Cleave Missile

"The Cleave Missile has a battle axe sub projectile pattern which is designed to deal Kinetic AoE damage to multiple enemies in defensive formations."
 * -|Regular=

"The Cleave Missile has a battle axe sub projectile pattern which is designed to deal Alien AoE damage to multiple enemies in defensive formations."
 * -|Xeno=

"The Cleave Missile has a battle axe sub projectile pattern which is designed to deal Plasma AoE damage to multiple enemies in defensive formations."
 * -|Plasma=

"The Cleave Missile has a battle axe sub projectile pattern which is designed to deal Blight AoE damage to multiple enemies in defensive formations."
 * -|Blight=

Stats
Note: The level 4 version is only available to the faction with the corresponding damage type: Altairian for Alien Damage, Umbra for Blight Damage, Pharmakon for Plasma Damage.

General
The Cleave Missile shoots a missile towards its target, and upon detonation, splits into 2 sets of missiles, each perpendicular to the original travelling direction. Each set consists of 3 missiles 10 degrees apart.

Each secondary missile travels at 2,500 m/s for 2,000 m, and have 150 m AoE.

Advantages
The Cleave Missile's primary missile has no spread. This makes its shots more precise, which is helpful against non-evasive targets (i.e. titans) that are at near maximum range. It is also slightly faster and has a shorter charge time than the Cascade Missile. When paired with Iridium Magnets and the like, the missiles can travel even faster, further improving its accuracy. Phased Projectiles and similar specials enable it to better cleave through enemy shields.

Its unique fan of secondary missiles makes it well-suited against enemy ships in line formation as the missiles go off to the side, potentially dealing extra damage to those nearby.

This weapon has one of the longest firing cycles out of the Tier 8 weapons, making its shots pack a huge punch.

Disadvantages
Compared to the Cascade Missile, this weapon has a smaller AoE and cannot be boosted by AM Warheads due to its damage type, reducing its potential for area denial. Moreover, the secondary missiles travel considerably further before exploding, making it difficult for them to hit the same target. This means that in order to deal its full DPS, the enemies actually have to be bunched up together.

The weapon is not terribly reliable due to its long cooldown, meaning that if you miss the first shot, you will be at a significant disadvantage. Moreover, the primary missile's zero spread makes it harder to hit highly evasive enemies (i.e. fighters).

Trivia

 * The Cleave Missile deals 78.1% DPS for the primary projectile and 19.2%/16.0%/13.1%/9.4% for each secondary projectile, resulting in a total of 193%/174%/157%/134% DPS (by level).
 * The Cleave Missile's description is identical to the Astral Driver's. This was a bug and has been fixed in the subsequent update after its launch.