Rocket Launcher

“

I joined this team just to kill maggots like you. Click to listen — The Soldier

”

The Rocket Launcher is the primary weapon for the Soldier class. It is an atypical rocket-propelling device with a protruding metal side and a wide exhaust port.

The launcher can hold up to four rockets and fires them as projectiles at a speed of around 1100 hammer units per second, roughly 47 mph. The trajectory of these rockets are not affected by gravity; they will travel in a straight line until exploding on contact with any surface or opponent. Rockets inflict damage in a set splash radius; damage inflicted decreases the further the distance from the centre of the explosion. Normal rockets are believed to have significant damage falloff over long distances. Critical rockets suffer no such falloff.

As the explosion from rockets causes knockback on enemies, an experience player can juggle opponents. Doing so will deal fall damage to these enemies upon them landing. The player can use this knockback on themselves to perform a Rocket Jump by firing at the ground beneath them and catapulting themselves upwards. This can be used to access areas not accessible to other classes.

Damage

• Base: 90
• Max Ramp Up: 125% (112 damage)
• Max Fall Off: 53% (48 damage)
• Splash Damage Reduction: 1% per 2.88 Hammer Units away from epicenter to a minimum of 50% at 9 feet (144 Hammer Units)
• Splash Radius: 9 feet (144 Hammer Units)
• Point Blank: 105-112
• Medium Range: 50-90
• Long Range: 45-60
• Mini-Crit: 122
• Critical hit: 270
  • (Splash at 3 ft/1m: 226 Crit, Splash at 6 ft/2m: 140 Crit)

• Rocket Jump Damage to Self: 27-46
  • Critical Hit: Deals same amount of self damage as a regular rocket jump (27-46).

• Splash Damage to Self: 27-89
  • Critical Hit: Deals same amount of self damage as regular self damage (27-89).

Medium range is defined as the main resupply door to the opposite wall on the upper level of ctf_2fort. Long range is defined as battlement to battlement on ctf_2fort. Base damage is the damage done at 512 units before damage variance or bullet spread. Ramp up maxes out at 0 units. Fall off maxes out at 1024 units. Explosive damage varies depending on how it hits a player, the larger the classes hit box and the closer you are to the explosion the more damage you will take, the further away from the explosion the less damage you can take. Explosions do the most damage when they happen at the mid point of a player model, the explosion will cover more of the hit box and thus do the most damage. Damages are approximate and determined by community testing.

Function times

• Attack Interval: 0.8
• Reload Base: 0.8
• Additional Reload: 0.92

Reload base is the time it takes to reload the first ammo. Additional reload is the time it takes to reload each ammo after the first. All times are in seconds. Times are approximate and determined by community testing.

Projectile Speed

• 1100 Hammer Units per second / 68.75 feet per second / 46.875 MPH / 75.438 KPH

Trivia

• The Rocket Launcher has Developer weapon variants.
• The weapon seems to be a heavily stylized RPG-7. The handle and the grip have been switched around, the rear exhaust port and the sights are cartoonishly oversized and it seems to fire modified PG-2 HEAT grenades. Certain attributes of its design are based, like many weapons in the game, on musical instruments.
• Contrary to what many people think, it actually is possible to hold 4 rockets in a real life Rocket Launcher at one time. However, the launchers that can do this are modern designs with a protruding "magazine", not the traditional World War 2 era "Bazooka" one the Soldier uses; these could only hold one rocket at a time.
• Upon comparing the Rocket Launcher seen in the original Team Fortress 2 trailers to the current in-game Rocket Launcher, it can be seen that the trigger was originally placed on the front handle of the launcher and that rockets were loaded at the muzzle. In-game, the trigger is located on the rear of the two handles, and rockets are now loaded directly into the barrel.
• The Rocket Launcher was originally single-rocket loaded, like in TFC. An animation of this still exists in the game files (seen in the gallery below).
• The Rocket Launcher, if viewed in world view, is empty. Spectators can look through either end and see the other side clearly.
• Valve has given critical rockets the nickname "Crockets" as shown in the achievement Crockets are such B.S.

Gallery

• Rocket Launcher 1st person cropped.png

  1st person view.

• 

  Full 1st person view.

• 

  Projectile.

• 

  Old Rocket Launcher reload animation.

See also

• Rocket Launcher strategy
• Rocket jump
• Juggling