All of these initial tests are against a single slasher, which I fought on NG+, Hard Difficulty, right after the first shop. Super easy test as you can load the save, ride the elevator down, shoot the slasher, reload save, change loadout, test again.

This experiment was necessary due to most Dead Space guides using the original game numbers. The new game is sufficiently different that these calculations need to be redone. Here are my results:

Base plasma cutter (100 dmg) against basic Hard Slasher

• 100 dmg per shot
  
• 12 body shots to kill
  
• 3 shots per limb to remove limb
  
• 2 limbs removed to instakill

Thus, the slasher has

• 1200 total HP
  
• 300 limb HP

I also was trying to determine the cause of inconsistency in the number of shots to remove a limb. What I noticed was quite interesting. LIMB SEGMENTS.
In previous dead space games, if you shoot "the arm", you are damaging the entire limb. In Dead Space Remake, however, if you shoot "the elbow" twice, then "the wrist", it will not break the limb, as those health bars are both tracked separately. This can naturally make removing limbs feel much more difficult, as now you have a much smaller space to target if you want maximal ammo efficiency. Considering a "perfectly optimal" dual limb removal of a slasher costs 6 shots, and an ammo drop contains 6 shots, efficiency is incredibly important.

You may have heard many youtubers and guides referencing the incredible value of using the force gun to "strip the flesh" off a Necromorph in order to make follow up shots deal more damage.

This is wrong, but they are close to the truth.

The force gun deals damage to all limbs it hits. This means if you fire your "100 damage" force gun shot, it will only take a tiny amount from the enemy's total hp (try following up with rifle body shots afterwards to confirm), but will take that SAME AMOUNT from the enemy's LIMB hp (try following up with plasma cutter arm shots afterwards to confirm).

This is useful because there are many EXCELLENT sources of "all limb" damage.

• Fire from the flamethrower
  
• DOT from the prototype stasis module
  
• Explosives (force gun shots, explosive barrels, and many secondary fire modes)

And remember, following up on those limbs means removing them... which kills necros *fast*. So it's not technically true that the force gun "strips flesh" offering a damage boost on followup shots... but it is ABSOLUTELY true that the force gun damages the necro's joints making limb removal significantly easier with followup shots. An important distinction.

The flamethrower deals 2 damage amounts; the listed "base damage", which is how much damage is applied to the target per unit of fuel expended, and the unlisted "burn damage", which is the damage of the DOT on fire effect. I have estimated the burn damage as ~20 DPS (unaffected by damage upgrades, but naturally affected by DOT duration), by subtracting the base damage of firing single shots at a necro and waiting out the full DOT duration, repeating until dead. The DOT and base damage stack with each other, but the DOT cannot stack with itself, only have its duration refreshed.

Also, the flamethrower DOES stagger. But only when catching a necro from "not on fire" to "on fire". Make use of this as you will, but it does make it perfectly valid for combo starting as it doesn't just apply damage... it also gives you enough time to switch to the next weapon and continue your assault.

The Prototype Statis Module, likewise, deals ~45 DPS; calculated by stasising a slasher from full health to dead; as far as I can tell it deals no impact damage and is only the DOT.

But what's interesting is that Flamethrower Fire and Prototype Stasis deal, what I will call, "Withering damage". What this means is that they will deal the full damage amount to the Necro's health as well as to ALL LIMBS, but that limb health will not go below 1hp. That means if you fire 2 ammunition worth of base-level flamethrower, plus 4 seconds worth of DOT, the necro's limb health has UNIVERSALLY gone down from 300-each to 300-65-65-20-20-20-20= 90; enough for a base plasma cutter to take out each limb with a SINGLE SHOT and not have to worry about limb-part-precision; one shot is one shot.

The Stasis is just as good, as in 4 seconds it will have removed 300-45-45-45-45=120; enough for an *ever so slightly upgraded* plasma cutter to do the same; ONE SHOT PER LIMB.

But what about thrown explosives, force gun shots, contact beam secondary fire, etc?

Well, these function slightly differently. I will call these "explosive damage".

The problem with throwable explosives and secondary contact beam shots is that they kill base necros instantly, but the upgraded variants survive far more than they should. I think it might be dealing less than the listed damage amount to limbs, but it might just be that upgraded necro types have more limb health than expected.

