Are Grape Shot broken or am I missing something?

[patyrn]

As I understand it a grape shot hit on an unshielded ship does 10 penetration rolls and crits and does 1 damage for every penetration.

At their current cost for launchers\ammo, it's super easy to get a enough ships to sweep a 9+ wide hex area with grape shot ensuring dozens of crits on anything less than 6 armor. It seems like any fleet can be utterly stripped of all it's smaller ships in a single firing phase. This is exasperated by the huge number of hexes a grape shot launcher can automatically hit in the missile movement phase.

lh4.googleusercontent.com/-lBe6sdvZDmU/TpqvhobXesI/AAAAAAAAAZQ/c-35ybX_9X4/w609-h614-k/grapeshot.jpg

Here's an example firing pattern that a 250 ton CA can achieve with 15 grapeshot launchers, 5 fire control, and 26 ammo. Every single ship in that area is going to be slammed with 3 grapeshot, and of course you could arrange that field of fire all sorts of different ways. A BB is especially nuts, with every single ship with under 6 armor in a huge swath getting crit 10+ times and knocking down 50 shields on every ship in the same swath.

So am I misreading something, or are grape shot just orders of magnitude more efficient than any other weapon at killing anything with <6 armor?

[TheDreadnought]

First of all, unshielded ships with <6 armor are probably going to be eaten alive by just about anything.

This is a case of impressive theoretical situations, but little in the way of practical application. What is your hypothetical battleship going to do to the enemy 9 armor battleship packing heavy rail guns? Sure he can chew up the escorts pretty bad. . . then he dies. And the enemy battleship proceeds to wipe mop up your lighter stuff, particularly if you've got a lot of other grapeshot equipped cruisers.

Even minimal shielding takes away most of the bite of grapeshot. . . as does even moderate armor. Its also fairly easy to avoid except at point blank range, which means if your opponent took any long range weaponry, you're conceding the opening shots to him.

The truth is that while its possible to construct these theoretically impressive game breaking fleets. A conventional fleet with a good mix of ships well suited to their roles will beat the "one trick pony" almost every time assuming equally skilled players.

[patyrn]

I'm going to try to frame this a little better because I think it's far from hypothetical and certainly not a one-trick pony.

For example, I will assume that taking 1 of every ship from your included UACS ship designs could be considered a balanced fleet. That's 3583 tons of ships. 999 tons of those ships have <6 armor.

I'm not talking from theorycraft either. My last game I played we took <200 points of grapeshot in a 2500 point game and they swept every single lightly armored ship off the board. No other weapon even comes remotely close in damage per ton. Can you name another weapon that for 11 tons can smash a destroyer from 13 hexes out?

Hell, 2 heavy railguns for 56 tons can't kill a destroyer in one firing phase, even if both hit.

When you consider the huge range, hitting everything in a line, the anti-fighter killing power, the anti-shield hitting power and the way it obliterates practically any decent ship design under 200 tons, I just can't see how it's not too strong.

I would still take it even if it didn't roll criticals at all. It would still be great at anti-fighter, and extremely great at knocking down a shield arc before the firing phase to exploit later. It would also still deal significant damage to small ships, just not strip every system and hardpoint at the same time.

Even minimal shielding takes away most of the bite of grapeshot. . . as does even moderate armor. Its also fairly easy to avoid except at point blank range, which means if your opponent took any long range weaponry, you're conceding the opening shots to him.

Not really that easy to avoid. It can originate in a ton of hexes and face any direction in those hexes.

[TheDreadnought]

Those ships also have shields, which dilute grapeshot effectiveness. . . and it should be noted were built to match existing miniatures, as opposed to being 'optimized' designs. 1 of every ship also doesn't represent a balanced fleet. A balanced fleet might be more like:

BB x2
BC x1
CA x2
CL x3
DD x3

So this came up the last time somebody said that ASGMs were horribly overpowered. Instead of theory. . . why don't you design a fleet designed to exploit grape shot, then design a well rounded fleet, and run 2 or 3 practice games, then post them on the AAR board and tell us what you find out?

