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The incendiary launcher is a weapon that fires bolts that deal low damage but can start fires and ignite enemies.

Acquisition

s can be crafted, each requiring and Expression error: Unexpected < operator. of work modified by the general labor speed of the crafter.

Incendiary launchers can also be purchased from outlander and orbital combat suppliers, outlander settlements, or obtained from the following raider kinds:

Raider Kind	Chance	Average Quality	Health
Pirate gunner	4.01%	Normal	70-230%
Town guard	3.78%	Normal	60-200%
Mercenary gunner	4.59%	Normal	70-320%
Ancient soldier	3.59%	Normal	100%

Summary

The incendiary launcher creates a "plus-shaped" explosion, which deals [[Damage types#|]] damage and causes fire. Fire spreads through flammable surfaces, and causes pawns to take damage over time and run around helplessly. Unlike frag grenades, the fiery explosions are deployed on impact. It has a forced miss radius of 1.9 tiles, meaning shots will land in a 1-tile radius from the intended target, including diagonal. Due to the forced miss, shooter accuracy does not matter; careful shooter is purely detrimental to its use, while trigger-happy is a pure benefit. The launcher is fired like any other weapon, so is blocked by walls.

Of non-consumable player weapons, the incendiary launcher has the 2nd highest warmup/cooldown cycle, only beaten by the pila. Combined with the weak shots and low accuracy, and the incendiary launcher has the lowest single-target DPS for all ranged weapons. The main benefit of an incendiary launcher, as its name suggests, is the fire it creates.

Pyromaniac pawns receive a +2 Pyromaniac has incendiary weapon mood buff while equipped with a spacer weapons. Note that they must be equipped, not merely carried. They also receive an additional +8 Used flame weapon mood for 0.333 days when used on an enemy.

Analysis

The incendiary launcher is undoubtedly a support weapon. It is one of the few weapons that start fires - pawns that are on fire will stop attacking and run wildly. Don't fire near your colonists. Launchers are a somewhat viable alternative for colonists with low skill or health issues, due to the forced miss negating a shooter's accuracy.

Manual oversight is very helpful when using explosive weapons, as pawns won't lead their fire or care about collateral damage. Explosives in general are very inaccurate against moving targets, so try to avoid targeting those if you can. Creating a flammable structure/room, luring or trapping raiders in, and lighting it on fire is a valid crowd control tactic, albeit a costly one.

Fire becomes much less useful as you enter the mid- and lategame. Mechanoids are immune to fire, high-tech raiders start to wear more heat resistant apparel (which doesn't prevent ignition, just the damage), and there'll be too many tribespeople for a single launcher to suppress.

Because it relies on fires, rain significantly diminishes its utility. Note that the game has a "firewatcher", and will automatically start rain if fires get too out of control.

Comparison to molotovs

Compared to molotov cocktails, the incendiary launcher sacrifices rate of fire for significantly faster projectiles and a doubled range. This makes launchers better in certain supportive and defensive roles, where colonists can sit back and distract enemies. The range also makes the launcher safer to use, and easier to not cause friendly fire. Molotovs are quicker to deploy, so are more useful when the only thing that matters is the fire itself, such as in a burn trap room. Molotovs are also generally more flexible for this reason.

Outside of combat, fire is useful for disposing of unwanted items, such as corpses. Create a fireproof room using stone walls and floor, fill it up with undesirable items, and watch it burn. As molotov cocktails fire faster, they are marginally better for this purpose.

Unlike molotovs, incendiary launchers are affected by weapon quality. This only affects the damage of the projectile itself and melee damage. The fire radius and rate of fire are not increased, meaning that quality has little impact on actual performance.

Attack table

Spacer Weapons (Error: Page has no Property:Image) Spacer Weapons	Dam.	AP	Accuracy (Touch)	Accuracy (Short)	Accuracy (Medium)	Accuracy (Long)	DPS (Optimal)	DPS (Touch)	DPS (Short)	DPS (Medium)	DPS (Long)	Market value
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^{Values shown in Red indicate the weapon is out of range at the reference point for this range band.
The value is provided due to the interpolated nature of accuracy between range points.}

Version history

? - Renamed from T-9 incendiary launcher to incendiary launcher.
1.2.2753 - Projectiles are now rendered with a visual arc and ground shadow.