But the force gun does exactly what it says it does. Consistency is king. The nicest thing about the force gun is that it appears to deal the full limb damage universally, just like fire does... but it can finish the limbs off. Three "100 damage" force gun shots to an enemy kills it; not by dealing extra damage, but by having 300 damage per limb to more than one limb, it removes those limbs and triggers the instant death. The same result can be achieved by the line gun, which is equally capable of removing multiple limbs with a single shot, getting incredible efficiency. But unlike the line gun, the force gun also doesn't need to be aimed provided you're close enough, damaging ALL parts rather than just the sweep of the line, AND knocks down the enemies around you, which gives you time to breathe, run away, reload, or just shoot again. It also buys time for your aforementioned DOTs (such as fire) to eat away even further.

Thus, a hyper efficient combo could go like this:
- light the necro on fire
- switch to force gun; if the necro gets too close, blast them back; if necro doesn't, save your shot, move to next step
- switch to cutter; remove limbs with as few as one shot per limb.

Similarly, a hyper-satisfying swarm combo would be the same, but with alt-fires:
-drop the flame wall
-drop the force singularity over the flame wall
-watch placidly as the necro horde is hoovered into the oven
-wait until the duration is about to expire, then plink limbs on any hypothetical survivors

Apply prototype stasis to a horde of enemies
Wait for the near full duration, so all limbs are down to 1 hp
Fire a single PULSE RIFLE shot per limb to clear the room.

This one is disgustingly efficient, as long as you're near a stasis refill station. Absolutely ridiculously good. Why expend a WHOLE PLASMA CUTTER shot to remove a limb at 1hp? The efficiency of this cannot be understated, just don't shoot your rifle shots too early or you'll waste your bullets; let the DOT work and do your cleanup at the end.

14 punches to down a slasher: ~90 damage per, no limbs broken except the head, which does not count towards a necro's "missing limbs" limit. Notably, even without the weighted blades, rapid punches did staggerlock the necro, making for a no-damage-taken kill.

6 stomps to down a slasher, but IT DID SO BY BREAKING LIMBS. Probably around ~100-120 damage per, but it breaks legs and arms effectively which makes a big difference in overall effectiveness... and makes estimates more difficult. It seems to have a nice big hitbox, which is nice when stomping away at necro heads.

The line gun is incredibly fun, because it just blasts everything away. At low levels, the damage is such that you fire two lines per limb; and if you aim them right, it can get two limbs per shot; getting a kill in one. In the later game, enemies are frequently running around in their upgraded states and STILL take two shots to kill with limb shots; oh well lol. Still, it is incredibly satisfying to see a base necro and one-tap it instantly. The line gun secondary deals crazy damage over a crazy duration; if you can place it so that it fires length-wise over a hallway, nothing will survive to get to you along that path; NOTHING. Incredibly efficient, as a couple well-placed laser traps cost one ammo each and can kill multiple necros each.

The contact beam is a sleeper hit. In the early game, the secondary fire costs 3 ammo to fire an explosive shot that one-shots most basic enemy types. In the late game, the explosion doesn't scale as well, but the primary fire starts dealing the kind of reliable limb-breaking DOT that the pulse rifle wishes it could. I really like the contact beam.

The ripper, however, is a dangerous tool. In theory, it has excellent DPS, excellent damage per shot, and crazy high overall efficiency and effectiveness. It can staggerlock the necro in front of you, and if you position perfectly you can even keep multiple necros at bay while you saw them to the ground. However, in exchange, you have to make one CRITICAL concession; you need the enemy CLOSE enough to hit them. This is an ugly and unstable circumstance to be in; you can easily get cornered which is not where you want to be. Then again, what better weapon to hold that corner with than the ripper... as long as you don't get hit, at least. It can be a game-breakingly efficient weapon, but it can equally put you into some really uncomfortable situations; use it with caution.

The Plasma Cutter is interesting, universally useful, and iconic as hell. But there are a few more things about it that might make you curious.

• It appears to have a damage boost against limbs. Remember that calculation I did earlier; 2 shots flamethrower, 4 seconds burn, and you can one-shot each limb? Well, you actually only need 3 seconds burn. Why? Well, the plasma cutter appears to deal +~10% to limbs. This means it has a 2-shot-limb breakpoint at 140 rather than 150. Efficient!
  
