This has existed since Crusade was launched.  I made a post in March about it and other bugs and how long ago I created support tickets about the problems.

They do exactly that.

At some point, I'll look to verify this.  I'm not sure why the AI would have some different system for freighters than other ships.   I doubt it makes much of a different one way or the other (I have thousands of hours in it and never noticed it).

I see it every game as well.

Every game, every place I go, I see a freighter.

To add in, yes it happens all the time.  The AI respects range and FOW for all but freighters.  I would not go so far as to say they "scout" with them, they have sensor range 2 (default) but they always go for long-range planets (which they should not know about), and revealing the FOW along their paths.

I have noticed what appears to be the AI cheating with sensors repeatedly. When they have a ship or fleet with very low sensor range they always find my survey ships regardless of how I move away from them. They could be a couple hexes from my ship and have 3 or 4 more movement than mine but find me regardless of how I fly off and turn later.

Still love the game.

Sorry, but I bit my tongue on this for the last 24 hours and it just kept making me madder and madder. So at the risk of getting myself banned, I'm going to reply to this post, with my honest reaction:

LOL! I haven't touched this game in many months, and yet it's stupidly obvious to me just from reading this thread that of course this bug would make a huge difference, given that Freighters are used for scouting now. Maybe it's not quite game-breaking, but combined with everything else on the first page of the GC3 Support forum right now, I would never even consider firing GC3 up again any time soon. I wish I could - I would LOVE for it to be playable. But I doubt it ever will be, in part due to *attitudes exactly like this* from the person who's supposed to be in charge of it.

Keep in mind this is the same person (Frogboy) who insisted for months that Food, and AI use of Food, in Crusade was perfectly fine, despite tons of forum posts to the contrary. I was actually quite stunned and shocked when I read an Intrigue preview article a couple months ago where he stated the opposite, so I guess I should give him some credit for that, but it doesn't, in my opinion, change the underlying problems of stubborness and a, to me, disturbing level of being oblivious.

Then there's the thing where Frogboy said he wanted a better version of preview numbers in the Ship Designer, that account for something they don't currently account for, or something - I forget exactly. But he said he'd asked the GC3 team to work on this specific item several times in the past, and... apparently that was just that? There was nothing more he could do? I have never understood that, and never will. If I were CEO, and I wanted something specific like that improved, I would order the team to do it, and it would get done in a matter of days. Period. I would never found, setup, or join a company in the first place where a project's lead designer (and AI programmer) couldn't issue that order. Sorry for this random extra paragraph, but it's yet another thing about Frogboy that bothered me and I just remembered it while writing this post.

Is this bug tied in with an issue I have - that AIs seem to be able to build One Per Galaxy Wonders really quickly??

And, wasmguy, good point about the 0 population. They do still colonize so far as I can tell, I think Stardock have let that error keep existing rather than some "magic teleport 1m population to the Freighter That's Now A Colony Ship" thing.

Edit: An AI Civilization was able to build the Paxton's Emporium in 16 weeks - okay, maybe they rushed a factory to help with production and had a Worker Citizen, but what I'm getting at is that the fast building of One Per Galaxy Wonders always happens.

Can't be that I'm no good at 4X. You say that to me on this forum in a dream, you better wake up and post on here to apologize...

There is a reason you do not notice it. The stupidly high range on Components, the high Range bonuses from techs and the fact you most likely play map sizes large or smaller (pre 3.0 map nerfs) and it is actually un-noticable because everyone has stupidly high range and can go anywhere on the map only using inital life support modules or maybe tier 2 at a push, which in itself makes all the techs there after pointless. But thats another debate tbh. This is only made worse with the 3.0 Map nerfs due to them been smaller it will be even more un noticable. Cause you know, smaller maps, but no changes to life support to compensate. At this rate you should just do away with life support.

Side note if you actually read or look at the evidence provided here you would see its not limited to freighters.

I think I have another example.  About turn 14 or 15 a Drengin survey ship popped up in my territory (I think because it explored a wormhole) and they declared war on me the next turn despite being "out of our travelling range".  The survey ship has a range of 42, which is less than half the distance back to Drengi, yet instead of heading back to its territory it is hanging around my home system trying to chase down my colony ships and constructors.

What level of difficulty are you playing where you get DOW'd so early? This seems nuts tbh!

When I start building a Galactic Wonder, suddenly another civ finishes it a couple turns before mine is done.  Sometimes I hold off on building one just to see if the AI will do it before me.  Sometimes they do, but a lot of the time they don't.  Get that feeling that the AI looks at what I'm building, then commands the civ with the best chance on finishing it before me to start the same thing.  Seems to happen too often to be coincidental.  Could be that I'm a crazy looking for a conspiracy also. 

If this is just the way they programmed the game, then it is what is it.  I'm not quitting because of it or super long range freighters or different food system.  I'll just have to be more creative and adapt.  Like quit forgetting I started a super project and quick build it when I have the funds.