Being able to script priorities (whom to target, whom to repair first, whether or not to auto-join fleets, et al) for units w/o explicit orders would be convenient, although it'd have to stay pretty light-weight to be computationally reasonable for a real-time game.

Regarding the previous reply -- individual effectiveness isn't necessarily the same as in fleets.  e.g. if there's a fleet containing multiple Hoshikos, Kodiaks, a Kol, and a pair of Dunovs, it may make sense for ships that lack disabling functions to target the Hoshikos first, even if something gets bonuses against heavier ships, because the Hoshikos die relatively fast and each dead Hoshiko means less repair.   Similar might go for critical facilities; killing repair facilities or a nano-weapons jammer might be a high priority.

think youre right...  tough you can still manipulate ai targeting prioritie (specialy those of militia)

i.e. jump in capital ship first,  as soon as it ARRIVES (or on long path is hafway) jump your remaining fleet / ships   this way even kodiaks or lrf's wont turn around to target light frigs etc.

A simple selection like this makes sense, and could be implemented simply by putting some of the game's internal AI workings/weights into text files (I recall homeworld 2 having priority settings for each ship type). Having to script AI would be just too much work for the vast majority of players The configurability would need to be assessed, because the community's gameplay changes and some options might just become useless. Flexibility game-per-game or between different battles could be a good thing, so in-game GUI might be the way to go. For those that mostly play AI, a static textfile would be enough.

@anticommie: AI is plain stupid, yes, but humans have some features that you might use against them. The Boiling Frog for instance: jump in the cap ship, and most players will keep hammering it even if you jump in a couple of hoshikos after the cap's shields are gone. The enemy won't notice they really are screwed until the first hoshikos have depleted their AM and you jump in 8 more, together with some other reinforcements...

I just knew there was a custom map autodownload connection!