Other races don't ever recognize me.

[Slick]

From the Newbie FAQ:

10.5 Contact
10.5.1 You need a path between any of your planets and any of another empire’s planets to make contact.
10.5.2 You won’t make “first contact” with a race if encounter them while in your cloaked ship and the other race can’t detect you.
10.5.3 If contact is ever lost with an AI race, when it gets re-established, they won’t remember anything about you.
10.5.4 The game engine checks for Contact when you go through warp points, so there could be rare occurrences where you can see the other empire without making Contact yet. An example of this is: You haven't made contact with B yet, but you do have contact with C and have just used the Crew Insurrection intelligence project to steal one of C's ships in a system owned by B and there is a path from this system (previously unexplored) to your systems. You won't make contact until you warp out.

Slick.