I think I figured out the "AI players get starting miniaturization bonus" problem.
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There's a bug that I reported a little while ago that I just realized may be the explanation for why people are seeing AI ships that violate what players of the same tech level can do.
The bug is this: There's no check on pre-designed ships to make sure you have enough miniaturization tech to build them.
As a test, I loaded up a saved game where I had almost all of the techs researched and had both miniaturization improvements built. I then designed a tiny ship with two stingers (stinger II, I think) on it, something that just can't be done without almost all of the miniaturization techs/improvements available. I then saved the design and quit that game, started a new one, made a beeline for the stinger techs, and as soon as I had the matching stinger tech, I could build the ship, even though I had no miniaturization tech, and was cramming something like 24 or 32 spaces worth of components into a 16 space hull.
If the AIs have a list of prebuilt ship designs and some of those designs assume that some level of miniaturization was available, then the AI is probably also capable of building these oversized ships.
The bug is this: There's no check on pre-designed ships to make sure you have enough miniaturization tech to build them.
As a test, I loaded up a saved game where I had almost all of the techs researched and had both miniaturization improvements built. I then designed a tiny ship with two stingers (stinger II, I think) on it, something that just can't be done without almost all of the miniaturization techs/improvements available. I then saved the design and quit that game, started a new one, made a beeline for the stinger techs, and as soon as I had the matching stinger tech, I could build the ship, even though I had no miniaturization tech, and was cramming something like 24 or 32 spaces worth of components into a 16 space hull.
If the AIs have a list of prebuilt ship designs and some of those designs assume that some level of miniaturization was available, then the AI is probably also capable of building these oversized ships.
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