Rocket Launcher

Most powerful projectile weapon early in the game before you research alien tech. Direct hits with this baby pretty much guarantee kills against anything short of a Sectopod, or Mutons on higher difficulties.

Blast radius is pretty huge! Not a close combat weapon by any means!

Blasts expand horizontally only! Strange but true.

Shooting into the ceiling will cause the explosion to occur on the floor above! More weird physics in play here...

You can carry the same number of large rocket reloads as small rockets. Difference in weight and cost... all in all considered, it's usually best to just stick with large rockets for this baby.

Your units CAN and often WILL reaction fire with this weapon. ... This has been the bane of many missions, as soldiers either miss and blow themselves/ their teammates up, or score direct hits and blow themselves and their teammates up anyhow... or, heck, just miss and waste ammo.

On that note, it's QUITE hard to carry enough ammo for this weapon. Though, when you think about it, you can "comfortably" carry 3 reloads +1 missile in launcher, and will usually get at least 1 kill per missile, so 4 kills per soldiers not really too shabby!

Try leaving reloads on the floor of your craft, or carried by team mates.

In this case, pistols are definitely a nice side-arm to have.