Manifold Missile

"The Manifold Missile is an Explosive weapon with a unique attack pattern. The warheads branch out like a tree as they approach the enemy."

General
The Manifold Missile is a unique Explosive weapon with the ability to repeatedly unfold, causing explosions every time.

It fires a missile that looks normal at first glance, but only travels to just over half the normal range. Upon detonation, it splits into two missiles around 20 degrees apart, which travel for 1,000 m at 2,000 m/s with a smaller explosion. The process repeats once but with an even smaller explosion and spread.

Advantages
Manifold Missiles have incredible firepower against grouped ships; the missiles split into the enemy fleet, dealing damage every time they hit. Ships that run directly away from the missiles also get caught in multiple stages as they unfold, taking extra damage. The damage dealt on average is much higher than the listed DPS and is comparable to Infernal weapons such as the Infernal Vector Torpedo, yet the weapon takes up less mass.

The full potential of this weapon is unleashed against large modules such as the Bridge, Ship Factory and Fleet Bay: their large hitbox means that every single missile will inflict damage, taking them out extremely quickly.

Manifold Missiles are also used for squadron defense; they automatically take out squadrons on the same ship every time they are fired due to the larger hitbox.

Disadvantages
Manifold Missiles have a rather short range: the initial explosion happens before the missiles reach their maximum range of 4,000 m, making ships equipped with this weapon easy to kite.

They are also easy to dodge due to the delay between each unfolding of missiles, making them quite unreliable against agile ships.

Manifold Missiles are ineffective with AM Warheads since they mainly rely on direct damage from the unfolding process rather than their AoE.

Trivia

 * The Manifold Missile deals 100% DPS for the primary missile, 66.7% for each secondary missile and 50% for each tertiary missile, resulting in a maximum of 433.3% DPS, which is absolutely insane.
 * The Manifold Missile is nicknamed the "Manni Missile", a reference to Manni-Gaming who resembles a part of the weapons name.