Overpowered or not - it definatly needs a change.Though target cap is already rational enouph I propose it also to hit both friend and foe

(well,just the second is enouph for me)

In Entrenchment it would not be out of the question to have 8 to 10 scouts already built. Why? Mines. So Missile barrage could be countered by fast moving scouts moving toward the Mazra before it comes into position. An arbitrary limit of 24 units would then have 30 to 40% wasted on the scouts. Not a full counter but it would be a ready made meat shield on units that contribute little to head-on combat.

So back to the question that remains unanswered. Could scouts be excluded from an ability effect? Does anyone, perhaps a modder, know if that's possible?

@mbaron888, I dont really think its possible.  Each ability has a number of "constraints" that include things like "NotSelf" or "HasAntiMatterPool".  I dont know for sure if there's an actual way to make it avoid scouts, since they fall under the headings of "hasweapons" and are frigates as well as technically being considered combat ships but I'm pretty sure that no other ability has constraints that allow it to target only a specific ship.  I wish I could definitively say yes or no but in my trolling through the gameinfo files I haven't come across anything that lets you avoid or target a specific type of ship. Class of ship (capitalship/frigate/noncombat) yes, type (scout, HC, LRF, etc) no.

No, it cannot be done.  Target filters work on ship classes.  Scouts are frigate class vessels and you definitely wouldn't want to exclude frigates as valid targets, since they compose the bulk of a fleet.

30%-40% wasted on scouts?  That all depends on how big your fleet is.  As I said, targetting is random and would not prefer to fire as scouts.  Unless your fleet was actually 30%-40% scouts (which seems awefully excessive just for mine detection) that wouldn't happen.

If I misconstrued your meaning by bringing up scouts as a "block" for MB then my apologies.  Mine scouting would account for some scouts being in the combat fleet.  There are others, however, who suggested that building scouts or other chaff specifically to counter MB would be a tactic if a target cap were introduced.  I was pointing out the flaw in that idea.

His proposition was to make it fire a fixed amount of missiles.  That is exactly the same in effect as a target cap.  The way abilities work you cannot say fire "x" missiles (which do x damage) but rather you tell it to do "x effect" (in this case damage) to "x" number of targets in a given area.  So long as it can potentially target an entire fleet the only way to restrict total missiles to any fixed number is to target cap it.

-dolynick

Disciple and Cobalt have abilities to mess with ships am (won't work on Cap).  What if they make it that those abilities work on Caps at 1/2 efficiency?  I am even for giving Ravastra some kind of AM interfering abilities.  Just a thought.

The funny part is that by "countering" missile barrage with scouts, you intentionally cripple your fleet so that your opponent doesn't even need to use MB.

Many of the target cap ideas have already suggested the Marza reacquires targets, so that no waves can go to waste, even if scouts are sacrificed into the mix. This means the Marza will try to do the maximum damage, which is in effect a form of smart damage cap.

Making antimatter abilities work against capital ships is sketchy, because caps have a very different scale of antimatter compared to normal ships. 50 antimatter for a petty support frigate is nothing, but can be devastating to a cap. Starbases have an even more skewed scale, storing less than 200 AM for some of the most devastating abilties around. It's not so simple to make frigate AM attacks work against caps.

to be or not to be, that is the question. 

done. took less than 15 seconds. 

Forget all this "target cap" crap and everything else.  What would be wrong with simply turning MB into a "better" radiation bomb?  It could keep the same animation, it could still be called "MB."  But instead of annihilating an infinite number of hit points in a huge radius, it would damage 1 ship plus everything around it in a much smaller radius with an effect not unlike volatile nanites or similar abilities (actually, with an effect not unlike radiation bomb, just better), and it would have to be aimed instead of the current "just press a button and nuke everything on the screen."

Anything wrong with that?

You lose.

Ouch, if that's true...that definately needs to be fixed.  Incendiary shells should work properly..

What if we left how missile barrage works alone and just decreased the damage?  Being able to completely annihilate an entire fleet is a bit over the top when compared to other abilities.  Lowering the damage would change it from a fleet buster to a fleet softener....

Another option would be to completely change the effect.  Make it do something else other than area effect damage.  It's ultimately up to the devs what route to take, but after reading everyone's posts and doing a bit of experimentation, I have to agree with the nerf.  Bringing all the other cap ships up to the same level would drastically alter gameplay.  I say making a change to the Marza is the best option.  Sorry TEC guys... 

Yes and no. Just lowering the damage and leaving the rest of the ability alone would be too much of a nerf IMO. As it is now, it only will kill of LRFs (not countin Illums), and a few support cruisers. It heavily damages HCs, but all the factions have good AoE repair abilities. It's because of these AoE heal abilities that lowering the damage would make MB useless. Just for the sake of argument, let's say that MB would be toned down to deal 900 damage to each ship over the same duration. That's enough to kill an unupgraded Javelis, and not much else. Factor in HP, armor, and shield upgrades, and you won't be killing anything with it. AoE healing means that not only will you not kill anything, but the stuff you just hurt will be back in good shape pretty quickly.

I really think this is the way to go. Keep the current level of damage, but confine it to a pretty tight area. It would still be a poweful direct-damage ability, but not nearly OP like it is now. MB would become a more tactical ability, since it would be front facing and have a pretty tight area of effect. It wouldn't be anywhere near useless though, as it would still deal 3k damage to everything caught in the blast area. Perhaps the duration would have to be shortened (and damage per wave increased accordingly) so that someone couldn't simply run away from the blast area with a few scratches.

Phase missile swarm is not a good ability, IMO. I never choose it until I have all the other abilities maxed out. Missile Barrage is a level 6 ability, and needs to be more powerful than any of the "regular" abilities.

If the enemy fleet has about 100 ships, then...

TEC - will have enough Hoshis and HP/armor upgrades to negate 900 damage per target pretty easily

Advent - will completely shrug off this rather small amount of damage with a healty amount of Guardians and lvl 3 shield restore

Vasari - should have a lvl 5 Skinatra with repair cloud by this point, which will start the healing process. You're right in saying that Vasari have the short end of the stick when speaking about AoE healing abilities, however their ships are just so darn tough. Now, if your enemy is using mainly assailants, than he gets what he deserves. Enforcers have a huge amount of HP and armor, plus reintegration. Overseers can play cleanup.

My point is that, in large fleet engagements like you're talking about (and where a lvl 6 ability is needed to turn the tide of battle), merely hurting a lot of ships isn't good enough. You either need to cripple the enemy in a particular way (disable key capital ship, disable support cruisers, etc), or kill a lot of ships quickly.