Factorio Forums

I was searching for something on rockets, since I am starting to make them for the rocket launcher, to see what the extra crafting for the explosive would do, but the wiki gives the power of the regular rocket much higher than the explosive??

Rocket :
Damage: 60 physical
48 explosive

Explosive rocket:
Damage: 40 physical
32 explosive

I am assuming that either this is an error or outdated, or the explosive rocket has a much wider splash damage range, but it is not mentioned in the wiki. I am guessing outdated since the recipe is shorter than the wiki says too. Can anyone tell what upgrading the rocket to explosive will do?

The regular rocket does not do area damage, only one target.

Nothing about the stats of the weapons in-game indicates that they have different types of damage area. That should probably be fixed.

The explosive rocket is good to 'thin out' small and medium biters out of packs of larges, but it does f-all against large biters, worms, and nests due to the low fire rate.

The regular rocket just does f-all against everything, but like its upgrade, generally outranges up to medium worms. You'll need bots (defenders/distractors) to cover your bacon while you launch a hundred missiles or so, one at a time, to kill *something* while the nest continues to spew defenders at you.

Player weapons are a waste of time once you start talking 3-4 nests, large worms, or medium biters. At that point, it's about distractors as your first mobile laser platforms.