Doomsday rocket launcher

The doomsday rocket launcher is a single-use, single-shot rocket launcher that has significantly larger blast radius than the Triple rocket launcher.

It's worth noting that this launcher is never automatically aimed by colonists - they have to be ordered to fire by the player. Along with the triple rocket launcher, this is one of the most damaging weapons in RimWorld.

Acquisition

Doomsday rocket launchers cannot be crafted, and must be either acquired through trade, as a quest reward, found in ancient shrines, or looted from Raiders, specifically from Heavy Mercenaries in Outlander and Pirate raids. In the last case, care must be taken to kill or down the raider before they can fire the single use weapon.

Raider Kind	Chance	Average Quality	Health
Heavy mercenary	?%	-	70-230%

Summary

The Doomsday Rocket Launcher is the big brother of the triple rocket launcher, instead of firing three smaller rockets, it instead fires a single rocket that produces a devastating explosion that results in a 7.8 tile radius explosion doing 50 bomb damage as well as 3 smaller 5-tile radius incendiary explosions doing 10 flame damage, potentially igniting targets, and covering the ground in chemfuel puddles which also then ignite. These secondary explosions can exceed the displayed blast radius of the rocket so care must be taken when firing. There are some unconfirmed reports that the secondary explosions can also detonate behind walls.

Once it has been fired once, the launcher disappears completely. It cannot be reloaded, nor can any resources be salvaged from it. Note however, that the cooldown time of the weapon is still observed.

If it is damaged in item form, i.e. not held by a pawn, by Flame damage, it may explode^{[Detail needed]}. The launcher will spark and emit a hissing sound shortly before exploding some time later. The explosion deals 50 Bomb damage in a 7.8 tile radius around itself.

Analysis

The doomsday rocket launcher is an extraordinarily effective weapon against human raids of all kinds, combining significant damage. large area of effect, incendiaries, and long range. This allows it to quickly devastate, if not outright end, human raids that show up. Similarly, doomsday rocket launchers in the hands of raiders are incredibly dangerous and should be made priority targets, either by focus firing on them, or by getting them to waste their single shot on an inconsequential or difficult to hit target.

Doomsday rocket launchers have a range that dwarfs most other weapons; being tied with the triple-rocket launcher and only surpassed by the sniper rifle. Therefore, Doomsday Rocket Launchers could be the ultimate solution to dispatch of dangerous sieges and late-game tribal raids - along with multiple mortars arguably being just as effective for the former (if you don't mind the steel cost and don't want to risk your colonists), and even the latter if the tribals 'prepare' before attacking.

Given the right conditions, doomsday rocket launchers can be the cause of massive wildfires that obliterate anything that stands in its way - until precipitation rains down upon it, ending its sheer reign. These two traits combined make the Doomsday Rocket Launcher an extremely dangerous, as it will happily wipe out anybody unlucky enough to be caught in the blast radius: either by the explosion itself, or the blaze that will consume them moments later. This means that they are priority threats when used by enemies (or careless allies) and also a single-use but highly effective solution to most threats.

Mechanoids

Mechanoids are immune to both flame damage and to being ignited. This significantly reduces the effectiveness of Doomsdays against them, and combined with the high health scale of centipedes, and to a lesser extent, termites, means that while a doomsday might do respectable damage, it is far from the raid-ending weapon it is against humans and places the now-unarmed user of the launcher at significant risk. In this regard, the triple rocket launcher can actually be superior, as its three rockets can overlap in explosive radius can hit targets multiple times.

Thus, the choice between the two launchers against mechanoids depends on three factors:

Whether the raid is predominantly populated with weaker mechanoids that the doomsday could feasibly kill, such as lancers.
Whether the larger AoE of the doomsday would be a significant benefit
Whether there is a significant opportunity cost for using the doomsday against a mech raid, as opposed to retaining it for its much more effective use against human raids.

Wealth management

Doomsday rockets are very effective form of wealth management. Wealth controls raid strength so expending 1000 is a fair decrease in that factor. Meanwhile, they're strong last ditch weapons able to save a colony in an emergency. Thus converting some excess wealth into doomsdays is a good idea - when you receive a raid you're incapable of facing you can resort to the doomsdays to both end the threat and consume some of the wealth that caused the raid.

Doomdropping strategy

Combining a doomsday-armed pawn with a transport pod allows the player to rapidly position an effective counter to most raids anywhere on the map, even on larger map sizes. The pawn need not carry the doomsday day-to-day, and instead a shelf or stockpile an be placed next to the transport pods to allow a pawn to quickly switch from their current weapon to the doomsday before launching.

Care should be taken however, as the pawn can be exposed both before firing, and after firing if the launcher fails to break the raid, either by return fire or from melee enemies closing and trapping the pawn. For this reason, high quality armor is recommended but encumbering armor like plate or cataphract armor should only be used when the pawn has a high enough move speed to outrun enemies regardless. Go-juice, with its pain reduction to prevent getting downed and speed enhancement to prevent getting caught, is also a recommended contingency. If the Royalty DLC is in use, the use of jump packs or locust armor to quickly escape is recommended, as is the use of psycasts to cast Invisibility to render the pawn immune to counter-fire before launching and/or the use of Skip to escape afterwards. If Invisibility is used, the caster need not even be the launched pawn, as they can cast it on the more expendable drop-soldier immediately before launch

Gallery

Doomsday Rocket Launcher being used against a large siege. Do note that a couple of pirates also have Doomsday Rocket Launchers equipped. Note that this image is old and displays 5 secondary explosions instead of 3.