• Upgrade nodes; you want 140 damage. For that two-shot breakpoint. That means 4 nodes going into damage upgrades, right? WRONG! That little isolated damage upgrade that's just right 1 down 2 from the starting point? The dead end that nobody would waste nodes taking? Yeah, it adds +20 damage, rather than the standard +10. To hit your breakpoints early, don't skip it.

The plasma cutter BURN
The plasma cutter burn is interesting because it doesn't act like real fire. Repeat, it DOESN'T act like real fire. Real fire adds a full-body DOT which damages all limbs but does not break them. Plasma Burns add a limb-targeted DOT which DOES break limbs. This is incredibly efficient.

• The burn effect deals ~90 damage over a duration of 6 seconds for 15 DPS
  
• That means at a 110 damage cutter (the minimum possible to get the burn upgrade), you can fire 2 shots (220) and the DOT will remove the limb automatically
  
• That ALSO means that a 200 damage cutter (maxxed out), you can fire 1 shot (200) and the DOT will NEARLY remove the limb automatically. A single rifle shot will finish it. 1 cutter shot + 1 pulse shot is much cheaper than 2 cutter shots!
  
• Thus, to make the most of your burn damage, you can (occasionally) fire 1 fewer shots, and let the burn take them. But not all of the time; you'll have to test for yourself what those breakpoints are for other damage values, difficulties, and enemy types, I only have so much time for testing. But on the whole it can save you up to 1 shot per limb, which adds up to EFFICIENCY.

The plasma cutter PUNCH
The base punch deals ~90 damage, not really reliably breaking any limbs.
The weighted blades also deal ~90 damage, still not breaking many limbs... but the stagger is upgraded to a full knock-down with a per-necro cooldown, which is nice.
It's not really a weapon of choice, but if you get cornered, punch to stagger every few seconds and you'll take a WHOLE LOT LESS DAMAGE. The stagger isn't long enough on it's own, even with the blades, but it opens a different combo. Stasis, punch, then shoot from a position of relative safety. Remember, if you stasis-only, a point-blank enemy can still get off their very slow attacks; the punch to stagger will protect you from coming into embarrassingly-avoidable harm.

As the cutter had a damage buff against limbs, this thing has a damage PENALTY. Again, it feels like ~20%. Additionally, recall that limbs are not "the arm" but "the wrist, the forearm, the elbow, the upper arm, the shoulder". So if you're shooting at an elbow, a healthy number of your bullet-spread shots will miss entirely, hit the forearm, hit the head, hit the wall...
Note; I figured out the cause of inconsistency with the pulse rifle; see the next section. Suffice to say, it's a little weird, but things make a whole lot more sense now. The pulse rifle doesn't have a nerf to damage coming out of it against limbs; but instead has a nerf to the amount of ammo it consumes while in full-auto. Weird, but ok.

Recall that enemies have a mountain of body health. This is not good. If you're shooting anything but the limbs, you're wasting ammo. But if you're shooting the limbs with this gun, you're never going to break them; the enemy will run out of total health before two limbs have been shot off.

This gun does two things well; it's not penalized against weakspot enemies, and it has the most dakka. It also has the one saving grace, and it's not the mines (though those are pretty great too).

That is that you can get insane efficiency with combined with the reliable limb-weakeners of flamethrower and prototype stasis. Plasma cutter benefits from this by cutting the number of limb shots from 3-per-limb to 1-per-limb, but 1 shot is still 1/6 of an ammo drop. The pulse rifle can trim it down from 10-per-limb to 1-per-limb as well... but 1 shot is 1/25 of an ammo drop. If you want to break the entire economy of the game, and have excellent positioning and timing; BURN, WAIT, PLINK. It's almost completely free.

Also the grenades really aren't half bad. And with enough upgrades, the body-shot DPS is never good, but it can be good enough when you have ammo to spare. Plus it feels nice an aliens-y, so there's that too.

On the whole, the rifle is very legitimately maligned. But dammit, you can have fun with it too.

You might have noticed, if you have used the pulse rifle for any amount of time, that its damage output is weird.

You full-auto blast it into a necro and they take way longer to go down than you think they should, and your estimates on how much damage the pulse rifle must be doing go down.

