Blaster Launcher

Blaster Launcher

The man-portable total destruction device. Fires the football-shaped Blaster Bomb which can hover and route through up to nine programmable waypoints before detonating on impact with a small explosion. 'Small' being a relative term for battlefield nuclear weapons. A safety radius of 10-20 meters is a good guideline. Blaster Bombs are outside toys.

Stats

Blaster Launcher:

• Size: 3 high x 2 wide
• Weight: 16
• TUs: Aimed: 80% TUs, Accuracy 120%
• Manufacturing: $90,000 for parts, 1,200 Engineer Hours, 1 Alien Alloy
• Sell Price: $144,000

Blaster Bomb:

• Size: 2 high x 1 wide
• Weight: 3
• Strength: 200 High Explosive
• Manufacturing: $8,000 for parts, 220 Engineer Hours, 3 Elerium
• Sell Price: $17,028

NOTE: Though the Ufopaedia stats that the blaster launcher costs 80% of your TUs to fire, this is in fact incorrect. It only costs 66% to use the launch command. The 80% only applies to the blaster launcher's 'aimed shot', which is disabled when the 'launch' command is enabled. The launch command is a completely different firing mode entirely.

Tips & Tricks

• Use left-click to set up to 9 waypoints. Two are the recommended minimum. To guarantee detonation, the last two waypoints should guide the bomb towards something solid such as a wall or floor.
• Right clicks will unset the last waypoint you set.
• Blaster Bombs will often veer slightly off course between waypoints. If it strikes an object (including a wall) before reaching its next waypoint, it will explode. It may even sometimes strike the floor. For this reason, exercise extreme caution when using Blaster Bombs indoors. Always give the bombs a wide berth, and do not expect them to reliably thread through obstacles or skirt along a wall.
  • A bomb fired from within the Skyranger cannot be relied upon to cleanly exit the craft. Firing from the lip of the craft may be safe, especially if you angle your first waypoint away from the edge adjacent to the firer. Alternately, fire the bomb at an angle. So if you're on the left, lead your first waypoint to the right, and if you're on the right, do the opposite.
  • Even if it misses a waypoint, the bomb will restart its path from that waypoint once it passes it or if the bomb flies off the edge of the map.
  • When firing a Blaster Bomb outdoors, send the bomb flying well above the soldiers and other obstacles on the ground to minimize the danger of this phenomenon.
  • When plotting waypoints through tight structures, set waypoints close together to minimize the degree of drift between points -- particularly when trying to thread obstacles or right before the bomb nears the intended target.
  • Hovertank/Launchers' Fusion Balls exhibit the same "drift" phenomenon.
    • The Hovertank fusion ball is fired by the top-most section of the hovertank - or the upper left corner when viewed via the overhead map.
  • Firing Accuracy does not affect whether a bomb will drift or not.
• BB's can break open a single section of UFO outer hulls (see Destroying Terrain). They will carry through with enough power to detonate the nav modules on the other side of the hull, if you hit north or west sides. See Explosions#When_Is_a_Wall_not_a_Wall.
• If you're playing the Collectors Edition, To go through a ceiling hole or up/down lift tubes, waypoints must be at a slight angle (eg. from square next to hole, to square under hole) rather than directly vertically. Pure vertical movement is buggy. This problem only persists in the Windows port of the game.
• The vertical movement bug causes the BB to fly off south instead of down. If it exits the map cleanly, but there are at least two more waypoints to go, it will reappear at the next waypoint and continue. EG inside the UFO. TODO: Insert diagram
• Aliens are not good at understanding the vertical-fire issue, and have been known to blow themselves up because of it.
• Soldier does not need to face target or waypoint when firing.
• BB explosions have an 11 tile radius. A soldier on the 11th tile can still be killed as BB's do average 90 points damage at the edge of the explosion.
• If the aliens have brought Blaster Launchers onto the battlefield, soldiers caught out in the open are wise to crouch. A BB shot directly at a soldier on a level course will simply fly harmlessly over their head (Needless to say, this tactic only works in wide open spaces; ducking down isn't going to save someone if it impacts on nearby terrain).
• If an alien is carrying a blaster launcher, you can prevent it from shooting by having your soldiers move right up next to it. The AI, though generally stupid, does have some sense of self preservation, and will not fire a blaster launcher at a nearby soldier. Just remember that units further away may still be fired on. This strategy only works on aliens with blasters and grenades. It's stating the obvious, but do not attempt to try this on an alien carrying a Heavy Plasma! (This strategy applies to UFO and TFTD but not Apocalypse. The aliens in X-Com Apoalypse are a tad psychotic when it comes to explosives.)
• If a BL is reaction-fired, or fired with only one waypoint set, an 'empty shell' is left inside the Launcher (a blaster bomb clip with no ammo). At the end of the skirmish, these empty clips will not be returned to your stores as actual ammunition.

Dud Shells

Sometimes you will get into a situation where your blaster launcher cannot be loaded with a new shell. When you examine the weapon, you'll find that it's still loaded, but will have 0 rounds. In order to use the blaster again, the empty shell must be unloaded.

This situation occurs whenever you attempt to fire the blaster launcher with only 1 waypoint. A blaster launcher fired by way of reaction fire (see next section) will also leave a dud shell behind, as it's technically a 1-waypoint attack.

Note that the Collectors Edition of X-Com UFO has rectified this problem to a certain extent. You no longer get a dud shell when:

1. You fire the blaster with reaction fire
2. You use a 1-waypoint attack and the blaster bomb misses its target and flies off the map. You will continue to get the empty shell if the fusion ball hits something and explodes.

Avoid Blaster Launcher Reaction Fire

• In case it's not obvious, reaction-fired blasters are generally a bad thing. There is no chance to guide them, so they fly straight forward, and your soldiers will gladly fire at a target a few paces away. Unless the target is far away and the shot is very accurate, you can expect several friendly casualties. Keep your blasters out of the line of sight of the enemy, and/or unloaded until needed.
• BB's can be reaction-fired, but then the empty casing "dud" must be unloaded before using again.
  • This bug has been fixed in the Collectors Edition of X-Com UFO and no longer o curs except with normal one-waypoint shots.
• The time to reaction-fire a blaster is significantly less than the time it takes to normally shoot one.
• One good trick to avoid accidentally using a blaster launcher during attacks of opportunity is to keep your blaster unloaded and only load it when you need to use it. You cannot fire an empty weapon. This works for Rocket Launchers and Small Launchers as well.
• An even better trick is to arm another weapon in the other hand and set it as the active weapon before ending the turn. You will only switch over to the blaster launcher once the active weapon runs out of ammo.

Blaster Launcher tactics: a brief guide.

Building: Nuke it.

Orchard: Nuke it.

UFO: Punch a hole in the bridge, then send in a second bomb to nuke it.

Underground bases: Nuke large rooms first. Exercise caution when firing indoors.

Base Defence: Use waypoints to hit the rear side of your entry lift. (This helps avoid destroying adjacent modules!) Send another through the resulting hole to nuke the lift contents. Now nuke the hangars. Keep in mind that the bomb may veer off course and explode prematurely. -- exercise caution when firing indoors.