AI Cheating?

There is a random event giving you such a ship (maybe the event gives you more than one, I don't know).
It can also happen to you gaining such a great ship.

There are random events that occur in which a "ranger" class starship is found. (there are other designations depending on size of ship)
Old precursor technology.
It various from fighters to a battleship.

The AI does not cheat until painful and above.
Since its a random event - in which luck helps -, any of the AIs or player may get one or more during a game.
Weakness - slow slow slow.
High dmg with armor defense only.

i never had a precursor battleship

same.

and there should also be an announcement saying: "so and so had found such and such"

I had a random event giving me 2 precurser corvettes, so you can get more than 1 ship in these random events

It's a bit of bad luck, but it isn't cheating. It is entirely random (though I suspect that effects like this depend a lot on your relative strengths in the game). I was loosing miserably in my first game on tough. The Arceans were dominating the galaxy, and controlled over half the map. Just me and a couple of other civs dying off fast stood against them. My fleet was all dead, and the Arcean transports were closing on my homeworld.

Then, I uncover a Precursor Ranger. It destroys the Arcean fleet near my planets. It takes a lot of damage though, so when the next fleet arrives it is toast. But that little time was all that I needed. I had just developed Nano-Rippers (this was 1.0X when they were REALLY overpowered). The war turned on that moment, and after many years of hard fighting, the Arceans were destroyed. But if it hadn't been for that Ranger...

So... it's a bit of bad luck. On the positive side, once you've destroyed those two ships, they can't build any more. Hope you have better luck than the Arceans had against me...

I had a random event giving me 2 precurser corvettes, so you can get more than 1 ship in these random events

They always give either 2 corvettes or one ranger. These events usually happen to the race with a weak military.

Okay... I guess I can accept getting stomped by a random event...

thanks for the info...

I got two rangers once. They were a life-saver defense-wise, but not as helpful for offense since they are so slow.

As far as getting an announcement somenon has found a Ranger, I think the "announcement" is when it appears in your sensor range and then begins blowing up your ships. I'm sure that any military would want to keep such a find as a "secret weapon" until the point it is being used.

They always give either 2 corvettes or one ranger. These events usually happen to the race with a weak military.

I think the first or second game I played, I took lucky as a race trait, and I got the "found Ranger" event five times... (I tend to focus on the economy and have a spectacularly weak military)... so those Rangers pretty much kept me in the game, allowing me to eventually survive to a tech win. Now I am starting to realize that this might have been a fairly unusual game... heh.

They are a dominant ship, but very slow, which is OK if you are on the defense.

There are random events that occur in which a "ranger" class starship is found

This is your answer the AI did not cheat, it was just a very, very lucky AI.

never had a precursor battleship

Neither have I and I have played nearly 20 games!

Stardock can we have random events back please? They r as rare as gold dust now!

Look at the hull size of the ranger
That is a battleship.
It's just called a ranger instead of battleship.

Random event. One game I got 3 "Lucky Rangers" myself. I chose the luck attribute as well that game. I believe you will be informed of such random events for other races if you know about the planet it happened on. I have seen the random event for covettes happen for the Torians one time. They got 30 of them! Luckily it was later in the game and I was able to wipe them out but man they raided the heck out of my trade routes until I caught them all.

They r as rare as gold dust now!

Did you know that there is gold in water?