Is the game always online?

[ChiefE]

Can you meet randoms in space? Because if you can how does the game pause when alt tab?

[Jaggid Edje]

No, the game is not "always online", you have the option of turning off all multiplayer features if you want, and can even play the game in steam offline mode. If you are not playing in offline mode, however, it will maintain a connection to the game servers. But, if you have multiplayer turned off, you won't see/meet other people.

If you do have Multiplayer on, then the game does not pause when other people are in the same instance as you. If you are alt-tabbed alone in an instance, but then someone joins, it unpauses while you are still alt-tabbed even.

So, in summary, there's technically 3 'modes' related to online status for the game:

1. Offline entirely
2. Online, but multiplayer disabled
3. Online, Multiplayer enabled.

It's only in case number 3 where you will see/meet other people and where pausing doesn't function the same.

[Dirak2012]

And no, it would be very rare to find any randoms.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

And no, it would be very rare to find any randoms.

That rather depends on where you are. If you're doing an expedition or a weekend Quicksilver mission, you will see them all over if you have multiplayer enabled.
But yah, 99.9999999999999% of the rest of space it's very unlikely.