I was seeing these issues as well. However, I found the ship component fix noted in the TA 1.96 change log. As indicated, extract this to the noted directory. This fixes the component issue at least. In the few minutes I tested things, it also appears to have fixed other issues as well. I played a few dozen turns in a new game and now see opponents expanding and colonizing as usual.
I poked around some more and found this was already documented in the TA 1.96 change log along with the fix. As it indicates, just extract the fix to the indicated directory to fix this bug. On a side note, this appears, at least in the few minutes I tested it, to fix another issue being reported - namely that opponents don't do anything (in another thread). Not positive on the latter, yet, but it definitely fixes the ship components issue.
I have the same problem but worse. I see all weapons. I also see "extra" components on other tabs that I have not researched, but not all of them. Defenses seems normal but the other tabs are basically inexplicable to me now. I can make no sense of what they are displaying. This started for me last night after updating the game to the latest (version 1.96.025).
GalCiv2 Forums