[Taqwus]

Not sure how much this will help, but here's what I noticed in my Last game --

* They go for phased-polaron beams, so you might not worry too much about shields until you get phased variants.

* They built a fairly large number of mines, but never used 'em...

* If you attack one of their worlds, they may employ
- Missile satellites.
- Missile/PD WPs.
- PPB WPs.
- Fighters -- a mix between rocket pods and conventional. (OTOH, I don't remember carriers in their attack Groups).

* They don't seem to go for solar collectors or QR early (e.g. my game Lasted almost 300 turns, in 255 systems, and my race was the only one with 'em) so their fleets have limited range.

* Their larger ships tend to include minesweeping components. If you don't use mines, that space is wasted. OTOH, if you're up against smaller, older ships, mines work well -- I once destroyed a fleet of 15 Rage ships (~LC size) that way. They also use a fair bit of PD, so missiles don't work that well against 'em. PPBs do...

* Their counter-intel isn't always that good. If they're blockading you, CI-ing their ships is a good idea. So is comm mimic to get them into war with somebody else.

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night