Cold war counts as neither peace nor war. It also means that outposts (planets recently colonized) are effective no-mans' land - for all intents other than where their revenue goes, they're non-aligned. Which in turns means that anyone can take 'em without any real diplomatic consequences (theoretically) or travel through them without permission.

eltro102 wrote:
If by the rings you mean the large coloured rings, they are the Influence rings of that system, an enemy fleet cannot cross into those rings unless they are at war with you. The light grey outlined rings are the detection rings, aka at what distance will you see fleets. To change the size, you can build improvements which increase the Influence Area of that system. They can also grow and contract based on population and amount of ships [citationneeded].



The improvements can be seen in that tab next to Hangar, near the bottom left of the screen

Thank you for pointing out the improvements tab. I find the hangar to be a really useless feature in the game (perhaps because I don't understand the need for it) so I don't study at that part of the screen very often.



Regarding the rings, though, I just had an unknown alien fly straight into one of them... but I guess a state of cold war counts as war as well? Or it is because it's first contact?

i like the ring, not as easy to read as a bar but it's visually appealing.

If by the rings you mean the large coloured rings, they are the Influence rings of that system, an enemy fleet cannot cross into those rings unless they are at war with you. The light grey outlined rings are the detection rings, aka at what distance will you see fleets. To change the size, you can build improvements which increase the Influence Area of that system. They can also grow and contract based on population and amount of ships [citationneeded].



The improvements can be seen in that tab next to Hangar, near the bottom left of the screen