I think it is all right as long as mines are not completely useless against AI, I mean a 100 mines (if it is restricted to that number) swept by 2 large AI transporters could be kinda overpowered and annoying.
I have got another issue now, I am not sure how the AIC community thinks about it, let's discuss...
Personally, I do not like restrictions to players at all, especially for ship designs. I mean, it is ok if it is for roleplaying matters to restrict yourself not to build things like organic armor ram ships, massive remote mining battle stations and whatnot, but I think it could be better to do this on a voluntary basis.I always remove all restrictions to numbers of components (which is almost every component), otherwise I would never build a remote mining station with only 3 miners, or a resource station - as far as I have seen it even has got a restriction to one per unit, it is just a waste in space, so I never build any of them.
EDIT: I have stopped my Last game just because of the annoying restrictions. It has been something like: I need resources, so the research goes for miners III and then battle stations - and crap, restricted to 3 per unit. Next, I have to defend against a mighty neighbor, tried 100 minefields , useless: a 20 ship fleet just sweeps everything without even a damage although they do not carry any minesweepers (a look into the AI hull designs opened my eyes). Next idea: I could defend the WPs with organic ram ships, NOTHING, again RESTRICTIONS, RESTRICTIONS and RESTRICTIONS to RESTRICTIONS.
[ January 21, 2004, 21:00: Message edited by: PsychoTechFreak ]