AI surveys without survey ship

How is the AI doing this? I bust ass to make a fleet with survey to take out a red survey node. By the time I get enough ships to throw away at the node defenders Earth alliance is sweeping them all up with a medium hull military ship no survey listed on details. Enemy ships can survey without a survey ship?

 

Please tell me the AI is making custom ship designs and the survey isn't showing up on ship details. I  can't deal with AI dynamic cheating to make the game interesting. There is no learning to be done here. You will always be contested at every advantage you creating through AI creating of whatever it needs to counter you.  This is not fun after the first game of exploring the systems when losing and getting cheated on isn't even in your radar. 

 

Universe set to normal max all bars for universe creation.