Which (experimental weapon) Engineering upgrades do not work against NPCs?

[Kittenpox]

So I haven't played in a little while, so my understanding of some of this stuff may be a bit rusty.
But with the new Engineering system, I'm looking at upgrading weapons on my ship(s) and adding experimental effects where possible.

At the moment I'm primarily using lasers / plasma accelerator, but my query is open to all weapon types.

1) From memory, NPCs don't care about heat generation - and it's needlessly difficult to damage them via heat, so unless that's changed then [Thermal Shock] is out.

2) Similarly, NPCs don't suffer module malfunction last I heard - so I assume [Scramble Spectrum] is out, because that has a chance to trigger module malfunction.

3) NPCs tend to act instantly, so this is one I'm unsure about... In a 1v1, I expect [Target Lock Breaker] would be useless; but would that still hold true in a Conflict Zone? Like, if everyone's swarming in a deathball, would there be any benefit to breaking target lock? Would they pick a new target in front of them, or would they immediately switch back to me?
Because if they retarget something in front of them, this might be useful - but if I'm gonna be retargeted instantly, I might as well save my mats.

4) Are there other Experimental effects that are noticeably good/bad for PvE, which I should be mindful of while outfitting/engineering?
And/or is my info on the above out-of-date / inaccurate?

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

The Scramble Spectrum one does work. But not always, depends on an RNG. Still, it's fun to see NPC ships suddenly losing thrusters and spinning around.

[Agony_Aunt]

Yeah, i've used scramble spectrum extensively, works ok.

[Kittenpox]

Ooh. Thankyou for the tip! I've been eyeing-off that one for a while, but didn't want to waste resources on something that was primarily for PvE. :-)