Raxxla? Is it really there?

[KellyR]

Not sure if this is the correct section to put this in but here goes.

I've read where some people don't think Raxxla is actually in the game; they think it will be patched in. They data mine and can't find any reference. I'd like to say that that doesn't mean a whole lot. There are 400 billion stars (there or thereabouts) in the Milky Way of the Elite Dangerous universe. For those on PC, if you look at your elite-dangerous-64 folder, the main game folder under your products folder and right click on it, the reported size, as of this writing, is 19.9 GB. That's 19.9 billion bytes. That's a far cry from 400 billion.

They've also said concerning Raxxla that there will be no clues, although according to the Elite Dangerous Wiki, Michael Brooks did say "I think you have to make some of it a tiny bit obvious so the players know what they are doing."

I can guarantee you that Raxxla can be in the game without there being any reference that a human can read in the game files. And yes, I know, they had the Barnacles there. I think they had the Barnacles in there just as a teaser, knowing people would data mine. They didn't have to have them named where a human could read it.

 

[LP Garnell]

There are 400 billion stars (there or thereabouts) in the Milky Way of the Elite Dangerous universe. For those on PC, if you look at your elite-dangerous-64 folder, the main game folder under your products folder and right click on it, the reported size, as of this writing, is 19.9 GB. That's 19.9 billion bytes. That's a far cry from 400 billion.

I haven't examined the files myself, but believe there are two things in play wrt star systems in ED. First off, with the exception of the known star systems with data available to all (mostly within or near the bubble/Colonia), star systems are procedurally generated. Meaning their location is fixed, but the makeup of the systems content is only generated when someone visits it for the first time. Even given that, 99%+ of the galaxy's star information is not stored locally, so it will never show up on your computers hard drive files. Exception to that are the star systems and their planets you have personaly explored using onboard sensors. Am not sure where the known star systems are stored; client or server side.

 

[The Lawful]

IIRC David Braben, OBE himself has confirmed Raxxla is in the game and they know where it is. The galaxy itself is definitely stored on the server side, as well as all CMDR-related data (part of it in MySQL, part of it in MongoDB, everything together in an Amazon Cloud cluster). You can easily verify this is by logging in from a different machine, the game still has all your data. On the galaxy topic, there was a very interesting stream with Dr. Anthony Ross recently, explaining how they technically did it and it's brilliant. What one might extract from the client files (encrypted nowadays) would only be the visuals (some of these might also be dynamically loaded from the server), not the data itself. So this would lead to nothing. We have to believe DBOBE, I guess.

O7,
[noob]

 

[LP Garnell]

Do you recall where you saw that stream? Extremely interested to see it myself.

 

[Zieman]

Do you recall where you saw that stream? Extremely interested to see it myself.

Buried deep down in the DD section:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/389620

 

[Jackie Silver]

We have to believe DBOBE, I guess.

It's an odd one. Raxxla-the-name was dreamed up by Bob Holdstock for an entirely different invented universe before he repurposed it for The Dark Wheel and tied it into his stock-in-trade gateway-of-the-worlds theme; his work falls firmly into the "Sci-fi writers have no sense of scale" camp so whatever concept he had of Raxxla is probably - I don't have a good word for it - non-physical, not-real, not-even-wrong, when applied to the real-ish galaxy of Elite: Dangerous.

(Nothing against him, I like his style... in moderation.)

Hearsay is that he confided the secret of Raxxla to Ian Bell (only), so my guess would be that if that's true he's kept it to himself, and consequently only IB knows where and what the "real" Raxxla is, and whatever Raxxla may or may not be in Elite: Dangerous ain't the "real" one. On the other hand, I know people would argue (wrongly, of course! ) that these days the Elite galaxy is wholly DB's domain to do with as he pleases, and that consequently if DB has indeed put a Raxxla into the game then that is de facto the real Raxxla. On the gripping hand, I don't care, whatever mysteries are in game are good enough for me!

