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Make chemical spray only prevent set number of fire stacks

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BlackenedPies:
I don't think a limit is necessary for chem. For starters, fire weapons including the flamethrower are not useless against chem. Using chem reduces your repair points per second (RPS) by at least 22% (2 mallets per chem). In reality it's closer to 36% (1 mallet) in hectic combat where the engi may have other jobs or is simply overwhelmed. Over-chemming is a problem even at the competitive level, and you may not even realize you're doing it. By being forced to maintain chems you are severely limiting your repair power

Secondly, this mainly affects the flamethrower and makes it overpowered. With a 30 fire limit, the default flame will overwhelm it after just 8.2 seconds. At this point you're forced to repair more than 36% slower and will accumulate 3 fire stacks on average per cycle. You'd only have those 8.2 seconds to go to other components before being forced to return and rechem: a death cycle. This could leave you simply unable to repair out of fear of catching fire, and if you do repair with mallet you'll accumulate a net 33 stacks...

That's not mentioning greased flame. A fire limit would have to be closer to 90 to be balanced, but what's the point? Forcing the enemy to repair 1/4 to 1/3 slower is a great advantage by itself, not to mention if they screw up it can be a death sentence due to the long cooldown and low extinguish of chem. A limit isn't necessary and I think chem is balanced

Unarmed Civilian:
This idea is primarily to give another tool for balancing (and buffing) the flamethrower, and I specifically wrote this with the idea that only the flamer really being affected. Unless I'm wrong, flamers don't see a lot of competitive play, since the Banshee lights fires while still doing good damage and the Flare can overheat guns with a lot less time dedicated to firing it. Not to mention incendiary carronades.

Unless already in a losing position, like being completely out-flanked, the flamer is countered by having Chem cycles up because the repair reduction is more than balanced out by the fact that you are effectively temporarily removing a gun from the flamer ship if you manage to turn to fight back quickly. Chem is by design a pre-emptive countermeasure to fire. And if you completely out flanked them, wouldn't carronades or gat combos perform much better?

Carronades are often comboed with flamers to keep your ship safe above enemy gun arcs when flaming, keeping the enemy locked down, but doesn't double incendiary carronades have close to the same effect while still being able to disable chem med components? Flamers have to be extremely rare on high-level ships for a reason. I hardly ever see vets run it in pubs, and I was in an SCS where my ship consistently had terrible fire control, but it was never punished.

Also, the flamethrower is one of the few weapons whose effectiveness at their job is not significantly improved by having multiples of.

And I feel that having a flamethrower on you constantly that you are unable to stop should be a death cycle at some point, regardless of engineering.

Maybe I'm completely wrong though. I'm going to experiment with heavy flamer and fire builds for a week or two and comment on my experience with their effectiveness.

BlackenedPies:
Remember its effectiveness in pubs. It's the easiest gun in the game to shoot and devastating when the enemy screws up. It's less used in competitive but not unused, and my favorite brawl junker and mob include greased flames. Before the ignition chance buff I had a 43 match winstreak in an all AI squid and vowed not to use it anymore (for around 6 months)

The flame is countered by crew skill more than any other weapon, and this needs to be balanced between casual and vet play. The flame is not a primary weapon. You can't run in and expect to overwhelm an experienced crew. It's a secondary weapon, like the side of fish, right wing mobula, or top right junker. It's difficult to begin an engagement with flame, and that's not how it should be used in high level play

Also note that the flame suppresses multiple components. You can reduce the repair rate of the balloon, armor, and components by around -30%. This can simultaneously reduce their dps/movement speed, vertical movement, and makes it easier to crack armor. It supplements every gun in the game and works even when not outputting any damage. It causes more stress to a whole crew than any gun besides mine, and is the easiest gun to shoot. No skill vs skill

Avoid starting an engagement with flame and don't get discouraged by chemmed components. Have fun experimenting, I've had many fond memories playing with fire

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