[Captain Kwok]

Thanks Raapys for the detailed description.

The AI is setup to research 1 tech in each area (cultural, theoretical, applied, weapon), so it goes for normal weapons until it opens up the racial weapon area. In other cases, the racial AIs research some of the normal techs for unit weapons like Rocket Pods. Some times its just on purpose, for example the Cue Cappa are intended to use the APB in addition to its Psychic weapons - its a part of the attempt to differentiate the races.

Early defense ships tend to use missiles until the race opens up other weapon areas. Since defense frigates are small, they are only able to add a single missile, but will a pair of weapons if possible.

I have plans to design a ship scraping minister to get rid of ships/units that are over X age. Not sure on the time frame though.