How does the Zoltan Explosion work?

Question

In both the Advanced Edition and up-to-date Standard Editions of FTL, the Zoltan race explodes on death, dealing damage to hostile targets in the same room they are in when they die but not hull or subsystems. This much I know, however, much remains to be known about the Zoltan Explosion, or should I say Zplosion!!

The Zplosion has been thought to deal 15 damage to the attacker, so I'll use that for a base number but I haven't had it verified that it deals exactly 15 damage.

• How much damage does the Zplosion do?
• Does the damage vary from a target in melee vs. a target in ranged combat (still in the same room though)?
• Does the Zplosion's damage increase if the Zoltan has combat experience rank 1 or 2?
• Does the Zplosion's damage vary against targets with different hit point totals? That is, does it deal 15% of max hp, of 15 points flat? This could be tested on other Zoltans or Rocks or Crystals.
• If a Zoltan is mind controlled and dies under this effect, who does the Zplosion harm? The original owner's team? The hostile influencer's team? Both?
• If a Zoltan Zplodes in a forest and no one is there to see it, does it deal damage to the trees? (Okay, this last one is a little silly. You don't really need to answer it.)

Answer 1

So I've been doing a run with suicidal exploding zoltans as my primary form of offense and here's what I've found:

1. Zplosions do 15 damage to every enemy crew member in the room.
2. It does not vary based on distance, if they are in the room they take 15 damage.
3. No, I managed to train a zoltan up to full combat and his explosion still did 15 damage.
4. No, its 15 points flat no matter what the target is.
5. The mind controlled Zoltan will not damage the crew he belongs to.
6. IQAndreas already answered this one in the comments.