Then you test it again, firing in semi-auto, stasising the necro, making sure every bullet lands... and it deals exactly how much damage it says on the tin.

YOU ARE NOT INSANE. Well, not for this reason, at least.

When firing in full auto, the pulse rifle consumes slightly more ammo than it should. Which is to say, you get 16 bullets worth of damage, but 26 bullets worth of missing from your inventory. Why? I think it's a stealth nerf to full-auto firing. If you shoot in bursts, the gun consumes 2 bullets to fire 2 bullets in a short burst. AFAIK it is not possible, or at least not easy, to fire single shots. BUT, when holding down the fire button, the gun starts consuming faster than it shoots. 26 instead of 16 is that outcome against normal necros, repeatable.

That might mean that the "first 6 shots are normal, then the gun starts consuming at a rate of 2-to-1"? Or there might be a different formula.

But the important note is that this happens at all. There is a full-auto tax on the pulse rifle, and it WILL consume your inventory. Tap shoot instead to save that ammo. You're welcome.

Notably, the flamethrower does not have this tax, and gets equal efficiency on full-auto as it does with semi. Even more notably, the contact beam does the opposite, so that bears mentioning as well.

So, the pulse rifle gets 1:1 ammo efficiency when fired in semi-auto, and 1:2 ammo efficiency when firing in full-auto.

The flamethrower gets 1:1 ammo efficiency in both cases.

But what about the contact beam? Well, it would only be right to make it do a 2:1... and guess what, it DOES!

You might have noticed that the contact beam primary fire damage stats seem anemic as listed. "75 base, 150 upgraded?" You ask. "That's worse than a plasma cutter, and this gun has ammo drop in 5s rather than 6s... what a ripoff!"

Luckily for you, the contact beam lied, but it lied in your favor.

If you fire a single contact beam shot and let go of the trigger immediately, you get what it promised; it deals a single tick of the listed damage, consumes a single unit of ammunition, and you can fire another shot to deal a second tick.

BUT

If you hold down the trigger, each unit of ammo has a duration of up to 1 second, and deals a second tick of damage on the second half of that duration. So, if you full-auto the contact beam, you consume 1 ammo per second, but deal 2 hits per second; DOUBLING your ammo efficiency and effective damage output. "300" dps still wouldn't appear to be incredible; and it isn't. But due to the constant beam nature, and the slight aoe on hit, it is INCREDIBLY effective at hitting limbs, and is completely capable of removing them.

So, DON'T fire the contact beam in bursts of primary fire; you're getting half of what you pay for. Fire in full auto only; or charge up your secondary blast for an explosive barrel on demand.

Kinesis is an "infinite ammo tool" that you can use to throw things at necros as needed.

And its effectiveness can be judged based on the ammo you are using:

• Rail spikes
  
• Bone Blades
  
• Vent Fans
  
• Explosives
  
• Stasis Bombs
  
• Fire extinguishers
  
• Kinesis Boxes
  
• Junk

Rail Spikes are those glowing long thin sticks you see around some parts of the game world. You find them either with a sharpened tip and glowing tail, as well as any wall-pipes with the glowing top and bottom painted circles. These will one-shot ALL body-shottable necros, consuming the spike in the process. This includes exploders, who will drop their sac behind, nightmares, all standard enemy types. But notably, it does not include the body armor necros with the weaker arms, nor the wall necros with the tentacles; it is unable to harm them, as they have no "body" to spike.

Bone Blades are half as powerful but far more plentiful; a standard slasher has two, and they don't despawn. You can shoot an arm off, then kinesis their blade to kill the necro with their own arm, of you can kill one necro, and use both of its arms to kill their neighbor. More tests need to be done with these, but they seem to deal about 1/2 a necro's health bar per blade on initial testing; making them an excellent finishing tool. They also consume on hit.

Vent Fans are half as powerful again. They are super plentiful, as nearly every necro will break a vent to enter the room, dropping a vent fan to the ground for you to use in the process. If you fire the fan at a necro, it appears to deal around ~300 damage, potentially breaking the limb that it hits. This makes it most useful against basic slashers, as you can cut an arm or leg out from under them the instant they spawn in; but far less useful against upgraded variants with higher base limb HP. However, more testing is required to better understand the damage this weapon deals, as despite their numerous nature, it is somewhat difficult to get a high enough concentration of fan blades to really thoroughly test them; again, they consume on hit.

