Meaning of halos and circles on map?

[Nikratio]

Hello,

Newbie question: what are the colored halos and circles around some objects on the map? I don't mean the sphere of influence.. Example screenshot attached. I mean the red and blue stuff.

Thanks!

[kenbi]

halo is the planet of your empire and circle the planet with your colony

[Vellarain]

The hard ring of color does not do much else, but it does seem to indicate the value of a system. Larger systems with more colonies will usually have larger halos around them, home world systems will usually have the largest halo. But there is no real noticeable effect from it.

But the soft circle of color that extends past the ring, that is a colonies influence and it plays a very strong role in territory control. That circle extends as the colony becomes more developed, extending its influence over the surrounding systems. What this influence does is deny other races from colonizing or building mining stations near that colony.

This is also why when a galaxy becomes more developed, you will constantly get pestered by alien races for having military forces in their territory, because you have an armed mining stations in their growing ring of influence.

[Nikratio]

ORIGINAL: Vellarain
But the soft circle of color that extends past the ring, that is a colonies influence and it plays a very strong role in territory control. That circle extends as the colony becomes more developed, extending its influence over the surrounding systems. What this influence does is deny other races from colonizing or building mining stations near that colony.

Hmm. So how is that different from the (much bigger) blue overlay that I get when I enable "Show Empire Influence" (rightmost button above the minimap)?

[Vellarain]

ORIGINAL: Nikratio


Hmm. So how is that different from the (much bigger) blue overlay that I get when I enable "Show Empire Influence" (rightmost button above the minimap)?

Oh... well, shit now I have no clue. Because I always have the planet influence overlay turned on I simply assumed that was what you were talking about.

I have no relevant information to shed any light on this rather than it is simply there for aesthetics.

((update!))

OK, I figured it out, the hard halos mark colonized systems. Meanwhile the systems with colored circles show that they are under your influence and therefore are in your empires territory!

[Aeson]

Meanwhile the systems with colored circles show that they are under your influence and therefore are in your empires territory!

Technically, this isn't quite true. The systems, gas clouds, nova remnants, and black holes with the colored circles, such as the one around GN679 in the image in the original post, around them are those systems that fall within a known empire's area of influence and which have been explored by you (or for which you have found a map, if you discovered system maps in a ruin or purchased a system map from a pirate or traded maps with another empire), not simply those systems which fall within your area of influence.

You are correct in saying that the solid ring represents a system in which there is at least one colonized world, though this too has an additional stipulation - namely, that no other empire also controls a colony within that system. If multiple empires control colonies within the same system, you will see a ring with alternating color bands surrounding the system, with the color bands indicating which empires own colonies in that system (this is true with two empires which each own at least one colony within the system, though it might not be if more than two empires own colonies within a single system; I have however never seen more than two empires controlling colonies within the same system at the same time that I can recall, though you will occasionally come across systems which contain a sufficiently large number of inhabitable systems to allow for the possibility of three or more empires with colonies within a single system).

[Nikratio]

Got it, thanks everyone!