Galaxy Expansion

Has the expansion of space/galaxies been modeled? I know it was developed first principles - was this included? Seems to take longer to travel towards the centre of the galaxy than away. If so, you've made me a happy man. Really happy with the game, but over the moon if you've put that in. It's childhood dreams made reality.
 
The scale of a single galaxy (milky way) isn't just big enough to notice any difference...one year game time is one year real time afaik. And in one or ten years, the galaxy let alone the universe doesn't change much. Frontier could say "its all realistic", but you couldn't really say if it is true.

If I travel between planets in a twin star system...it hardly changes gameplay when the distance is 100,322 instead of 100,311. So its just important for immersion.

I don't know how they've done the programming...but simulating gravity correctly for 400 billion stars in realtime isn't possible in 2014
 
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Only one galaxy. Only one skybox. Unless they change the skybox to show expansion. Galactic travel.............if the game is around long enough........another 30 years. By that time we should have a Holodeck. As far as the expansion/collapse of our own galaxy, not sure if they modeled that in or why they would need to. It's cool enough taking a trip out to look down on the orbits of a system. Wonder if you sat on the dock of an Outpost long enough if you'd notice the station orbiting the planet, I think this works, seems to or it was just my imagination when I took a break and came back about 2 hours later still docked. Those little details no matter how small do add a lot to the over all feel of the game and the immersion in it.
 
I swear moving away from the galactic plane took less time than toward it. I'll time a run both ways. If physical distance was increasing, surely it would have to be reset at some point. Is there a force pushing objects away from the centre of the galaxy as well as toward it? Sorry, I lack any real astro-physics knowledge. Are stations in geostationary orbits around planets? Maybe some are, and some aren't, like our satellites.
 
Is there a force pushing objects away from the centre of the galaxy as well as toward it?
Nope. There is a dark matter halo around the galaxy, which results in the stars further away from the center to move faster then the ones close to it (that's the theory anyway,) but that doesn't affect human time scales. You wouldn't get "moved away" from the center if you were in a space ship.

Also, the expansion of the universe does NOT result in expansion within galaxies. Gravity wins over the general expansion of the universe; the outside stars do not get further away from the center over time.
 
I don't know how they've done the programming...but simulating gravity correctly for 400 billion stars in realtime isn't possible in 2014

That is b/c it isn't done in real time. When you load up a system there are static values/characteristics of that system that are fed into Stellar Forge's algorithms. Running that through produces the basic system, stars, planets and orbits. Then, or concurrently, the date/time is passed. This tells Stellar Forge, based on the system's initial values, where all the objects should be at a given time.

MATHS
 
Nope. There is a dark matter halo around the galaxy, which results in the stars further away from the center to move faster then the ones close to it (that's the theory anyway,) but that doesn't affect human time scales. You wouldn't get "moved away" from the center if you were in a space ship.

Also, the expansion of the universe does NOT result in expansion within galaxies. Gravity wins over the general expansion of the universe; the outside stars do not get further away from the center over time.

Wrong, the stars near the galactic core move a lot faster than those in the spirals and halo.
 
Also, the expansion of the universe does NOT result in expansion within galaxies. Gravity wins over the general expansion of the universe; the outside stars do not get further away from the center over time.

Eventually, and it is a very very very very long eventually...expansion should win out over gravity. In combination with the death of stars, the continued cooling of space and the still accelerating expansion...the universe will eventually become completely 'flat', cold and dark. Entropy reaching its eventual conclusion where order is impossible when all is the same and non-reactive.

In my theories, it is in this flat uniform universe where you've returned to initial conditions prior to the big bang (3D space being irrelevant as all points are correlated, think solidified from the cold). It is in this highly uniform and stable state where quantum permutations are extremely slim in probability (cuz it so cold to the point where there is literally not one energetic warm particle left). Though, when that random quantum event does occur, the ripple is felt all throughout the universe with all energy rushing to the low pressure area of the event(The quantum event causes an uptick in energy increasing volume and lowering density). End state matter fills that energy gap until density is so great that another big bang occurs.

Just my wacky theory though...after years of studying quantum criticality at extremely low temps.
 
What do you think Carl Sagan would have made of this game? It's really encouraging knowing some people with a real interest in this stuff play ED. Hat's off to you guys, hope to meet you out there some time.
 
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