I don't think you get my point... I mean that the AI builds mines and a few scout ships and then just stands there... they don't move at all, they don't do anything, they don't even try to escape when I attack them. All they ever do is buildup more and more resources, before I bought this game I tried it at my friend's place and his AI was moving and talking and giving me missions to do. They even destroyed me at some point, and right now all my AI is doing is sitting around picking his nose all damn time, what am I supposed to do?

I got this game on direct download therefore I have all the patches...

This is probably related to a modding issue. I haven't done much modding, but I've heard people complain that if you take certain ship types out of the game (or change them too significantly) then the AI doesn't know what to do. It'll sometimes freak out and do strange things briefly, but inevitably the AI ends up just sitting there, paralyzed in it's confusion. If this isn't the case, I really don't know what might be causing it.