Started playing today but have either not encountered another player or people mostly mind their own business? Are people too spread out exploring or doing other activities?
open. Is there an area where people usually hang out, like a trade hub?
The game is run as a Peer to peer network between players. The 'modes' (Open, solo, group) are just matchmaking flags to help the P2P matchmaking program match people to others with the same 'interaction level'.
This is not a client/server game like WoW, where there are lots of people running around willy nilly...
There is also the idea that roughly 700k people are spread out over 400 billion star systems.
I think you meant 700 people..
Not to see anyone in Open is not normal. Check your ping time, your firewall and your router.open. Is there an area where people usually hang out, like a trade hub?
If this is the case, you will not see anyone in Open, never. The game simply cannot tunnel through multiple NATs.