Okay, I have a "stock" AI_D_C that seems to work for all the normal races (haven't tried with Ancients yet, and won't until we get the normals at least done enough to play with). Still no armor, though. I don't want to add ability tags to armor unless I have to, because that will make the AI_D_C even more complex (we will be talking about a dozen or more special abilities per ship type). However, if that's what I gotta do...
I have left max engines at eight for all ship sizes so the human (or an AI that has some space left over) can add engines to create a slightly faster ship. Colony ships are still gonna be limited by the size of their colony modules to half the normal ship speed, though, unless anyone wants to argue that they shouldn't be!
Path, one of the things I had to do to AI_D_C to get decent transports, sat layers, etc was limit the hull ranges for the auxilliary type ships. In fact, what I am going to do is change the transport types to "off size" x50 ships to make the AI stop using warship hulls for transports. Merchant hull as half as expensive the way I have things set up, and require only half the crews of a warship. Right now, I don't see any call for a repair ship in the AI_C_V files, and I am not sure the AI would know how to use them. Any ideas on this? It would be cool if it does use them, but in games where I have built them to test the idea, they just sit on the homeworld.
Boy, TNZ, this engine mod you suggested (implemented a bit differently than you suggested, but still the basic idea you proposed) has solved a whole raft of problems. The jump gate component no longer needs the "normal ship movement" ability and that has solved a grunch of problems in the full-tech design system (and thus the late-game design system). I cannot believe I suffered from this problem for over a year and the new CompEnhance system was available all that time!
Next step are the components. Anyone have strong feelings either way about the Bridge, CC, and LS components being hullsize-based as the engines are now? I was not going to implement this (the need doesn't seem to be there except in the very smallest ship sizes, and it could change the damage profile for the largest ships) but if anyone strongly wants to see this, now is the time to say so.