Thargoid Enzyme Missiles - please stack the effect

[rootsrat]

The Enzyme Missiles are very cool and I'd love to use them, but they have one significant flaw - the corrosive effect does not stack, which makes them simply useless.
You're losing 1 hardpoint for a completely negligible effect and very small damage.
Balance it out by all means, but for the love of Fargod please make at least 2 or 3 stack - and if not, make them ALL stack, but lower the damage output or something.

 

[Screemonster]

they're also useless against shielded ships which makes them outright a worse choice than ordinary dumbfires - hell, regular dumbfires get a damage bonus from unengineered hulls having a negative explosive resistance, which means enzymes tend to do less damage as well as that damage taking a full minute.

In most games, poison damage tends to do more overall damage at the cost of it being damage over time. Hell, look at Diablo 2 back in 2000- the elemental damage perfect gems had the following:
Ruby - 15-20 fire damage (solid, reliable damage)
Sapphire - 10-14 cold damage, 3 second slow (less damage, but with a powerful debuff)
Topaz - 1-40 lightning damage (potentially higher than fire but very random)
Emerald - 100 poison over 7 seconds (literally five times as powerful as the max damage of a ruby, but spread over time)

I honestly think that given that the effect can be removed by overheating and is hardcountered by caustic sinks, not only could the stacks be uncapped but they could be made to apply the caustic effect to shielded ships just like thargoid scout missiles and it still wouldn't be overpowered.

 

[g0oglyeyes]

YES. Enzyme missile rack is one of the worst unlocks. It doesn't justify any of the work put into the effort at all.

 

[DemiserofD]

It's definitely a very strange weapon. It does about the same damage as a turreted small pulse laser, but without the benefits of whatever experimental effect you had on it.

I use them purely for meme purposes every now and then, since I have two of the old pre-engineered ones, but amusingly, the 50% extra damage engineering only applies to the initial impact, so instead of doing a total of 85 damage, it does a lovely 87.5!

 

[St0rmFury]

the 50% extra damage engineering only applies to the initial impact, so instead of doing a total of 85 damage, it does a lovely 87.5!

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

I don't know. I see spec ops ships in combat zones wreaking havoc with enzyme missiles. And if not immediately dealt with, they can easily turn the CZ into a loss. I don't think the enzyme missiles are so very weak.

 

[rootsrat]

I don't know. I see spec ops ships in combat zones wreaking havoc with enzyme missiles. And if not immediately dealt with, they can easily turn the CZ into a loss. I don't think the enzyme missiles are so very weak.

Spec Ops use these? Nice!

I didn't think about an entire wing using them, but it seems an edge case scenario tbh.

I wonder if the effect stacks if it comes from different ships...

 

[aRJay]

Spec Ops use these? Nice!

I didn't think about an entire wing using them, but it seems an edge case scenario tbh.

I wonder if the effect stacks if it comes from different ships...

Yes they start shooting them out as soon as you lose shields.

 

[Screemonster]

I don't know. I see spec ops ships in combat zones wreaking havoc with enzyme missiles. And if not immediately dealt with, they can easily turn the CZ into a loss. I don't think the enzyme missiles are so very weak.

Eh, I don't see the caustic-tagged ships dying any faster than anything else that comes under focus fire from an entire spec ops wing. There's a reason you want to split them up after different targets while you pick them off (and why you want to herd yours into the same deathball)

 

[Easy]

Agree with OP.
Other things that are reasonable (IMO) related perks:
1) Apply caustic effect while DOT is applied.
2) Apply the random temporary module shut down effect (or at least corrode modules).
3) Apply a thermal emissive effect (a result of the clinging caustic cloud).