On the diplomacy stuff:
Cool!!! Sounds great!!!!
A few comments (I'm not looking for answers to the questions, more just giving suggestions as I think of them):
1) I've picked up life pods from 4 ships now. The log message says they've been interrogated, but I'm yet to get any info. Am I doing something wrong, or is the chance of gleaning info just small?
2) Really like the idea of the Xenophobia acting as a "current" that degrades relationships, and is offset by diplomacy. Should there be an offset though (e.g. 20-Xenophobia instead of -Xenopobia), so that low Xenophobia races want to be friends with everyone?
3) Do I have a way to modify my Empire's opinion of others, or can I be forced by the voters/subjects into an unwise war that I don't really want.
4) Have you considered generalizing this to represent internal strife within an empire, either between races or even between "rim" and "core" worlds of the same race? Political state could have an effect, and if relations get bad enough it could trigger a civil war. A governor's diplomacy rating could make relations better.
5) Have you thought about putting an offset into the Xenophobia that's specific for dealing with a particular race? In other words, my base Xenophobia might be 57, but it might be modified by a +20 for Race A (because their slimy skin is just sooooooo icky) to 77 and by -68 for Race B (because they look just like fuzzy bunnies!!!) to -11, which moves things in the direction of friendship if left alone. If this idea went in, then the offset idea in #2 probably wouldn't be needed.
6) It occurs to me that there should be a way to indicate to another race (with whome you don't yet have communications) that a particular system is already claimed and they should go away. Locking up with fire control seems to be a pretty pointed message. Of course the other race might interpret this in several ways - this could be modeled by variable point penalties for this act.
John