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When players visit Caravan Town, the fourth story island, they can find up to six blueprints. One of these is for fireworks, a tool that calls for five planks, ten plastic, and one explosive powder.
As tools go, fireworks aren't that useful. They don't deal damage to anything dangerous and there isn't a task on a future story island that fireworks can accomplish. Still, setting and launching a fireworks display can be a lot of fun, especially if one player uses them to surprise a friend in a co-op game. Of course, it helps to know what limits the firework tool has.
Hand-Held Fireworks
When players craft fireworks, they get 10 rockets each time, and they can stack up to 50 rockets in a single inventory space. By placing fireworks in an active slot, players can use them like any other tool, and they can use them as many times as they have fireworks.
When fired from the hand, fireworks go about as far as a fully drawn arrow, but they have less of an arc. They can pass through the same objects players pass through, and players can fire them underwater, but if they hit something solid they explode. If they hit nothing, fireworks also explode after traveling a few dozen feet.
Fireworks can also deal damage, but only in a few specific ways. The rockets pass through dangerous animals like sharks and boars like they aren't even there, but they can collide with seagulls and will kill them instantly if they hit. Fireworks can also damage fellow players, and in fact they deal this damage even when the host has friendly fire turned off. This makes them a very colorful way to grief friends in co-op.
Placed Fireworks
The other way players can use fireworks in Raft is by placing them on their raft. This automatically gives them a stand that lets them point straight up, and since placed fireworks launch a few seconds after activation players can set them off in batches and still have enough time to look up and enjoy the display.
Another benefit to placed fireworks is that players can use the paintbrush on them to color both the rocket and the explosion. The default firework color is white, but with the paintbrush players can make them any color of the rainbow, or they can use black to turn the explosion off. However, the secondary color function won't create a two-color explosion and the light and dark colors don't appear to make a difference.
One last thing players can do with fireworks is get the rare achievement "Real Fireworks!" They get this by setting off (or watching a co-op player set off) 50 fireworks.
Raft is available now on PC.
