[cybersol]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
The three objectives:

• To maintain compatibility with existing AIs.
• To improve the balance of the game, and increase the effective number of strategic options.
• To make as small of a change as possible to the stock game.

First of all, this is a great idea SJ. I believe as long as you stick to the above objectives this will be a unique and valuable mod to the community. I think the uniqueness comes from maintaining compatibility with existing AI's.
I also believe another objective is compatible with those above and has already come out of the discussion so far (regarding armor).

• To enhance the strategic options available to AI designers in the future.

Potential enchantments to AI strategic options:

• As mentioned previously, the inability to add normal armor to AI designs in the exact amount desired is particularly annoying. Rollo’s solution to always have normal armor as the “latest” is the most desirable, but another possibility is to give normal armor an unused ability like “ancient ruins” and then AI designers could call specifically for that ability is the misc. section.
• The ability to call for resupply depots both on a system wide basis AND an individual planet basis. Since the “supply generation” ability is the one that is system wide, this can be accomplished by adding a second ability like “emergency resupply”. The AI designer could request “supply generation” for a system wide resupply depot and “emergency resupply” for a specific one (say on that construction yard planet).

Additionally, I’m sure there are others out there who know of more minor changes along these lines that would help future AI designs without affecting the stock game in any way.