 

[Zulu Romeo]

On second thoughts, let's not go to Raxxla.

'Tis a silly place.

 

[NW3]

I do believe Raxxla is in the game. I think it's in or near the bubble. As to why it hasn't been found, that's easy: Hide the planet in plain sight; just make sure that it doesn't show up when the system is scanned. For all we know, it's 1000 ls past Hutton Orbital. Think about it, who in their right mind would go exploring out there?

 

[Pyrotiger]

Yes. Raxxla is really 'there'.

 

[Jaiotu]

Raxxla is out there. Some of us even think we have a pretty good idea where to start looking for it.

I'm not sure that the statement from David Braben that Raxxla is "in the game" and that he "knows where it is" is one that you'll find a direct source for. IIRC this was a something that Drew Wagar said. My understanding is that Drew asked David a direct question regarding whether or not Raxxla was in-game and David confirmed that it is. Drew later leaked David's quote to the community at large. I may be wrong but I don't think that David Braben ever addressed this directly to the community.

In the end the best source we have coming officially from Frontier was the DJTruthSayer interview with Michael Brookes in which Michael said that, even though there won't be any clues, it "has to be a tiny bit obvious".

 

[Maxsam]

Can you share where would you and others tend to start looking for it? How can one join said group of people to help in searching of Raxxla?

 

[Shinji Ikari]

I honestly don't think it exists.

 

[Malicron]

I'd assume that, if it's in at all, it's in one of the locked sections of the galaxy.

 

[Sabartooth14]

Can you share where would you and others tend to start looking for it? How can one join said group of people to help in searching of Raxxla?

http://childrenofraxxla.co.uk/home/

Children of Raxxla is the main group leading expeditions to search for the planet, I must agree with previous comments, I dont think its going to be very far from the bubble, but who knows, we wont find it till someone drives up on the ruins with an Srv, it may never be found....

 

[TWitko]

I believe it's there, already. Where ? Actually it can be anywhere. I mean literally anywhere - even quite close to Bubble. Galaxy map we use is not real scan of real surroundings. It's just a database of known systems stored in our ship's computer. How are we be sure this database is complete? What about system, two systems, many systems which are just hidden somewhere between known stars. They are not included in our database for whatever reason, we have no clue of them, jumping "over" them maybe on daily basis

Maybe we need to discover something .. information or data which will enrich our Galmap database, then Raxxla may appear. Or there is some artificial gateway to it ... then (as said above already) that gateway may be located even in well known system, just really far away from main star, thus doesn't appear on System map nor Navpanel. Not sure if we are able to discover it now (have all necessary information), maybe we'll get it in future, maybe it's already here and we just overlook it ...

TW

 

[space voyager]

[deep]Whenever you go looking for Raxxla, you've found it already. Being ready to go on a quest, to search for something with unknown return, is a gateway to another universe in itself.[/deep]

 

[Comandante]

Can you share where would you and others tend to start looking for it? How can one join said group of people to help in searching of Raxxla?

Head over here:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/168253-The-Quest-To-Find-Raxxla

There are many people discussing the topic of the search there. Worth going through the lot, there's some interesting information in there.

 

[Falcon JSDF]

One theory was it was in a nebula for easy navigation for the creatures using it. I think all nebulae have been explored though

 

[Malicron]

To be fair, all the devs said was "they know where it is", that doesn't necessarily mean it's somewhere currently accessible.

 

[KellyR]

One theory was it was in a nebula for easy navigation for the creatures using it. I think all nebulae have been explored though

I don't think all of them have been explored. At least not thoroughly. There's a lot of systems out there. More than most people can conceive. Only .003% of the galaxy has been explored. That's 15,779,755 systems. Sounds like a huge number, but compared to 400 billion, it's not that much. At this rate it should only take us another 56,000 years (there or thereabouts) to discover all the systems.