New player: I'm not gaining any influence

[MindfulOcean]

I built two outposts to expand my empire and now I'm not gaining any influence. What can I do? It's still early game, but my neighbors are starting to overtake me in development due to the influence drought. I can't gobble up more systems or settle colonies even though I have plenty of resources to spare. I've built mines and research outposts everywhere possible, and my fleet is at max. size.

What am I supposed to do?

[OwnGoal99]

You could have a leader who gives you +1 influence.

[Dialask]

Frontier outposts eat up 1 whole influence while active. Only research and home planetary administration building upgrades increase influence production, usually 1 at a time.

The short answer is don't use frontier outposts in the early game unless absolutely necessary for securing valuable resources. Even then try to colonize a planet in the area so you can dismantle the outpost. Colonies grow empire borders as well, rendering most frontier outposts as only temporarily useful. There are exceptions, but try not to expand in those directions if you can avoid it. Its worth having disjointed borders to keep influence production steady.

[Tr1gg3r]

declaring rivals gives influence also

[Firsty]

Political factions will eventually form. They'll have things they want you to do and not to do which increases their happiness. If they're really happy (over 60% happiness), you gain influence based on how much of your population that are allowed to engage in politics are in the faction. That's the primary way to get influence.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Managing influence is an important part of the game. It's hard to get, has a really small cap, and is needed for some pretty vital stuff.

Anything with influence upkeep should be very carefully considered, as it will really tank your influence. There are VERY few ways to gain more, so if you eat up you income, it's just gone until you chose to stop doing whatever.

I rarely use outposts myself. It's just not generally worth the price. It's useful to grab some territory temporarily, but you want to replace them with a colony, then dismantle them ASAP. Otherwise use them for absolutely vital resources or where you must prevent someone else from grabbing something. Otherwise makes absolutely certain you must do so and can't do without. Even one outpost is very costly.

[Zuul]

If you want to use outposts, it's very much worthwhile to go down the expansion tree and get the half cost frontier outposts. With that tradition and well managed factions it's pretty easy to have 15 or more FO's kicking around.

For early game though, don't put down more than 1 until you are bringing in respectable influence from rivalries, factions, and tech.

[Keltosh]

Outposts can be necessary when there's no colonizable planet at all around you, mostly because they're all the wrong kind of planets. Be sure to build outposts in the position that grants you the most useful systems possible. Might as well get the best bang for your buck. And influence is very scarce, so....

In the early-mid game, when you start getting into wars, there is something you can do about that, provided you're not completely xenophobic. If you're fine with having more than one race in your empire, go to war with someone weak that has a different planet type than you, and preferrably good traits. Then, annex at least one planet and build colony ships from that planet.

You will then be able to colonize about half of those red worlds you could not colonize before, and then you can destroy more outposts. Ideally you want to be able to colonize every planet type with one specie or another.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Another option is to tech up a primitive civ, then absorb them into your empire, at which time you can use them to colonize as above. Takes a bit longer.

Also, if you have good relations and at least one Gaia planet, get some migration treaties going with races that setting other planet types, then use those to settle.

You can also eventually just genetically mod your species to live in other places. That works too, although it takes a bit. That's what I'm doing now as a Hive Mind race, since I don't have the other options. Took a while, but I can now spread anywhere I want.

[Dinonoms]

Just yesterday I found out that habitats are also a great source for migration tresties