The vibe I get from many of you is that you seem to be trouncing the AI on hard, or even unfair.  Some seem to think the AI is just dumb...  well, I'm wondering at this point if it's even possible to break a deadlock with the AI on hard.  I've never done it before, and on my best run at it, I still can't make any headway.

Here's the scenario.  I'm TEC, AI is advent.  Small, 2 player map, enemy AI is researcher.  I own the majority of the planets in the system, not quite 2/3 of it.  There are essentially two chokepoints leading between our empires, but one is occupied by the pirates, so the AI won't go that way (and I won't destroy them, because I don't want to lose them as a bulwark).  So there's really only 1 chokepoint.  My defensive planet has been taken a couple of times in invasions, but I've always managed to beat them back, but never gain any ground on the AI.  My credit income, crystal income, and metal income are first.  Here are my problems.

1) I can't win an even fight.

No matter what ship composition I make, I can't win an even fight.  In this particular case, I'm being mobbed by fighters and bombers, while being unable to seriously damage them due to massive numbers of defenders shooting up shields over the whole area.  It's not research - it's far along, and I've had this problem with all other types of AI.  My best odds seem to be using 33% kodiaks, 33% percherons, mostly with bombers, remainder split between hoshikas and gardas, with a handful of cielos to round it out.  Missile frigates are good for only a volley or two before being destroyed.  I use different mixes of capital ships, kols, dreadnoughts, durovs, usually 3 or 4, with a total of about 300 ships in play.  Yeah, that's a lot of ships.

I try destroying their capital ships, and I often can, but they never seem to retreat, usually because they outnumber me 2/1 by the time the capital ships are gone, and they've got other capital ships enroute.  Even if they don't they still don't run because they outnumber me, and by that time all my bombers are gone and I can't take the frigates.  Or if I can, more ships arrive.  I can only win when I outnumber around 1.5/1.  Technically, I shouldn't even be able to hold them off, except they're overly scared of my planetary defenses, and when they do chase me off, they never fortify enough.  That leads to problem 2...

2) I can't outproduce the AI when it comes to ships.

I just can't.  Even with me having more money and resources, with multiple shipyards churning out ships as fast as my money will allow, they've always got more.  Any gains are quickly crushed by a new fleet to trash my worn-out victors.  I don't understand it.  With this much fleet logistics in play, they should really be hurting for resources, especially with less income.  Yet somehow they keep churning out cap ships, no matter how much I keep blowing them up.  My economy is in high gear, with max planet upgrades, trade lanes, and orbital refineries.

3) The AI seems to have infinite money.

I've tried tanking the AI's economy with raids, but it took too much away from my defense.  In desperation, I built 2 novalith cannons, and I've got them autofiring to blast the enemy planets to pieces, which should be tanking the economy, since they've essentially got almost no population.  In fact, it seems to be, since when I quit the game, I can see their credit income rate is in the toilet.  Yet somehow, they keep replacing the ships I blow up, even super-expensive fleets of capital ships, and running up the pirate bounty on me.  The noviliths seem to be helping a little, but they STILL seem to be outproducing me.  Even if they had an absurd stockpile of credits saved up they've been draining, that sitll makes no sense because they're outproducing me in ships.

I've been working on this problem for a few weeks now, trying out strategies, and I'm about at my wit's end.  Medium is way too easy for me (never any real risk I'll lose), but Hard is just ridiculous.  I'm actually about to put the game down because of it, since I can't find a challenge that suits me.  Is there something I'm doing wrong that someone can point out?