[jc173]

It's likely a problem with the engine itself. Some of the modpack races have ending queue entries that tell the AI to build multiple attack ships per colony world. In particular in my new game Earth Alliance and the XiChung which both had maybe 15 or so planets but had 50-70 ships each. They were of course running massive losses on their resources. Hopefully they'll fix it so that max maintenance cost flag works again. Not really sure how you else you could ensure a big military buildup without destroying your economy since the sitiuation is very dynamic and varies from game to game.