Bug(?): AI Disregard for Player Satellites

[great.throwdini!]

Is it just me, or ...

In my current game, the hostile AIs seem utterly disinterested in the mining satellites I've populated systems with. I'll set up a ship-based space yard at the heart of system (refuelling off of a sun) and use a small satellite launcher to place mining satellites on the system's asteroid belts. Playing in an ancient sector, this is often upwards of ten belts to a system, so the process takes a while (not being able to deploy single satellites, I have to load one, move, drop one, go back and get another one, etc. -- another issue with the "dump all" aspect of the satellite launch controls).

Anyway, AI-controlled hostiles will pop in and move through the system, ignoring everything of mine in the system. Even after I move my space yard to another to repeat the process, I can watch hostile AI vessels moving through the system but leaving my resource-gathering satellites unmolested.

Anyone encounter similar behavior on the part of SEIV's AI? Are there plans to make the AI more aware of the utility (and fragility) of such remote resource collectors? As it stands, this weakness on the part of the AI pretty much guarantees an uninterrupted supply of materials for my empire, with satellite mining being far more secure than planet-based mining operations that can easily be disrupted when the AI throws a snit fit and obliterates the host colony.