What about giving detailed feedback and helping the Developers to sort it out? 

...Maybe the AI just hates me...playing them on Hard and they invade my planets, and wipe out my whole fleet. :/

Playing it on Normal and I basically do nothing and I still win. >.>

To be honest I don't mind having an allied AI who is beaten by my other opponent in a 2v2, it makes me kill 2 strong enemies that is always fun. But having an ally who is so worthless I am getting in a 2 front assault in an hour or so because my other enemy can afford to send huge forces my way because my ally is basically not doing anything is a problem, he cannot even keep the other opponent busy. Unfair is my upper limit, I can defeat unfair opponents in 1v1 and it is fun (I think higher levels are not that much fun because of the extreme slaughter), but I can't do it alone against two opponents in a medium map (I only like to play random medium, medium large maps) where my planets are very far from each other, and starbases are useless even against a medium sized fleet... I don't like starting another game just because my ally is stupid, 2 capital ships in no way will save you, maybe only if your race is the Mass Effect Reapers  .

Big thanks to everyone on the map generation bug feedback!  We now have a decent handle on where to look for what's going on.

As for the AI, if you're playing on Normal I will simply point you to the change logs (where it clearly states they no longer get a resource bonus = easier).  

For those not playing on Normal, I've noticed the same.  I spent much of Friday looking at the AI code which is quite a trip for me.  I've made some tweaks and we're testing them internally now.  

@Yarlen, can you do something about AI colonization? In todays game my ally refused to colonize, he acquired 2 asteroids but failed to send colony ships to 4 other possible planets (volcan, dead asteroid, asteroid and a terran), but he had 2 colony ships at the edge of one of his asteroids.. Slowly he got defeated by attrition as his opponent had all worlds colonized at his part and it was a huge advantage on his side.

AI and the colonization of Volcanic and Ice planets were always problematic as I remember, and it seems it changed somewhat, but allied AI's fail to do the task even nowadays.. Is it about what Goa said somewhere above, that you are making allied AI's weaker? Many games in 1.5 were ruined because my ally was incompetent (and against unfair opponents I can't afford losing my ally too early).. Just interesting don't remeber the same from the previous Rebellion versions.

I was just being sarcastic btw, don't always take me seriously. 

Some random stuff that came into my mind recently about the 1.5 beta version:

Cheaper exploration of planet surfaces and higher chance of finding something- excellent, I do exploration well before late game as now I can afford it

New artifact properties- paired with the cheaper exploration, singleplayer fun factor increased over level9000

Titan research level1-3- it is a magnificent idea to do something about these otherwise boring stuff, they didn't really do anything interesting in the past, but now even the small increases here and there are making me think, yeah it would be good to research titan construction cap levels because they are doing something nice too (even if I am far from actually launching the mega project of a titan-construction queue)

Vasari as balanced as it never were in Rebellion- still the two strongest factions are the VR and VL (it is very very sad ), but they are not that extreme now, thanks for it.

TEC terran pop increase- it is off the charts in awesomeness, with 2 civilian labs I can increase 30% population, cool

TL and it's new early research- I find it quite attractive to research now, it is cheap and gives an edge in experience point collection, good

AR and it's earlier research for the decreased cost of temple of communions- it was a good idea but still, too late I think, level1-2 would be the ideal, because culture is a marginal thing in Sins, and you only need some culture centers to maintain your color on the lines, and it only pays itself back if you build 3 or more culture centers AFTER THIS RESEARCH... risky investment..

Nerfing wail- I haven't tested it myself, but it really seems too much of a correction, it is now a risky move pushing the button on the temple of communion as even higher population planets do little damage..

AR and the plasma upgrade from the titan research- really? why? why plasma? It would be really awesome if it was +20% (or even higher) psionic surge attack rate or damage instead.. Plasma seems to be a useless addition, only helpful when you are using heavy cruisers... if you want to build them.. other bigger things rarely use them as main weapons (except the starbase, maybe it was the reason for it? yeah it should be)

Range increase of flak frigates- ... one step on the right path, but still it is very small adjustment, they need way more love to be able to handle late game bomber swarms, maybe something high level research allowing them to use some kind of mass control ability? slowing them down, damaging them, slowing their weapons, messing with their targeting computer (chance to hit decrease) etc etc, many good ways of enhancing these ships.. But it is a good change, could be more, but good.

New planet textures- yeah awesomeness level off the charts, I hope their polar regions will get as nice as the other parts.. The desert planet has way too much city light I think.. Same goes for the dwarf planet, who the hell wanted to live there in high numbers? even making cities there?? funny. The terran lights are weird, many does not match the landmasses.. I hope these are just previews to please people, and in the final 1.5 version they will be complete as possible

Changing the solar system travel research place to be 1 step later- well I did not expect that, but I'm sure there was a reason for it, though I don't really understand why..

