Incendiary Rounds

[BlackenedPies]

I generally assume they're chem sprayed. For me the increased fire chance doesn't outweigh the dps and range reduction. I prefer lesmok burst or heatsink.

The fire stacks on components is useful, but the range reduction is the biggest factor for me. When using a flak I expect them to be quite far away. I'm not worried if I get a few fire stacks on stuff and tell my crew to keep shooting until the opponent is sufficiently overwhelmed or destroyed. A banshee is a lot more scary.

The only non armtime weapon I see it having any use on is the heavy carro. The problem with incendiary is that the fire chance is too low and the dps reduction too high to use on most weapons. Experienced crews won't worry about a few fires. It could be refreshing to play with incendiary, but I don't see it as very useful. Incendiary is the weakest ammo and I'd support a reasonable buff.

[Gambrill]

Incendiary is my main ammo choice. More fire = more fun. adding fire to any damage you do causes engineer to repair out of sync due to the fact they may need to stay and put out a fire before repairing or vice versa as to leave it to repair another peice of equipment would cause the first peice to break.

[ZnC]

Incendiary is my main ammo choice.

Even as a gunner, I was surprized when I read that.

Ammo choices should always complement what the gun does; the problem with incendiary is the significantly reduced range, rate of fire AND clip size. This is why I would only ever use it for the Carronades, only they can throw out enough fire stacks to offset the negative effects.

These are the viable situations I can think of for incendiary:
Incendiary Heavy Carronade vs Junker, Mobula, Galleon
Incendiary Light Carronade vs Junker, Mobula

Edit: I failed to mention an exception, you can use them for reduced arming range on the Mine Launcher too

[Ayetach]

Edit: I failed to mention an exception, you can use them for reduced arming range on the Mine Launcher too

Don`t forget its uses on Lumberjacks and Flak guns (dependant ofc on how the captain assorts the ship loadout!)

[Indreams]

I just had a thought.

4v4s, or Crazy King,

Flak Fish Build.

One Pilot - Kero, claw, drogue chute - Move and stabilize.

One Buffgi - Spanner, Mallet, Buff - Buff flak.

One Maingi - Spanner, Mallet, Chem - lots of chem.

One Amazing Gunner (you) - on heavy flak, with Incendiary.

Incendiary Flak, at a good range, can put fire on four/three heavy Galleon guns, put fire on an entire pyra, put much fire on a junker, etc. etc.

Incendiary Buff Flak Fish with amazing gunner would make a hell of a sniper support/kill ship. Use Incendiary to enable disables. Use other ammos to kill. Would work great (better than flak spires) on crazy kings.

[Kamoba]

Only of you have allies who you know will call their targets and give you the chance to shoot at a stripped ship, but yes, it could work... Plenty of room to change the loadouts too

[Gambrill]

the reason its usually my main is that im used to pilots that end up bumping into enemies.

incend on a gatling is deadly.
on a merc it helps hit a terget ducking for cover
flak for reason previously stated
carronade is the same as flak
and lumberjack is obvious

[Extirminator]

People might have been mistaken a bit...
Incendiary heavy flak for the sake of igniting more fires is completely redundant and you might as well use charged with better range, less trajectory arc and probably more overall damage to components than you would get from any additional fire stacks of incendiary heavy flak.

Incendiary flak-

direct hit(which I am extremely certain any good gunner would be challenged to hit directly at the component he needs with incendiary flak.)-
fires per clip-2.4
fires per second-0.353
aoe hit(a lot more likely.)-
fires per clip-2
fires per second-0.295

Now lets compare with normal heavy flak ignition rates:

aoe hit(ignition chance is aoe, therefore no need for direct hit.)-
fires per clip-1.6
fires per second-0.256

...Not much difference.

