I just wanted to ask about how many new star systems will be added to the game, as we all know the outer regions is planned, as I would like to see more places to explore with unique features (like new, but not outrageously rare ores like Sammic, but more like Pentric, Heliocene etc), new bot types and drops.

Also, did i guess correctly that the Unknown System is a testing playground to new things, without affecting "known space" much?

Also, will it get a proper name in the future, like how others we know have?

I wanna know too.

Yes, the Unknown System is a testbed. It was our first "new" system in a long time, and I wanted to bring all the old scripts and mechanisms up-to-date and make sure everything was still working.

The Unknown System is probably going to change periodically. Back when it was released, I mentioned this.. it's part of why there are no stations there. We don't want people homing or "basing" themselves out of a system that may completely change.

I can't specifically say exactly how many total star systems are going to be added, long-term, because that depends on how other aspects of gameplay emerge, and how well they work in-practice.

As I mentioned on the other thread, the game was originally (circa-99/2000) envisioned with a truly massive universe. Potentially thousands of star-systems, which could be "discovered" by players over time (using scanners), with some wormholes that would fluctuate in stability (hence, the whole backstory aspect of that). Basically, specific wormholes that would provide transit for a period of time (minutes, hours, days, weeks), and then go "dormant" for a similar period. So, whole regions might be cut-off, for awhile, unless someone discovered an alternate route; or there might be routes that were far more efficient for brief periods of time (or "secret" routes known only to a few), etc. That ended up being beyond-scope of what I could accomplish with four total developers, but I've certainly never forgotten the concept.

That being said, the more-reasonable current goal is to add an additional "ring" of systems around the current known-universe, which connects to the current universe in a few different locations, and provides regions of space and resources which the player-base may contest. One can imagine that while we have the conquerable stations at present (also a simplistic testbed), we would have constructable stations with station-owned automated drones to retrieve ores and minerals (perhaps also blended with mission-hired miners and prospectors). Content extracted from local space would then feed the stations, allowing them to have items available to the local trade economy (mission-driven, like the Latos economy, taken either by players or NPCs), creating a dynamic system where the supply-chain can be interrupted at any number of points, and where threats might similarly appear (Hive, rival players/organizations, NPC pirates, etc).

That's the currently intended "endgame", but, as you might imagine, it has a lot of moving parts. Some might also think because it's such a "leap" beyond the current-game that it's like.. an impossible infinity-of-devtime away. But, that's not really true. A lot of the things I listed above aren't that big of an undertaking, the bigger challenges are areas that are outside our control, or where we "choose" to relinquish control in some way..

For instance, the Latos economy has been really time-consuming, because it is genuinely dynamic and it's not a trivial thing to roll out at-scale, particularly when it also means you have to have thousands of NPCs per-day who successfully launch, travel and dock while carrying actual cargo. NPC pathfinding, flight-AI, physics, collision systems, sector runtime overhead, sector design/layout, these are all factors, and I didn't even mention "the actual economy" in that.

Similarly, we didn't expect to have to spend so much time on Abuse-related systems (one of those "outside our control" type topics). The /report mechanism has been through a lot of iterations, and is going to have to go through several more before it's as effective as it needs to be. The game just didn't have as many problems around toxicity prior to ~2015, and the way that changed and escalated was a bit of a surprise.

This year, we've been (unexpectedly) working on a lot of server-scale challenges, because we started doing internal capacity-testing, early in the year, and found that things were not working as well as they needed-to. This was also unforeseen, as prior capacity-test rounds had been more successful.. but codebases change over time, and we don't always foresee the ramifications of changes that we make at any given time. So, then that requires building out more infrastructure around testing, and more standardized tests, to try and "catch" that in the future.

So, anyway, like Capships or other areas, the problem is less of "implementing the desired gameplay" and more of "making sure all the mechanisms and glue around it won't fall-over in a slight breeze". Capships have been hindered by inventory-handoff challenges between PC/NPC state and sector transition and blah-blah. All "background" stuff requires to make things actually work reliably.

One other thing I'll touch on briefly is that the "size" of the galaxy has historically been as much of a problem in our game, as it has been an asset. We need more robust mechanisms to help bring players together, to find out where the "action" is, so they can choose to socialize and play together if they like. That's also an important goal that hasn't been achieved.

Anyway, that's a rather roundabout answer to your question, but I hope it helps. I could just say something like "we're going to add 37 star systems!@#" (again, I don't know how many in actuality, that's just an example), but giving some bland response like that wouldn't really speak to the point of having more star-systems. And much like having "bigger capships" or other things people ask for, I'm a big fan of having some gameplay that actually drives content, instead of just having the appearance-of-content for its own sake. A million random systems with nothing-to-do would be interesting to a small subset of "explorer" archetype players, but wouldn't have much point to everyone else.

Thanks for the info Incarnate.
Will it be possible to manufacture some small outpost by solo players, or its a group only thing?
Also, will buildable stations allow us to manufacture both subcomponents from raw ore (Outer Hull Plates, Hull Panels, Hydrocarbons, XiRite etc), mining robots to gather resources, and even capital ships?
I actually think if this gets added, entire guilds will be made just to feed the resource and component hungry nature of manufacturing
Also, how many types of stations you imagine being added? Like from single player or outposts for small groups, to guild capitols

I don't really want to get into lots of specifics. There isn't a lot of point at this time. I do have a couple of different designs in mind, but it gets into a situation where if I say "X" and then deliver "Y", people get angry with me, and.. I find that to be a bummer.

As a designer, I tend to have a bunch of specific goals and potential ways of approaching or achieving them, but I don't always get super firm on exactly how we're going to do things until the tech is done and everything is coming together. That flexibility is pretty important in development, as some relatively minor tweak in a planned feature-set might reduce a development schedule by months of time. Or, a far more powerful implementation of a feature might end up becoming possible "for free" with only a few extra hours of work.

Will it be possible to manufacture some small outpost by solo players, or its a group only thing?

I will say, in general, that I tend to support solo players and not require groups to accomplish things. I'm a long-time solo MMO player myself, that's my most common play-type, and while I value the benefits of guilds and groups for pulling people together and optimizing efficiency (and social enjoyment), I've never been a fan of when that has been a hard requirement in a game.

Which isn't to say that "solo" would be "easy". But it generally should be "possible".

Thats fair. Its obvious that something made solo would be waay harder than with a group.
But thats how its supposed to be.