are all galaxies this huge ?

[Tom]

I'm currently in Hilbert Dimension (galaxy #2). I started about 680,000 light years from the core.

That is... insane. One of the largest spiral arm galaxies we know of in the real world - Condor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6872) is 717,000 light years DIAMETER. So Hilbert is twice the size of the largest known comparable real galaxy?

Are all the galaxies in the game this huge? I'm making my way to the center and despite having an explorer with 1900 light years jump distance and utilizing black holes a lot I'm still over 400,000 LY away.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

The galaxies are all huge. I think the original point was that it would take weeks or months to get to the center unless you just neglected exploring entirely. As developed, it is a very simple game. You just wander from one system to the next and explore. Eventually, you reach the center and go to a new galaxy.

That plan did not impress a lot of players, so they just have kept adding little extras that do impress those players. End of day, the game is still just exploring and going on to the next galaxy....but there are enough added features and ways to avoid warping to the center... that it is kind of just an odd duck of a game. Fun as hell for some of us.

[whitevalfore]

You can portal ur way over, exact planet addresses to reach the center however can only be guessed at most as other folks have not been there.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

Originally posted by whitevalfore:

You can portal ur way over, exact planet addresses to reach the center however can only be guessed at most as other folks have not been there.

? not sure what you mean. Standard for portal travel to the center of ANY galaxy is just put the sunset (sunrise?) symbol in all the portal addresses and you will come out about 5000 lys from the center. Usually two or three warps to a gateway system. Be sure to top off all your fuel before trying for the next galaxy. (Best practice is to change to a crap ship and tool before the final push)

[cogvos]

Insert the 'Space is big, i mean really big..' speech from Hitchhikers if you like.

NMS works off procedural generation with the type of galaxy giving a weight to the kind of planets you will see. Euclid and Hilbert are general galaxies, so a general mix of planets, and the 1st where this weighting applies is Calypso - galaxy 3 - which is a harsh galaxy. The wiki lists all the names and types > https://nomanssky.fandom.com/wiki/Galaxy < SO In Calypso you are more likely to see storm lashed planets, though the wiki is unclear on this.

Other than this the galaxies are very similar so its really up to you if you wish to move between them. You might not have been aware of the trick of finding a portal and entering 16 jellyfish (sunrise) symbols. As Mr Bufferlow says this'll get around 5k from the centre. You will need to have found that glyph first however.

If you are following the quests then there is one that will allow you to jump between many different types at its conclusion.

in the original release I believe that the idea was to get to the galaxy centre and start again (that start again is a very unsubtle hint as to what will happen to your equipment when you do... ). With the many updates a lot more has been added, and continues to be.

[Johnny in the Clouds]

Originally posted by Tom:

are all galaxies this huge ?
I'm currently in Hilbert Dimension (galaxy #2). I started about 680,000 light years from the core.

That is... insane.. Are all the galaxies in the game this huge? I'm making my way to the center and despite having an explorer with 1900 light years jump distance and utilizing black holes a lot I'm still over 400,000 LY away.

It is insane. But a fun insane! It's all very clever use of hexadecimal mathematics. but back to insanity...

Each galaxy is the same size, with the same number of star systems and their coordinate addresses. But planets will be different at those addresses. There are billions and billions of systems all containing planets in a single galaxy and there are 256 galaxies. Utter madness : D

A freighter can travel about 7000+ light years in one jump between stars so I recommend getting one of those set up and upgraded. It's fun to do and has other uses and also makes trading fun between systems as you travel.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1889178588
Black Hole travel if you are unaware will propel a player thousands of light years across the stars in any direction. After each jump check the distance from the galaxy core in the exit star. If you are closer great. If further away return to the previous star and choose another black hole to enter. Check again and so on creeping closer to the galaxy core.

Many black holes in the starter galaxy Euclid have been recorded and plotted extensively by players, charting their entry and exit locations. Some links below. The data can be seen online and using the plotting calculator (entering your current galaxy coordinates) it's possible to plot a path using fewer black holes to reach the galaxy core. This can take weeks (or years) off the journey time from choosing which black hole and direction to travel.

Black Holes Suns Project

Black Holes Distance Calculator[j50n.github.io]

Black Holes Sun Travel Guide[docs.google.com]

Here's a link for some more detail in an older thread The core game has not changed much since release and black hole travel is still relevant, despite being 'eclipsed' by Portal Travel, which arguably removes much of the imaginative anticipation from any journey to the centre.

Portal travel is an alternative 'less romantic' way to travel and misses out on the serendipitous adventure, discovering new stars and their often unusual planets and locations with sometimes surprising differences in landscapes from the wild to the stunning.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2803061963
From the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
“Space,” it says, “is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” by Douglas Adams

[dreamrider]

Originally posted by Johnny In The Clouds:

Originally posted by Tom:

....
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2803061963
From the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
“Space,” it says, “is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” by Douglas Adams

Is it an indicator that I have been playing too much NMS...that I opened this picture to greater size and my semi-concious mind said in the background, "Oh, he's riding a 'butterfly-ish thing'. Great picture of stars and nebuae!"