As to lumberjack - the lumberjack has no ignition chance to begin with, so it's straight up 20% added chance both in direct and aoe to ignite one stack. Considering you actually want to hit the balloon with the lumberjack and do significant damage, your direct ignition chance is lost with the balloon destruction. But we'll calculate both just for the heck of it.

ofc normal or any other ammo type that isn't incendiary will not have any ignition chance.
Moving to incendiary lumberjack-
direct hit(balloon pop is more important so its not recommended)-
fires per clip-2
fires per sec-0.132
aoe hit(more likely)-
fires per clip-1
fires per sec-0.066

Right, so you got about one stack of fire per clip on everything that wasn't chemical sprayed. and all you've done by that is either very slightly damage the enemy components or made the engineers chem spray them since it's only 1 stack - rendering all further incoming shots with incendiary useless.

Also keep in mind that both the lumberjack and the heavy flak don't have that big of an aoe as people make them to have. Not by any chance can they hit every component on any ship currently in the game with their aoe radius.

I agree with ZanC saying that incendiary carroandes are probably the only way to go, with the exception of probably the gatling gun that can have incendiary in very situational heavy disable situations.
Other than that, incendiary is only for arming distance reduction.

[BlackenedPies]

For a gunner I'd choose heatsink almost every time. Incendiary gat really doesn't start many fires and the dps is so low. Even on a mobula when we have extinguishers, I love getting hit by incendiary gat because it doesn't hurt. "Don't worry guys it's just incendiary keep shooting!"

Also for heavy carro don't shoot incendiary at ballon. Aim for hull and components. But the hull should be chem sprayed. Use heatsink on merc for 3 disable shots.

For explosive weapons I think the fire chance is relative to the amount of explosive dmg. So charged on heavy flak increases fire chance. If incendiary fire chance was increased to 50% it would be more balanced, but still not effective enough. Dps is usually better

[ZnC]

Also for heavy carro don't shoot incendiary at ballon.

If you smash incendiary at a broken balloon/component, it will ignite the armor. If prioritizing component disables, Heavy/Charged is better.

My personal opinion after reading most of this thread - there are all kinds of misconception about this ammo. However, hopefully the discussion helps to learn, and there's nothing to stop players from playing with less optimal yet fun combinations.

[BlackenedPies]

I guess I should have clarified: don't shoot incendiary at an unbroken balloon because it'll break anyways and you're losing dps. Incendiary on the heavy carro is only really useful if you see them miss a chem on armor and components. It's a big if

[Indreams]

I'm pretty sure that flak puts more than 1 stack of fire on a component.
It really shouldn't, but I've had 3+ fires definitely from a heavy flak.

@Exterminator
When I engineer, I find that any heavy flak shots (even with charged rounds) are one mallet hit on a component (with the rare exception of lochnagar). But incendiary heavy flak shots are at least a chemspray and a mallet. I think Incendiary gives a gun with our disable potentials a slight disable potential.


I wish we could mix ammo types. Imagine greased-incendiary mortars. So much fire everywhere.

[Koali]

GREASENDIARY GAT INCOMING

Might as well call it the Beehive or Hornet Storm.

EDIT: Muse, make it a thing!

[BlackenedPies]

I think the fire chance and the amount of fires are both relative to the amount of explosive damage. So using charged boosts the damage and fires. It's usually best to assume that they have a new chem before taking damage, so you want to do max dps. You need to break armor asap.

The advantage of incendiary is the reduced arm range, allowing you to do full damage at a closer range. This also makes it difficult to land shots at longer ranges. In arm time it rivals the dps of buffed charged.

[Extirminator]

I'm pretty sure that flak puts more than 1 stack of fire on a component.
It really shouldn't, but I've had 3+ fires definitely from a heavy flak.

oh absolutely, it has a chance of 20% to ignite 4 stacks of fire on aoe hit. But everything I was talking about there was average fire stacks since you can't assume anything else with this ammo type. you can get 20 stacks of fire, and you can get 0 stacks of fire. But most commonly, and accumulating over time of testing, it would produce 2 fires per clip and 0.295 fires per second on average upon aoe hit(incendiary).