I found that if I predesign ships then the ministers will buiild them (no fooling you say). But, as you said, it is getting late and my brain is addled. Will work on this more tomorrow (yawn). Try to keep track of any edits you make to the mod files (esp the AI and components) so we can try to repeat any success you have had. So far I have seen the AI in my test game build bases, but no ships as of yet. I have tried to lower the min speed for some vessels to 1. I think I will edit the fission engines tomorrow (or is that today??) and see if that works. Else I will try to add a new engine type and see if the AI will use it!
Thanks again
Go get some sleep.