12

In a relatively recent update, Medics gained the ability to see how much ammo their heal target has for their currently selected weapon. This got me thinking about a medic healing/ubering a spy, because presumably they'll never display anything but full ammo. Or possibly even determining the identity of a spy because of their never-changing ammo count.

How much ammo does a medic's HUD display when healing an enemy spy disguised as a teammnate?

1 Answer 1

5

After some testing using bots, I have concluded that:

  • Disguised Spies show a random amount of loaded ammo to enemy Medics. It appears to be uniformly random, with some example numbers for Pyros and Heavies (/200) being 16, 54, 71, 97, 107, 129, 134, and 147. As a result, you'll appear to have full ammo only 1/clip of the time (0 doesn't seem valid outside melee weapons etc), so unless your held weapon doesn't need to reload the Medic will probably not want to über you.
    • I can't test this on my own, but this might mean that you can see an ammo number for the Cow Mangler, Righteous Bison, or Pomson that isn't a multiple of 5. Since the Medic ammo display shows these weapons' loaded ammo as multiples of 5 (as I remember), this will be a dead giveaway.
  • Reloading your Revolver does not change the number. Usually a fake-reload will help your disguise, but if an observant Medic's healing you, this will blow it.
  • Changing disguise weapon re-randomizes the number. This one's very hard to notice.
  • I can't test on my own whether collecting ammo pickups affects the number, but I suspect not.
  • Since it's random, the Spy has no idea what he's displaying.
  • Just like real Medics and Spies, Medic and Spy disguises show "ÜberCharge: 0%" or "Disguised as X" instead of an ammo count.
2
  • 2
    I would very much like to know if collecting ammo changes your randomized ammo count, since if it does, that would be a huge game changer for whether or not you want to pick up ammo while an unknowing Medic is healing you.
    – Zibbobz
    May 1, 2014 at 13:14
  • 1
    @Zibbobz - If your cloak is full and revolver ammo is full, you won't ever pick up ammo boxes, so I would hazard that its no :)
    – Robotnik
    Sep 8, 2016 at 4:54

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .