2022-01-13 FYI

[Wincil]

Also to all calling for a smaller galaxy because there are enough systems to go around, let us not forget that the space between occupied systems is more important than the number of systems in that space.  Some players do not wish to be discovered without significant effort to do so.  Personally I have no problem with there being the possibility for hermit empires in a PvP game.  It gives me more of a challenge to find them.

Yes, this is true. I believe a semi-dense outer arm of a galaxy is the best middle-ground for both types of players. About your last point, this is unfortunately far beyond that. We're not talking Universe 3 levels of scour the galaxy, we're talking somebody does 6 wormhole jumps to get to a completely uninhabited galaxy, sets up base in a random, far off-axis portion of it, and they never see another player again, and either quit due to boredom or return to Shores. In order for "finding them" to even be within the realm of possibility, we'll need a rework of the emission and detection mechanics, and something to give a hint as to which of the 20 galaxies somebody may be hiding within

Edit: In addition, finding said hermit empires won't really be satisfying when all you find is a shell of somebody who once played, or they quit upon discovery. The way I see it, singleplayer-wanting players can just play Starship and leave the drama, squabbling, risk and interaction to MMO players

in my opinion i don't think think finding said hermit empires wouldn't really be satisfying and finding a shell of somebody who once played or quit upon discovery I don't see the point that you said about hermit empires tbh or the game dying a slow death.

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Small size of the universe forces interaction, but never encourage it.

And yet this "forcing" has been proven to be best for the game. Currently, there is nothing to "encourage" interaction by your standards, therefore like Universe 4 and most of Universe 5, the game will die a slow death as only 3 average online remain. When The Box "forced" people together, even for somebody like me who at that point hated interaction, it was the most fun I'd ever had. It was also the most popular the game ever was, with consistent ~100 avatars online at any given moment.

But I don't see it from that angle. I see it from the angle of "Do we need 19 extra galaxies?" And I believe the answer to that is generally no, not by any stretch.

I wouldn't say this forcing has been proven to be best for the game I think this would ruin the game and the player count would drop to almost zero. 

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Here’s a thought that could be explored.

Avatars accumulate points based on online time. 

Some large number of those points could be spent to establish a new empire. 

The game could start up with two to five existing empires that always allow new players to join.

oof, please no.   Need to at least provide a paid way around it for those that intend to start one right away.

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Also to all calling for a smaller galaxy because there are enough systems to go around, let us not forget that the space between occupied systems is more important than the number of systems in that space.  Some players do not wish to be discovered without significant effort to do so.  Personally I have no problem with there being the possibility for hermit empires in a PvP game.  It gives me more of a challenge to find them.

I wouldn't say that shores of hazeron is a pvp game it's more than just pvp it's a sandbox mmo. I would think exploring other solar systems to find does rare resources would encourage exploration and increase the chance of player interactions.