[Taqwus]

One improvement would be if the fighters didn't go tearing off towards the enemy until all were launched, or other ships on the same side do. Going piecemeal is a good way to get diced... especially against a PD-heavy fleet, because PD now targets a finite number with high precision (an alternative: PD fires w/ fairly low probability to hit, but for EVERY incoming seeker/fighter). But for now, fighters are much more potent massed, and with a keen eye on enemy PD count.

If it could hide its attitude, it'd also gain a bit methinks; right now, once your score hits 500k+ (possible to do quickly even w/ a single armed ship, if you go econ-happy), you know that you still haven't tripped 'evil empire' status until they go Murderous -- and once they do, you still have a few turns warning methinks. Add an Intel op to discover their "true" impression if need be; you may *think* they like you, but... I'm also tempted to think that the racial traits maybe should be hidden, which would slightly help AIs since people are much better at deducing a possible playing style from the traits...

I suspect the AI may not analyze ships as often as it should; saw a fleet running around w/ Org-6 weapons, and a ship that I'd captured and gave to them, that IIRC had Org-10 weapons. Hyper-plasma V, anyway, versus the much worse Lightning Ray III. Something to check for whenever it receives a ship that's a gift, or it captures one. A bit odd, since analyzing for a new tech is usually a plus. If it doesn't have any tech you can't learn (e.g. you've gotten a ship w/ WMGs and a Talisman, and you're not religious... might actually want to keep it, then), then it's almost certainly a plus, unless you're absolutely, critically low on resources and you'd prefer to scrap it.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night