Is this a fluke?

This is pretty much usual the game I am playing vs. The stock AI at the moment is around 600 turns I have 3 million research points and none of the major AI's have more than 150,000 and it’s been similar in the previous games bar one where I had a really bad starting position. The AI can’t cope with a research rush strategy and dosent upgrade quickly enough.

An advantage of 10-20 tl’s in weapons and shields pretty much overrides poor design

You may want to try Kwok's Balance MOd, which in addition to fixing a lot of minor insanities in the stock files also features an improved AI.

Or, Maran's AI (over in the mods forum) is pretty good, though a lot less "plug-n-play" friendly (i. e. it takes some work to get it in the game).
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There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

I think I am about 250 turns into my game v1.20 + 1.01 Balance mod computer level = high with low bonus.

The top computer race has 86,000 research points with over 250 tech levels studied (not sure how but he did it)

Hope that helps show the difference a little

edit: should note though that while he is tops and has the highest intel as well of the computer races the next ranked race is fairly far behind.

speaking of tech and the AI does anyone know the following anwser?

For the AI is it better to up the expense of Technology (ie Technology Cost = "High" when starting a new game) to slow the player down or to drop it so the computer can rise faster or does it matter?

I would rather not do "all tech" (well maybe once for fun) as I actually like the research aspect of the game but I was wondering if anyone has played enough to tell a difference.

Slower research helps the AI some as it'll have more up-to-date ships. It doesn't retrofit all that often, so the less tech it gets the more likely it'll be to have current ships.