It seems like they should be, after the whole nuclear war thing.
Definitely, also right now none of the fours powers seem to even be interested in the Ares Orthodoxy which nuked their planet and instead are wasting resources in political squabbles. (But that might be intended)
APD and UAS were hostile as intended the last time I checked. ED has stealth cruisers which behave oddly, so I'm not sure about them, and NAU rarely shows up that far out.
Maybe this is specific to ED. They definitely aren't hostile to each other. They won't shoot at each other unless you induce them to hit each other with enough accidental shots. Even then, the ED cruisers' Uragan bolts don't consider Ares valid targets. (See http://ministry.kronosaur.com/record.hexm?id=4167.)
Ah, here's the new alignment system: http://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4294&start=0#p39977
Ares are destructive order, a.k.a. empire.
UAS (federation) and APD (republic) are hostile to empire, but NAU (foundation) and ED (competitor) are neutral.
This is probably not optimal, as it makes them neutral towards the majority of the enemies in the game. This includes isolationists like the Abbasid, foreign powers like the Sung, Ranx, and Ares, and all-around bad guys like Gaians and Marauders.
Nobody really has a reason to fight the Ranx other than Ringers, Teratons, and the Commonwealth. To everyone else, they're just an authoritarian nation off in their own space, not bothering anyone. The CH may dislike them for their nationalized(I'd assume) industry and the CH's ties to the CW, but I don't see why anyone else would send soldiers to their deaths against them.
Marauders, Charon, and other pirate factions really need a better system that allows them to prey on viable targets. They're loot - motivated, not politically motivated, so they should target anyone with a society focuses on wealth - building rather than militarization(anyone whose possessions are likely to be worth the resources it takes to steal from them).
Fixed in 1.8 Alpha 3. Thank you!
NAU needs the same fix.
Based on today's stream discussion, Ranx should stay enemies of most friendly factions. They may have rebelled against the Commonwealth, but they're an expansionist empire now.
@nms: Agreed.
Actually, it turns out changing NAU is unnecessary. Foundation is actually constructive order, not neutral, so they're already enemies of empire. It's just described incorrectly in this post.
I think we can close this (correct me if I'm wrong).