Well, lore-wise, they're not
They just use ion damage type to *technically* provide their effect on gameplay. Also, you will still get your systems ion'ed/blinking blue after attack, so I don't think that there is a problem with changing their warnings to red/purple.
Small (as there was no update for some time) bug jar, of course latest version:
1. Bounty hunter's Auto-terminator cloaks immediately when fight start, despite event text that it just de-cloaked. Am I mistaken, or before, you've found a way to delay its cloaking, and it was working as intended?
2. Station "filled with hundreds repair drones" doesn't allow to break truce, if they surrender. Generally, I understand balance-wise limiting of breaking truces, but in this special case, "prize" from surrender is 3 hull damage repair (equivalent of 6 scrap till sector 3, 9 scrap till sector 6, 12 later), so I don't think that allowing to screw them over as slugs (or risk doing so as other ships) would be unbalancing at all. Not to mention that they're stationary station, after all, so seems like prime target for breaking truces.
3. There is boarding event "close to sun", that gives reward. Hoever, there is other, more dangerous variant of this event, where (fire-resistant) rocks teleports to our sun-flared ship, that doesn't give any reward at all. I think it wouldn't hurt to make them teleport own supplies too, as they should be even more confident in their chances of hijacking our ship.
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Small suggestion, too: There was a bump to number of missiles produced for same price, by ammo manufacturer. Even before bump, they were producing cheaper than buying in stores, and it sounds ok.
BUT, as a side effect, the 3 drones produced for 24 scrap by drone manufacturer, sounds even more poor than before (and, even before, it was less cost-effective than ammo manufacturer, as drones produced this way cost exactly the same as bought in shops). I really think that drone manuf needs a bump to produce at least 5 drones, it's very sad augment, right now.
/Estel