What does the influence area affect?

[Regergek]

[MTB-Fritz]

The sphere of influence is generated by fully established colonies. They act as a countermeasure to outpost penalties and as artificial barriers for other empires.

A neutral (cold war) or even friendly (peace) empire cannot cross your shpere of influence or travel to systems lying within your sphere of influence once they know its there.
- that means that while scouting around an enemy empire can "stumble" into your sphere of influence because the destination system by the time it was selecting it was neutral. Once they are inside your sphere they can move around until they exit it at any point. They are unable to return inside after that without an open borders agreement.

If a neutral system is covered by your sphere of influence other empires cannot colonize it, you practically "reserve" it for later with no fear of losing it to ovexpanding enemies grabbing your land

An outpost without a sphere of influence of its own will suffer certain penalties until it becomes a fully formed colony (mouseover any of the resources to see the effect and penalties). If an outpost is covered by your sphere of influence those penalties are halved which is a big help.

Sphere of influence does NOT convert enemy systems in its radius.

Cant really think of anything else for now

[Sassafras]

Fritz covered most of it, but if you are at cold war with an empire and their planet is within your influence, you can invade that planet as if you were at war. You will suffer a diplomatic penalty with the other empire for capturing their system (Which can easily lead to war), but they will rarely send fleets to intercept your invasion.

[Regergek]

Originally posted by GenNyan:

Fritz covered most of it, but if you are at cold war with an empire and their planet is within your influence, you can invade that planet as if you were at war. You will suffer a diplomatic penalty with the other empire for capturing their system (Which can easily lead to war), but they will rarely send fleets to intercept your invasion.

that's interesting thanks and thanks fritz too