Influence and How to use Frontier Outposts?

[Jet]

1. I started a game as a human with only a handful of continental worlds (90% habitability) nearby, and of those only one of them looks worthy (society resource, 24 tiles) but im not sure how influence works? Will the distance between my capital and the newly colonized world become part of my borders 'blue blob?' Or will I need to put down a Frontier Outpost to connect them akin to a bridge?

2. Is there any benefit to 'bridging' both Earth and Colony in this way, until my pops grow enough to be able to connect the borders between my capital and colony naturally?

3. Most of my immediate vicinity is filled with pitiful +2 resources, and uninhabitable worlds, making me less tempted to use the Frontier to pick those up. So how can I use Frontier Outposts offensively and defensively to protect against the encroachment of another society?

4. Also how big are the established borders of the newly created frontier outpost? How many adjacent worlds can I expect to be able to put up mining and research stations on?

5. Will the Frontier Outpost cut down the influence cost of any nearby worlds that I choose to colonize? There is one world that I want that currently costs me 159 influence, as distance from your realm determines the influence cost. Would putting down the Outpost next to it then make it seem as though my realm has expanded, thus lower that cost as if it were a planet closer to home?

[galadon3]

1. depends on how far they are apart, the colony will project an area of your empire around it (small until the colony is really established), so if they are close enough it will be one territory.

2. Not really unless there is a danger that another empire expands its territory between both parts of your empire since as soon as they close their borders your colony might be isolated. (not if you are using wormholes, those can reach over enemy territory)

3. Use frontier outposts to secure planets that you can terraform/colonize later. You can also sometimes use them to snatch away habitable worlds that are still unihabited away from another empire if they are close enough to the border.
The idea that +2resources are useless is actually bogus, its a good idea to concentrate on other ones first but if you have minerals lying around and have unused +2 ressources there is nothing bad with investing in them.
That said, Outposts cost too much in influence-upkeep to use them to get systems that just have ressources and no habitable planet. (Exception maybe a strategical ressource you don't have and wich bonus complements your strategy)

4. Can't really say, since the distances between stars are pretty different, best you test it out yourself. Usually a well placed outpost will at least give you the systems neighbouring the system in wich you placed it.

5. Yes, colonization-influence costs are determined by the planets distance from your borders (with a minimum of 30), no matter if the border is projected by colonies or outposts.

[Jet]

Oprindeligt skrevet af galadon3:

1. depends on how far they are apart, the colony will project an area of your empire around it (small until the colony is really established), so if they are close enough it will be one territory.

2. Not really unless there is a danger that another empire expands its territory between both parts of your empire since as soon as they close their borders your colony might be isolated. (not if you are using wormholes, those can reach over enemy territory)

3. Use frontier outposts to secure planets that you can terraform/colonize later. You can also sometimes use them to snatch away habitable worlds that are still unihabited away from another empire if they are close enough to the border.
The idea that +2resources are useless is actually bogus, its a good idea to concentrate on other ones first but if you have minerals lying around and have unused +2 ressources there is nothing bad with investing in them.
That said, Outposts cost too much in influence-upkeep to use them to get systems that just have ressources and no habitable planet. (Exception maybe a strategical ressource you don't have and wich bonus complements your strategy)

4. Can't really say, since the distances between stars are pretty different, best you test it out yourself. Usually a well placed outpost will at least give you the systems neighbouring the system in wich you placed it.

5. Yes, colonization-influence costs are determined by the planets distance from your borders (with a minimum of 30), no matter if the border is projected by colonies or outposts.

Thanks for the reply Galadon, you answered most of my questions but just wanted a clarification on 2 of them.

3. If the influence cost is too high for a colonized planet(far far away...) would you suggest building a frontier, colonizing the world(s) and then quickly demolishing the outpost to save on the maintenance cost? Just so the above strategy in point 5 would work using an outpost?

