To be honest, since I'm fairly late to the starsector party I expected these obvious flaws in the AI to be known. And as the only thing I know about code is roughly what it looks like, I really can't give any insights into improving it
To be fair to you though Xenoargh, the way vacuum plays is amazing, Though I found it quite hard to get into because the customization options where a bit overwhelming, that's also the reason I stuck with it. Because I saw the potential that was there, if only I understood how to use it
Unfortunately my computer can't handle it and it slows down to a crawl as soon as there are more then 5 ships in a battle. But that's hardly your fault
I just always thought the "if/or/and - then" system seemed like a great idea to configure an AI in a meaningfull way so you didn't have to bother micromanaging in combat. Someone brought up a great point earlier about the limited battle command system being a good thing. And I completely agree, not having to micromanage your entire fleet is a good thing. It means you can focus on your own ship and increase your personal impact on the battle.
The first Dragonage did something like this. Though in a fairly limited way (the command options were fine, you just couldn't give vary many of them to each of your character)
But that's hardly a fair comparison. Dragon age is a game with a huge budget and even though its a vary deep rpg, each of the characters are fairly limited in the different roles they can play. Mages cast spells, warriors tank and rogues kick ass. And if they need to reposition they can just instantly walk there.
An ideal AI in starsector would have to plan their positioning based on incoming ships, missing ships, turret arcs etc. Something most humans will struggle with. Positioning is what it's all about in most games. But it's also what computers are worst at. So I can imagine making a really good AI will be near impossible.
That being said, there are still many things that could be configured. One thing that comes to mind is for instance: shield priorities. When a ship is about to explode in your face, focus on shielding that off instead of some random anti fighter missile coming in from the back. And when a huge torpedo is making its way to the engines, better focus on shielding that off instead of the PD lasers those pesky fighters are firing at you.
Other expamles could be:
Missile timing and targeting
fighter and bomber target selection
when to use phase cloak
Frontal shield management (The AI tends to use the shields the same way it would an omni shield and turn it off all the time, even if it's a 360 degree coverage)
Now again, I don't know if these are feasable at all, just throwing ideas around