Well, I got some numbers wrong, ok.
It doesn't matter much: the Seraphim cruisers have 1hp missiles. Yes the UEF cruisers have 2hp missiles.
Some other things about them. The seraphim missiles do 500 damage. The UEF missiles do 300 damage. Both have a sixth of the HP of the Torrent
As the others said. 50 range is a lot, a big lot. As long as you think it isn't a lot, you haven't had a serious naval battle yet.
The way you calculate the nerf is also wrong.
800/1000 = 0,8 => -20% 1,5/5 =0,3 => -70%.
That is correct. So it loses 20% damage and 70% AoE, or 91% if you calculate it by surface area.
80x0,3= 24; 100%-24%=76%
Now you claim that:
1. The AoE reduction is as important as the damage reduction. This is wrong.
2. That all the other statistics have no value. Also this is wrong.
You claim that the change has made the Torrent four times weaker, that is absolutely ridiculous. I'll give you the 20% of the damage reduction, but no more than that. Before you say that numbers don't lie: numbers don't do anything, it's your interpretation of them that is wrong.
For weapons as this, I'd say that the following things are the most important.
1. Range
2. Firing Cycle
3. Damage per missile
4. AoE
Range: The additional 50 range compared to what any other unit can possibly have, allows you to set up your fleet in any way you want and still have all of it safely out of the enemy's hands.
The firing Cycle of the Torrent is better than that of the UEF (or seraphim, not sure about the Cybran) battleships because there's a huge chance that a missile will reach the shield generator when the shields are down. The Single shot and long wait of the Battleships don't have this advantage.
As for the damage per missile, I'll have nothing to add.
The AoE: Do you have any idea what the AoE of 5 did? If you do, you'll agree that it was ridiculous. You don't even need the DeathDamage of buildings to blow up an entire base with one salvo. The AoE of 1.5 is more than enough to kill mass extractors and mass storage in one go.