[PvK]

This is another area where the "not allowed to trade technology" game setup option makes things more interesting, because to trade tech, they would need to send ships with the tech between each other for analysis, and those ships could be intercepted (unless they establish shipyards in each other's space, which they could do by building space-based shipyards for each other in their own space).

I think the Baron meant Communications Mimic rather than Taps. Taps just let you know what they're trading, if you're really lucky.

It would make sense to break contact when the space between two empires is blocked by systems occupied exclusively by no-treaty empires - maybe that's what causes the natural contact break.

PvK