For one thing, that will help make sure you're interpreting the rules correctly, (for instance how are you getting 13 hexes? 3 hexes deployment +8 hexes move = 11 before the target could maneuver to avoid it.) for another that provides concrete examples we can examine instead of theoreticals.

Finally grape shot was intentionally designed as a major threat to light ships, but not much of one to heavies. . .so its probably working as designed unless your game results come up with something surprising.

[warchariot]

Finally grape shot was intentionally designed as a major threat to light ships, but not much of one to heavies. . .so its probably working as designed unless your game results come up with something surprising.

I also think of grape as a poor mans weapon. It doesn't take a lot of space or cost much and once it is gone it's gone. So small ships which don't stay around long, but have a big treat weapon on board use grape as their other weapon. It gives them something after the big weapon is used up.

[captainquirk]

Personally I'd just deploy a fleet with armour 6> against you. With all your grapeshot launchers taking up mass, I'd have a significant advantage in throw weight of other weapons.

[patyrn]

For one thing, that will help make sure you're interpreting the rules correctly, (for instance how are you getting 13 hexes? 3 hexes deployment +8 hexes move = 11 before the target could maneuver to avoid it.) for another that provides concrete examples we can examine instead of theoreticals.

Sorry I know its 11 I just keep failing at math in my head.

Personally I'd just deploy a fleet with armour 6> against you. With all your grapeshot launchers taking up mass, I'd have a significant advantage in throw weight of other weapons.

That is exactly the kind of counter gaming I am concerned with. I don't want 200 tons of grapeshot to make small ships not worth taking.

[TheDreadnought]

Just try it.

In practice, its not a super-weapon. Paper analysis is one thing, but the realities of play are very different.

[patyrn]

But I did try it. That is why I made this post. I played two games last night both of which had a bb with at least 2 banks of 5 grapeshot launchers each. They obliterated my CLs from a range where it would require way more tonnage of other weapons to kill. It's not like they were purpose built to erase light ships either. It was just a supplemental weapon I took to knock down shields on the cheap.

[TheDreadnought]

Who won the game and why?


Edit: I guess my point being that you're concerned because it took very little effort for your opponent to scrag a couple CLs? That's hardly surprising. CB is a high-lethality game, so CLs ought to die fast and easy. . . if you don't want them to die, you gotta keep them out of the line of fire - especially of enemy battleships.

The game will generally be decided by your capital ships. . . which ought to be pretty much immune to grape shot except as a limited-use shield depletion weapon. . . of which there are plenty of options available.

Grapeshot is actually more effective when fired from a longer range to force your opponent to maneuver and divide his forces, than as a short range shotgun blast to kill small ships.

Going back to your question - Is grapeshot overpowered or am I missing something? Yes. You're missing something. . . try out a few games where you "exploit" grapeshot and see how it works out. . .

[toaster]

Other likely outcome are that your opponent will start hiding his light ships behind asteroids and planets untill after you've used your grapeshot or moved within 'pounce' range, and/or using a very spread out fleet to limit the amount of ships you can hit at once.

Robert

[captainquirk]

If you have a battleship carrying all of that lot and therefore using up 2 or 3 of its available weapon mounts with grape, I don't see how it can outfight another battleship of equivalent size which is using all of its own weapon mounts for armour-crunching capital ship killing weapons.

So if you design and deploy something which is completely optimised as a small ship killer, then the logical counter is to deploy big ships capable of outfighting your battleships one on one.

Oct 16, 2011 18:10:08 GMT -5 patyrn said:

But I did try it. That is why I made this post. I played two games last night both of which had a bb with at least 2 banks of 5 grapeshot launchers each. They obliterated my CLs from a range where it would require way more tonnage of other weapons to kill. It's not like they were purpose built to erase light ships either. It was just a supplemental weapon I took to knock down shields on the cheap.

[kashre]

My 2 cents... I think that they're pretty situational. There is an ideal target for every design philosophy... If you take lots off fighters and light ships and I take nothing but grapeshot and cluster missiles, you're probably going to die.

Just like if I take ships that are heavy on the lasers and you take ships with no shields but huge armor, I'm probably going to die. I don't think I'd characterize any weapon mix as "broken" under those circumstances though.

