How likely does a shotgun blast kill when only some pellets hit?

Each pellet may hit or miss, and the enemy only drops if enough of them land. Designers guess this number and are then surprised by a gun that never kills or kills almost always. Here is how to get the true chance and one rounding trap that gives wrong answers.

Why this works

Every pellet is its own small gamble, and the enemy falls only when enough of them win. So the honest question is not the average hit count but how many ways the needed hits can happen. Adding up those exact chances beats any guess.

When not to use it

Skip it when pellets clearly depend on each other, for example when they all fly in one tight cone or one lucky aim hits all of them. Then the sum is only a rough guide. Measure real blasts in the running game and tune from that.

In the full entry

• What to build, step by step
• Starting values and the reason for each
• 3 common mistakes and the fix
• 22 lines of example code with 4 checks that pass
• How your AI shows you that it works

Say this to your AI

Use the Spielerando entry "How likely does a shotgun blast kill when only some pellets hit?" (read_entry shotgun-pellets-needed-to-kill-chance) in my game. Build it step by step, and show me how you checked that it works.

Or skip this and connect the MCP: your AI then finds all of this by itself.Connect the MCP