visit alternate universe or distant galaxy in expansion

Monk · Jan 21, 2015

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150121083648.htm

Was just reading the above and starting thinking if the galaxy is a worm hole then maybe an expansion to ED would be to transit the tunnel.

Obviously, having more of what the milky way offers would be pointless...but visiting a galaxy with interesting backgrounds, different physics, or an abundance of thargoids would be a neat addition.

poshblobfish · Jan 21, 2015

That would probably never happen; FD is having enough work fleshing out our own galaxy, let alone another one.

Rickenbacker · Jan 21, 2015

Like you say yourself, no real point. We already have a galaxy that's so huge that we'll never explore even 1% of it in the lifetime of the game.

mhughes2k · Jan 21, 2015

The alternate universe isn't a bad idea for the beta testing for future "major" expansions...of course they'd be of finite lifespan and you could pop into existence on the beta server in some random configuration (rich, poor, big ship, small ship) in order to test the mechanics being introduced...

It would mean that you don't have anything to lose by testing.

(Now for a nice comparision with Eve): Eve-online does this (well along these lines) with it's tranquilty (live) and singularity (test) environments

Monk · Jan 21, 2015

poshblobfish said:
That would probably never happen; FD is having enough work fleshing out our own galaxy, let alone another one.

I don't mean now or even this year. The base game needs to be top priority. I could see this as an addition like five or eight years away

Avnas · Jan 21, 2015

i want LMC as an addition

Chazzie · Jan 21, 2015

Don't the Thargoids come from another dimension? If so, that could make a good expansion.

Avnas · Jan 21, 2015

Chazzie said:
Don't the Thargoids come from another dimension? If so, that could make a good expansion.

galactic defence force sets out to hold sag a* from the thargoid mothership

Tolas · Jan 21, 2015

Don't they claim something like 400 billion star systems? Probably going to be a very long time, if at all, that the game runs out of places to explore.

WalterHWhite · Jan 21, 2015

The galaxy is more than big enough to fit anything they could ever put into this game.

Monk · Jan 21, 2015

WalterHWhite said:
The galaxy is more than big enough to fit anything they could ever put into this game.

Not everything...if I wanted the spiral of the milky way as my back drop, I need to get to a star in LMC. Plus this isn't about seeing everything...just seeing if there is a way to open up possibilities that aren't possible within the milky way. For example, nuclear forces might not operate the same way in the entire universe, according to some theories, maybe you end up somewhere where stars are made of elements not typical for fusion in our neighborhood.

Note: this is a pure exercise in imagination based on real science. I don't expect FD to even try any of this...at least not for a long time

Leo Sagan · Jan 21, 2015

Very easy to do lore wise IMHO, even if D.B. said several times he wasn't for it. But this could change. This would be a long long long term development I think, they have a lot of things planned before that.
At first I was disappointed because I wanted very much intergalactic stuff but at this point, the game is so barebones that the only thing I want is games mechanics developments.

EAGLE 5 · Jan 21, 2015

Sounds like we may be dealing with fluidic space... either that or it's time to bring back the Inter-Galaxy Jump Hyperdrive of old Elite..

Travel all 8 dimensions!

WalterHWhite · Jan 21, 2015

Maybe use superstring theory and you can claim to have 11 dimensions, and 10^499 universes that existed in too much of a short time for you to visit.

Or the 'many worlds' approach where all quantum states are realised in a seemingly infinite number of universes. That way if you get killed, you just jump to the universe that has you before you were killed, but it's you in an Anaconda this time. Or you could just skip it all and to to the universe where you've already done everything you were going to do in the game.

I'm jesting, though. Having alternate places where the laws of physics are different just opens up something beyond the scope of this game, IMHO.

Stick with the 400 bn stars in one galaxy, it has enough scale. It's definitely interesting to entertain the "what ifs", as long as we're separating that from serious suggestions to the game

Monk · Jan 21, 2015

FWIW, I also think the FPS addition is beyond the scope of the game but that was promised, I suppose.

I'm just a glutton for space...I always want more and can't help thinking that 400 billion stars is a small number. Another example, what if you could find a cold and dying galaxy where almost all the elements have been fused into heavy metals. Could be neat, even if you could only visit a system or two.

Helvellyn · Jan 21, 2015

I don't see the point.

Schwaa Mageddon · Jan 21, 2015

Because it's there.

Monk · Jan 21, 2015

Helvellyn said:
I don't see the point.

Schwaa Mageddon said:
Because it's there.

Exactly. The whole fly to any point of light you see is misleading. Which is fine, our galaxy is huge and is more than enough play area. But, I can see Andromeda and I can't go there even though we can travel at several thousand times the speed of light. Again, not a problem with the game, just idle imagination on what the game might be many years from now

Cirrus · Jan 21, 2015

The article lost me at (or wormholes or Einstein-Penrose bridges)
it's Einstein Rosen bridge.

barcode · Jan 21, 2015

Avnas said:
i want LMC as an addition

Yeah, I'd like to be able to get far enough outside the galaxy, say the Magellanic Clouds or a globular cluster, to be able to see the entire Milky Way spiral at once.