Original T-9 incendiary launcher sprite

Weapons

Melee | Neolithic: Breach axe • Club • Ikwa • Knife (Jade) • Spear

Medieval: Gladius • Longsword • Mace • Axe • Warhammer

Ultra: Eltex staff • Monosword (Persona) • Plasmasword (Persona) • Zeushammer (Persona)

Improvised: Beer • Elephant tusk • Thrumbo horn • Wood

Ranged | Neolithic: Greatbow • Pila • Recurve bow • Short bow • Flamebow

Medieval: Nerve spiker

Industrial: Assault rifle • Autopistol • Bolt-action rifle • Chain shotgun • Heavy SMG • Launcher (EMP, Incendiary, Smoke, Toxbomb ) • LMG • Machine pistol • Minigun • Pump shotgun • Revolver • Sniper rifle • Hellcat rifle • Incinerator

Spacer: Charge lance • Charge rifle

Consumables: Doomsday rocket launcher • Triple rocket launcher

Throwables: EMP grenades • Frag grenades • Molotov cocktails • Tox grenades

Mechanoid: Heavy charge blaster • Inferno cannon • Needle gun • Thump cannon • Beam graser • Charge blaster turret • Hellsphere cannon • Mini-flameblaster • Mini-shotgun • Slugthrower • Spiner • Toxic needle gun

Structures: Autocannon • Mini-turret gun • Mortar (Weapon) • Uranium slug cannon • Auto-mortar • Inferno cannon (Turret) • Light charge blaster • Mini-slugger • Tactical turret gun

Related | Body part weapons: Prosthetic arm • Bionic arm • Archotech arm • Power claw • Field hand • Drill arm • Venom talon • Venom fangs • Knee spike • Elbow blade • Hand talon • Flesh whip

Integrated weapons: Grenadier armor • Phoenix armor

The charge rifle is a spacer-tech weapon that fires 3-round bursts. It has good armor penetration, moderate range, and slightly lower accuracy

Acquisition

s can be crafted, each requiring and Expression error: Unexpected < operator. of work modified by the general labor speed of the crafter.

Charge rifles can also be found in ancient shrines, or purchased from outlander and orbital combat suppliers, or outlander faction bases. The Rich Explorer starting scenario begins with a single charge rifle.

Human raiders never use charge rifles in RimWorld Core , however if the Royalty DLC is active, they may be obtained from the following Empire pawn kinds:

Raider Kind	Chance	Average Quality	Health
Janissary	?	?	70-230%
Cataphract	?	?	70-230%
Stellic defender	?	?	100%

Analysis

Charge rifles are endgame tier weapons. In terms of DPS, the charge rifle is only beaten by the chain shotgun and minigun, after considering accuracy. The former has a rather short range, and the latter carries a massive cooldown cycle. The charge rifle has none of their downsides; its moderate range, higher AP, and powerful, three shot burst make it a flexible weapon. A minor downside is that it can't stagger humans.

The main issue with using charge rifles is cost. They require advanced components - difficult to amass before Advanced Fabrication is available. Raiders outside of the Empire won't ever carry the charge rifle and their appearance in trade inventories is rare, expensive, and limited in quality compared to crafting. For most of the game, you'll have to rely on cheaper weapons. Quality has a major impact - you could get a normal quality charge rifle by trading, but it could be matched or outperformed by an excellent heavy SMG or assault rifle.

The disparity in cost becomes even more relevant when mass producing weapons, in hopes of rolling higher qualities. For example: before AP, a masterwork assault rifle outperforms all charge rifles of a lower quality, and has a superior range. You can often create double the amount of assault rifles for the same investment. This makes mass producing high quality, lower tech weapons a viable alternative when resources and crafting expertise are limited.

Stats

Against an unarmored human, a charge rifle can kill with 3 hits to the torso, 2-3 hits to the head, 2 hits to the neck, or 1 hit to the brain; cripple limbs in 2 hits; and cripple or destroy eyes and digits with a single hit. It'll generally take around 5 hits (~8.2 seconds average) to incapacitate that human from pain shock.

Overall, the charge rifle is best paired with a careful shooter up to level 16, and with a trigger-happy shooter beyond that point.

Comparisons

Comparison to assault rifles

Charge rifles, as general purpose 3-burst firearms, are very similar to assault rifles. The latter is noticeably cheaper, but the charge rifle comes with a few advantages.

