100,000,000,000 Star Sytems

[Squicker]

Has this been asked before? Is it true there are 100bn star systems in ED? If so, how do we locate each other, real players will be spread so thin we'd statistically not run into another one ever in game play lasting many years.

 

[Alien]

As I understand it, There will be 100 billion systems, but on first release, the play area will be limited to about 100,000 (confirmation needed) and slowly opened up.

Even then, I doubt you'll find many players out beyond the safety of the core systems.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Has this been asked before? Is it true there are 100bn star systems in ED? If so, how do we locate each other, real players will be spread so thin we'd statistically not run into another one ever in game play lasting many years.

There will be 100bn star systems, engine easily allows it. However, some sections of galaxy will be sealed off for various future updates (mostly storyline, yeah, there will be storyline in ED, if you choose to follow it). We will start with more than enough star systems to even care about number of systems (millions? tens of millions?)

 

[Zieman]

Yup, player starting positions are all in human-occupied space, which I'd guess to be within around 100 LY radius of Sol.

 

[nicomak]

it will change a lot from the previous games but take a look there

http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=230188#post230188

oh, this goes a bit beyond 100LY by the way, but with real star positions, it may have to be bigger than this.

for instance Achernar(Aka Achenar in the games) is 144+/-4LY from Sol, while in FE2 & FFE it was somewhere between 30 & 40 LY away. And this system is supposed to be the capital system of the Empire.

Edit : link corrected

 

[Zieman]

Yeah, might be bigger volume than 100 LY radius - more like 200, thanks Nicomak .

 

[Maxeren]

There will be 100bn star systems, engine easily allows it. However, some sections of galaxy will be sealed off for various future updates (mostly storyline, yeah, there will be storyline in ED, if you choose to follow it). We will start with more than enough star systems to even care about number of systems (millions? tens of millions?)

Neverending storyline you mean..

 

[Gibbonici]

Space is a big and lonely place.

That said, I imagine most players will be concentrated in the core systems (of which there are still a helluva lot, from what I understand) because that's where the trade routes and action will be, and hubs of activity may develop as a result of player organisation and the background simulation.

 

[Norbert]

This is actually the first game in which I will need more than a life time to visit all the maps

 

[Cody]

There was mention of a 250ly bubble (radius, I presume) to start with - any other word on that?

 

[Slawkenbergius]

I think there are actually 400,000,000,000. Frontier came out with 100,000,000,000 during the Kickstarter, and that was the number in Frontier and FFE, so everybody latched onto it. However, there is this from Newsletter #9:

400 billion stars - that's a large number; and they need to be generated on demand, quickly.

I did remember looking up the current estimates during the Kickstarter, and mentioned 400,000,000,000 several times before getting 'corrected'.

 

[Nagual]

There was mention of a 250ly bubble (radius, I presume) to start with - any other word on that?

If I recall correctly, MB said something like 70K populated systems (at the start of the game) spread out in roughly that sort of size, I don't think it was mention how much of the galaxy would be blocked off.

 

[Slawkenbergius]

There was mention of a 250ly bubble (radius, I presume) to start with - any other word on that?

That was the area of space that humanity has colonised so far. I don't think players will be hard-limited to that, because the Explorer package starts us off out on that boundary, with the intention that we can go out exploring.

There was mention of a 'starter area', which is likely to be that we start without hyperdrive, or drives only operate with limited range, meaning we have to play a while to earn our way out of it.

 

[Mobius]

take EVE online that can happily have 25,000 players online at the same time and their galaxy in only 5000 star systems big

 

[Cody]

If I recall correctly, MB said something like 70K populated systems...

There are roughly 260,000 systems within 250ly, so 70,000 populated systems sounds fine - and pretty damn big!

 

[SlinkyJim]

last time i looked at eve (2 days ago) it was running 41k

i like eve.. but i love Elite, fire up the hyperdrive and jump.... what bliss

 

[Dalkeith]

Realistically numbers above 200,000 really are great but not sure I'll be needing them.

Visiting 10 systems everyday of a year in a 200,000 star galaxy will take you 54 years to get round the whole map. At the same pace if there's a 100 billion stars it would take you 27 million years to get round the whole map.

Space is big.

 

[Riedquat]

So roughly how many of those systems will we be able to interact with?, (im thinking of trade and missions mainly).

 

[Nagual]

So roughly how many of those systems will we be able to interact with?, (im thinking of trade and missions mainly).

A rough guestimate would be around 70,000. I get this number from MB saying there are about 70K populated systems. It may be the case that not all can be used as trade hubs or what ever, but there abouts. It will increase slowly over time as new stations are built and new systems discovered etc.

 

[Squicker]

A rough guestimate would be around 70,000. I get this number from MB saying there are about 70K populated systems. It may be the case that not all can be used as trade hubs or what ever, but there abouts. It will increase slowly over time as new stations are built and new systems discovered etc.

OK, so masses of stars to give space a feeling of incredible vastness but a strong narrative and set of game requirements, with limited start systems, driving us to stay in a core set of fleshed out systems. That's what I'm hearing, which seems logical.