Do tar-clouds (and incidentally, gas mortar rounds) stack?

[Thalassa]

I love using tar clouds aggressively. They are hard to place in an effective way, but if you do, they are very rewarding.

But do they stack on top another? I mean. If I place a tar cloud right on top of an enemy, and after say 10 seconds, deploy a new tar cloud in such a way that it overlaps with the previous one, does the enemy ship suffer damage from both clouds simultaneously?

The same question goes for the new gas mortar in Alliance. Here it is much easier to deploy two gas clouds with an almost perfect overlap. Am I wasting rounds or does their damage stack?

Thank you

[BlackenedPies]

Tar doesn't stack

[Thalassa]

Tar doesn't stack

Interesting. This changes a lot of things. Thank you for your quick response

What about gas rounds in Alliance?

[Montessoir]

I'm not sure how the developers created the gas mortar rounds, but it seems to me the easiest solution would be a re-skin that just changes the damage values. If that were the case then gas mortars wouldn't stack with each hit, unless they had a different type of ammunition. Let's say charged for one shot and incendiary for the other, I imagine the damage changes from the base damage would stack. Either way I don't think there is a concrete answer for this yet...sounds like something to test out!

[Nikola Brackman]

Interesting.  So if the clouds don't stack.... lochnagar gas for the win?  That way you only have one cloud, but it does 125% damage.

The -50% AoE would make it a lot harder to hit with though.  Incendiary gas is probably still the best option, to use it as a pure disable weapon rather than primary damage.  Burst can also be good for controlling a large area of course.

[Thalassa]

[···] but it does 125% damage.

Actually 225%
(100% base damage + 125% lochnar. I know, its a bit confusing, but that's how it's implemented)

Hmm maybe you are right. Though I'd like to test whether the size of the cloud is affected (it should, I guess).

[Nikola Brackman]

If I remember right, burst affects the damage field but not the visual effect.  So firing a burst gas cloud means it can hit ships that are not visibly in the cloud.

I'd expect loch to do the same thing: the visual effect will remain the same size, but the damage zone will only be the inner 50%.

[Daft Loon]

I vaguely recall that gas mortar clouds were allowed to stack their damage during one of the betas/alphas but they don't seem to now.

Just did some testing and with how massively over nerfed the gas mortar is using lochnagar is kinda pointless, I shot 2 sequential Lochnagar-Cataclysm rounds at a target dummy and nothing broke, it took a third 'normal' lochnagar round to get parts to start breaking.

Incendiary is still probably the way to go, it gets a lot of hits and the gun even has an existing fire chance (for some reason).

[Thalassa]

I vaguely recall that gas mortar clouds were allowed to stack their damage during one of the betas/alphas but they don't seem to now.

Just did some testing and with how massively over nerfed the gas mortar is using lochnagar is kinda pointless, I shot 2 sequential Lochnagar-Cataclysm rounds at a target dummy and nothing broke, it took a third 'normal' lochnagar round to get parts to start breaking.

Did you stack your clouds, or re-apply the 3 clouds after the previous vanished?

[Daft Loon]

Re-applied them after the previous vanished (inevitable really with the rebuild time from using lochnagar).

[Daft Loon]

Just tested tar and it does actually seem to stack. Placing a target dummy into a single tar cloud behind a squid its guns broke after having hit markers appear 7 times. Placing one into a double stacked tar cloud the guns broke after only 3 hit marker appearances. I'm guessing the single cloud takes a little more than twice the time due to tar losing damage gradually.

[Thalassa]

Wow! Thank you for testing!

[Solidusbucket]

I kinda thought it stacked. One time i remember i had tar and so did enemy. We both used tar on eachother and ourselves. My engines blew up instantly.