It's not a game!

[Phyl]

I find I switch back and forward between 'game' and 'simulation'. From time to time I load up the big guns and go shoot at some stuff, rob some people or waste time in some other frivolous role-playing kind of way. However I usually get bored of that quite quickly and pretty soon pack my bags and head back out to see the sights. I've yet to get bored of that!

 

[Berty Dastard]

Someone just repped me and I thank them for reminding me to revisit this post, and see all the bits I did not realise had been added. And from the first page the expression 'There are air-to-air missiles with ranges exceeding 100km today' has rung in my ears. I muse that whilst AIM-54 Phoenix missiles might go a long way in Earth's atmosphere, even the lowliest missile will, or should, travel forever in this environment whether it becomes captured by the gravity of some object and becomes a satellite or just keeps going elsewhere. And as someone else mentions all you would need to would be thrusters to change its path for homing in. Imagine the velocity it would achieve after a few thousand years, and the surprise someone might get to find themselves hit by that amount of energy - no explosive charge required thanks. My imagination is still being tweaked both by ED and this forum

Oh and for all those who continually repeat the mantra that it was released too early - it is still developing and may become what you hoped for it, when you invested!

 

[Herik]

Oh it's definitely a game, but I think to cast it purely as an arcade game is going too far. There is a spectrum. It's not a one-dimensional spectrum. It's quite sim-like in some respects, and less so in others. I'm always left with the impression that where it's unrealistic, it's an exception to being sim-like, rather than the norm, but, yes - to make it sensible as a game.

Well, think of E as a game where it needs to be a game, and a Sim where it can be a Sim...

 

[lysan]

Good post @OP,

Yes the milky way is a simulation as good as it can get. Everything else is a game however as close to what we know could be possible in the future. (with some moderations)

 

[CactuarLOL]

Still have yet to see a Pulsar, are they in the game?

 

[Ralph Vargr]

I always think it's like driving on the roads - there's something about not seeing the other person's face.

Just wait until they start driving like they post on the internet...

 

[syngyne]

Thing is, I don't think docking with a station undetected was very realistic in the first place, and just underlines my point that the spaceflight stuff in the game is very far from anything hard science fiction. All that stealth stuff is there because they wanted an element of submarine warfare in the game because they thought it would be cool. Not because it would be particularly realistic in a space setting.

Yeah... I mean, if a station traffic controller clears a ship to land on a pad, and then notices the ship suddenly drop off sensors and reappear quietly inside the station, they're probably going to have security waiting by the pad to ask the pilot a few questions.

 

[OnePercent]

I learned a ton of things, Like OBAFGKM Stellar classification and many other things not found in the game like the physics of wolf-rayet stars, Eta Carinea etc.

You learn things about physics, orbital mechanics and astronomy, of course I was already and always interested in space and the universe

 

[Nonya]

Actually it's a game with a very, very good galactic simulation.

 

[CaptainSeriousFun]

I keep hearing Ah-nuld-voice like "It's not a tumah!"

 

[JeffRyan]

I'm of an age where I'm just about to get more money from the government each week to spend on computer hardware. All my life Astronomy has been on my bucket list of interests to indulge later on. It's always later on because I live in a large town in the south of England, where the light pollution (and the weather most of the year) spoils any view of the wide black yonder. But now I am little more than 1,000 ly from Sagittarius A* and getting beyond the jump, scoop, scan mentality of just getting there. This area has so much interesting stuff in it simply because of it's nature. Dense in stars and their types because they are so close - or because they haven't gone that far? There's a question that has only occurred as I am writing. And one of many.

I came across a star that simply glowed on the galaxy map, and it was not possible to select it as a target for a jump. My interest was piqued. I wanted it to be a neutron star, so thought I had better find out what a neutron star is (apart from being a good earner for an explorer). So I looked it up. And while I was at it I looked up Wolf Raynet stars and a bunch of other stuff I didn't know about. Turned out it was a pair of white T Tauri stars - or should that be T Tauri binary. I don't know but I will find out. But to the point, I was educating myself. The game was stimulating me to learn

And that leads me to another thought train. There are a lot of moaners on here. Not least those who do it because the latest patch does not include what they are waiting for next. They seem to think some of this stuff can be done by the developers in just a couple of weeks since the last big patch. More and more I realise just how much realism is in here. They must surely have astronomers on the staff because there is no real moaning, that I have noticed, about accuracy. That may be the wrong word I know because mostly it's guesstimates. But as the only game that has, or has attempted, to map the whole galaxy ED must attract a lot of astronomers - whether they be amateurs or professionals. I haven't noticed them complaining. So they must be doing a lot of stuff right.

This is not a game it's a simulation

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