It doesn't benefit from range upgrades.
Also at max range you aren't maximizing the potential DPS (except on bosses).
The maximization of damage works on large enemies too though, which are the only enemies where it's even notable. Anything small dies fast to begin with, and "heavy" foes pretty much move very slowly as a rule (easy to hit with the entire thing). However, the shot is also wider; the additional benefit is that it's easier to hit with. That alone can make small things die faster because you're impacting rather than missing more. It's quite a bit harder to hit small/fast things with other starting weapons due to the thin nature of their shots. Take the flamer up against small foes and just watch how fast they go down, VS using something like the White Gloss. It happens at any range. Either they're super close and taking max damage, or they're nearer to the edge, where the effect is wide, and being much more easily hit.
That being said, even many small foes seem to have hitboxes big enough that they do in fact get impacted by the most of the flame at it's furthest difference. Due to the flame's nature, quicker moving foes, even those with small hitboxes, can tend to plow into the entire "layer" of a flame section simply because they pound right through the entire thing.
Range upgrades barely even exist to begin with. They seemed to have been heavily avoided during development, which is a little odd. The only one I can even think of is Risky Assassin.
Mostly I'm pointing these out as I'm going through the game with some test runs with the thing, despite that it bores me to death (figured I should do it anyway). These, so far, are my findings; the ENTIRE game, not just bosses, is dramatically easier due to the speed of flattening things.
I dont know how much easier this thing is supposed to make the game; since I dont use the flame weapon due to getting tired of it in normal runs it's one of the weapons I'm not going to bother altering. I'm just giving info since mech balance seems to be being looked at. Again though I'm leaving this guy entirely up to you guys, so on this one I'm not going to actually interfere or anything. I'm just giving info and feedback right now.
But yeah, that's my experience with the mech: It's like playing the game on an entirely different and lower difficulty level.
Granted the Green Envy has that issue as well with that secondary it uses, but THAT I did change. The weapon, not the mech. Experiments continue however.
Anyway, that's all of that for now. Back to hitting items with virtual hammers again, as I really must put some focus into that here. Enough damn boss alterations for now.
On a total side note though, just in case I forget to mention it later, I fixed Labyrinth and the infamously deadly Charger. Finally. I keep forgetting to actually look at Mantis, you see, or I'd have fixed that Charger earlier. I dont THINK there's any other major enemy/boss issues right now. But let me know if you should spot any.
I get nearly max (4 of 5 hits) even on regular enemies larger than Fleas, even at max range; they've got a generous hitbox. Not that killing non-bosses is all that difficult. And range upgrades are so rare, in all my runs I've gotten one. So in practice, those arguments don't hold up.
Yep. The only enemy that really seems to get missed much by parts of the flames, when struck head-on (the only situation where something is likely to avoid some of it, due to lack of horizontal movement causing impacts with additional flameshots) is the FaceRipper. Even something else pretty darn small like the Pearl tends to get whomped by all or nearly all of the flame.
