The way the procedurally-generated galaxy operates means it is impossible to have truly dynamic, irreversible events (like stars exploding or planets colliding) which are included in that procedural generation. While you are staring at the hyperspace loading screen, the stellar forge creates the star system from the seed (or from hand-crafted data) at "time = 0" (presumably 1st Jan 3300), then fast-forwards the planets in their orbits to the current game time. As far as the procedural generation is concerned, every planet that existed at "time = 0" must always exist. The only way a "planet can explode" is if ED manually deletes one during a server update.
The same goes for exploding stars. Stars don't even have ordinary variability; Delta Cephei is always the same brightness, no matter what time in its five-day cycle you decide to visit it. Most small M-class stars are supposed to be "flare stars", but you never see one actually flare up. So cataclysmic variablility is certainly out. Again, the only way FD can "make a star go nova" is to manually edit it or delete it during a server update.
Then there's the "infinite speed of light" problem. Make a star go supernova, and the light and shockwave from that supernova is supposed to take years to reach the nearest stars. But any change made to the galaxy map is reflected immediately in the skybox of every system where that star is visible from; the game simply can't model "fossilized light".
The same goes for exploding stars. Stars don't even have ordinary variability; Delta Cephei is always the same brightness, no matter what time in its five-day cycle you decide to visit it. Most small M-class stars are supposed to be "flare stars", but you never see one actually flare up. So cataclysmic variablility is certainly out. Again, the only way FD can "make a star go nova" is to manually edit it or delete it during a server update.
Then there's the "infinite speed of light" problem. Make a star go supernova, and the light and shockwave from that supernova is supposed to take years to reach the nearest stars. But any change made to the galaxy map is reflected immediately in the skybox of every system where that star is visible from; the game simply can't model "fossilized light".
