What's the deal with fire? (Burn vs. repair vs. extinguish)

[Electric Donkey]

Hello. I checked the wiki, which has pages on the extinguisher and chem spray, and I read the chem spray guide over on the Classroom board, but I'm still foggy on exactly how fire works.

Here's a comment someone wrote in the chem spray Q & A thread:

Also, the most important things to spray are balloon -> hull -> guns. Engines even with 20 stacks can be kept up indefinitely with mallet. Balloon is pretty much lost with even 2 stacks of fire, and hull around 5 stacks. Guns can take a bit more but remember 8 stacks and the gun is unusable.

I did learn from the Weapons wiki article that the effectiveness of various types of damage depend upon the ship component being damaged. But I still have a few questions...

If a component on fire is destroyed, all fire stacks are removed. If an un-sprayed component on fire is subjected to additional attacks from fire-damage weapons, more fire stacks will be added (up to the cap of 20). If a component on fire is treated with chem spray or an extinguisher, the number of fire stacks will be reduced by 3 or eliminated completely, respectively.

1) Apart from these influences, does the number of fire stacks on a component remain constant?

2) If a component is chem sprayed, it won't CATCH FIRE for 25 seconds, but does it still take direct fire damage? Or does spray convey complete immunity to all fire damage (apart from any stacks the component might still be carrying if the spray couldn't remove them all)?

3) As a new and uninformed player, my instinct upon seeing fire is to put it out - however if fire does not "spread" on its own (see question 1) and the component in question is near destruction and is not particularly susceptible to fire damage (engines, guns), and only has a very small number of stacks, then based on the quoted comment from the chem spray thread, it's better to simply mallet it and move on if other components require attention. I guess this one isn't a question, but I'd like to hear more about the factors that figure into the decision to either let a component burn until it's destroyed, repair the component and ignore the fire, or to put the fire out.

Thanks in advance!

[Riggatto]

1: Components will not gain or lose fire stacks on their own. The number of stacks stays the same until it is changed by either a fire weapon or an extinguishing tool.

2: Chem sprayed components still take all damage being directed at them. However, the fire stack chance from any other modifiers is eliminated.

3: It quite depends how much attention those other components need. If The answer is not a lot, then mallet and go hit something else. If the answer is a lot, extinguish first even if there only one stack.

[Replaceable]

in regards to 3. I usually go for if it's under 3 stacks, mallet. Anything over that then chem spray. Unless you are being gattling gunned or hades'd. Then mallet mallet mallet.

[James T. Kirk]

It's been a while since I've heard this, so it may have been changed or just misinformation in the first place, but I believe that a flaming component (Engine, gun) preforms at a lower rate than if it had equal damage, but not on fire.

I.E. An engine with 50% health works at 1/2 efficiency, but an engine that has burned down to 50% health works at less than 1/2 efficiency.

[GeoRmr]

It's been a while since I've heard this, so it may have been changed or just misinformation in the first place, but I believe that a flaming component (Engine, gun) preforms at a lower rate than if it had equal damage, but not on fire.

I.E. An engine with 50% health works at 1/2 efficiency, but an engine that has burned down to 50% health works at less than 1/2 efficiency.

Kinda Sorta - 

Each fire-stack reduces the efficiency of a component: if an engine is on fire and at half health, it will be less efficient than an engine that is on half health but not on fire; If you extinguish the fire of an engine at half health it will perform the same as an engine that was damaged to half health by something other than fire.

[James T. Kirk]

Thank you for wording that better.

[Alistair MacBain]

When to ext and when to repair is a hard to decide thing.
Yes you want to ext any fire on your ship. However if that component is close to death infight than you often tend to rather repair it instead of exting.
When you are infight and your hull catches fire you often ignore the fire and just repair for as long as possible. Atleast if the enemy has a hullthreating loadout. (gat/mortar or similiar)
If its just carro/flamer for example you use your chem and even if the armor dies during that cooldown you can just rebuild it and repair afterwards. Your chem won't go away before its 20 seconds.
It totally depends on the damage the component takes and how hard you need it currently. A gun on the side of your ship can be handled when you got time even if it dies from the fire. One or two stacks on shooting guns can be dealt with when youre rather safe and not close to death. Gunners can repair against that for a bid without loosing their full efficiency.

[Indreams]

O, btw, if you are a gunner and can't shoot because a gun's on fire, ask an engineer to extinguish it. Repairing it with your Wrench/Mallet won't let you shoot the gun. You can shoot a damaged gun, but not a overheated gun.