[Mephisto]

> 1) The Earth Alliance Construction_Vehicles file contains a Planet per Item value of 1 for Weapons Platforms in the Exploration Category (ie 10 WP's per planet!). As early on it is difficult to actually fit 10 WP's on each planet, the EA wastes a lot of time and resources trying to build WP's to satisfy the rule (frequent "No Storage Available" Messages).
> The other categories, however, have Planet per Item settings of only 5 (2 WP's per planet) which is ok. Hence, once the EA switches out of Exploration mode, it is no longer hampered.

Early on there are only small WPs and you need many to put up a good defence. After the AI makes contact it will rarely if ever fall back to exploration state.

> 2)What is the rationale for researching armour ahead of shields? In all playtesting I have done, it is abundantly clear that the AI does much better if it has shields early on.

Armor is quite good IMHO. It is cheap, easy to research and fills up the AI ships where a shield generator cannot. This is especially true for the smaller ships.

> 3) Shields has been placed 10 entries after Physics. Whats the story? Shields should either follow directly after Physics, or Physics should be lowered so that it is only four above Shields. This sort of research queuing really hampers the AI early on when it is up against a human opponent.

Physics is also required for energy weapons which the EA is researching after physics. If you research shields you should research them up to 5 or not at all as the “inferior” armor has a much better damage ratio then low level shields.

> 4) Troop Weapons has been placed 8 entries after Troops (and with the 500k Ice Colonisation tech in between).
> Again, Troop Weapons should either follow directly after Troops, or Troops should be lowed so that it is only four above Troop Weapons.

Who needs weapon on troops? No one. The Ai does not use troops but troops provide a morale boast, with and without troop weapons.

> 5)The Toron DesignCreation file requires that their ships be equipped with capital missiles, but, they only research missiles above level 1 at the end of their research queue. I suggest that if missiles are to be retained in their DesignCreation file, that the Toron Research file be adjusted to ensure that they progressively research missiles, rather than do it all at the end of the game.

The Torons are designed to use the capital ship missile until they research their weapons of choice. You need some weapons even in early ships so why should I don’t use missiles?
The Last lines for research are “catch all”s to prevent the player from making tech deals with the AI. Just that simple.