Offline/online -have they clarified this?

[Ericksson]

By this, I'm wondering whether players have to be online 100% of the time, or whether they will need to go online at the start of a session, and then be able to play offline for the rest of the session.

 

[Tarman]

Basically anything you do that involves some kind of data transfer needs to talk to the servers. So if you trade, or turn in bounties, or buy something, or fit your ship, you're bipping the server for that. Any kind of interaction on that level is tied to the online galaxy. So there's not really a way to "pre-load" a session with online data and then play offline.

 

[Antaniserse]

By this, I'm wondering whether players have to be online 100% of the time, or whether they will need to go online at the start of a session, and then be able to play offline for the rest of the session.

It's not only for authentication, there's a very frequent flow of data running between the client and the server, during various gameplay activities:
When you access the station services, when you enter/exit hyperspace, during interdictions, when accessing the map... so, in short, you have to be constantly connected

 

[kwik]

the solo mode is very minimal in its requirements for this, its worth noting. around 10kb/s.

 

[SJT]

By this, I'm wondering whether players have to be online 100% of the time, or whether they will need to go online at the start of a session, and then be able to play offline for the rest of the session.

You can test this yourself. Start the game and pull your ethernet cable/switch your router off. Play the game and see how long it takes you to be kicked out. It won't be long.