The fleet battle AI needs to learn the phrase: pick on someone your own size!
So two fleets with dreadnoughts engage. You are attacking, and what does your dreadknought do?
It empties its arsenals on 1 or at best 2 medium hulled near-top-of-line enemy ships! This is really a terrible tactic. While your fleet tackles all the enemy small vessels, enemy dreadnoughts sit there safe and sound and pick off your dreadnought one at a time.
And please, if you have a fleet with 5 dreadnoughts, it is so very wrong to see on the open salvo, it wastes all that firepower on medium-hulled under-gunned vessels posing no mortal threats and score only 5 or 6 kills, watch in horror as enemy dreadnoughts sit back and pick off your dreadnoughts.
This is so wrong on 2 levels
1) the threat assessment is wrong; kill off big dangerous ships first; if I am going to lose the engagement because of ship-counts, I rather see 5 dreadnoughts nail some enemy dreadnoughts than NONE.
The truth is, I have engaged in battles with enemy fleets (of the same tech) with and without dreadnoughts. If the enemy fleets have no single dreadnought, my fleet wipe out enemy fleet (with higher logistics count) without losing any ship. If there is even just 1 dreadnought, I watch in horror as that enemy dreadnought goes for my dreadnought first.
2) a dreadnought with attack rating of 200+ should not be wasting its entire salvo on a medium-hulled enemy ship with hp of 25.