For the same quality, a charge rifle has roughly +20% more pre-accuracy DPS and +20% armor penetration. For post-accuracy DPS, the charge rifle is superior to the AR for all ranges it can reach - even against unarmored targets. The exact effect of the charge rifle's AP depends on target armor and weapon quality.^[1]

In contrast, the assault rifle has a clear focus towards long-range combat. With 5 tiles more range, the AR outranges lancers, centipede blasters, and centipede burners. It more comfortably outranges tribals, termites, and other enemies. For kiting, when both range and DPS are highly important, the AR comes out on top - even when cost and quality are ignored. An assault rifle of higher quality will also come out ahead in many other scenarios.

In general, an assault rifle ~1 quality level above is roughly equal to a charge rifle. A good charge rifle is superior to an excellent assault rifle at touch and short ranges. The assault rifle would be better at medium and long ranges, though this is before considering AP. The higher quality assault rifle is much cheaper, so if given the choice, buy that. Because of the significant impact of quality at masterwork and legendary, a masterwork AR is better at any range than an excellent charge rifle, even after AP.

Notes:

¹ For every 1% of armor below (100% + AP%), damage is reduced by an average of 0.75% (See Apparel#Protection for detail). Every 1% of AP subtracts 1% of armor. So against scythers and lancers, a normal quality charge rifle would have ×143% DPS pre-accuracy. After accuracy: worst case scenario, ×121% more damage.

Masterwork and legendary weapons increase both weapon's AP, meaning it takes more armor for the same benefit. However, damage is also multiplied. Therefore, the charge rifle remains superior against light targets and even better against armored targets.

Comparison to heavy SMGs

Heavy SMGs are another general purpose weapon. Both weapons focus on short-medium range combat, as opposed to the assault rifle.

For the same quality, the heavy SMG beats the charge rifle for up to 10 tiles of range, before AP. However, the charge rifle is much better at the medium range band. This results in the charge rifle being a more practical weapon - most fights will start beyond 10 tiles. If you'd using the heavy SMG just because it's better at short range, you'll likely be better off using chain shotguns instead, which are much stronger than both the HSMG and charge rifle.

The heavy SMG is much cheaper, and shares a similar practical range to the charge rifle. Therefore, the charge rifle is best seen as an upgrade. Use heavy SMGs at first, and start creating charge rifles once you can afford them. Heavy SMGs can still be used by 0-skill shooters, who would have trouble hitting anything past 10 tiles anyways.

For differing quality: A heavy SMG 2 quality levels can beat a charge rifle at "short-medium" range. For example, a normal charge rifle beats an excellent heavy SMG past ~17 tiles of range. HSMGs retain their advantage with shorter distances. Due to the large benefits given by masterwork and legendary weapons, a masterwork heavy SMG beats a good charge rifle at all ranges it can reach.

Attack table

Spacer Weapons (Error: Page has no Property:Image) Spacer Weapons	Dam.	AP	Accuracy (Touch)	Accuracy (Short)	Accuracy (Medium)	Accuracy (Long)	DPS (Optimal)	DPS (Touch)	DPS (Short)	DPS (Medium)	DPS (Long)	Market value
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^{Values shown in Red indicate the weapon is out of range at the reference point for this range band.
The value is provided due to the interpolated nature of accuracy between range points.}

Trivia

According to the lore, charged-shot weapons fire projectiles coated in a matrix of magnetically-contained charged particles. On impact, the energy in the particles is released in a very efficient explosion and greatly increasing the damage done.

In the now-obsolete Quick Primer, charge weapons were also referred to as Tokamak weapons and required high amounts of power to fire. This necessitated powering by hex-cells at small scales (like Charge Rifles), or fusion reactors in the case of large cannons. With the obsolescence of that fiction primer, and the publication of a new primer that omits, but does not contradict, those details, the canonicity of this lore is now unclear.

Version history

0.0.245 - Now has a unique sound.
Approximately A9 - Renamed from R-4 Charge Rifle to Charge rifle.
0.12.910 - Rebalanced.
Beta 18 - Received a nerf to damage.
Beta 19 - Received a damage and range buff, and accuracy and fire rate nerf. Its recipe was also changed, and raiders no longer use charge rifles.