I was playing hard mode yesterday (still too easy, btw. it cannot be this easy in the final release) but I was impressed by how vigorously the AI attacked one of my planets. I was attacked by "yellow", initially they brought a tiny force of a few cobalts (this is before I capped the planet), but after I wiped him out the first time he followed up with about 4-5 waves of units after that. the first 2-3 waves were ever increasing numbers of cobalts (one time with his flagship mixed in, dominated that) the following wave was a massive assault with many cobalts and a strong light carrier backup, the bomber and fighter swarms were such a huge difficulty that, although I was able to wipe out all of his cobalts and some of his carriers, he was able to take out quite a few of my cobalts himself, did quite a number on my kol (I had to flee into his territory to let it escape) (I didnt realize it was in danger because they focus fired it. there needs to be some sort of warning when one of your cap ships is taking excessive damage, IMO) remnants of a bomber squad even killed my sova after he left, it was a rather devastating blow.

of course, almost all of this damage was caused largely by the fact that I didnt have the proper anti-air countermeasures in place at the time. needless to say I stocked up quickly on my anti-air.

anyway the final wave was the most impressive in size, although it failed rather miserably in effect. this time he brought carriers and cobalts in huge numbers (larger than last time) and also brought siege frigs. I was able to deal easily with this assault even w/out my cap ships, but it was a rather impressive tactic that he tried.

the numbers for each encounter number generally as thus:

battle 1:
me:
~7 cobalts
1 kol, level 4
enemy:
~7 cobalts

battle 2:
me:
~5 cobalts
1 kol, level 5
enemy:
~13 cobalts

battle 3:
me:
~5 cobalts
1 kol, level 6
enemy:
~22 cobalts

battle 4:
me:
~10 cobalts
1 kol, level 7
1 sova, level 1
enemy:
~30 cobalts
~15 carriers (roughly split 1/2 fighters/bombers)

battle 5:
me:
~20 cobalts
~7 anti-fighter
enemy:
~5 siege frigs
~30 cobalts
~20 carriers


this was all well within the first 40 minutes of the game.
oh, and did I note that the AI got much better at focus fire? the only real reason I was able to take them down easily was that I had far better technology and I did the focus fire chain tactic, which still aces the AI.

repelling the enemy was still by no means hard or taxing on my economy, but it wasnt something I could simply ignore like the pre-patch.