While a Sophon I discovered roid field CRL 2688 wth my colonizer, of which I must ""extend my systems' influence over it to receive its bonuses."  My influence now @ turn 12 is 77(+7).  How do I go about "extending" influence?  From what I understand, influence is more of a turn related incidental passive attribute while playing, and if so will there be a pop-up telling me that my influence has been extended to this particular roid field with bonuses?  Are there there any other passive or active actions that affect the extension of influence?

Clarste wrote:

It's the size of the colored circle around your system. It gets bigger the more influence that system has produced over the course of the game. When the circle overlaps the asteroid, you get the bonus.

Thanks for the heads-up

Also worth noting the larger the system's influence gain per turn, the faster that region will spread.  There are some heroes that have a ridiculous amount of influence generation (+20 + 4/hero_level) that will blow up those regions right quick.

I assume buildings that actually generate influence counts towards increasing this ring such as the Vodyani temple tech?

Do fleets effect the ring of influence as well?  

Also lets say your influence encroaches on an enemy sector will they have to declare war to attack you?  If so I assume that is a way to use the religious party ability to attack/invade when at cold war to your advantage as they cant attack you as its your ring of influence now but you can go into thier regions and attack them :P