Rocket Launcher Changes

Rocket tweaks - good or bad?

Bad news first: They reduced the direct hit rocket damage from 120 to 100. Though it's not a significant change for the more seasoned players, who are used to shooting at the ground (causing damage to your opponent by using the damage of the rocket blast), for many players it will make the rocket less effective. However, with the implementation of players spawning with 125 health, the weakening of the direct rocket hit will not have as much of an effect anyway, since in either instance it would still take two shots to kill an newly spawned opponent.

Now the good news: Rockets now travel 12.5% faster. The speed has increased from 800msec/shot to 900msec/shot. The speed increase was immediately noticeable, but it can be a bit hard to tell due to the larger size of Q3 levels.

Another big change is the reduced smoke trails. When we first saw the smoke we all thought it was a very cool effect, but the novelty soon wore off after playing for a couple hours. The smoke would literally blind you in the middle of a rocket battle. In this new Q3test version, smoke trails now disappear when you run through them. You won't blind yourself with your own smoke trails in heated close range battles, and you can still fire rockets and hide behind the smoke trails when your opponent is trying to rail you.

The old, thick smoke

Newer and lighter, but just as good

The new smoke trails are also much thinner than the old trails. In Q3test 1.05, the thickness or density of the smoke was directly proportional to the speed of the system. Version 1.05 allowed/forced faster systems to draw thicker smoke trails that made them very realistic, but harder to see through. It was also a framerate killer. By capping the FPS at 100, now the thickness of the smoke trail is uniform across all speeds -faster systems don't have to pay the smoke penalty.