So... you removed this from server-side in MP, but the mod that players were running had a different AI setup? That's very interesting. I'll have to test this in SP and see whether it's still stable that way... many things that you can get away with in MP don't work in SP, because the SP client is a lot more persnickety about certain things. And, I should note... my AIs are a lot more dangerous in MP than in SP... for whatever reasons, FL nerfs the AI somewhat in SP play, even OpenSP. Dunno why, but it handles them differently, that I am certain of.
At any rate, as I said before... the current "levels" of AI difficulty in the Toolkit are the result of direct feedback from my playtesters... if you want uber-hard AI, it's not hard to accomplish- simply making them shoot with a 0-degree error-rate and giving them 100% turning torque can very easily make them far more dangerous, let alone setting their missile_blocks up so that they use missiles super-agressively. But, to be perfectly honest, most players simply don't like things being that hard. Remember, as game designers, the objective is "fun challenge", not "frustrating challenge". Many people who've figured out ways to make things harder in FL lose sight of that very quickly- I have set up Toolkit so that you only meet uber-dangerous AIs at the very high end of play, so that people actually enjoy themselves