[Johnny in the Clouds]

Originally posted by dreamrider:

... he's riding a 'butterfly-ish thing'. Great picture of stars and nebuae!"

Thanks for the compliment Hello Games are the real magicians! From that angle it does look like a butterfly thing but It's one of those other anomalous flying things that floats about. It's an old picture from goodness know where. I've come across that creature type on other strange planets from time to time with slight texture variations.

[ZombieHunter]

They were not this big at launch. But over the years and changes they were changed.

[Sentient_Pickle]

honestly I wouldn't try to make real world/NMS universe comparisons. Like the nebulae in game are all so small they happen IN solar systems which clearly isn't their size IRL given how nebulae are created. It all falls apart if you scrutinize things too much.

[Brew]

It's not real galaxies, not even in an in-game story sense. If you follow the story, you will discover what it is. That means there isn't any need story-wise to adhere to real sizes and scales.

If you travel to an outer corner, I think you're maybe 1.1 - 1.2 million LY from the center (would have to start the game and check; I have a bases in corners in Euclid).

[NiLL]

Originally posted by Tom:

I'm currently in Hilbert Dimension (galaxy #2). I started about 680,000 light years from the core.

That is... insane. One of the largest spiral arm galaxies we know of in the real world - Condor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6872) is 717,000 light years DIAMETER. So Hilbert is twice the size of the largest known comparable real galaxy?

Are all the galaxies in the game this huge? I'm making my way to the center and despite having an explorer with 1900 light years jump distance and utilizing black holes a lot I'm still over 400,000 LY away.

They arent really "big" its empty and the scale is Very far off, if you play Elite Dangerous, that is the milky way to scale, this on the other hand is very just small "maps" its hard to explain.

In reality if you could walk, its about the size of a few US states put together.

[Rexxer]

Originally posted by Tom:

I'm currently in Hilbert Dimension (galaxy #2). I started about 680,000 light years from the core.

That is... insane. One of the largest spiral arm galaxies we know of in the real world - Condor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6872) is 717,000 light years DIAMETER. So Hilbert is twice the size of the largest known comparable real galaxy?

Are all the galaxies in the game this huge? I'm making my way to the center and despite having an explorer with 1900 light years jump distance and utilizing black holes a lot I'm still over 400,000 LY away.

Yes. If you don't use shortcuts, even if you max out your freighter and personal ship range, it will often take hundreds of jumps to reach the center. That's why many players just use a portal on any planet to portal direct to the center. If you understand the coordinate system used for spatial locations of things, you can literally guess at the coordinate you want and go immediately to each galaxy's center from your spawn point within 30 mins of starting a new galaxy.

If you do it the long way, though, by jumping using a ship, it could take hours or days (real time) depending on how you play.

[Tom]

Thanks for the answers.

My personal goal right now is to reach the center, without "cheating" (i.e. looking portal coordinates up on the Wiki). I'm now at 240,000 light years. It's a drag, but stopping every couple jumps to do a bit of exploring or trading mixes it up.

I know it's not the real universe, I've "finished" (I think) all the main storylines to the point where they're what I think is over. (still listed, but I think you can just keep repeating the final step)

[Johnny in the Clouds]

Originally posted by Tom:

... I'm now at 240,000 light years. It's a drag, but stopping every couple jumps to do a bit of exploring or trading mixes it up..

The game concept is procedural generation of a universe and players are invited to visit planets and discover things no one else has witnessed. It can be achieved in multiple ways.
The process of visiting one system in all 256 galaxies is the same as visiting 256 systems in a single galaxy, either by conventional space ship system hopping, following a procedural generated path to the core of each galaxy, or by using portals or not to reach random planets or specific destinations. It still takes time to travel.

Landing on planets is actually the most fun part of any journey. Many casual players never visit all the planets in a system and miss so much. It s just as thrilling remaining in a single galaxy visiting systems and planets, as it is doing the same in any other galaxy. Other galaxies offer slight variations in distributions of planet biome types, so there would be more chance of finding that perfect wild planet of your dreams or nightmares. System hopping is the best way to play the game. The portal thing adds additional variation to game play arguably presented in a different way for interest.

Simply use portals or not when you want a change of pace. Portal travel and the gates in particular, lost much of the mystery they once held when the game was first released, when they became too easy to discover and use. Some of them would be better discovered and used in part of an exciting player mission. They need to be more engaging, different shapes and sizes, differently animated and interactive for the player than they currently are. Some random surprises and different layouts or barriers to open them up. A few more puzzles and so on.

System hopping and the proud achievement knowing you travelled all that way across an uncharted galaxy, is probably one of the many fun things to do in the game. You may need to see a Doctor at some point of course, to explain your obsession to your family... but at least you'll be in a world of your own : D