Good news! I was running through the calculations on paper and figured out what my problem was on the ship construction front in the v0.92 update. It turns out I had changed one of the base values in the wrong direction and that is what was capping the number of AI ships in my test games. Anyhow I'm going to build a spreadhsheet at lunch to facilitate new values and I'm fairly confident that I can get the AI building ships in greater numbers and in greater diversity - which will certainly help with expansion. Unfortunately I'm stuck at work so I won't be able to test it out until later.
