"Hulls are usually stronger than shields"
There isnt a written rule that it has to be.
"And shields don't regen quickly."
it's meant to be treated as hull. maybe people would value their shields more if it were the only protection their ship has got.
"And there's such a thing as shieldbusters."
Then give the ship better shields
"And the fact that you speak of a last resort means it's taken into account that this ship might not make it."
I'll bet there's a self-destruct sequence in ships of every intelligence faction or maybe order ships which have secret order tech that can't be captured. Why does this surprise you? If ships in disco were actually built to last then they would be stronger, and there would be severe death penalty so ppl stop dying so often.
"the more sophisticated an AI, the more expensive."
If I read the halo books correctly, Cortana was - "simply" a electronic replication of a human brain. The holodeck in star trek fully constructs its AI based on information of humans.
A coffee machine can definitely be an AI, case in point it may not just be simply filling your mug, but it will also consider your preferences depending on your factors, consider the temperature and sugar/milk levels, consider your health conditions, consider what to greet you and how to respond to you, selectively decide when to tell you to stop drinking coffee its bad for you, and in general get to know you better, etcetera. When a coffee machine reaches that level of intelligence, it will not simply be an "äutomated machine".
"An AI ship needs to calculate a lot of math, distinguish foe from friendly, understand its own position in space (and time)."
Basically autopilot, navigations systems, auto aiming turrets and a whole lot of other stuff that doesn't sound too difficult (remember there's centuries of technological progression since then).
"the more sophisticated an AI, the more expensive."
Consider how AI is achieved now - written as software that interacts with a standard set of processing equipment. So if in the future we continue to build AI this way, sure the developing of the AI would be expensive as the programming will probably be insanely complex, but once the cost is spread across thousands of ships all armed with the same computers capable of supporting the AI software, then the cost becomes almost negligible.
No atmosphere? GTFO.
The propeller is the greatest invention of all time.
