Howdy! Ive done a few tests after seeing the INSANE amount of carrier and small-ship spam. I did four separate games, each with me, a Covenant AI, and a UNSC AI. Made sure to contact and fight the UNSC AI before the Covenant AI could. Point is, the AI spams the HELL out of carriers. Im talking 10 Eions in a fleet of 30 ships. This makes it incredibly hard to fight, even when I match their strikecraft 1:1 with Stalwarts.

I tested this on Heroic and Normal levels, twice each. The Covenant AIs dont tend to do this, even if Im allied with them. Im not a playtester and Im not a modder, so I dont know how, if, or should it be fixed. Thats up to yall. It just really gets on my nerves. Id rather see 100 frigates vs 100 frigates, not 100 frigates vs 100 strike craft!

This is probably a side effect of SoTP being "forced" into SoaSE because of the Radically different playstyles and how the AI does not like having SoTP being shoved inside of it like a cactus on a hydraulic press.

Don't take it from me though, I know very little about SoaSE modding.

Its probably its way of dealing with the covenant possibly
Although thats a pretty dumb way since assault carriers and everyother covenant ship (capital) having the word carrier in it aside from the cruisers. But i feel the game itself is actually pushing you to use carriers anyway. cause epoch, punic and orion are all carriers and the eion is just another representation. in fact eions are probably to counter the massed hordes of fighters from a cas.

The AI in general is drawn towards carriers. In the case of the UNSC, the Eion is a decent combat ship plus fighters, which in the AI's eyes makes it extremely desirable. Unfortunately there isn't too much that can be done here as the AI is hardcoded and loves their combat capable frigate carriers.