Bombs seem to deal just enough damage to one-shot basic necros by removing all their limbs, but not enough damage to one-shot advanced necros; They deal probably very near that ~300 damage value, killing by removing all limbs rather than massive body trauma. Anything with upgraded health will be stripped like with a force-gun shot, but not killed outright; this is pretty useful, but depending on your circumstances, bombs might do as much damage to yourself as the necro in your face; I don't like them as much as others might for this reason. They are, however, excellent in the early game when they really *do* one-shot everything.

Stasis Bombs don't seem to deal any amount of damage, but the stasis effect floats around in the air; allowing a necro who runs in to be caught by the stasis. This is much stronger than your own stasis which can only affect the targets it hits directly. Don't underestimate stasis bombs as a defensive option.

Kinesis boxes (the special boxes that are blue and have the kinesis badge on them) appear to deal decent damage. I could kill a basic necro with kinesis box in 6 hits with maxxed out kinesis suit upgrades, and no limbs broken. That would estimate it at ~200 damage per hit. Nonetheless, their bulkiness and tendency to bounce around makes them an incredibly unweidly weapon; but it would be entertaining to bring one around to silly places. Pictured; Kinesis Box in an Elevator:


Fire extinguishers. These deal around the "junk" amounts of minimal damage, but they will STAGGER. This makes them at least marginally useful. They will also deal that same minimal damage to yourself, so if you punch a fire extinguisher, say goodbye to 1% of your health bar. Cute.

Junk. I know it doesn't deal "no" damage, but it's gotta be close. Gave up on trying to kinesis wrench a necro to death after about 10 hits; it was dealing more damage to me than I was to it due to small objects having no stagger whatsoever, and after running out of health packs it was clearly a fool's errand. IF it dealt something like 40 damage, it would take 30 wrenches to kill a necro... but I don't know if it even deals 10. If someone with way more patience than I wants to figure it out, feel free; but for now, my recommendation is that throwing wrenches is a complete waste of time. What's fun though is that a scalpel, if you throw one, will stick in the necro like a knife ought. It doesn't appear to do any extra damage, but it's a really nice effect.

I made this guide because one didn't exist, and because I was seeing too many myths out there regarding damage types in Dead Space Remake.

But it's nowhere near complete.

Many figures are estimates, especially the part regarding damage multipliers. Are limbs 300, and cutter gets a buff... or are they 280? Are there damage types at all, or does it just have variable-sized hitboxes for each attack type? How much damage DOES an explosion do?

Many of these tests could also be expanded against other enemy types, other difficulties, and critically; against the elite and nightmare variants of necros, which seem to take strange amounts of damage to remove limbs even when accounting for the "2x" and "3x" rough health estimates...

So, if anyone wants to steal this guide and expand upon it, YOU ARE WELCOME TO! I myself will probably leave this as is, but having hopefully debunked the myth of "flesh stripping" that caused me to make the guide in the first place.

Another note is that deleting two limbs does not necessarily kill the enemy outright. This is explained in greater depth in this youtube video I found , where the tester in question is speaking on Dead Space 1. However, I believe the core concepts are the same. I cannot confirm if this system is still in place, identically or otherwise, in Dead Space Remake, but it seems likely to be at least in most-part carried forwards.

Happy hunting!

This section is less about tests and more about general notes taken from completing an impossible playthrough. You might find them helpful if you wish to attempt the same, or just to know what strategies were effective.

1. The Plasma Cutter; I mentioned in the Plasma Cutter section, but it can be an efficient weapon if you use it correctly. I highly recommend putting the nodes into the DMG upgrade "right 1 down 2" ASAP; you can afford it as early as the workbench after the first shop if you loot carefully, and this upgrade alone brings the cutter down to "two precise limb shots to remove a limb"; a big improvement against the rank and file necros. Later in the game, it becomes a bit of a pain against the upgraded necro types but it's still useful; especially against bosses. But I did unequip it for the second half of the game to go all-in on force/contact just to see if I could... and that loadout worked as well. But remember; you DON'T NEED THE CUTTER. It's good, not necessary. Find your bliss.

2. SAVE AND QUIT; If you're doing an Impossible run, in the middle of a fight, and you're at critical health and out of health packs, press ESC, and click on "go back to main menu". It'll load you back to your last save point, and you'll do better the next time around, I promise.

