Understanding Borders

[Pippin123]

Is there a detailed explanation somewhere on how borders work in Stellaris ?

• How does border extrusion works ? Is it proportional to the Pops on the planet ?
• Is there any way to see how removing an outpost will affect borders ?
• If I you "ringfence" a part of the galaxy with colonies will the gap between them close at some point, or will you still need outpost ?

 

[Voidlord]

Each colonised planet creates a set amount of border which goes up as the population increases.
To number two nope.
With number 3, borders naturally gravitate towards each other. So eventually yes you would

 

[Slarkon]

border is done from the location of the planet and how many pops. kinda bothers me that if i have a system with 3 worlds - two at the "top" and one ner the bottom the border extrusion forces it up away from the largest two planets so systems each generate uneven borders.

only way to see about the outpost is do it after the auto save then reload if the removel of the outpost lost too much territory.

 

[Kreliann]

Yeah I hate that you cant see a preview of how removing an outpost affect the border. Worst, is that it affect not the circular area it originaly gave you, but sometimes it will subtract border from the other part of your empire, many times conceding an important system to a bordering rival

 

[Pippin123]

Thanks for the replies.
I hope they do a Quality of Life improvement for the outpost thing...

 

[The Founder]

• How does border extrusion works ? Is it proportional to the Pops on the planet ?

• Is there any way to see how removing an outpost will affect borders ?

• If I you "ringfence" a part of the galaxy with colonies will the gap between them close at some point, or will you still need outpost ?

1. Yes, it is based on pops on planet. Consider tileblockers and total size for this. The Capitol has a +100% Bonus. So do Xenophobes and some governments.
2. No, there is no way to predict it. However a colony or outpost in a system will always give exclusive rights for that system (unless there is a nother colony/outpost in the same system wich makes the thing muddy).
3. Aside from the pop growth there is also several techs that increase border range. If the gap is small enough - and nobody places a colony to drive a wedge into it - it should close eventually.
3b) There is also Terraforming to make wrong-climate planets habitable for your species/a conquered species, thus closing the gap via additional borders. Of course interrupted borders will not be a problem as long as the other side not closes thier borders, wich depends on relations.

 

[Anaraxes]

If the gap is small enough - and nobody places a colony to drive a wedge into it - it should close eventually.

When there are worlds from different empires, both in border range of some other point of interest, they seem to split the difference between them based on what I think of as "border pressure". The things that make your border larger also move the boundary lines a bit closer to the other empire, even when that's inside your maximum unopposed border range and the border is stable. So the effect of such wedges will vary depending on your development of social border techs and world pop.

Your established borders can also creep into rival territory over time if you out-develop them (or vice versa), so it's possible that systems near the border will automatically change hands without a war.

I find outposts very expensive in terms of influence -- the maintenance cost is higher than it looks, and cuts into your ability to build actual colonies -- and so am usually pretty picky about where I place them, usually only having one or two max. Deleting the enemy outposts is also one of my first orders of business after winning a war and taking systems or integrating a vassal. They're also valuable targets during a war, as you can deprive the enemy of a lot of orbital stations with one blow if they were depending on outposts rather than colonies to fill in gaps.