the missile barrage gains power with the upgrades. like most tec ships the initial upgrades arent especially major. once you get to lvl 3 on an ability then it becomes highly effective.

true, but the power of the missiles increases at the tech tree is built out. there are what...7 to 10 missile upgrades in the TEC tech tree?

Phase Missile Swarm fires a single volley of missiles at a relatively low number of targets, doing fairly high damage to each of them.

Missile Barrage fires many volleys one after the other at all enemy targets within a large range. Each volley individually does low damage, but the high number of volleys makes the total possible damage per target for the ability very high. The capital ship using Missile Barrage must remain stationary until all volleys are fired.

Neither ability is modified by their respective race's research.

To Steve Mackay: I had no idea that missle barrage was a multiple-volley attack, I suppose I'll have to read it's description more closely. Still, since it's a multiple-volley attack, that would explain it's deceptively low damage value. Thanks!