not really from as far as I could see. the vasari seemed to make an effort, but that may have also been more of a coincidence given it sometimes happens if they leave their scouts alone a bit. all those mines kept me from losing (so far) my first entrenchment game, bc I had no real planets in the vicinty.

you mean the ai captures a lot of them if they are still neutral, but once you took them, it does not make any serious effort anymore?

may be true, bc due to the lack of near planets I placed a high priority, so a lot of the extractors in my game were taken by me fairly early on.

Yeah, that's what I meant. If you leave an extractor uncrewed they will take it, but they don't appear to recap it later if you control it.