I was thinking about making some AI improvements but if you are back I will just dump them on you.
Basically I wanted the AIs putting better components on their ships and better facilities on their planets. Like armor, no good reason a large ship shouldn't have 1 Scattering/Stealth/Emissive armor. But its kinda hard to make the AI put on 3 types of armor. So you add them as different abilities; Emissive as armor, Stealth as cloak, Scattering as scanner jammer. You may need to reorder a few components abilities to do it though.
As it is right now I think AIs never build Mineral Scanners, Hybrid Eco - Farms or Radioactives Colliders.
I think the AIs should build cargo facilities with some weapons platforms. If the AI is crapy at attacking why not make it good at defending?
I was also thinking about giving the AI a different ECM/Combat Sensors tech tree that added 40% to each level because the AIs are not training ships no matter how hard I try.
Anyway, its nice to have you back.