Well I guess I'm not the only one.　I'm still curious about why this is though.

Yeah I think what the AI needs for research is a to-do list.  Also, there are a couple of rules of thumb that I tend to use.

For example, if a particular tech that I want would take longer to do than the next pure research tech (which gives improved research facilities) I do pure research first.  This means that, while I research that awfully long tech, I am upgrading at least some of my research facilities so that when I'm done the other things which have had to wait will go quicker.

Also, when research is finished on things like miniaturisation, weapons, and HP-bonus components, it's important to check and see if you can make a ship design that does more or less the same as an older ship, but using a smaller hull.  Smaller hulls cost slightly less to make, and don't use as many logistics points.  Big fancy warships take longer to make and may not be effective as a low-tech design that can simply take more punishment.

I agree w/ the poster 100% about researching defences. The computer always far surpasses me in weapons research (they have graviton drivers and phasors while I'm still messing around with basic rail guns), yet I can still come out on top in most conflicts because defences are so quick to research, and yet the AI never bothers with it.

Re: Zyxpsilon: that's one view, but when gal civ2 first came out the developers made a big deal about the AI opponents having a human-like feel about them. 

I feel that the AI needs a few ships behind the front lines watching out for fast enemy transports.  Sending wave after wave of attacking ships is all very fine and efficient, but if there's a possibility of losing planets then it's quite possible for the war machine to lose some essential components like money and production.

It seems to me they just put all they ships on auto-attack. because I see like 10 fleets rushing after 1 target when they only need like 2 and could have the other 8 attacking that battleship I have coming their way. yeah I put a bunch of my ships on auto-attack just to see what happens... they all went after 1 target skipping up closer targets I was like WTF!

So instead of the computer researching techs by the whatever has a high <AIValue> tag they could actually research things that they need. Because at the moment all I see them research mostly is weapon techs resulting in the current scenarios.

This thread is screwed up in IE7, could a moderator please fix? I had to use FF to post this, I assume the problem is the OP was posted having used M$ Word html.

I have the AI build defenses on their ships. I do play challenging/tough, with "Force AI to use max CPU" enabled. Just the last game I played, the AI managed to counter my ships using lasers with the deflectors.Or, are you talking about later in the game, with larger vessels that are essentially all attack?

And this is something that really needs to be done, make the races more like their ethos. I am sick and tired of the Altarians declaring on me.

I think that the AI should be able to change to a more appropriate tech in wartime if what they are researching now is going to take longer than ten turns to complete, unless they have an edge in weapons and defence technologies.

Also, it needs to be realistic about how likely ships are to survive one round of combat with those added defences.  A single defence module with the ability to block one point of damage per round just isn't going to cut it on a ship with very few hitpoints, unless the enemy has very small fleets of pop-gun fighters.  Typically when I design low-end fighters it's with just a single weapon and some life support if necessary, because if they're vaporised in the first round then very little production has been lost.