All right, I was wrong. Two 30 turn test games reveal that the actual test passes if ALL ACTIVE ships plus ALL ships at top of build queues is greater than or equal to the total number of colonies EXCLUDING homeworlds. Bases do NOT count. I did NOT check to see if mothballed ships would count, but I seriously doubt it. If the test passes then the Colonization minister dispatches a colony ship to the best known colony given the needs of the empire. If the resource balance is good and not much tech is learned, then the highest priority is any known ruins colony. Otherwise the ruins are ignored and the best m/o/r planets are selected from the highest capacity working downwards until the resource balance would be very good given their expected production. Then it tosses in research, intelligence, military installation, construction yards, and resupply depots if they do not yet exceed their quotas. With only 70 of 1200 planets in my nexus central 17 systems colonized, I cannot determine what it would do next. But see my previous map posting in "really big games Version 2" thread where I describe what the AI colonization order OBSERVED was. That was for every planet 100/100/100 mild of the ones available in the nexus. I did not note what allocation was made for colony specialty since it did not matter.

What I did in the earlier tests today was omit all ships except colony from the build queue. I built them, yard bases, and units to see how fast a units only empire could grow. The allocation was as follows
Large Fighters - 10 @ 25kt builds 2/t for 5 turns
Large Mines - 10 @ 20kt builds 3/t for 4 turns
Large Troops - 10 @ 20kt builds 3/t for 4 turns
Large Weapon Platforms - 2 @ 600kt - builds 6t each for 12 turns
Total cargo 1850kt of 2000 for Cargo facility II, or 3000 for III.
Large Satellites - 2 @ 120kt - builds 2t each for 4 turns.

Total average per colony is a lag of 29 + 3 for cargo = 32 turns before productive facilities begin construction. All colonies do units without regard to how many they have produced of each type as selected by the construction minister. The build queue repeats colonizer/ mine layer/ mine/ fighter/ weapon platform/ satellite then some other ship/base about 8 times to entry 122. This gets the units quota scheduled for all new colony as soon as they plant. Shuffling them around is a chore for the Transports minister, but I doubt he is up to it. Mines WILL be picked up by the minelayers VERY slowly then laid on warp points VERY slowly. Troops WILL be picked up by troop ships VERY slowly. I did not have an enemy to use them on. Fighters WILL be picked up by carriers VERY slowly. Satellies WILL be launched on the turn after build. Obsolete weapon platforms will NOT be jettisoned when cargo is full. The AI REPEATEDLY schedules build of units on colonies with no space, resulting in NSA Messages, so that bug/feature has NOT been fixed when under player control with full AI on.

At turn 30 with 62 colonies I was 6 turns behind on units production. Checking back, I had units built for the number of colonies as of six turns ago. So I could keep it up forever if there were unlimited resources. I was utterly bankrupt at 30 if I built yard bases. But at turn 30 with NO YARD BASES and NO shipyards except on the 10 Homeworlds, I got the SAME number of colonies. I was deficit 24k/store 1106k minerals, and deficit 5k with 150k stored in radioactives. So I need some way to create a lag time when no units are built so that colonies will do their facilities instead of units. I have figured out how to do that and simultaneously solve the colony ship pileup problem. I will repeatedly schedule build of just a few attack ships, defense ships, and yard bases with NO colonies or units. After a half dozen repeats then I will schedule build of attack bases and defenses bases, repeated a couple times. Then I do the stellar manipulation, then go back to the top of the queue for colonizers, units, and support ships. I will have the support ships done between the ships and bases and immediately before/after the set to bring them up to quota.

Due to a feature of the AI Design minister working with the AI ship construction minister, you have to REPEAT the calls for any ship/base/unit that you really want built on the current pass through the loop. The reason is simple. When tech is learned that makes a design obsolete, the construction minister removes any scheduled of that design from all queues IF work has not yet started. But the loop has moved onward from the point at which scheduling occured, and there is no going back! Repeating a call in case tech is learned before work starts on an item is a temporary workaround. In the long run what is needed is for the design creation minister to hand an upgraded design to the construction minister and let him REPLACE obsolete entries instead of deleting them

When I get the bugs worked out of my build queue, I will post it along with the map9a I built with a nexus. But until I see the AI doing what I want, I am reluctant to post the map. This is the third big map I have put a few days work on and I want it to be the LAST for a LONG time.