They might also not be using energy weapons with intensifiers. Either way, if you want space combat where you can have a choice between missiles or energy weapons, along with a more challenging AI you need to use the Combat rebalance mod by Aitarus. 

I don't know about that one.
Played vs vaulters today who had Tier 1 attacker ship dish out tons of damage vs my Vodyani ships whos been pitched with best mods mods aaaand thanks to game difficulty managing(a.k.a. %TONS FIDSI bonus) they just spam those.

If you come across any situations in which the AI seems to have absolutely terrible designs, don't hesitate to share the save here. The AI team would probably be interested in seeing if anything actually went wrong, or there's an outside factor explaining it.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

If you come across any situations in which the AI seems to have absolutely terrible designs, don't hesitate to share the save here. The AI team would probably be interested in seeing if anything actually went wrong, or there's an outside factor explaining it.

Can i have a small insight on vaulters ships?
All base AI i played before had equal to me (judging by combat power) on normal difficulty, but vaulter, daum those guys had 250 damage with a great defensive stats.

Neron that also begs the question of what battle card you were using with what tactics and also how experienced your crew is,,   Also whether you've equipped missles or beams, and what your ene,my has.   This is matters because sometimes a 40/60 combat power you v them get a win using proper tactics and lanechoice.  

I believe enemy ships had all energy defence/all projectile(missle+kinetic) offense. My ships had 1 shield/all hull defense modules and all kinetic weapons.
I was using extra hull absorption tactic.
Reason i lost was because enemy ships somehow had more power and defense than i did and i am pretty sure it is because of extra fidsi bonus on endless difficulty which led to them having opened extra slots for 3cp ships and better weapon modules.(and the fact that they were vaulters they had no problems spending titanium/hyperium to modify ships)

My problem is that the AI very frequently sends their forces at me piecemeal once I've broken their main fleets.   They'll end up attempting to break a blockade over a system under invasion with a fleet that can't possibly win.

Overall, though, I'm very happy with the AI.