Surely this is wrong. Don't you start off at the edge of a galaxy and travel to the center of the galaxy? I don't think this game has multiple galaxies or even set in an entire universe. That would beyond crazy.

The chance of randomly meeting another player outside the bubble (100 ly around Sol) is pretty much non existent. It could happen and the first documented deep space meet up made the galnet news (in game news bulletin) https://community.elitedangerous.com/galnet/01-MAR-3301

On the fringe of the Scutum-Centaurus arm, on the far side of the galaxy, two lone deep space explorers rendezvoused at a star system called EACTAINDS GN-W C1-6.

CMDR R4nger0's mission? To cross the galaxy in a Sidewinder.
CMDR Kamzel's mission? Returning to Earth after an 8-week survey expedition along the galactic outer rim.

CMDR Kamzel left the frontier on 16th December 3300, CMDR R4nger0 departed on 7th January 3301. The meeting was the first human contact both pilots had in the many weeks they'd been away from home. Both pilots jointly surveyed the rendezvous system, shared a bottle of Lavian Brandy, and parted ways to continue on their respective journeys. The event was recorded and a vlog data-packet was beamed back toward human space. Streams of the log can be viewed by searching for ‘A Distant Rendezvous’ via your local vlog service provider.

Some observers have called for the EACTAINDS GN-W C1-6 star system to be renamed ‘Rendezvous Point’, to commemorate this historic event... the most distant deep space encounter ever recorded.

That system is still a sort of like pilgrimage point in the game for explorers with subsequent people leaving their mark there. The galaxy is far from charted with 400 billion stars to explore! Most of which have planets around them. Some extreme locations have been covered by now. For example the furtherst system Kamzel had reached on his first long range expedition is now called Beagle point, now seen as an achievement to get there. (65 thousand light years from Sol) The area around there has been throroughly explored, yet 99% of the Galaxy still hasn't been visited at all.

Here is an overview of the early days of exploration https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/172422-Exploration-The-Age-of-Pioneers-(March-3300-August-3301) I'm in there as well April 3301 ★ CMDR SvennoJ reaches CEECKIA PE-E D13-0, a system 65,365 LYs from Sol - setting a new distance record for a 41 LY Anaconda. I've played ED a lot, daily for many months, resulting in the biggest travel log and collection of pictures I've made for any game besides Everquest. https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/132053-Exploration-Quest-for-the-loneliest-planet

What I mean by it doesn't have to be a solitary affair anymore is that the introduction of player maintained groups (to play in) and later wings made it a bit less lonely. People playing in the same group can see eachother on the galaxy map and chat with eachother. Travelling in a wing ensures you end up in the same instance and can fly together. The 3 month distant world expedition at the start of this year took it even further by getting over a thousand people to follow a predefined itinerary with way points to meet up a couple of times per week. The chance of seeing anyone in between waypoints was still extremely slim, yet landing at the next waypoint and seeing all those other ships there was pretty cool. Which also resulted in all kinds of organice events like buggy races, canyon flying or this http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-02-19-watch-a-massive-elite-dangerous-fleet-jump-into-hyperspace

Here's the complete expedition info https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/242548-Distant-Worlds-3302-A-journey-beyond-the-Abyss-Thread-II-(discussion-itinerary-amp-maps-fleet-roster-news-archive) Warning, it's a lot! It almost took as much time keeping up with the forums as flying the ship. It was a lot of fun, sharing cool findings and prospecting planets for jump materials. (Needed to make longer jumps so ships with shorter range could reach Beagle point as well, part of the expedition was mapping out a galactic highway with 'green' systems where you can mine needed jump boost materials)

I've played ED on my laptop, 5 months last year, another 4 this year. Currently my ship is still at the other end of the Galaxy. It's more of a winter time kinda game for me. Too much outdoor stuff to do now for a timesink like ED. I mostly play on PS4 nowadays and am planning to play NMS on that. I might switch to the Steam version later if it hooks me like ED did.

Elite Dangerous only features airless rocky/icy planets so far and the amount of variation and sense of discovery is already extremely strong. NMS adds fully living worlds to discover, can't wait!

This is definitely a universe, Sean has said as much. Sean has also said that getting to the centre could be seen as a new beginning so it makes sense that our first goal is to get to the centre of the galaxy and our ultimate goal is to get to the centre of the universe. I think this is why it's been confusing. Sean doesn't want us to know that but in the last two videos he's said 'universe' even though he also says we play in a galaxy.

So as it stands we play in a galaxy? All I've seen so far is solar systems within one galaxy. Do you think if there are other galaxies you will be transported to another galxy through a worm hole at the center of the universe? Or will you travel between galaxies? It would be mind blowing to see something similar to that famous image that the Hubble telescope as you left the galaxy to travel to the next.

My guess is the worm hole would be the way they would go since they can control what galaxy you go to next, presumably more dangerous than the last.

That's fascinating stuff. Those forums links were broken but the Eurigamer worked. It was cool to see them all jump into hyperspace. Epic!

I regret I didn't buy the game on the sale Steam. Should one buy the expansion or just start with the base game?