4Game

First off, lets be honest, no one can know for sure except for FDev.

But… looking at what has happened so far, I do believe we can make extremely good guesses.

Everything below is speculation. My tinfoil hat is firmly on, and will not come off during the remainder of this post.

HIP 22460 should be seen as a testing field—both in-game and out of the game. FDev developed and deployed a new game system that changes mechanics in a way never before seen.

They† are going to reuse this.

Everything in HIP 22460 was destroyed. These were only Megaships and Capital warships, but every 'static structure' was destroyed.

We know that in a bubble around HIP 22460, there is a 30Ly~ radius of HOSTILE interdictions, where 1-3 Thargoids rip you out of witchspace, and start shooting immediately. And only fast or tanky ships can survive long enough to get out.

Now lets look at the 8 'Rogue Signals' heading to the core systems.

They also have a 30Ly~ radius bubble around them where interdictions occur. These ones aren't hostile, yet, but they happen in places Thargoid interdictions have never happened before, and they stop happening after the Stargoids move past an area. Additionally, the systems the Stargoids travel through become filled with Singal Sources that are filled with the debris of human vessels. Meaning people are dying as the Stargoid traverses from one system to the next.

What seems to be about to happen is these Stargoids are going to enter a system, either loom there, or settle on a planet, enforce an Anti-Guardian tech field in that system, destroy all 'static structures, and they'll enforce a 30Ly~ radius of hostile interdictions. It's possible they'll move, but considering that the most recent major update to this game was on-foot combat, I suspect they'll land, and we'll go in on foot, eventually, to shut them down. And until we do, this radius will likely turn hostile after they reach their destinations, and end up like HIP 22460's radius.

Meaning 8 systems in the middle of the bubble are going to be inhospitable. And a 60Ly diameter area around that system will become difficult to traverse, and likely constantly under Thargoid siege.

It's important to note, a sphere with a diameter of 60Ly takes up a lot of space. A single one could land in Sol on one of the moons or something, And envelope a couple hundred star systems.

And we're looking at 8 of these 60Ly diameter spheres likely to be emitted from the Stargoids.

They will be able to cut whole chunks out of important regions.

I don't think the Bubble will burn in so flashy a fashion as plants being shattered, or thousands of stations being ripped apart into scrap metal. I do think we're about to be kicked out of a large number of systems unless our ships are very fast, or very tanky. And this is why.

The Stargoids will be capable of enveloping roughly a total of 905,000 Cubic Lightyears

The bubble's rough Cubic Lightyears area is 10552393.2 Ly.

^{Note: It's a bit bigger than this, because its oblong on the bottom^}

So… considering that the actual volume of the bubble is a little bigger than what I described above, it would appear that the Thargoids are coming and will be able to encompass roughly a twelfth of human-inhabited space.

On what I am sure is a completely unrelated note, there are currently 11 Power Play leaders.

† = Refers to both the Thargoids in-game, and FDev out of game.

EDIT: Apperetnly the bubble around HIP 22460 is 60-75Ly~ radius. This changes things.

It puts the Stargoid's potential LY interdiction radius at 904,780-1,767,145 Cubic Lightyears each… placing their cumulative volume at 7,240,000-14,137,166 Cubic Lightyears.

Which is… basically the majority of human space..

We're fucked.