A tar Barrl launchers would replace th flamethrower and makes th flamethrower less interesting to pick.
How would a tar barrel replace a flamethrower?
The widespread overall damage that it can cause.
the fact that tar wil hang a longer time in the air then a flame of a flamethrower.
You can prevent flamedamage, how do you prevent tar damage?
Tar damage is prevented by not being in tar. Tar damage would also be totally different from Flamethrower damage, and would thus serve a completely different purpose.
How would it have a different purpose?
Tar does damage.
Flames does damage.
Flamethrower is AoE.
Tar is AoE.
Tar damages overtime.
Flames damages overtime.
Flames can be exstinguished.
Tar is a pain in the ass.
Its already a pain in the ass when you fly behind someone and they pop tar in your face.
Giving people the option to also shoot the tar towards you is just gamebreaking.
... It would be different because clearly, Tar wouldn't do fire damage. Tar would use a different damage type, assuming it did damage at all. Of all the damage types in the game, only Piercing and/or Shatter make any sense, with maybe Flechette as an alternative (most likely Shatter). Now, that all said, Fire damage is effective against Hull and Balloon, while NONE of the previously mentioned damage types are. Based on all that, even if Tar DID do damage over time, it would never destroy a ship, just weaken or cripple it at best. Fire on the other hand CAN kill a ship (quite effectively at that, as it also has a secondary mechanic that keeps doing damage and screws up weapons). Fire also would be countered by engineers, while Tar would be countered by the captain evading or escaping the Tar cloud as fast as possible.
All that said, Tar =/= Flamethrower in any way.
You can't escape a good placed tar cloud. It really bothers me that you can't prevent tar damage.
By the way, the use of tar has a cost on the ngines when used by the captain.
Will this mean that the tarbarrel does damage to the gun when used?
Probably not, but it would be balanced in different ways. The size of the tar cloud, the difficulty of aiming, range, ammo, ease of aiming, all of this can be adjusted for a weapon verson, just like the pilot item can. A ship can drop a ton of tar easily with the pilot tool, especially if used right.
As for it being hard to "escape" a well-placed tar cloud, I'd have to argue with you on that. I've been hit by tar before, and I've rarely had trouble escaping it. Even when it was placed perfectly (the timing was such that I couldn't avoid entering the tar cloud), I've usually managed to escape the tar cloud fast enough to only take minor to moderate damage, and even then it's usually fixed pretty quickly. Often it's no worse than getting attacked by a flamethrower from my experience.
