak and easily disposed of, using heavier weapons against them is considered a waste.
The Zombiemen's low health and damage capability make them rather weak contributors to monster-monster battles. They move rather slowly and cannot dodge attacks very well. They are also not immune to their own hitscan attacks, making them more likely to gun each other down, while inflicting very minimal damage to the more threatening enemies. Thus, Zombiemen are generally the first monsters to fall in monster infighting.
Data[]
| ID # | Hit points | Speed | Width | Height | Reaction time | Pain chance | Pain time | Mass | Bits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3004 (decimal) BBC (hex) |
20 | 8 map units per frame (70.0 map units per second) |
40 | 56 | 8 | 200 (78.13%) | 6 tics | 100 | 4194310 |
| 1: | 2: | 22: |
|---|---|---|
| Obstacle | Shootable | Affects Kill % |
| Sprite name | Alert sound | Action sound | Pain sound | Death sound |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| POSS | DSPOSIT1 DSPOSIT2 DSPOSIT3 |
DSPOSACT | DSPOPAIN | DSPODTH1 DSPODTH2 DSPODTH3 (normal) DSSLOP (gibs) |
| Type | Speed | Damage | Width | Attack Sprites | Sprite name | Sound |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hitscan | Instant | 3-15 | None | PUFF (impact, miss) BLUD (impact, hit) |
None | DSPISTOL |
Damage done by a Zombieman's bullet
| Shots needed to kill | Mean | Standard deviation |
Min | Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player (100% health, no armor) |
12.29 | 2.16 | 9 | 19 |
| Player (100% health, security armor) |
17.86 | 2.79 | 13 | 26 |
| Player (200% health, combat armor) |
44.18 | 6.03 | 37 | 59 |
| Barrel | 2.93 | 0.83 | 2 | 6 |
| Trooper | 2.93 | 0.83 | 2 | 6 |
| Sergeant | 3.91 | 1.04 | 2 | 7 |
| Wolfenstein SS | 6.37 | 1.39 | 4 | 11 |
| Imp | 7.43 | 1.53 | 5 | 13 |
| Chaingunner | 8.80 | 1.74 | 5 | 15 |
| Lost Soul | 12.29 | 2.16 | 9 | 19 |
| Commander Keen | 12.29 | 2.16 | 9 | 19 |
| Demon | 17.86 | 2.79 | 13 | 26 |
| Spectre | 17.86 | 2.79 | 13 | 26 |
| Boss Brain3 | 29.78 | 4.39 | 25 | 42 |
| Revenant | 35.44 | 5.22 | 30 | 50 |
| Cacodemon | 47.41 | 6.88 | 40 | 64 |
| Pain Elemental | 47.41 | 6.88 | 40 | 64 |
| Hell Knight | 58.95 | 8.61 | 50 | 82 |
| Arachnotron | 58.95 | 8.61 | 50 | 82 |
| Mancubus | 70.57 | 10.22 | 60 | 96 |
| Arch-vile | 82.52 | 12.01 | 70 | 114 |
| Baron of Hell | 117.61 | 17.02 | 100 | 159 |
| Spider Mastermind | 351.57 | 51.06 | 303 | 473 |
| Cyberdemon | 468.91 | 68.19 | 405 | 631 |
- This table assumes that all calls to P_Random for damage, pain chance, blood splats, and bullet dispersal are consecutive. In real play, this is never the case: counterattacks and AI pathfinding must be handled, and of course the map may contain additional moving monsters and other randomized phenomena (such as flickering lights). Any resulting errors are probably toward the single-shot average, as they introduce noise into the correlation between the indices of "consecutive" calls.
- The target must be close enough to compensate for the monster's inaccurate aim.
- Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map.
Appearance Statistics[]
In classic Doom, the Zombiemen are first encountered on these maps:
The IWADs contain the following numbers of Zombiemen:
| Game | ITYTD
* and HNTR* |
HMP
* |
UV
* and NM* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ultimate Doom | 203 | 338 | 384 |
| Doom II | 221 | 268 | 290 |
| TNT: Evilution | 337 | 370 | 443 |
| Plutonia | 117 | 81 | 86 |
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