Eh? The human race is nowhere near the best. That title has famously lied with either the Drath or the Yor. Probably going to swing back to Yor now, with the miniturisation changes.

However, in the end it depends on your playstyle. If you play a diplomat, then you're going to be good with humans. If your thing is crushing the galaxy, then the Drengin or Yor are for you. The Economists among us have a tendancy to meld with the Korx. And since I'm a sneaky, subversive, evil sod, I play the Drath and just keep the galaxy in a firm state of chaos.

And dialogue. The non-human dialogue is funnier

I've had great success playing the Thalans.

I've never not played as a custom race.

For all races the starting abilites consist of "inherent abilites" plus pre-selected abilites from the 10 points that you have to assign. When you press reset you clear the pre-selected abilities but the "inherent abilities" remain. This gives you the 10 points back for you to allocate as you choose. However, if you try to change or add points to "inherent abilities" you actually lose the inherent ability.

For example, humans start out with an inherent 25% diplomacy ability. If you hit reset the 25% diplomacy ability remains. If try to add an "extra" 10% diplomacy for the stated 2 points what results is you've spent 2 points and your total diplomacy ability will be 10%. You want to select a race whose inherent abilities you don't want to modify, use reset to get back the 10 points, then allocate the 10 points on the abilities you do want to modify.

You can tell what the "inherent abilities" are by looking at the data under the abilities tab. If the race has a bonus but none of the options are checked then it's an "inherent ability". Also note that all of the "inherent abilities" have a value that's not selectable in the menu. For example, the Altarians have a 30% Creativity ability but only 25% is selectable in the menu.

You also should consider your political party choice in conjuntion with racial abilities. You may want to use the party choice to get a bonus in an area that you don't get from abilities. However, you could also use the party to amplify a bonus chosen from race.

I personally think economics is the key and so would chose anyone except the Korx (so far mostly gone with the Drath). I want the top 30% Economics bonus and use the points to get it. The Korx's 15% "inherent bonus" isn't sufficient. I also select Federalist to get another 20% economic bonus for a total of 50%. The Drath do seem to get the best total set of bonuses though I think the single best "inherent bonus" is the 25% morale bonus that both the Drengin and Torian get (morale = money).

Besides the abilities, another race selection criteria is starting techs. With the humans you start out with some techs and get a few points to allocate to other techs. With all the other races the starting techs are defined and can't be modified, but in general are much better than what the humans can manage. Starting with Ion drive is a big advantage, it allows an immediate 4 parsec/wk colony ship, or you can immediately research Impulse drive for even faster ships.

The beauty of this game is the wide variety of potentially successful strategies. You need to study the options of race, ability, starting techs and political party and make your choices based on your overall strategy. There is no one right answer.

IMHO the races are definitely not balanced.

I guess the question still stands though, ARE the races balanced out somehow that I can't see?

Nope. the races are what they are, and just like in real life not all species are created equal (let's see a giraffe research computers...).

If all the races where the same, the only way to have fun would be a costom race.

Racial bonuses are probably one of the least polished parts of the game, I've noticed. The way some racial bonuses take up points while other don't, and the way putting points into the same thing as you have a racial bonus for will overright the racial bonus instead of adding to it, and the way (and this applies to racial starting technologies too) every race has a vastly different number of racial traits each.

The best thing to do would be to fix the overwrite bug, make all the bonuses fixed (unchangable) but don't take up points and balance it out numerically (for instance, maybe each race gets three +20% bonuses to three stats and five start technologies each).

The races would all be different and geared towards different play styles, but it would be a lot more polished.

But meh. Doesn't really matter...but it's still a little annoying.

Since this game was made specifically for single player then the races don't have to balanced in anyway. I really like the fact that some races are inherently stronger than others. Only multiplayer would need for balance between the races.

Why would Multi player change that fact unles you are talking more then 2 players then I understand. There are enough 'good' races for just 2 players to pick from.

I like playing custom race so I can build the race more in line with my play style. I am fairly new at this game so I am still in the tweaking process but getting close.
Personally I like how they are not 'balanced' and I like to set the races I play against to random, that way I never know what I am getting into

Yea, the whole free bonus thing is confusing. The first time most people see it (including me), it looks like a bug. You think, "What are these bonuses that have no check mark in the points section?" Your first instinct is to check and uncheck some points which does reset it (and shouldn't). It takes a while to realize, "Oh, those are *supposed* to be there." Some text in that box indicating when a bonus is free would eliminate a few forum posts.

my system is always made up of one pq-10 planet and one pq-4 planet. Is this a default setting? And if so, is there any way to change it from within the game menus?

Not in game, no. You can edit CustomPlanets.xml if you want to change those (you just can't play on the metaverse with that change).

Drath > Yor. Fat lot of good that miniturisation bonus is if I know every last detail of their empire within 3 months of game start, and the defence bonus is enough to offset the miniturisation when you get to big ships.

Also, as a good race I can happily set the rest of the galaxy on the Yor, then use the espionage knowledge and a small fleet to capture key worlds.