I know but still.. it is strange that mainly my allies suffer from being incompetent and not the opponents..

Unfortunately when it comes to the AI, there's only a small number of 'knobs' I can adjust.

Well I must say after the 2 hard fights in my current game the AI did not attack any more, too.

And I can second the colonize problems of the AI. In my first game one of my AI opponents had several systems but almost all had no colonies.

And it seems that the AI has problems with random attacks. I have TEC loyalists and this Tier 8 civ research that some rebels attack my opponents randomly. The AI was not able to defend against those, and was not able to counter them.

To be fair, when the AI actually gets that high in the tech tree sometimes I don't defend against them either. There's been times where I finish a bit fight, zoom out and start examining my Empire, and go "Huh, why don't I own that asteroid anymore. I don't remember any Novaliths firing. Oh, there's a bunch of insurgents there!".

Well for a human I can understand that, but some of the AIs had them in several systems and they were destroying everything. At least the AI will know everything that happens. But it lacks the ability to repel it. Could be a reason why in my other game the AI had almost no colony left. It owned the system, had buildings left, but at some corner always were some rebels.

Been playing around with the beta a bit- love what's been done with artifacts. a few of them still feel underwhelming though:

 This one feels really underwhelming.  The primary gate on research most of the game is research cost, not time.  The previous effect actually IMO was stronger then the current one.

I'd say add back in a 25-30% discount on research costs at the very least- it's going to take a significant discount for competitive players to purachase anything beyond bare-bones prototype & major gamechanger techs.

[

This one doesn't feel all that great either- the likelihood that a 33% phase charge time will save a ship or allow a successful pursuit seems fairly small.

maybe add in the old modifier(faster phase lane travel speed) as well?  Between faster charge time and faster travel speed your pursuing ships might actually be able to show up in the new well at about the same time as the ship they are chasing and your fleeing ships will gain a significant lead on pursuers.

When it comes down to it, raising relationship is tedious and the benefits aren't really worth the effort.  The +4 immediate relationship boost has potential(if it were larger), but the latter part isn't really all that necessary.

That said, I'm sad to see the artifact moved away from culture.  yes Culture also sucks, but I loved the old idea behind Manifest Dominion even if it's reality fell flat.

 This one sounds interesting in principal, but in reality it's usually not very hard to find a safe place in a given well to bombard from.  if it isn't feasible to do so it usually won't be with just 45% extra range(as in this case it's likely there is a large fleet of defenders keeping you away from the planet).

Maybe add in a substantial bonus to planetary bombing damage- something that makes your fleets a lethal threat to poorly defender worlds if it takes the defender awhile to field a defending fleet.

The rest seem pretty powerful- but I generally feel dissapointed when I get the "a powerful artifact has been discovered" message then see one of these artifacts- especially Data Archive.

Again though, I applaud the changes as a whole- great to see an effort made towards making searching for artifacts a more strategically viable option.

Um, that's the point. Data Archive was easily the best artifact in the game. If they gave it an equally good effect the other artifacts would never catch up to it. And there is no previous effect, those changes are IN ADDITION to, not REPLACING the old effect.

Ah, failure at reading comprehension on my part then- I'd thought these new effect replaced the old ones.

Any idea when a patch with the tweaked AI will be released?  Please don't say on June 5! 

• Jump Drive Relic - Now makes all ships immune to phase jump inhibitors.
  
  Now, I primarily play against the AI, and I don't think I've ever seen the AI build a PJI, so just how useful is that gonna be?. I usually don't end up building that many, either.

They build them, its just less likely you'll need to retreat against the AI.

They definitely build them at higher difficulties. With the Unfair AI I've even seen a lot of redundant PJIs at heavily fortified planets.

I'll second this. The AI, on hard at least, make pretty liberal use of PJIs. Especially if there is a starbase present.

...Maybe the AI just hates me then...played on normal and multiple factions were ganging up on me and tearing through my defenses, WTF? lol

Which makes no sense because usually I'm the one tearing through all of the planets with my fleet...ON HARD. >.>

But now my fleet is like...dying. o_0

You need to stand up and simply state, "This! Is! Sparta!!!!" and the problem should fix itself.

Meh, just need to come up with a new strategy, gonna go back to Advent...I'm able to make a good planetary defense with them anyways.

But yeah, to the devs, they should really make a restriction to the cannons. Like, 1 per faction or something...or have the option to turn them off. Because when AIs start to spam them and they all aim towards me (seriously, lol) it becomes a pain, especially when its the TEC and Vasari. (The Kostura cannons were actually DESTROYING all of my structures at some point. o_0)