Just redid the fighter dogfighting routine so there's a "shipbrain" family and a "spaceship" family... turns out for the multiple-faction AI to work, there needs to be one variable for what team the AI ship is really on, and another for what team other ships "see" that ship as --otherwise just basic target finding events are much harder.
It's kinda deep. They have now an outward "team" and a secret inner "team."
On the other hand it's just basic encapsulation. Object Oriented programming 101.