[MisterBenn]

Since AI aggression is mentioned, I'll throw in my experiences.

I have a game in progress with SEV 1.25 and Balance Mod 1.02, playing full AI difficulty and medium bonus. I started one or two systems away from the Jraenar race, who from about turn 5 took a strong dislike to me and have been totally aggressive. They've been sending groups of frigates through regularly, shelled a colony of mine to dust and nearly wiped me out! Only a handful of weapon platforms saved me while I built some more ships.

This fighting has continued for the last 30 turns or so: the Sithrak have joined the war against them, and my home system has been raging with fights between the three of us for ages now! I've seen the Sithrak send many groups of frigates to attack the Jraenar, I saw a 20 ship attack force (frigates, a carrier and a freighter) wreaking havoc against the Jraenar too! Once the Jraenar was beaten back the Sithrak followed them through the warp point and the fight continued.

It's been an excellent game so far! For the first ever time I have actually felt fear at the AIs attacks! Also I've seen some good proof of the AIs abilities:

* Definitely aggressive!

* Good attack ship designs. The Jraenar were using armour and DUCs at first (it was early as I said) but as the fights continued he started to mix in Anti-Proton Beams and improved his engines and armour. Very sensible here!

* Good attack fleet composition - while the AI doesn't seem to specifically create fleets, it does seem to organise its ships into groups well. There are always occasional stray ships, but groups of 5, 10, 20 were common and it's still within the first 50 turns. Often these fleets have consisted of main attack ships with direct fire weapons, and secondary designs with Missiles too, which keeps me on my toes.

So in conclusion I am having a blast! SEV has always been fun in terms of organising your empire, designing ships etc, but now that the AI can put up a fight it's so much better than it used to be since every turn matters!

So I guess yet more thanks go to CK for the Balance Mod! Between the BM and the main SEV patches I really think the game has turned a corner in terms of being fun to play - it's been stable for me for a long time and playing just the single player mode has me hooked!