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[Psygnosis]

What ships are good to give the friendly AI and what are the best loadouts for the AI.

Looking mostly for frigates as at the moment the AI makes me want to stab myself in the eyes sometimes.

Perhaps destroyers or cruisers, dont really have much cash, can never really accumulate enough.

[Darloth]

It's quite good with Tempests, but they cost almost as much as some of the cheaper cruisers.

I have had good success with giving it Medusae, personally. I think it generally prefers all-rounder ships with enough speed to get out of trouble if necessary.

I've noticed that it is pretty awful with any highly specialized ships, and doesn't really know how to kite in anything heavier that a frigate, so if you put long range guns on a cruiser, don't expect it to -stay- at long range (exception for tachyon lance, and missile cruisers, as they do seem to be treated as proper fire support - but not something with heavy needlers, railguns, hyper-V cannon etc)

[Dreyven]

lasher is probably the best, the AI seems to love them...
Wolf is pretty nice too, although i always strip the missiles and get some defensive upgrades to help them survive
Hound has a pretty good AI, problem is... it's a Hound but might wanna give it a shot too if you capture some

i would not use hyperion, tempest, vigilance and brawler...
hyperion is not a good AI ship
tempest... i just don't like it (personal preference)
vigilance and brawler are just.... not good

destroyer wise you can safely use the carriers, they should stay back anyways...
medusa is a safe pick because it's a ridicoulous strong ship
hammerhead and sunder are still... okish

test around with the loadouts... frigate wise they are mostly ok...
destroyer you can be more creative

[Psygnosis]

Been giving them the hound mostly but i find the AI prefers to play dodgems with you rather than shooting the enemy. Theyre more of a hazard on the playing field than asteroids.

As far as lashers go, i might give em a go, when going up against AI lashers they seam to be pretty weak.

[Thaago]

The AI plays the lasher allright but don't expect it to close in and wail away - give it some medium range weapons (I like a light needler on the front turret - expensive but great weapons).

The AI plays the hound very well - but it is not practical to use them in campaign because of how penalized large numbers of ships are (5 hounds have a MUCH larger speed penalty to a fleet than 1 Eagle). Remember that you can deploy 3 hounds or 1 thunder wing (but the thunder wing might win O_O).

It plays the Brawler and Vigilance fine... they just aren't ships you want flying around on their own anyways

I find the most important thing is to try and outfit the non-pd weapons in a consistent range category - the AI doesn't really know what to do when you mix the long and short range. Just my experience.

As far as lashers go, i might give em a go, when going up against AI lashers they seam to be pretty weak.

I find part of this is the default lasher loadouts and part is that the AI plays cautiously - good when fighting frigate vs. destroyer and up, not so good when fighting other frigates.

[Gaizokubanou]

Fighter squadrons are most AI friendly, but they are borderline (if not already) exploit status due to how powerful some of them are.

Ship wise, enforcer destroyer with maxed vent, 3 flaks (one in center and each sides), 2 guns of your choice (mauler if you want more HE, needler if you need kinetic) extra ammo.

Depending on how fast rest of your fleet is, augmented engine or anything to improve shields.

It's a tough ship that's very forgiving of AI's pilot error.  The 3 flak setup also helps the AI out against fighter swarms (which the AI is notoriously weak against).

General tip is, don't use more than 3 frigates at once.  2 for destroyers.  Cruisers and capital ships, more the merrier!

[Nanostrike]

I tend to notice ones that the AI is TERRIBLE at handling more than the ones it's good at handling:

Frigates:
-Vigilance.  It never seems to understand that the ship is relatively fragile and, even when set up as Fire Support with Pilums, will charge into combat against way bigger ships.
-Hyperion.  Not sure what the hell the AI thinks it's doing in one, but it's not surviving.  No matter what loadout, they tend to run in unshielded and get killed almost instantly.
-Wolf.  Again, a more "Fragile" frigate than the Lasher and Brawler, but the AI doesn't seem to realize this.  It frequently goes against enemies that WAY outweigh it, no matter what weapons it has.  And god help you if you build it as a Strike Frigate, because it'll literally hover at point blank range until it's killed.

Destroyers:
-Any carriers no on Fire Support.  If you don't give it Pilum missiles, it won't hesitate to fly in and attack, even if tethered to a Carrier Rally point.
-Enforcers.  The AI tends to barrel these into areas where it gets surrounded and killed.
-Sunders.  Though it's not really an AI issue, these Destroyers are extremely fragile and, like usual, the AI is oblivious to that and tries to tank stuff like it's a Hammerhead.

Cruisers:
-Seems to do okay with most cruisers, honestly.

Capital Ships:
-The AI is utterly incapable of using a Conquest effectively.

[Wyvern]

I've actually had some good luck with an AI controlled Hyperion - you just have to give it omni shields.  Current loadout on mine is 2x graviton beam, 2x IR pulse laser, resistant flux conduits, stabilized shields, extended shields, omni shield emitter, and 9x vent.  Hasn't died under AI control yet.

I did eventually sell off my old wolf frigate, though, because it was just dying too much.  Oh, well.

[j01]

I've had the most luck with the heaviest low-tech ship in each class other than frigate, as far as AI handling is concerned.

Not sure why another poster said Enforcers suck with AI, because I've seen exactly the opposite.

Any ship with lower speed, high armor, and ballistic weapons + missiles seems to be very easy for the AI to do well with.

The low speed tends to keep them from barging alone into trouble, the higher the armor the better their margin of error when shields overload or when getting flanked/overwhelmed, ballistics give flak/dual flak which are very often even better defensive tools than shields and unarguably the best overall PD, not to mention combining kinetic and explosive weapons makes it a simple matter to balance your AI friends' ships for both overwhelming shields and chewing through armor quickly.

Missiles are icing on the cake, and can really add up if devoted to long range support if every one of your friends has some LRMs to cover the battlefield in.

Midline or higher tech ships are rubbish for AI, especially if their shields aren't omni. This is the reason AI hyperions are a joke, while player-controlled hyperions can survive forever. The AI doesn't even begin to understand how to properly use shields, or when to back off from a fight, much less when NOT to back off and instead keep the pressure on.

I find that even omni shielded AI ships have major problems surviving, but hullmodding for extended shields, faster shields, and stronger shields can help a lot, since the AI is terrible at knowing when to keep shields up and when to drop them.

Another general tip is that it can be very useful to put maneuverability and turret speed mods on AI ships, especially if they use ballistics, so they don't waste tons of ammo uselessly firing at moving targets without properly leading them. Needless to say, this is also a cause for considering +ammo mods as well. All optional, but definitely helpful.

[Nori]

I've actually had some good luck with an AI controlled Hyperion - you just have to give it omni shields.  Current loadout on mine is 2x graviton beam, 2x IR pulse laser, resistant flux conduits, stabilized shields, extended shields, omni shield emitter, and 9x vent.  Hasn't died under AI control yet.

I did eventually sell off my old wolf frigate, though, because it was just dying too much.  Oh, well.

I have noticed that the AI is very good if the ships has OMNI, or rather the AI is bad if they don't...

[TJJ]

I've actually had some good luck with an AI controlled Hyperion - you just have to give it omni shields.  Current loadout on mine is 2x graviton beam, 2x IR pulse laser, resistant flux conduits, stabilized shields, extended shields, omni shield emitter, and 9x vent.  Hasn't died under AI control yet.

I did eventually sell off my old wolf frigate, though, because it was just dying too much.  Oh, well.

I have noticed that the AI is very good if the ships has OMNI, or rather the AI is bad if they don't...