Ok,
Well here is my frustration at the moment. I'm well in the game (turn 511), so very late game indeed! researched almost everything (I have to say, late game mechanics are a bit boring, just filling in the gaps in research/ culture so strong it swallows up all my rival's planets/ no one dares to declare war/ irritating constructors polluting my territory thereby ruining my tactical view etc. ) and starting to crush my enemies.
My first frustrations with the AI were:
* No fleets forming; I see a lot of one ship fleets floating around but real battle ready groups? No
* AI doesn't seem to care for terraforming. It doesn't seem like the AI is interested in improving planet surfaces thereby improving the quality of the planets and being able to build good improvements like embassies/ migration centre's/ financial sectors etc. What I do see is that because of money problems the AI tends to put planets on money generating, but with that it keeps getting into a vicious circle. (not able to raise money generating buildings, keep setting planets to money generating..etc.)
* AI does not build economic starbases: OK so one of the complaints in beta .82 was that the AI overlooked resources, well they fixed that. The AI now even spends considerable resources plundering that one lonely resource still unmined in my region (even though they probable already have 20 in stock). But what I don't see? Is economic starbases with all the manufacturing/research/ morale and money generating opportunities they posses???
So then what?
Well I'm starting to attack and I suddenly saw the Altarians sending a fleet against me (joy!!) consisting of 7 ships, I am countering them with my fleet of 5 Titans.
Here are the specs:
5 Titans (huge)
1056 beam 1100 missile 550 kinetic/1684 shield, 800 point defence, 832 armor kinetic defence
Total hitpoints 1350 of 1350
vs
6 battleships (large) and 1 ARS ranger
0 beam, 48 missile, 252 kinetic/ 129 shield, 80 point defence, 114 armor/kinetic defence
total hitpoints 735/735
Well that doesn't seem like a fair fight does it from an objective point of view?
To my surprise...my titans were utterly destroyed 
...and I am wondering why???
- Does the automatic ship design not include some spectaculair bonuses that the Altarians do have? (no beam/missile/kinetic support in their fleet so that can't be the problem)'
- In the battle view I see point defence and armor values of the Altarian ships get into the minuses , but besides that not a scratch?!!
- I see dozens of misfires from my beams and missiles, but I can't determine why??? Btw.. I don't like the way missiles are depicted in the battle viewer anyway, they never hit ships just explode somewhere into space even when they do some serious damage
- My race trait even includes the fact that my gunners are well schooled in targetting and aiming (well, maybe they have al become blind), because my death rays are also lighting up the battlefield but never hitting anything
If this is a design parameter, f.i. the other race Does posses some top secret deflecting or super powered armor or gremlins killing your ships weapons or idk!, maybe it would be interesting to make this show up in the tooltip before you decide to attack a fleet because if you just look at the basic parameters, as described above, it's impossible to explain to players Why they lost such a battle???
My guess is , that it is simply a calculating bug: but if so, please look into it, because at this moment it really ruins the fun and game experience.
Hope this helps! Because I really love how this game is shaping up!
Doc
LOL I suddenly read about the stormtrooper kind of accuracy, and the bug in the Altarian tech tree..there's my problem 
PS I stll don't see any advantages from researching soldiering (+10%??) when invading planets, also will the other soldiering bonuses be in beta 6 as well? (f.i. space marines)
