Imagine THIS many stars to play around in!

[KFBR392]

AFAIK such galaxies are ancient amalgams of many galaxies that have over billions of years collided and fused into the giant ball you observe. Due to the sheer size and therefore age of such a structure it is presumed that star formation in such galaxies is dying out, or even close to being extinct. For reasons why the core of the Milky Way is deemed unsuitable for life such large galaxies would posses huge volumes of space where life as we know it might find it hard or impossible to exist.

 

[WeirdWizard]

The size of the galaxy was a design decision (1:1 milky way) not a technical one. With procedural generation you could make it virtually infinite in size, but at some point it gets meaningless.

Indeed, 400 million, 400 billion 400 squillion... from a gameplay point of view they are indistinguishable. What matters is the number of different unique types of location or region.

 

[Kayweg]

Not for the actual function, no, but for the feeling and sensation most definitly.

Then you have a much greater ability to comprehend than me, and probably most other people.

Just a little quote from an article (link below):


"We can easily visualize five things," says Greenberg. "We can even roughly visualize approximately 100 things — by, say, picturing a large crowd gathered. But when we're talking about millions of things our ability to visualize completely fails." He says that trying to imagine a million people is about as useless as trying to imagine a hundred million.

http://io9.com/how-to-comprehend-incomprehensibly-large-numbers-1531604757

 

[nexxo]

Considering all the bugs, exploits and viruses in real life, id say God better look for another career.

Hey, He only got the job by default.

 

[KFBR392]

Then you have a much greater ability to comprehend than me, and probably most other people.

Just a little quote from an article (link below):


"We can easily visualize five things," says Greenberg. "We can even roughly visualize approximately 100 things — by, say, picturing a large crowd gathered. But when we're talking about millions of things our ability to visualize completely fails." He says that trying to imagine a million people is about as useless as trying to imagine a hundred million.

http://io9.com/how-to-comprehend-incomprehensibly-large-numbers-1531604757

I can visualize about 50 different shades of gray...

 

[Defacto]

Then you have a much greater ability to comprehend than me, and probably most other people.

Just a little quote from an article (link below):


"We can easily visualize five things," says Greenberg. "We can even roughly visualize approximately 100 things — by, say, picturing a large crowd gathered. But when we're talking about millions of things our ability to visualize completely fails." He says that trying to imagine a million people is about as useless as trying to imagine a hundred million.

http://io9.com/how-to-comprehend-incomprehensibly-large-numbers-1531604757

But that's if you have to consider individual items.

5000 stars is enough for one person to visit and explore in a few months. I've already visited 200. 400 Billion stars will practically NEVER be explored, not even if the entire community cooperates to map it all out. That's a big difference.
Not to mention, the galaxy in ED is actually at a similar scale and density to our own. Just this in itself is pretty awesome.

 

[Patrick_68000]

IC 1101 is at the universe that VY Canis Majoris is at the Milky Way

 

[Kayweg]

But that's if you have to consider individual items.

5000 stars is enough for one person to visit and explore in a few months. I've already visited 200. 400 Billion stars will practically NEVER be explored, not even if the entire community cooperates to map it all out. That's a big difference.
Not to mention, the galaxy in ED is actually at a similar scale and density to our own. Just this in itself is pretty awesome.

Ok, that's a fair point of course. We visualize an ocean, not the water molecules that form it.
But even then, the sense of "being in the middle of nowhere" (or the immersion if you will) would be the same in the Mediterranean sea as it would in the Pacific, or in an ocean a 100 times bigger.
That's all i was trying to get at.