ok it seems there is actually no one here who is actually a small ship build. well i am so here are the FACTS.
1, yes there is a damage cap
2, yes it is half of your deck size. (all ship classes regardless of how big your damage cap is still 1/2 of deck space)
3, scouts are VERY hard to play you must be patient
4, small ships still include the frigate class in my eyes

ok a few other things to note.
SCANNING: is very difficult in a small build artifacts help but only so far you generally cap out at about 50 planets. so if you have a good legion you should have a few to choose from. also star chart purgers are your best friends.

FIGHTING: yes you are a little wasp annoying bears so expect a bit of flak. Also the occasional disable. You will excell in this area however you may find at early levels you lack the energy to finish the job.

DEFENCE: don't need it ever. don't waste ranks in it period! you will get android helmsmen to bump up this stat anyway

HACKING: you are terribly weak the only defence you have is making sure you spend your research points first however you can find a nice balance later i will explain.

ARTIFACTS: are your life money is not important and research is second thought. when colonising its ART, ART, ART!

dristate may i suggest this path to your build i am finding quite successful.

Firstly never put any ranks ever in decks. first rule. you will get ship bots from artifact drops don't scrap them just yet.

ok firstly let me explain the differences between the smaller vessels

Scout 20 - 49 decks max damage cap is 25
Light Frigate 50 -99 decks max damage cap is 50
Frigate 100 -149 decks max damage cap is 75

now each one has its advantages and disadvantages. firstly however when you level you should only worry about 2 stats.
Engineers and tactical officers. when you level put 3 in tactical and 2 in engineers. continue this until you have around 200 base energy then focus on tactical officers. Every level from then on your attack will rise by a minimum of 10 points. 12 if you have the racial bonus.

while the scout has a low damage cap its weaknesses were mentioned earlier hard to find planets and vunerable to hacks.
the light figate gives you a little more space to move and you can off set the higher damage cap with hull modules. but this allows some room for scanners or cloak the two most important mission for you to finish at low level are the zolazin mission that gives the zolazin jammers best cloak modules in the game and at low level the 80 cloak for 20 space is not bad. the second mission is the stryll one that gives you styrll transponders. again 20 space but you get 40 scan and 40 defence. the 40 defence is not important but the scan is good ratio.

the frigate is what I have decided to sit at 75 damage cap offset by added hull. and you are still taken down in similar ammount of hits if you balance your hull right. however at level 55 you should finish the genetarr mission that gives genetarr transmitters. all 4 over level 55 give a total of 80 energy and 220 scanning. this opens up about 100 planets and gives you a defence against casual hackers. works out to be a good balance. of course your attack will be still good as all your rank points go into tactical officers.

well have a play and i hope this helps remember to try new things and discover your own balance

In the April patch, the damage ceiling is changed!
Now, the damage limit is half your rank + 19, if its higher than half your decks. So, this strategy is now rendered...useless!
AND i'd gotten to lvl 46 as a scout<grrr>

level 45, I was doing great until the patch, now Its much easier for me to get disabled. I dislike it a lot, planning to give away my good planets and leaving the game, not much to do now.

NOoo!

Blucifer and Pinky, don't give up now! There is plenty you can still do. This is NOT all bad for us scout ships! MadHatred of HC, you too! Don't give up. If you would like, I can discuss some strategies to make the most of this new patch.

Scout monsters are no more, but taking advantage of the damage caps is still a good enough proposition that people out there will still think you're exploiting somehow!!

PM me if you want to hear what I've learned so far.

Ejjakai
The Trust

with the new update scouts cant be that durable like before. now the minimum damage for any scout would be (rank + 19) * 0.5

So a rank 150 will have max damage of 84.. would still be sweet. but not like before.

WTF you have 43x megarich DYSON PLANET, a prime advantage over any scout in the galaxy, DONT QUIT

sorry, i deleted my rant. complaining serves no purpose.

yes i agree this new update bites balls. but it can still work in our favour for small ship builds. we just have to change tactics slightly. for example it only goes up by decks or levels so SLOW LEVEL! also don't waste rank points on decks. you should as a small build get enough artifact points to pick up a ship bot here and there i personally have 33 stashed as i felt bad scrapping them. every second level use one and utilize the damage cap. to its full opportunity. as long as you slow level and stay at the max capacity of your personal damage cap you'll be fine. plus if you have no honest idea how you will cope simply add new hull with the space gained under the cap.

Exactly.

I too had to store away shipbots like nuts in a treehole... . . .

Did you get that one 'just me?' LoL So what the new cap does is basically tell everyone you can add decks up to the same value of the new formula without incurring any extra damage. I just broke rank 100, So my new damage is 60 (boooo) Whereas before it was only 33, and I had 2 nexus hulls which gave me around 1200 hull after racials and such. Now I get shot down in 10 less hits, thats a current savings to my enemy of 50 energy. (BTW, as I've said, The Trust's first policy is the exchange of knowledge and we will gladly share with everyone) So I have to compensate these next few ranks.

Now you can either, continue to avoid decks, and still maximize tactical officers, or increase deck size to match the formula. I'm choosing the latter. So in my 100 rank plus 19 means 119/2 rounded up to 60. So right now, im safe to have up to 120 decks because then the caps are identical. What you can do instead, because the hull to size ratios are so mathematically eloquent, (Dan, a certifiable genius) and since there was no advantage to having more than 2 hulls on a ship until now, is increase decks to match the formula, and install 4 hulls. Mysterious! Granted, based on tech levels youll need to focus more on balancing hull fittings vs your rank, but just start diverting tech elsewhere when your hulls exceed the new formula. LIKE SCANNERS!!! Woohoo! We'll be able to start fitting scanners! By the time I rebalance, which should be in about 12 ranks, i will be able to mitigate damage just like before...

Sorry enemies!! Save those energy cubes!!!

So cheers to an ever-evolving game everyone. Yeah, my scout beast days are over and we're talking about more work for what should just be an awesome game, but if you want to be the best, you'll have to be just a little more vigilant. And I still think small ship tactics is a viable gameplay strategy, even if folks out there think were hiding behind a 'cheap trick'

Good luck folks!

Ejjakai
The Trust

This build has been worthless for a long time.. now Dan has just made it very unattractive and worthless. I have thought long on scout/frigates in this game.. and they fall apart at rank anyway. There is no hacking, no taking really good planets, there is no disabling true high rank ships... with maybe 2500 atk and very limited energy there is no taking out a rank 350 massive star destoyer. With flexibility that same SD can crush you in energy and swap to full defense.. full hulls.. full shields.. you'd be throwing rocks at a wall.. wasting the small amount of energy saved up... hack you mercilessly and kill you at will. The best a small ship can be is an slight pain to a well setup large ship, and that was before the change. Hopefully now more players will not make this mistake.

The only real issue with playing the small card (as i have done) is lack of being able to grow. i love the pvp aspect of the scout build but at the same time the loss of scanning new planets, the ability to exchange mods to ungrey missions just to become Lazuili has an ungrey requirement of 1000 cloak... small ships are fun if the game allowed 2 accounts i would make myself a scout just to drop population on planets and pick on big players but overall i believe after spending my first 100 ranks as a scout ship with 49 decks its not worth it.