Assault shotgun

The Assault Shotgun is a rifle skill weapon in Deus Ex. It is an automatic-feed shotgun that can be loaded with either buckshot or sabot shells.

Characteristics
The assault shotgun fires five pellets per round, each pellet having a base damage of 4 (for a total base damage of 20). The weapon has a relatively high rate of fire, allowing for high damage output provided that the pellets hit their intended target.

At lower skill levels, the assault shotgun is limited by its high recoil and pellet spread, which can make it difficult to land hits reliably. Although the assault shotgun is not a precision weapon, it is still necessary to inflict headshots with at least some of the pellets in order to take down a common trooper in a single shot. Pellet spread depends on the weapon's accuracy. As accuracy increases (via weapon skill or the Targeting augmentation), pellet spread decreases, allowing for headshots to be made with greater ease. Note, however, there will always be some amount of pellet spread, regardless of accuracy.

The assault shotgun's recoil is the highest of any weapon in the game. Nonetheless, master weapon skill will reduce its recoil to zero regardless of whether or not recoil modifications are used.

Compared to the pump-action sawed-off shotgun, the assault shotgun has much higher damage per second (due to its higher rate of fire), at the cost of lower per-shot damage, lower base accuracy, and greater inventory space. While a single blast to the torso cannot kill a common trooper, it can consistently reduces their health below the flee threshold.

The assault shotgun's high rate of fire, damage potential, and ammo capacity, combined with the relative abundance of buckshot shells, make it useful against large squads of enemies in tight spaces.

Sabot shells
Sabot shells are fired in the same manner as normal buckshot shells, but inflict "sabot" damage, which has two main benefits. First, robots take full damage from sabot rounds, rather than only 25% damage from normal rounds. This allows the assault shotgun to be effective against smaller robots, such as the mini-spiderbot. Second, sabot deals half damage instead of zero to turrets, cameras, and alarm panels, and can be used to destroy these devices.

Sabot does not suffer in effectiveness against live targets, though the rarity of sabot shells makes them impractical as replacement for buckshot.

Acquisition

 * The assault shotgun first appears in the 4th mission, in which it is carried by one of the Men in Black sent to raid the 'Ton Hotel. The weapon becomes common in subsequent missions.

Trivia

 * The assault shotgun model has a rotary cylinder-type magazine similar to that of a revolver.
 * The assault shotgun resembles the custom-built automatic shotguns that appeared in The Matrix.