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Now someone was claiming the light carros aren't viable and then someone posted some nonsense about using burst to one clip. Uh, the balloon can be one clipped unbuffed with the
Greased
Incendiary
Heavy
Heatsink
Lesmok
Burst
Charged (yup)
This list could also be described as every ammo other than Lochnagar.
Let me do the math then.
128 flechette + 144 shatter => 128*1,8+144*0,2 = 259,2 dmg/per shot on bloons.
Now the common ammo types for light carronades are heavy, greased, incendiary. Some people even use lesmok. Of those ammo types greased modifies damage, so I'll start with heavy and lesmok which only modify the clip when it comes to damage per clip. Heavy gives you 4 shots. 4*259,2=1036,8<1200; no oneclip. Lesmok gives you 4 shots too (or 3? never actually use it, don't know wether to round up or down) and deals the same maximum amount of damage, so no oneclip either.
Same goes for incendiary which has a chance to set fires additionally. Now, besides bloons being the prefered component for chemspray, that would give you in average 3 firestacks if all pellets hit the bloon. That's 12 base damage to the bloon per second and 9 damage per second for each shot, this over 1,14 seconds (time between shots) means 24 damage for the first shot which applies its damage over time three times; and 10,3 for the second which applies twice and the third which applies once before the clip is empty. That's an additional 102,9 damage. 1139,7<1200; no oneclip. Well, afterwards it'll take 1,1 seconds until the bloon burns down, so yeah, ok you get a oneclip if everything runs optimal.
Greased reduces damage by 20% and increases clipsize by 20%. Damage to bloons if all pellets hit: 207,36 per shot, 1244,16 per clip. Also it takes only 2,5 seconds to empty the clip, so yes, it's probable to oneclip an enemy bloon if all pellets hit, so hug your enemy tight.
Now burst: No damage modifier, RoF mod makes the gun empty in 4,71 seconds; damage per clip is 1555,2 as Smollet stated, this is the maximum damage per clip and this is the only ammo type where a single mallet hit during the carronade volley can not save the bloon. You'd even have 105,2 hp margin of error, which allows 6 pellets to miss.
By the way, I believe the 3,2 seconds it takes to empty either vanilla or charged clip is enough reaction time for a crewmember who knows about a carronade on the enemy ship and who is close to the bloon anyways - Junker, Pyramidion, Galleon, Squid. (I'd even say Spire and Mobula - Goldfish only if it has a captain dedicated to not loosing the bloon or an engie who cares mainly about that and the main engine)
Same goes for extinguishing once during the 3,4 seconds of emptying incendiary - except the pilot does not so often have an extinguisher with him/her.