I'm talking about things like Hoshikos, Dominas, And whatever it is the Vasari have. I've seen the AI field these, especially Hoshikos, in absolutely ridiculous numbers along with plain old frigate spam.

Is this actually effective? I admit, it is really irritating battling a zillion of self repairing Hoshikos, but it's nothing I could not eventually defeat (Without restarting from an autosavem cough cough.)