I wasn't trying to accuse you of anything, I'm just saying you maybe out of your league with what you're trying to do, as you don't seem to really understand what the other modders were doing. I've always been of the point of view that you start with learning the basics off your own mods to the vanilla game before doing major changes to someone else's mod. IMO if you can't do what they've done if you had enough time, you probably shouldn't do it.
Of course I realize that might be a time commitment you don't have, but don't be surprised if you find a lot more things that might require "venting".
I spent half a year hammering out DS into the way my LAN group wanted it. I'm fine. If I had no playable builds or progress to show for my efforts, then, I wouldn't be bothering. You speak to me as if I 100% don't know what I'm doing and haven't accomplished jack shit, while I have. I have 7 fully functional factions in this mod. Most of the work I'm doing now is balancing.
The only skill set I lack in is modeling. I'll be dabbling into that later on. Once the side project is done, I'm comfortable with modeling, I'll start pumping out original work.
That said, there might be some secondary problems with using the colony method. If these dreadnaughts really don't have a colonize ability despite the AI thinking it does, the AI may not build colony frigates or the actual colony cap because it already thinks it has one, thus preventing it from expanding.
It has yet to. If out of anything, they're building closer to the way humans do. People usually spend their freebie cap slot on the most expensive one that is feasible (frigates usually fill out any other missing roles). I've seen zero issues with colonizing. They expand at the same rate as before.
I have no doubt there's other methods, but this seemed to work just fine. If there is a problem using this method, I'll make sure to mention it.
Oh, and thanks for answering the question, even though, you have zero faith in my abilities. 
