Can you tell us what exactly exploration entails and what plotting a jump point will be like?asked by Tsunami Jirai

What exactly exploration entails? It's a lot. That's like how long is a piece of rope. So there's a lot to exploration. It's not just going to be looking for an undiscovered jump point and plotting the jump point and going to a new system on the other side. There's going to be just a lot of sort of mapping that will happen. So even in systems that are known, not all of the space is mapped. So basically there will be certain areas, like on the trade lanes and the general areas people pass, that will have nav points and will be mapped to a certain extent. But a vast amount of it won't be mapped. And so maybe you find an asteroid field that isn't on a map. Maybe the asteroid field has some really good minerals. Or maybe there's a wreck. So we're going to try and add things to discover even in known space. So we're really trying to up the amount of things that you can do if you're an explorer, where it's not just about jump points or finding a new system, although that's pretty cool. But obviously we can't do everything all at once at the beginning, so that's all stuff and content we'll build to. And then the other thing I'll say is that we're doing a lot of work in R&D on procedural stuff. So I know a lot of people think all of Star Citizen is completely scripted or designed or crafted, and yes, it has a huge amount; Terra and Earth will obviously be pretty much everything handcrafted. To build a universe on the scale we need, we need to balance some procedural stuff as well as crafted stuff, which I think is actually the best way to build a big expansive universe. It's the same way that we're approaching the gameplay. We can't script every mission, so we're actually building in such a way that the universe itself dynamically runs itself and the players' interactions generate a lot of the missions and the intrigue and the action.

So I didn't answer what will plotting a jump be like. Well, it should be a lot of fun and very scary and very risky. So a jump point is sort of a rip in the space-time continuum that takes you instantly, well, almost instantly, between two parts many, many, many light years apart from each other. And so the concept with it is to have, I don't know whether it's a space-time fabric sort of big breaker, if you want to think in surfing terms, that you want to surf in, and you've got to hit exactly the right lines or else you're going to go off track and potentially get ripped apart or spat out in some random part of the universe. And obviously this will require a combination of some skill, some specific equipment, but once you've gone through and you've recorded your jump, so to speak, you can then turn around and sell that to the government, or share it with your friends, and obviously you can name a jump point or a system after you, which should be pretty cool. But it should be like trying to ride the hairiest big wave off the North Shore of Hawaii, but with cool space effects.