I never know if I should use the forum, or the ticket system for these AI problems...  anyway, hopefully, someone will notice.

They obviously forgot to program some AI logic like this:

For all ships whithout task:

- Is it a planet buffing ship?

- No: go on with normal ship logic

- Yes: Is ship already in orbit of a planet that profits from buff?

- - Yes: do nothing (or look for a better planet within a certain range)

- - No: find planet that profits the most from buffing within a certain range (to prevent the ship from travelling 50 turns and squandering the buff meanwhile)

Or perhaps they have the logic but it doesn't work. Above pseudo code fails if ships are automatically given a default task (like scouting) on creation.

If they forgot the logic I presume the probability for a fix is low. If it's just an error a fix is more probable.

It happens in every game, without fail.

It happens without fail in every game. AI always uses government ships to explore instead of using the boosting capabilities and it (AI) NEVER employs planet boosting mercenaries in their primary role. The Merc colony ships have become an extra resource for the human player, with retribution's lower limit on growth that has become a major plus for the human on games at lower than genius settings.

I just made sure this is in our tracker. Hopefully, we can get this issue fixed in a future patch. Thank you for reporting it everyone.