What is the AI auctually capable of?

[Llamatoesl (OP)]

I've seen the AI do some quite odd things. vessels flushing their entire magazines in the middle of a protracted battle, or some AI freighters sit (with full cargo) for five years.
Although I have seen some interesting stuff-. I was sending a TG (with mild damage) to inspect a precursor planet. they were intercepted midway through, and as I made for the exit, no shots were fired.
I knew that the vessels that were chasing me had missiles with a sufficient range,but I simply was not fired on.
Or  In a Swarm system, I had 50 soldiers coming after me I dealt with them, leaving them either destroyed or disabled and moved onto the queen . She had kept 20 soldiers in reserve, so when I came near I was dogpiled I was surprised, and my main Swarm strategy involved taking them down at extreme range with missiles. I lost the entire TF.
Do any of you have any odd/brilliant things the AI did to share?

[Haji]

I have once seen an AI do something very interesting - and then screwing it up. I have entered an enemy star system with quite large fleet, but of course there were the transit effects to deal with. Twelve enemy ships have begun firing their Gauss cannons at me, dealing huge damage to my armor. I was ready to lose half my vessels, but the enemy just moved away and begun using his missiles. The problem was, my warships had not only heavy armor, but also a lot of Gauss cannons of their own, and in the end I have suffered no loses. If the NPR continued to use his point defense offensively, this would have been a great battle, but as it is I killed them all without much problems.

Another interesting thing was me trying to intercept a group of twenty some colony ships. They were slightly faster than my warships and I was hoping to use my Gauss cannons against them to conserve munitions. I've got my wish - because the NPR decided to try and ram my forces. Surprisingly it took two such colony ships (each massing twenty five thousand tonnes) to destroy a single destroyer escort massing thirteen thousand tonnes. I think collision damage needs some recalculating. After all, a FAC traveling at ten thousand kps slamming into a target deals only twenty points of damage, which is not much.

[Wolfius]

I have once seen an AI do something very interesting - and then screwing it up. I have entered an enemy star system with quite large fleet, but of course there were the transit effects to deal with. Twelve enemy ships have begun firing their Gauss cannons at me, dealing huge damage to my armor. I was ready to lose half my vessels, but the enemy just moved away and begun using his missiles. The problem was, my warships had not only heavy armor, but also a lot of Gauss cannons of their own, and in the end I have suffered no loses. If the NPR continued to use his point defense offensively, this would have been a great battle, but as it is I killed them all without much problems.

Not neccessarily dumb; a jump point assault can be expected to have some warships with beam weapons, and a dedicated beam combatant will generally tear missile ships apart in CQB. So pulling away before your sensors come back online makes some sense.

Either choice is a gamble, if you don't know what the enemy is packing.

[Haji]

I consider it stupid for two reasons. First, the enemy begun to move away immediately, firing only a single Gauss cannon salvo at me. Considering the NPRs don't suffer penalties for inexperience and that my ships have made standard transit rather than squadron transit (meaning there was a long delay before sensors and fire controls come online) he could have risked staying on top of me for a minute, which would give him twelve volleys.
Second, as soon as my sensors come online the battle was practically over, as only ten or fifteen AMMs in offensive mode were getting through each salvo (spread ten seconds apart). That wasn't enough damage to get anything done, and the enemy couldn't get out of my own range. That meant his only chance to deal any reasonable damage to my forces was to close to point blank range and use his awesome amount of point defense to melt some of my ships. As it was, the only thing he managed to do was to penetrate armor on one vessel and do some (very little) damage to another.

[Wolfius]

But the question stands; would the AI have actually known any of those details? Would you have had that information in it's place?

I can't remember the last time I've actually seen the AI transit a jump point - suppose that's kind of weird in retrospect, seems they always slip through when I'm rotating my pickets - but I don't recall it telling you what kind of jump the alien race made.

[Haji]

You can tell the kind of jump that was made, by looking at distances. Standard transit will always end up right on top of the jump point, while squadron transit will always end up at a certain distance from the jump point. The distance can be very low, 1 000 kilometers for example, but at maximum magnification you will always be able to tell the difference.

I guess it comes down to the play style. The thing is, if I'm posting my ships at the jump point, close enough to be within energy weapon range, I'm assuming it's do or die for those ships. When an enemy emerges, the pickets are within energy, anti-missile and missile ranges, and there is a very good chance point defense - like Gauss cannons - can get them as well. So I throw everything I have hoping to cripple the emerging vessels before they can recover.