Have I read right that in 1.03 the AI will take over from people who disconnect?  Last night it was a 3v3 and during a large battle one of our allies had connection problems and disconnected.  His ships then sat there!

Is it possible to scuttle allied planets so we could expand to his planets and at least continue the fight?  Problem was that he had most of the planets so when he disconnected they were all still populated, it was locked teams and so we couldnt get at the resources.  We consequently lost as it was 3v2.

How do other peopel cope when a major ally disconnects? 

Same goes for pirate bounties.  When a player disconnects the large bounty is still on his head.  The pirates attack one of his planets and kill everythng.  The next time it comes round there arent any buildings there so when the pirates attack they dont kill anything hence the bounty doesnt drop.  This means that for the rest of the whole game that one player is always attacked by pirates unless you match the (usually) very high bounties he has when he quit.