Race Plus

Raceplus is one of the classic VGA Planets addon programs, written by Dan & Dave. It gives each race a different new ability. Abilities include educating natives, boarding enemy ships and placing booby traps on planets.

The new capability for the Federation is yet another economic advantage: they can now 'educate' the natives, improving their government level. For a price ofcourse, which is host-configurable. Each upgrade costs a certain amount of money and supplies. The higher the government-type, the higher the price.

Ofcourse here even more than with terraforming, the Feds should only use this new ability on safe planets well within their empire.
A couple of things to keep in mind here are:
-government type influences taxes earned and happiness change, and happiness change influences growth
-taxes earned are either limited by the number of clans on that planet or the maximum income as set by the host.

When investigating the use of this HUD mission I've found it to be well worth it's money, as long as you own the planet you're improving long enough. In one of my games at Robomaster where there weren't many planets with natives I was able to earn tons of cash through government-improvements and terraforming.

Ofcourse, investing in your long-term strategy is only a good thing as long as you can afford it. But usually us Feds have some cash laying around and they can spare some supplies too, so as long as the planet is relatively safe I'd say HUD where-ever and whenever you can.