Diplomacy

Diplomacy is an essential tool for survival in the galaxy. Befriending one might anger another.

Standing
Standing is the expression of an alien race's feelings towards the player. Most take a neutral stance at first. Exceptions are the Raxact and %$^£, who are by default hostile and the Entrope and Mizzurani, who are by default friends. The game talks of increasing and losing respect, whenever the player does something that changes the standing. The standings have different names for each alien race: Earning and losing respect works with a simple plus-minus system. In most cases, when the respect increases, it increases by one level. In exceptional situations like destroying a ship it can also directly be set to friendly or hostile. Increasing the respect while being friends will add to the internal standing counter as well. Decreasing the respect once will then not change the standing to neutral.

There are two special standings:

Enemy
If the player has an enemy, all military ships of the enemy race will attack on sight. Docking at starports or gates is not possible any more. Some races try to kill the lander pilot, if they land on their planets and gate fees are significantly increased.

Gates are still accessible, but will demand 200% of the normal price for the passage (max. 300).

Friend
Friends of the player will offer more products in their shops and shipyards and offer reduced gate fees. After visiting starports or gates the player gets a gift with a chance of 50%. The gifts are: Gates demand only 50% of the normal price for the passage (min. 25).

Shops (except of hospitals) offer 3 more items and shipyards offer 2 additional modules to friends.

Alien relations
Each alien race has enemies and and friends. While friendly relationships among aliens do not influence the game a lot, hostile relationships have a huge impact on the gameplay. Whenever the humans increase their standing with a major alien race, major enemy races will decrease their standing with the humans. So it is a tricky game to earn credits with quests and at the same time not to end up with enemy races in the middle of the game. Getting enemies back into a neutral standing is almost impossible and in general involves getting another enemy.

An overview of the alien relationships among each other is shown in the following table. Friendly relationships are shown in green, enemies in red , and neutral relationships in white.