About the 400 billion star systems

Aenema

A
Hi commanders,

What is your opinion about the 400 billion star systems thing ?

One thing i like with the beta is getting familiar with current systems, and this is possible because there is only 55 of them. When i talk about the game with a friend of mine (he plays too), naming "LHS 3262" or "Morgor" has a real meaning to him because he knows well that place too.

This allows us to develop a certain "affection" with a system or another.

My concern is that this will not be possible anymore with 400 billion of them, they will become "bland" and "soulless".

And quite frankly, i don't see the point to have that much systems. It seems overkill to me.

Plus the fact quantity often drags down quality (very generic star system names for instance)

Plus the fact it will be scarce to see other player characters.

Wouldn't a thousand be more than enough ?
 

jabokai

jabokai
"Only" 70K or so will be populated initially and I dare say that a lot of players will gravitate to certain collections of systems so I wouldn't worry about it.
 

Joe Spivey

Joe Spivey
Forming an affection for a certain system or island of systems just seems rather limiting. It's like living in a city and never leaving your apartment block.

I plan to trade my way to the edge of settled space. Hopefully I will then have enough CR saved to buy and outfit a ship to head off into the deep black. Once I do I don't care if I never see another player again. I want a new adventure every time I log on, not meet Tom and Harry for a chinwag and a bit of piracy or whatever before bed.
 

deMangler

deMangler
There has been an enormous amount of discussion on this topic. Lots - if you are looking for opinions on this there is more than anyone could possibly want to read already on this forum.
Still - the forum search sucks so often I find myself asking things I know have already been answered but I can't find it.


My response to the question is that as long as there are more systems than could possibly be explored by everyone who is playing the game in my lifetime then that is probably enough.
Even when I am not into exploring I will be playing in a galaxy that will forever (practically) contain unknowns, as a backdrop. This is very important.
A skybox itself does not provide backdrop, does not provide context for a game set in SPACE, not really.
 

Iain M Norman

Iain M Norman
It's often said that 1000 or so would be enough.

It's like Henry Ford said:

"If I'd asked people what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse".
 

Jackie Silver

Jackie Silver
Aenema said:
And quite frankly, i don't see the point to have that much systems. It seems overkill to me.
Click to expand...

400 billion stars is the usual estimate for the number in our galaxy. The number isn't exact - it could be half that, maybe more than that - but it's near enough. I'm happy with using that number. While Frontier also modeled the galaxy it did so in a squashed and unrealistic way with fewer stars - Dangerous is a better map of how things are.

(Though we don't actually know what the whole of our own galaxy looks like, because we're out on one side and the galactic centre obscures our view of the other side. It's a spiral but the exact shape is difficult to know.)

In any case, I'm expecting to settle down for a while in some corner of the Alliance and make it my home ground, and I think that's what people will do - go to an area and get to know it well enough to trade and run missions and so on. People will certainly gravitate to the major factional centres - the Federation, the Empire, the Alliance - and to the area immediately around Sol, and to the Old Worlds.
 

Titus Balls

Titus Balls
It's not because they had to create a galaxy with 400b stars, but rather because they could.

It's impossible for anyone to visit them all - humans will either all be dead or we'll already *really* be going out to the stars before it could ever be done.
 

Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
Replace "400 billion" with "infinite" and you will feel much better.

Only several ten thousand are human occupied. People will explore rest of them. Will they see them all? Maybe, maybe not. But who cares?

If you will want to be pirate or trader or interact with something, you will be near core systems. If you will want to explore, you will go into unknown.
 

ZaphodBeeble

ZaphodBeeble
OP, are you kidding? It's supposed to be a simulacrum of the actual Milky Way galaxy. When we start travelling between the stars for real shall we shout into the heavens saying, 'TOO MANY STARS! I CAN'T REMEMBER THEIR NAMES!'? :D

I like the fact that there's no familiarity. When you've been travelling about and you 'come home' it will really FEEL like home. That starter system perhaps, or maybe that system where you spent a while mining. It will be an adventure!
 
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alan

A
why not just let a computer model the time it would take to visit each and every system in the ED Galaxy, see how long it would realistically take.
 

Ceo

C
I can't help but disagree with the OP as well, sorry mate. No I want those 400 billion stars. I might only get through a few hundred in my gaming career, but I want those 400 billion.

More importantly I want there to be things to find out there.
 

hobblygobbly

hobblygobbly
a) Because it's cool and already done.
b) They will slowly open more up over time.
c) Players naturally will populate certain areas of space, you will also get demographics such as nationalities that dominantly exist in certain areas and so on. A great case study is that of how it exists in EVE, parts of space will be empty with the occasional passer-by, then getting closer to populated groups it builds up and nearby the populated groups you will see a lot more activity.

This is because of how it naturally is in real life too, there are areas that are populated, and when you begin leaving those areas it's less populated till you get to a populated area again. People naturally follow this behaviour, it's who we are as human beings.

You won't have to worry about losing that meaning/affection you have, it'll stay like that. Core/populated areas will stay so, and they will change over time, but places will always be populated, those places may just change over time to other more prosperous ones or whatever.

Taking EVE as an example, I've played since 2005 and there are parts of space I've never been to (mostly Russian 0.0 and the far-east side of the cluster past Providence and the upper nort and lower south, and the majority of high-sec I've never been in), and EVE is small in comparison to the 400 billion in ED, even though it is the second biggest playable space in a videogame. The same human psychology will populate and drive core regions of space in ED, it's just how we naturally group together.
 
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Angus

Angus
Its a perfectly reasonable point of view (OP). It is overwhelming and beyond our capacity to even really visualise.

But that's space for you, more specifically the Milky Way galaxy, and it seems clear that this massive backdrop, mirroring creation as accurately as they know how, is a major part of David Braben's enthusiasm.

I think its so integral to his vision that you have to accept, it is the nature of the beast that is Elite.
 

ScottGust

ScottGust
Aenema said:
Hi commanders,

What is your opinion about the 400 billion star systems thing ?

One thing i like with the beta is getting familiar with current systems, and this is possible because there is only 55 of them. When i talk about the game with a friend of mine (he plays too), naming "LHS 3262" or "Morgor" has a real meaning to him because he knows well that place too.

This allows us to develop a certain "affection" with a system or another.

My concern is that this will not be possible anymore with 400 billion of them, they will become "bland" and "soulless".

And quite frankly, i don't see the point to have that much systems. It seems overkill to me.

Plus the fact quantity often drags down quality (very generic star system names for instance)

Plus the fact it will be scarce to see other player characters.

Wouldn't a thousand be more than enough ?
Click to expand...


U can still have ur bubble..but isnt it nice to know if u want to explore its available?...there will be many explorers and if I understand correctly we will be able to build stations in newly discovered systems.. this requires a collaborative effort and will bring players together...
 
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