Rocket Launcher
The rocket launcher is the equaliser of the conventional ranged weapons. It's slow, it's heavy, but its severely limited ammunition is balanced by its sheer brute force.
The rocket launcher is the most accurate weapon that can be fired in a straight line, surpassing even the dreaded Heavy Plasma or the weak X-Com standard rifle. Although the alien Blaster Launcher is superior, the Rocket Launcher is cheap and ammunition is easy to obtain in large quantities.
There are three rocket flavours, each with their own pros and cons. The launcher may only be loaded with one rocket at a time.
- Small Rockets are literally light rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). They are the lightest in weight of the three types of rockets and well suited for weak recruits. Unfortunately, Small Rockets do not work very well against heavily armoured units, like the Cyberdisc.
- Large rockets are the mainstay ammunition for the rocket launcher. They are identical in function with the small rocket, but have twice the firepower and are slightly heavier. Strong soldiers should be equipped with a launcher and a full complement of large rockets (three in backpack, one in tube). If the soldier is mobile, then another soldier could carry another four for the heavy weapon soldier.
- Incendiary rockets are special "Willie Pete" shots (white phosphorus) that serve a variety of purposes, depending on the situation and the tactics employed. One of the most common uses is to illuminate a battlefield at night, the other primary use is to set fire to it. The one thing the incendiary rocket cannot do is provide instant kills on most enemies. The Large Rocket serves that role a lot better.
- The incendiary rocket has the largest detonation radius of all the incendiary weapons, thus it will cause a lot of fire to form on the battlefield - not so good for illumination, since each tile of fire gives 9 squares of light, regardless of how big each individual fire is, a large spread of many small fires is better than 1 large clump of fire in 1 spot - or to clear the battlefield of thick shrubs and to slowly roast aliens to death. Very good for roasting aliens inside a Medium Scout.
To better understand how the incendiary effect works, refer to the incendiary section.
Stats
Rocket Launcher:
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Small Rocket:
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Large Rocket:
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Incendiary Rocket:
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Usage Notes
The following lists how many times a soldier can fire the gun by shot type continuously in any given round and the remaining percentage of any left over TUs that cannot be spent as a shot.
- Aimed: 1 Shot, 25% Remaining TUs
- Snap: 1 Shot, 55% Remaining TUs(15 TUs to reload is too high to get off another Snapshot)
Limitations of Incendiary damage
The listed incendiary damage using IN rounds is misleading. IN rounds do ~6.4 damage on a direct hit. The damage values listed in the UFOpaedia do not determine how powerful an incendiary round deals damage; it only determines how wide an area will be blanketed with flames. Furthermore soldiers cannot gain any form of experience shooting any weapon loaded with incendiary rounds. On the other hand, Incendiary rounds (and other forms of fire) do not damage valuable equipment/loot, and *ignore armor!*, which can be an advantage.
Recommendations
In the early game, the rocket launcher is the best hope for taking out Cyberdiscs and therefore at least one should be kept on-hand for such events. However, as cyberdisk missions also contain psionic Sectoids, the results of a mind control could be devastating. Therefore, these missions require the use of an ammo-bearer to prevent potential firing mishaps. The rocket launcher will continue to remain a useful weapon throughout the game as rockets are very cost-effective for the damage they can inflict.
Tips
- No matter what shot you use, kneel.
- Try to always fire the rocket with Aimed shots. You don't have many reloads.
- Snap shots should only be used when you're guaranteed a kill - such as firing the rocket toward an alien standing next to a wall.
- Use in a support role, not for scouts.
- Sometimes it's better to end the turn with no rocket loaded and to only load a rocket on the next turn. This protects from accidental reaction shots with the launcher.
- When sniping, do not forget that it costs the same amount of TUs to load ammunition from any location in the inventory screen, including the ground. So consider standing on a pile or rockets rather than carry them all the time, or have nearby companions throw rockets over to you.
- Don't bother saving time for reaction fire. Too much friendly fire risk. Move instead.
- Firing from an elevated position or Flying Suit at a downwards angle will guarantee an (eventual) impact with the ground.
- Since rockets explode, direct hits aren't compulsory. If you think you might miss your target, try aiming for a nearby building instead.
- Rockets are good for demolishing cover (trees, hedges, buildings) at long range, reducing the need for messy close range combat.
- Firing a rocket at the ground will generate an instant smoke cloud, instead of waiting a turn for a smoke grenade to go off. If a scout encounters too many aliens spaced too far apart or an alien that cannot be killed by a single large rocket, and supporting troops cannot get a line of fire, the scout can use this technique to make an instant smoke screen and retreat on the same turn. Even if supporting troops cannot get a line of fire to the aliens, they may be able to fire a rocket between the scout and the aliens. This is limited by the general limitations of smoke.
Most of these tips can apply to the Small Launcher and Blaster Launcher.
