Elite: Dangerous’ Distant Worlds 2, a journey to the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy

My starship is perched along the rim of a crater on an airless moon some 55,000 light-years from home. Hanging in the sky on the other side of the canopy is a water world, its wispy white clouds revealing an endless sea.

This moon is just one of trillions like it in a spacefaring game called Elite: Dangerous, which puts players in the cockpit of a starship and sets them loose from a first-person perspective. But unlike the vast majority of those other moons, this one has a name. It’s called Luna’s Shadow.

The Distant Worlds 2 expedition in Elite: Dangerous is nearing the end of its eighth week, and the community has embarked on a game-changing project. By this time next week, players will have completed construction on two massive new structures in the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy. Their efforts are expected to launch a new era of exploration among the game’s 400 billion star systems.

Elite is a spacefaring game launched in 2015 by UK-based Frontier Developments. Most of the narrative action takes place in the “bubble” of human-occupied space around our sun, Sol. But the game also features a massive recreation of our galaxy, containing hundreds of billions of procedurally generated star systems.

Players are just over one month into Elite: Dangerous’ Distant Worlds 2 expedition, an 18-week test of endurance ferrying more than 13,000 players to the far side of the Milky Way Galaxy. So far there have been plenty of close calls and accidents, mostly involving botched landings and player-versus-player combat. But the fleet itself is proving to be incredibly resilient. There’s no better example than the dramatic rescue of Commander Proigr3 that took place over the weekend.

While attempting to supercharge their hyperspace drive in the Empyrean Straits region, more than 20,000 light years from Earth, Proigr3 lost control of their ship and suffered serious damage. Things got so bad inside the cockpit of the large, multi-role Asp Explorer that Proigr3’s glass canopy broke away, venting most of their oxygen into space.

The old adage in gaming, attributed to Warren Spector during the development of Deus Ex 2, states that “anytime reality gets in the way of fun, fun wins.” For companies that develop MMOs, however, that’s not always good advice.

Players should be allowed to feel powerful and encouraged to get rich in an MMO, but only within reason. If power and wealth swing way out of balance, then virtual economies crash and the player experience suffers. An MMO must, in theory at least, always be grounded in its own internal sense of reality. Otherwise it just doesn’t feel fair.

Less than one week ago, more than 11,800 players set out on the Distant Worlds 2 expedition, heading for the edge of the Milky Way in Elite: Dangerous. As part of the fleet, I’ve traveled more than 5,500 light years across the galaxy, fully five times farther than my little ship and I have ever flown before.

I’ve also lost a lot of sleep marveling at the wonders that Frontier Developments has built into its version of our galaxy, one it’s filled with trillions of procedurally generated worlds. I’ve also had my fair share of close calls. Jumping from from one uncharted star system to the next is grueling and at times hair-raising work, but the payoff has been absolutely extraordinary.

This week Elite: Dangerous’ Distant Worlds 2 fleet departed for an 18-week journey to the far side of the Milky Way galaxy. I’m going along for the ride in a souped-up spaceship capable of double or triple the jump range of your average vessel. But, to make the trip more enjoyable, I’ve done quite a bit more than just spruce up my virtual vehicle.

Here’s a list of all the real-world hardware that I’m using for the journey, plus thoughts on how I plan to upgrade my setup in time for the return leg.

On Jan. 13, players in Elite: Dangerous came together to embark on the most ambitious expedition in MMO history. It was an incredible event, albeit one fragmented among dozens and dozens of in-game instances. In the middle of the festivities, the servers themselves crashed spectacularly. But by the dawn of the next morning, a new community nearly 12,000 players strong has sent itself hurtling into the void together on a mission of peace and exploration.

The expedition, called Distant Worlds 2, hopes to recreate the journey taken by a player who goes by the in-game handle of Commander Erimus Kamzel. In January 2015, Erimus was the first player to reach the most distant star in Elite’s complex simulation of the Milky Way galaxy. The game’s creators at Frontier Developments chose to honor him by renaming the system, originally called Ceeckia ZQ-L C24-0, after his ship, the DSS Beagle.

Distant Worlds 2, the epic spacefaring expedition within Elite: Dangerous, kicks off this afternoon at 3 p.m. ET. Numerous players among the nearly 10,000 expected to participate are streaming the adventure; you can watch it all begin right here.

The event, a sequel to 2016’s Distant Worlds expedition, will take place on all three platforms (PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One) in three regions (Europe, the Americas and Oceania). The European expedition, led by Cmdr. Dr. Kaii (a veteran of the first trek) kicks off first, followed five hours later by the Americas (Cmdr. Kancro Vantas) at 8 p.m. ET and then Oceania (Cmdr. Drebin Omega) at 5 a.m. ET.

As of today, the Distant Worlds 2 expedition in Elite: Dangerous has over 9,400 participants, making it the single largest player-led fleet in the spacefaring game’s history. The vast majority of those players will spend their time jumping from star to star and making discoveries. But, embedded within the fleet is also an elaborate set of role-playing adventures, including simulated combat, linked together by a traditional tabletop RPG.

The narrative stringing it all together is the work of a single avid game master named Alison “Commander Wishblend” Goodman.

Elite: Dangerous is a remarkable spacefaring game. In order to experience it, players must navigate a realistic simulation of all 400 billion star systems in our Milky Way galaxy. But the high-level gameplay produced by the team at Frontier Developments can often leave something to be desired.

What makes Elite shine are its tremendous spaceflight systems. There is a joy to maneuvering in this game, and real risk at every turn. Enhancing those systems is a dedicated community of avid players. Early next year, they’ll embark on one of the largest and most dangerous journeys ever undertaken in the game. It’s a 200,000 light year journey to the edge of our galaxy called Distant Worlds 2, and I will be there to cover the event when the fleet departs in just over two weeks.