My read of that is just that templates that would affect an allied trooper are cancelled, not that they are considered to have been targeted by the template attack (which it doesn’t specify one way or the other), so from my perspective you’re reading too much into that rule as written. It makes sense to me that every enemy under the template is a “target” in game terms, I’m just annoyed that the rules don’t actually come out and say so clearly, up front, if that’s what is intended.
Underline emphasis mine: https://infinitythewiki.com/Template_Weapons_and_Equipment#Area_of_Effect Area of Effect The Area of Effect of a Template is the area it covers with a single declaration of use. For example, if you declare an Attack using a Template Weapon, all Troopers or targets in Silhouette contact or inside the Area of Effect of the Template are affected by the Attack. Edit: There's also overwhelming circumstantial evidence that all troopers affected by a damaging attack is a target. The rules are very clear that the target that you take measurements to is the Main Target (do a search for that term in the PDF) and in several cases refers to "other targets" in relation to template weapons, such as is the case for Intuitive Attack to name one.
It is not an explicit statement of equivalence, but I feel like the highlighted sections treat them as equivalent classes that don’t need to be differentiated. Interestingly, there is no longer a core “you can’t target allies” rule; all we seem to have are per-skill exceptions with template-compatible wording.
“...all Troopers or targets...” implies two distinct things that are not equivalent? I think the wording quoted actually does more harm than good for the clarity on this rule.
Yes, but if a template can affect non-Trooper elements like an AC2 or deployed mine, the rules could mean you have a Main Target, other targets that are not Troopers, and “Troopers affected by the template” that do not meet the requirement of “targeted by the attack” to limit their ARO options to Dodge, if the intent was such. It could read “...all Troopers and other targets...” but does not.
I think at this point we're all trying to read a bit too much into text that was never meant to be examined so closely. I'm going to bow out of this one, I think.
Other places do not mention Troopers separately. Intuitive Attack just has "Against other targets affected by the Intuitive Attack, it is a successful Roll instead of a Critical."