Range of random ships?

[hookoa]

Version 1.0RC6

I was about 800 or 900 ls outside of the outermost orbit of a planet in one system (running and gunning Ferrians) and noticed an enemy group of miners headed even further out. I kept them targeted as I looted a few Ferrians and noticed that they traveled at least another 400 ls past me before I got bored and came to post this.

How far out to random enemy patrols and etc go? I'm curious because 1.) It'd only make sense for them to travel no more than 200ls or so outside of a system for secret bases, not ~1,500ls, and 2.) I'm wondering how much processor power it takes to keep track of all the ships flying around the system (slow computer and all).

[Atarlost]

It's not a huge deal because a random walk in two dimensions will eventually return you to your starting point.

[Brzelius]

So will a random walk in higher dimensions... only depends on how much time you have waiting for them to come back.

[Atarlost]

From what I understand that's not true. Only 2d or 1d random walks do so.

[Brzelius]

Guess I'll have to read up on that then.

Edit: Ok, the probability to reach the starting point with a 3D random walk is 0.3405373296... so it drops drastically from 2D. Still very possible, but not guaranteed.

[hookoa]

Calculating the random walk of something is great. I'm just saying that it's not very useful game-wise to have ships 1500 LS past the outermost orbit of a system. Wouldn't it make more sense to keep all ships within the orbits of objects in the solar system? It'd make sense and keep ships in an area where the player can run into them.