Not at all, good sir.

My idea was that in addition to lowering the cooldown on the abilities, the affected ship would get a small AM regeneration boost, as well.  How much is up for discussion, though.

Its not quite smooth.  The Skirantra is currently an incredibly powerful ship and Scramble bombers at level three is arguably better than Anima Tempest.  For that reason, some changes are still needed.  See my thread for more details.

Scramble Bombers would be far better balanced with Anima Tempest with a simple revert of the latest buff to take it back to the v1.18 version.  I'm not sure what could be meant by it not being able to be balanced?

There was a suggestion that the v1.19 Skirantra allows a Vasari player to play above his ability level in single player, so that it might be possible to defeat 2 locked AI without Scramble Bombers and 3 locked AI using Scramble Bombers.  The Marza is a similar phenomenon for TEC.  To me that doesn't imply that those abilities are essential in their current form, just that they are very much out of line with the powers of their faction and need further work to limit them.  If there was a similar Advent ability it might be Repulse, rather than any capital ship ability- though Advent get rather more advantage from a human player than the other factions anyway.  Also, it is easier for a human to counter Missile Barrage and Repulse than it is for the AI. 

I'm not sure what is meant by nice and smooth either, the new elements introduced by the second expansion are almost all broken, the only outright improvement is the AI.  Half the capitals aren't even used.  This game could be far superior if all the worst techs and abilities that we've tried to identify in the various threads were boosted.  I can't see any of them becoming far too powerful with a single buff, it took Scramble Bombers a long series of buffs before v1.19 to make it all-powerful.  It's also annoying to have techs that are never used, when all they need is more appropriate stats or debugging. 

The link provided to the Guidance suggestion was.. mildly confusing.  A lowered cost for abilities would make as much sense as faster AM regeneration and would be easier to implement, though.  Then it could perhaps be balanced using Flux Field.  

I've become more familiar with the Revelation recently, I wish I hadn't.  Why is it rated higher than the Dunov or Marauder, both of which have useful area of effect abilities?

The best ability is Reverie, but that is another version of the Marauder's Phase Out ability- which also has a defensive use.  I'm not at all sure that Reverie is the better ability.  However best abilities shouldn't be boosted first.

Clairvoyance is situational, but to get the most use from it you'd need the Revelation as an early capital, and you have to build scouts anyway, and well managed scouts can fulfil the task, and do it with more automation and no antimatter use.  Even as the second ability, I'd consider this for a boost.  How about a second function, so that you could also curse a single ship, to share its vision permanently?

Guidance reduces cooldowns by 40%.  That's all.   Like Clairvoyance, this is another ability with a situational use that doesn't really justify there being three levels of it.  Another option to lowering antimatter costs might be to extend the duration of abilities, when it would become far more valuable... and less like a cheaper version of Flux Field.  If it were instead to increase duration of non-ultimate abilities by perhaps 200% it could itself become an ultimate, which might resolve...

Provoke Hysteria is a very poor ultimate.  For a siege cap, it has the worst siege ability in the game.  What you want a siege cap to do most is to take down weak defences quickly, and a L6 Revelation can't.  If you can siege a heavily defended planet you usually have the grav well anyway, plus Provoke Hysteria isn't even very good at that either.  Also, this is the sort of ability that is easy to improve over three stages.  

As it's unlikely that Guidance and Provoke Hysteria will be exchanged, how about a different mechanic for Provoke Hysteria?   I'd have it as a basic rate of damage, say 20-30/s, then make it reduce allegiance 1%/s  and extend the duration to 80s.  That might be more in keeping with the Advent style, plus it seems unlikely that hardened defences would be affected as much by riots.  It might also make it effective, as opposed to rubbish.  Also, the animation would last longer! 

Des, first let me say:  An awesome thread!  I've been away for a few months, and finally got around to reading this and really enjoyed it.  Later, I hope to add observations regarding your OP, as well as some of the following comments.

