Comment by flohofwoe
4 days ago
Elite Dangerous already has more known star systems (160k) in the Milky Way than you can realistically visit - and the rest (400 billion) filled in with plausibly simulated systems: https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Galaxy#Milky_Way - it even kind-of predicted a star system that was only discovered after the game was released: https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Trappist-1#Impact_of...
I didn’t realize a game actually used an approach like this, really cool. Reminds me of the simulated MMORG world in Neal Stephenson’s README, where they tried to simulate the formation of the planet to get realistic mineral deposits and topology.
Thing is, they can make a predictive model based on known observations, then on this scale they will get it right or right enough plenty of times. I'm here for it. I hope long term (VERY long term) humanity will go to these stars predicted by Elite and name planets after the players that first discovered them, lol.
REAMDE
I just looked this up, sounds like a fantastic read. I'll add it to my backlog.
Oops, thanks!