It actually changes between constellations, not systems, right now. But like stated in the blog, many constellations share the same nebula.

The concern for our choice of granularity has been noted, we won't make drastic changes to the system or the assets before the winter release, but this is obviously something many are concerned with and we'll examine what we can do.

However, I encourage you to check it out on Singularity ( or TQ once it ships ) before making final judgements!

Making it on-demand would increase server stress, and the servers already deal with a lot to begin with. I would definitely prefer a separate and optional patch for more cube maps.

Except with an on-demand system, it would be distributing data for thousands of users at a time, and that bandwidth could be used for better things that are more relevant to gameplay. Assets for online games are usually pre-loaded before any sort of live interaction between the player and environment occurs. This is done to ensure a smoother playing experience.

Imagine jumping into a system containing 1000 players who all jump into the system around the same time. Before ever having to deal with player input, the server would have to distribute cube maps to every player's client first. Each cube map is 3 MB in size. With a system containing 1000 players, the server would have to distribute nearly 3 GB worth of data, which just isn't practical when the server could be used for more important things. It's more efficient to have assets on the user's side than on the server's side.

Head out of ass plx, downloading the client and loading forum avatars is not a realtime and latency/lag sensitive activity.
Loading something the client demands to proceed is. +differences in size. skybox textures >>> thumbs used in local.

I originally though that Nebula upgrade was going to be a waist of time and resources, adding nothing to the game