Ya I found the same thing.  Plus Vasari Ra does not work nor Advent Cap upgrades or TEC Nova.. gun, etc.. After months of waiting Nobody debugged this version.

Hard AI gets a credit boost, I think it is 15 for the HW vs 10 for a normal.  Unfair gets 20 for the HW.  I think those are the numbers, but bottom line, YES, they get a credit boost to make them harder.  Play the normal AI if you don't want this.

No clue what you are talking about.  RA works differently now, it is in the patch notes, but you click on the phase gate and click on the "RA" button to summon ships.  It has a cost associated just now. I have used RA a few times in 1.1 already.

Novaliths work fine, I have both used them and had them used on me.  I haven't personally tried Advent Cap upgrades, but I'm not aware of any problem from the people I know who play Advent.

But is the AI as challenging? I remember destroying any opposition without much difficulty on normal settings, and even hard settings  was doable, now I get my ass kicked all the time on hard.

In other words, are you saying that the only difference between normal, hard and unfair is the credit they receive from their planets? No difference in AI coding?

I also find the 1.1 AI to be more challenging (especially on hard & unfair).  Partly, because the game is more balanced now.  But they also improved the AI, altho I can't point to any specific examples offhand. 

I do believe that the only difference between hard and unfair is the degree of the income and resource boost.  But there must be other AI improvement between normal and hard, because prior to version 1.03, hard didn't receive an income boost.

Normal gets 1.5 times our credits, metal & crystal income (1.5X).  So a 50% boost.
Unfair gets 2 times, or double of each (2X). Or, a 100% boost.

I don't play the AI enough to be able to tell if they do anything smarter at higher difficulty levels.  I have noticed improvements in 1.1 overall over older builds.

For those of you who pwn the Normal AI and who are seeking a greater challenge, I'd also like to cordially recommend the online multiplayer component of the game where you can play against real human opponents, have real human teammates, and make online Sins friends.

<----- Unofficial cheerleader for Sins online multiplayer.

So I just finished a battle royale with all AIs on "Unfair" and here is the end game resource breakdown:

I am the red line and those are my vanquished foes.

I would say that if there is a boost it's not that big.

And since they don't keep the boost over time, at the hardest difficulties, I wouldn't call it too unfair

It only matters in the 1'st hour of play, after that the insane AI blows his income on stupied stuff. If you survive untill then you have won pretty much /cry WTB an AI with an iq higher than ants.

Eviliron, Thx.  I assume you were so far ahead in Metal & Crystal; because you went out and grabbed all the Neutral extractors.  Something that the AI is sorely deficient in doing. 

Let me guess: you were playing Vasari, and made a bunch of extra scouts at the beginning?  Which map?

Comparing the two Credits graphs is what exposes the cheat (and the inaccuracy).  Its impossible for the leading credit income 'rate' to not eventually have the greatest income 'from'.  (PS. Again, compare very first readings also.)

After playing awhile with friends vs ai in 2v2v2v2v2 locked team matches, I've come to the conclusion (though I may be wrong at this) that in a locked team, one ai will expand briefly and then focus on nothing but resource and money production and hand it off to the agressive partner to rapidly expand it's fleet.  I may be completly wrong about this, but it's been my observation, that taking out the resourcing companion cripples the agressive partner.