While playing Version 28.8.0 I noticed that the Hard AI, TEC, Had some troubles establishing their economy. Some observations were:

• it took a 43 minutes to research Orbital Commerce, and for the rest of the 2 hour game they only had 1 trade port across six planets. With the trade port being a crucial part of the TEC economy this had the effect of severally stunting the AI's economy.
• Additionally The AI would routinely toggle off Trade points and leave them unutilized for several minutes at a time.
• The AI appeared to spend more planetary civilian slots with research labs than it had the economy to support. The AI was clearly prioritizing obtaining research points at the expense of the economy provided by trade ports.

Suggestions for the AI to improve their economy:

• Orbital Commerce needs to be researched before Civilian II
• At least one trade port per large gravity well, hopefully more.
• priorities limiting resources in the trade exports and apply as many points as possible at all times. 

Other observations about AI Fleet management compared to 28.7.

The good:

• AI fleet stayed to protect their home world.
• Willing to escape to hostile planets: This caused a very enjoyable dilemma for me as I had to split my fleet in order to corral them out of my space.

Potential Improvements

• Utilize scouting information and priority planets with little to no fleet.  As long as my planets had some basic defenses my space was only attacked when I accidently forced them to run into my space. If there is a way to for the AI to consider how long it would take to jump to the planet; They could take more opportunities to damage my economy or at least stall my rapid and reckless expansion.

Thanks for your hard work, I have been enjoying my time with your game so far.