But, mainly I agree that the Dunov's Shield Restore needs to be able to restore itself.  And yeah increase the amount of shield restored again.  That change IS needed.  The others I dont really care about.  Don't forget that Subversion stacks.

I believe there are misconceptions about the Marza's Radiation Bomb & Incendiary Shells, but I will have to do some additional research first.  I believe Darvin's numbers for Radiation damage are much too high - the secondary affect to surrounding targets is much lower.  And I believe Incendiary shells effects each type of its weapon (maybe even each bank?), so damage is higher there than represented.

LOL, I will agree that the Revelation is initially a pretty weak ship.  I have to admit that I've never really understood Guidance very well.  Clairvoyance is actually quite nice to have, and is handy late in the game when it is hard to get scouts into the back of empires.  But the second and third levels of it don't add much value.   Reverie is a surprising ability.  Higher levels of it can almost make the Revelation invulnerable.  Provoke Hysteria can be quite powerfull, especially combined with a few siege frigates.

I'd also encourage people to see my old comparison of Siege ships, and comments at the Cap Ship Abil sticky.

I'm still hoping, but I doubt it will happen.

What about a reverse malice?  What if you create something that propagates healing?  I don't know if it would work, but if this is the case, then you could make Guidance (albeit with a huge overhaul) incredibly useful and work alongside the Subjugator very nicely.

Just out of curiosity, would that be the suggestion to Clairvoyance?

As to the rest of your most recent post, those are some good points - maybe 20/35/50 construct boost would be acceptable for the Egg's colonize if the financial aspect is a bit much to ask.

It was your suggestion on Guidance that I was referring to Warlord Mike, but Clairvoyance is another problem area and a further suggestion would be welcome.  My major issue with Clairvoyance is that the third level does so little compared to the first...  it is 50 antimatter not 70 and offers 150s duration rather than 90s, but is that valued at two extra points?  If minefields are made viable scouts will be needed anyway, and it can't be made an excuse for a poor ability that another part of the game is broken.

Along the lines of the other proposed buffs to capitals to make them more durable, I suggest that Clairvoyance also allow a defensive bonus to the Revelation.. after all it has to be valuable to be able to see the command centres of enemy ships?

The Dunov is an excellent example of a ship that just needs its numbers adjusted to be made more effective.  Shield Restore may have been made more frequent and less powerful to be more useful on frigates as well as capitals, but the opportunites for this sort of use in large scale engagements are limited.  How about a buff beyond the typical shield values for frigates, as well as the self-heal option? 

Magnetize must have seemed a lot more useful when there were half as many strikecraft in the game.. but if the carrier capitals get boosts to their strikecraft capacity, the antistrikecraft capitals need to be boosted as well?  If the squadrons on carrier capitals were boosted 50% this needs a corresponding 50% boost? 

EMP Charge must have seemed much better when there were less antimatter reserves in the game, but it would not make much difference to the vast reserves possessed by a starbase...  If the numbers were raised EMP might become too much of a threat to fleets, so is there a possibility to make the drain a % of the maximum antimatter of the target?  That might make the Dunov more useful for specialist anti-structure deployment... which seems a proper role for a support capital.      

While I like the concept it might require the duration to be extended, as any planet that you were bombing would be already revealed to you... so to make it work you would have to enter the grav well afterwards and rush straight to the planet.  It might lead to dubious gameplay where you would vacate a gravwell just in order to scout it for the subsequent bombardment bonus?

A defensive bonus to the ship itself need not be excluded by this... it's not unusual for capital ship abilities to be multi-functional, and sneaky siege ships might be expected to be able to avoid fire.  It also makes sense for the Revelation to be the siege specialist, as it is the siege capital with a siege ultimate, though I suggest that the ultimate itself needs boosting as well.. I had suggested to boost it with a 50% longer duration, so that it caused 60% damage in all... however if the Claivoyance boost could stack with the ultimate that might be an alternative.  My preferred option was to cause a huge allegiance shift like the Indifference Engine, but only if culture can be made to function properly.