Lastly, is it possible for me to abandon a colony i already established? I want to lower my limit back to 1/3 and already see a better replacement for it, along with the colony thats far away. If I cant abandon a colony could I give it away to a different alien race? If I do, that could force them to stop expansion as they would reach their own demense limit, or go over it and be met with penalties for having more colonies than their limit no? This would come with a friendship benefit, and if it comes to war, and my own borders are between the Alien capital and the colony i ceded i could maybe close down borders and isolate the gifted colony that way/use it as easy warscore??

[mcsproot]

1: The further the planet is from your borders, the higher the influence cost (minimum 30). If it's within your borders due to a Frontier Outpost, it will cost 30, but the distance modifier will also affect the influence build cost of the outpost. Also, outposts cost 1 influence per month (before modifiers) to maintain, so keep that in mind.

2: Frontier Outposts are either to earmark territory as yours before a colony can be set up, or to grab territory with no habitable planets. Though I personally rarely bother with Frontier Outposts, as they cost almosrt as much as a colony ship and take almost as long to build.

3: No real comment on this one since I never use them. All I can say is the only requirement to build a Frontier Outpost is they must be built around a star, and that star must be surveyed. They also gather any resources that star produces.

4: I'd say it's about the same as a fresh colony.

5: Referring back to point 1, yes, it will reduce the cost as the only real modifier to influence cost to colonise is how far away it is from your borders. Within or close to the edge of your borders is 30 influence, with the cost rising with distance. This distance is relative, so a planet 5 systems away on a Huge map won't cost much more, but will cost a lot on a tiny map.

[galadon3]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Jet:

Thanks for the reply Galadon, you answered most of my questions but just wanted a clarification on 2 of them.

3. If the influence cost is too high for a colonized planet(far far away...) would you suggest building a frontier, colonizing the world(s) and then quickly demolishing the outpost to save on the maintenance cost? Just so the above strategy in point 5 would work using an outpost?

Lastly, is it possible for me to abandon a colony i already established? I want to lower my limit back to 1/3 and already see a better replacement for it, along with the colony thats far away. If I cant abandon a colony could I give it away to a different alien race? If I do, that could force them to stop expansion as they would reach their own demense limit, or go over it and be met with penalties for having more colonies than their limit no? This would come with a friendship benefit, and if it comes to war, and my own borders are between the Alien capital and the colony i ceded i could maybe close down borders and isolate the gifted colony that way/use it as easy warscore??

I usually dont colonize planets THAT far away so I can't really say if you save influence by building an Outpost in between or if the cost for the Outpost+the (then reduced) cost for the Colony would add up to about the same as directly colonizing the world.
If you mean that the influence cost exceeds the 1000 Influence limit of what you can have, yes constructing an Outpost halfway would be the way to reduce the final costs for colonizing that world so that it you could colonize it after you saved up enough influence again.

Abandoning a colony is possible, but only unter special circumstances: you need to be able to purge POPs and you need an Alien Species in your empire that you actually CAN purge (you can't purge your own species). THEN you could transfer (re-settkle) POPs of the purgeable species to that planet, transfer all POPs of your own species away, then gene-modify the POPs of the 2nd species on the planet you want to abandon so that they are a seperate species and THEN purge said new species, so that the Planet ends up empty.
As you can see thats a rather complicated process, other then that the answer is NO

Giving the Planet to another Species: That was made impossible due to an exploit in MP-Games afaik atm it is possible again to give planets away but ONLY to vasalls. (not completely sure if that is the actual state of the game or if got changes again)

The AI will not stop to expand because it reached its core-system limit, it will simply put the Colony into a Sector. Something you'll need to do too at some point unless you play in a tiny Galaxy with very little habitable worlds or you plan to stay at a smaller scale.

[Yow!]

I am not very sure because i havent tested it recently, but there is no way to avoid paying that influence cost of distant systems, the summing up of placing a FO and the colony will be the same as directly colonizing it.

To actually reduce it you will need the colonization traditions.

The idea behind many planets empire, are to sectorize systems, to open up core system slots you must create sectors. Press f5 and play with it, make sure of the actions you take, because to desectorize a system costs 25 influence.