Really, the closest thing to OP I've seen in this game is RDF Battlecruisers with scads of torpedoes on them. But that's another discussion.

[ocnar]

I was Patyrn's opponent in the game he was talking about. It was only our third game ever, so we were still coming to terms with good tactics and fleet design. The game was 2500 points, and I had two 1000 point BBBs (glass cannons) and a 500 point Flagship (with half fighters and half Grape Shot). He had a more balanced fleet composition. The game was very close, but I ended up losing because he took ASGMs and I had no point defense.

The reason he started this thread was because my Grape Shot by itself took down three or four hundred tons of his smaller ships, as well as killing many fighters and stripping lots of shields. On one ship I got 14 crits from one volley. I did all of this from a safe distance, as well.

I would like to say that so far I've been very impressed with the balance of this game. No matter how hard I've tried to break it, no weapon clearly dominates, and each one is valuable in different situations. I also really like what Grape Shot brings to the game both strategically and thematically.

Now, I'm not trying to turn this into "Colonial Theoryfleet", but I did crunch a few numbers: If we equip a ship with 2 hardpoints of 2 Grape Shot launchers each (4 total), what happens when it fires against a small ship with, say, 12 shields in a given arc?

If the targeted ship has 5 armor, it will take down the shields and roll 28 times to penetrate, succeeding only on a 6. On average, 4 or 5 will pen, with 4 or 5 rolls to crit. Strong, but survivable.

If the ship has 4 armor, those 28 rolls to pen now succeed on a 5 or a 6. So, 9 or 10 hull damage, 9 or 10 rolls to crit. If the ship survives, it will probably be crippled most of the game.

If the ship has 3 armor, half the shots will penetrate. So, on average 14 hits and 14 crit rolls. No ship can expect to be useful even if it survives that.

Let's say a 240 ton CA is doing the Grapeshotting. It's using 24 tons for the F/P/S launchers, plus 12 tons of ammo per volley. So, a 36 ton investment for a very high chance to cripple or destroy any other small ship from 11 hexes away. And, when no small ships are left, the Grape Shot is still quite useful against fighters and large ships' shields. It is even useful from longer range to force the enemy's movement. It's also one of the only weapons that can hit multiple targets.

No other weapon, ton for ton, comes close to that power against small ships, not even considering Grape Shot's other utility.

Our concern was that if Grape Shot can shred smaller ships from long range, while still being useful against fighters and large ships, that our metagame would evolve in a clear direction. If a few Grape Shot here and there was all that was needed to cripple every low-armored ship, then both sides would always carry a few Grape Shot. Soon, small ships would be seen as too fragile, and no one would take them at all. That just didn't seem fun.

This was also a concern because we are starting a campaign using CB for tactical combat resolution. Starting technology and resources will be limited, so smaller ships with low armor will be the norm. If we used Grape Shot as it is written, taking lots of it will be required, as it out-ranges every other weapon.

This is why we have decided to implement the following house rule:

"Treat each point of damage against the hull as a separate 1 hull damage attack, rolling for armor penetration (1d6) and inflicting damage as normal. However, each cloud of 10 Grape Shot may inflict only one critical hit, no matter how many penetrate the armor."

This still allows it 10 chances to crit, so in the examples above the small ships would usually take 3 or 4 crits, instead of 5, 10, or 14. It retains its hull damage against small ships, its usefulness against shields on ships of all sizes, and its effectiveness against fighters.

This change makes it a truly situational weapon. Helpful in many battles, but never a necessary choice, even when small ships are involved. Most importantly, it won't force small ships out of our metagame.

[TheDreadnought]

Well I'm all about people houseruling the game to be what works for them. Sounds like this is a good change.

If you ever want to read about the inspiration for grape shot, try the Lost Fleet books by Jack Campbell. Some of the best starship combat of any series IMO.

[toaster]

Comparing the crit rules for fighters, that seems a fair house rule and I may use it my self depending on what universe I'm trying to simulate. I mainly use grapeshot as an anti-fighter weapon myself.

Robert

[TheDreadnought]

Moving this thread to House Rules.