Thanks guys for answers. I couldn't imagine how big is star citizen now and how big should it be when game is finished. I can imagine better now.
Here's a direct map to the current lore universe.
Couple of other things from interviews/features:
- Systems are NOT to scale. They'll be big, but not astronomically accurate.
- Likewise, planets will be scaled down. They're still ridiculously large, but not 1:1
- With regards to free roaming city planets, the current answer is that they do NOT plan to allow that. This is primarily due to content (how many times until you've seen the same shop enough that it detracts from the experience) rather than a system/engine restriction.
The scale of what they're doing is beyond any game I'm aware of, and they've been heavily focused on the R&D and engine implementations. With 2.6 and 3.0, we're starting to see a shift to content generation, which should be much faster due to their focus on tools (refer to the editor tools stream with Sean Tracey for the speed at which they can generate biomes/detailed areas).
As I've said before, 4.0 (first implementation of jump points and multiple systems) would be the next milestone as to where game systems are all implemented (not final) and we're at a beta phase focused on system refinement and content generation.
It's also why the original timeline is not realistic (scope) and why I don't think we'll see Star Citizen in a release ready form any time before 2019.
For those who wanted just the SQ42 experience, that wait should be shorter, but I still feel you. I'm not aware of any upcoming single player space games to satisfy that itch.
I'd love a Freespace 3 <3