It seems every day I pull up the exploration forum and find someone doing something amazing. Somewhere some CMDR is doing something awesome, seeing something no one has ever seen before, or pushing the envelope in some fashion. If you are a new player considering exploration you may be wondering what could possibly be left to do? Every neutron star has been mapped, every black hole logged, between here and Colonia it's all just ho hum, right? You've missed the boat on discovering anything fundamentally new, because it's all been done before, right? Since 2014 the players of Elite have closed the book on the Milky Way, like players of other games reaching new level caps in a matter of hours. Right?
Oh, dear chap, you are so wrong.
Open the galaxy map. That's nearly half a trillion stars. I think the official tally was somewhere around 400,000,000,000 (Billion, with a capital B)? And counting? According to Steam there have been on average 4,562 players active in Elite: Dangerous in the past thirty days, with a peak of 9,981, with an all time peak of almost twice that. For the sake of simplicity let's just call that 18,000 players, the absolute most number of players to have ever been playing Elite: Dangerous simultaneously, ever. How long do you think it would take 18,000 players to explore 400 Billion stars? Let's just assume they spend exactly one minute in each system despite the fact it takes much longer than that. So, time for some math.
That's 400 Billion stars for 400 Billion minutes assuming absolute perfection in efficiency, divided by 18 thousand players, for about 22,222,222 minutes per player. Divide that figure by 60 and we get 370,370 hours, divided by 24 for 15,432 days, divided by 360 for ... forty two (closer to 43 but Don't Panic), years per player. Wrap your mind around that for a moment. If Elite: Dangerous were played non-stop by the most players who have ever played it together, and all devoted themselves to exploration, and did so with perfect efficiency, never once visiting a star already mapped by someone else, they would spend the most meaningful years of their lives doing it. Many would be approaching retirement age by the time it was done, and they would have barely visited those stars having never taken the time to scan anything meaningful.
Never forget there will always be a vast gulf between what is known and what is unknown. There is so much left to see and do, and ample room for you to make your mark, all it takes is your patience and devotion to the task.
Oh, dear chap, you are so wrong.
Open the galaxy map. That's nearly half a trillion stars. I think the official tally was somewhere around 400,000,000,000 (Billion, with a capital B)? And counting? According to Steam there have been on average 4,562 players active in Elite: Dangerous in the past thirty days, with a peak of 9,981, with an all time peak of almost twice that. For the sake of simplicity let's just call that 18,000 players, the absolute most number of players to have ever been playing Elite: Dangerous simultaneously, ever. How long do you think it would take 18,000 players to explore 400 Billion stars? Let's just assume they spend exactly one minute in each system despite the fact it takes much longer than that. So, time for some math.
That's 400 Billion stars for 400 Billion minutes assuming absolute perfection in efficiency, divided by 18 thousand players, for about 22,222,222 minutes per player. Divide that figure by 60 and we get 370,370 hours, divided by 24 for 15,432 days, divided by 360 for ... forty two (closer to 43 but Don't Panic), years per player. Wrap your mind around that for a moment. If Elite: Dangerous were played non-stop by the most players who have ever played it together, and all devoted themselves to exploration, and did so with perfect efficiency, never once visiting a star already mapped by someone else, they would spend the most meaningful years of their lives doing it. Many would be approaching retirement age by the time it was done, and they would have barely visited those stars having never taken the time to scan anything meaningful.
Never forget there will always be a vast gulf between what is known and what is unknown. There is so much left to see and do, and ample room for you to make your mark, all it takes is your patience and devotion to the task.
