This was tested using the Model-R on normal AI settings, as well as this test ship:
If you do your own testing, remember that after every edit to the test ship, you have to respawn the AI ship.
Enemy ships seem to value reactor cores and control blocks as the two most important blocks to target.
The AI seems to think that missile bays are more important to destroy than heavy cannons, and heavy cannons are more important to destroy than ion beam emitters. I moved the ion beam emitter three blocks forward and the enemy ship fired at it instead. This happened even after I turned the ion beam emitter sideways. However, the enemy ignored the ion beam emitter and targeted missiles when I flipped the ion beam emitter to face backwards.
If a block has armor between it and the enemy, the enemy is not likely to target it. For example, putting armor in front of the control and reactor blocks makes the enemy switch immediately to the weapons instead. If EVERYTHING is armored (unlikely, since weapons have to be exposed to fire) then the enemy will try to attack control and reactor blocks anyway.
The enemy doesn't seem to care whether or not there are shields between it and its target, unless there are an ABSURD amount of shields. In the first image, the enemy is trying to target the missile bay because there are just way too goddamned many shields in front of the reactor and control room. In the second one, the enemy (even though it only has two laser guns and is mathematically incapable of destroying the control room) targets the control room guarded by two shields.
- The AI doesn't seem to take collateral damage into account. I spawned the enemy lined up with the center of the following test ship, seeing if it might want to attack the reactor that had an open corridor to the control room on the left. Instead, it attacked the control room to the right.
- The AI is much more reluctant to fire at something covered by armor than something covered by shields. Despite having four shields covering one side and a single layer of armor covering the other, the Model-R chose to fire at the shielded control room.