3. Try to keep a single stasis recharge module in your inventory at all times, there are a few sections where you will really need it. More isn't necessary, as there will be world drops and recharge stations, but have the one spare for emergencies.

4. The game is fun on Impossible, and apart from the death thing, still allows for experimentation. I changed my build a dozen times through the playthrough, equipping new weapons, working on the weapon kill count achievements, and doing a few respecs to keep bouncing around. It wasn't perfectly efficient, but it was plenty successful; so don't stress too much about hyper-efficiency.

5. YOU DO NOT NEED TO BUY AMMO. The closer to empty your weapons are, the higher the drop rate in the world. As long as you aren't literally on empty; make sure you have enough to get 1 or 2 kills, and the drop rate will keep you going indefinitely. You might need to be careful and accurate, but even when using the contact beam only, as I did for a part of the game, it was effective and sustainable.

6. You can exploit ammo drop rates by putting your spare weapons in the bank. This goes down to fewer than 4 weapons; you'll get more bang for your buck with 2-3 weapons equipped only, as then they will always have ammo and often have extra.

6b. You can exploit capacity upgrades in the workbench to get free ammo refills. This is especially helpful on the line gun, force gun, and contact beam; as they can do a lot of damage with a full clip and if it runs empty again, you might just be coming up on another workbench. Note that I'm not talking about "respec your weapon for 5k, then put your nodes back in" actual exploits... just save those CAP node slots for when your weapon is at empty, then fill them in strategically; it'll keep you going in some of the hungrier parts of the game.

7. Stasis combos are also a type of ammo; and they have different levels of necessity depending on your loadout. For example, if you're going to be using the flamethrower and pulse rifle, you will be spamming stasis in order to hold the hordes off long enough to actually pull off your combo. Alternatively, if you prioritize heavy hitters like the contact beam and line gun, you can pretty much focus fire down enemies before they get close, saving stasis for actual emergencies. Neither approach is more or less correct than the other, but it makes the playstyles more distinct; the former generates far more spare ammo to sell, but eats every stasis pack it finds; the latter will consume ammunition, but always have spare stasis. Technically the flamethrower stasis pulse combo is better for cash generation... but you won't get stuck either way, so it's no big deal actually.

7b. The prototype stasis module deals ungodly amounts of damage if you spam it while standing next to a stasis refill station. Free kills, zero risk, made most of the fights on the final chapter of the game zero-damage free victory. Yes, the sidequests are worth completing. The earlier you get prototype stasis, the happier you will be, as it will save you SO MUCH AMMO, and pain, over the second half of the game.

8. Having leveled up and tried out the various weapons, I LOVE the line gun and find it to be the most enjoyable weapon, especially when maxxed out, in the game. Don't underestimate it; it's ammo hungry, but incredibly fun. And the laser traps are ridiculously effective if you have the opportunity and patience to set them up correctly.

9. There are many guides, but this linked video here does good by not overdoing itself. He has his own weapon combos which are solid, does an excellent job of warning you about the instant death zones, and summarizes things quite well.

10. The instant death zones. Know when each of them is coming up, mentally prepare yourself. None of them are all that hard, AS LONG AS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING. Just take each one of them carefully and you'll get through no problem.

11. Have fun and good luck. Beware that enemies start having double health / double damage in the second half of the game, so your weapon combos will have to update accordingly. Similarly, NG+ has the nightmare type which have triple health and damage... but if you succeed on your impossible run, you'll have the foam finger, so that won't really be a problem for long. If you see something angrier than usual and it just won't go down. DON'T PANIC. Stasis it, and just keep shooting accurate shots. They go down eventually.

12. Weapon Guide[vulkk.com]
One last guide for reference; just a good article that has the pre- and post- upgrade stats for every weapon. Might help if you're theorycrafting of your own and want to see the hard numbers.

13. The sidequests are still worth it. Backtracking has the potential to randomly spawn a dangerous encounter, some of which are worth reloading a save to avoid. Otherwise, go back and pick everything up if you have the patience to; you'll get some extra money, nodes, and upgrades, which I think are ENTIRELY worth the journey to get. But you do you, the straight line path is fine too if that's what you prefer.