It seems rather elusive.  In Beta 2 I had a mothership cast Malice on targets clear across the grav well, way outside of its range.  It only happened once, and I've spent the past few weeks attempting to replicate it.  No dice. 

Yeah, I certainly agree with the elusive aspect.  It seems to definitely pertain to autocast however as I've never seen it when I specifically order an ability use.  I'm tired so I'll just add in here instead of a new thread that in my same game, I've seen two other things that are weird.  One is a bug, one might be by design.

1.  TEC Hangar Defense structures are firing their flak when not yet constructed.

2.  Dunovs cast their Shield Restore on incomplete starbases.  This one I'm not too certain about as starbases being built do seem to have shield values, so maybe they're meant to be able to be saved like this while building.

I sure thought I read that they were fixed recently, but I watched as the 50% done hangar spat flak fire.  It's tougher to spot as there's no muzzle flashes, but you can see the shells leaving the structure and heading toward the enemy.