Thanks Ed, the colony mod is great.
Lighthorse, thank you for the info. A lot of how a PBW game goes is in how the player sets up his empire. The Federation will be getting a new mount for the Dreadnought or Juggernought class. It will be called the X-Mount. (Galaxy X)
The Federation has many strengths, in warp engines, sensors, training, research, and other. Just play them for a while and give them a chance to impress you. I played against them in a SP game a few days ago for fun, and had my butt handed to me on a silver platter.
Each race is most assuredly differant in how it researches, expands, and grows.
I think most of the effort for the Federation will show in the later game, its getting there that is the problem.
Good luck and please keep me posted. Improvements and tweaking each race is very important to the over all game. Through your experience playing them, and posting about it, they can be tweaked and improved.
Thanks again man for the post and info. I will put it to good use.