[Jourin]

God Emperor, I agree with some of your statements. If you research troops, you should always research Troop weapons 3. I have added that to all the AI research queques. The same is true for mines and explosive warheads. If you research mines you should always research explosive warheads 3 - I added that to the AIs research files.

Armor is a VERY good AI choice. Both Chemistry and Physics cost the same, but level 3 armor is cheaper than level three shields. Also is smaller ships, four armor can fit in the place of one shield generator.
Space is very critical on smaller vessels and 4x10 armor components are more flexible than 1 x 40 shield generator.

Since I normally research physics 2, get phased polaron beam 3 that skips shields I usually destroy all AI ships.

I have tied armor 3 to chemistry 1 and move that ahead in the AI research queques and then replaced armor in place of shields for a small attack ship design.

I added a new ship design called small attack ship and increased the minimum tonnage on the default attack ship. Now I face a mixture of ships that cause me problems. I still need the phased polaron beam to fight the large ships with shields, but I also need another weapon for the small ships with armor. Now instead of just massing against one ship until destroyed, I usually send my missiles after the armor ships and save the phased polaron for the shield ships.

I good mixture of armor and shields on every ship design would be the best option.