The rocket launcher is used to fire rockets, missiles that fly in a straight line and explode when they hit anything solid. When picked up, the launcher contains two rockets (four at the I'm Too Young To Die and Nightmare! skill levels). The Doom 3 Rocket Launcher is based on the Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle, as the Classic Doom rocket launcher has more of a late RPG design to it.

Notes

• As with the BFG9000 and chaingun, the full rocket launcher sprite (after pickup) is slightly too large for the screen, and can only be viewed with a level or resource editor.
• The rocket launcher has a "safety catch" similar to the BFG9000. When selected while the fire key is still pressed, the rocket launcher will not begin firing immediately like other weapons, but only when fire key is released and pressed again. It is likely this feature was implemented to prevent severe player injuries by accidentally firing the weapon at close range.
• Due to the rocket launcher's explosive force, it is often used in many speedruns to propel the player to a faster momentum, or to slingshot the player over jumps that typically could not be reached by running alone.
• The rocket launcher's appearance in Doom 64 is slightly different. However, not much has been changed, with the exception it delivers some knockback to the player when fired.
• The rocket launcher is an equippable secondary weapon in Mighty Doom, and functions no differently than rocket launchers in other games, except its limited ammo supply is replaced with a 10-second cooldown that is standard for all other secondary weapons in the game. Its payload inflicts devastating area-of-effect explosive damage, color-coded yellow, which can be augmented with abilities, and it can also inflict ice damage with a certain upgrade, color-coded blue. The possible 4 abilities the Slayer can obtain for this weapon temporarily for one run are as follows:
  • Supercooled: Adds Ice damage and a chance to inflict Slow with the Rocket Launcher.
  • Extra Splash Damage: Increases splash area and damage.
  • Multishot: Fires an extra set of projectiles.
  • Tracking: Rockets aggressively home in on enemies.

Trivia

• The rocket launcher’s hud sprites in the Atari Jaguar port of Wolfenstein 3D are based on Doom’s.

See also

• Blast damage
• Rocket jumping
• Rocket passes through the player who fired it