[Taqwus]

Sounds like a good use for the scanner tech. Without it, you can't look at their ship designs, IIRC, without entering tactical combat.

OTOH, in a multi-player game, you should probably be paranoid about ANY "allied" ships hanging around in your space -- be they minelayers, planetary bombers, or simply ship-killers...

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night