The more distant stars (ie. not those in directly adjacent systems) only get rendered when the player is in or near the starting galaxy. "Near" is out to about 3500km, or 1750 default sectors, from the <2,2,2> starting sector. Further out, no stars are visible any longer. Getting closer than this distance to any other galaxy does not let /its/ stars appear.
Moreover, the "Star Count" setting has no effect, only the check box to "Draw additional stars"; even on the maximum setting of 65k, stars from other galaxies don't show, even when the player is in the original galaxy.

At a rough estimate on the high end, there are no more than about ten thousand stars per galaxy (~40 systems diameter, ~8 systems thickness, if every possible system in that cylinder is assumed to contain a star); the actual value is probably less than half of that, so even on the default setting of 4096, stars from other galaxies should get rendered, considering not all stars of the current galaxy are actually visible at the same time from one view angle.

This has been around since the first release of galaxies, I don't think I have ever seen stars outside the center of the universe (apart from the directly neighbouring systems, those are always visible regardless of settings) in any version of StarMade I can remember, and while I may not have exhausted the possible space of permutations yet, I have probably touched every graphics setting there is in the pursuit, multiple times, over several processors, graphics cards, and kernel, driver, and StarMade versions.

"Starter" galaxy <2,2,2>, "Star Count = 0", "Draw additional stars: NO" <Result: PASS, no stars visible>

"Starter" galaxy, "Star Count = 0", "Draw additional stars: YES" <Result: FAIL, more than 0 stars visible> However you can immediately see the amount of additional stars even in this small portion of the view.

"Starter" galaxy, "Star Count = 512", "Draw additional stars: YES" <Result: PASS(?), all stars that are ever going to be rendered in this view are being rendered>

"Starter" galaxy, "Star Count = 65536", "Draw additional stars: YES" <Result: PASS(?) as above, but no stars beyond the current galaxy>

"Distant" galaxy ~<-2000,2000,2000>, "Star Count = 65536", "Draw additional stars: NO" <Result: PASS, no stars visible>

"Distant" galaxy, "Star Count = 65536", "Draw additional stars: YES" <Result: FAIL, no stars visible>

"Distant" galaxy, "Star Count = 65536", "Draw additional stars: YES", two more views show no "additional stars" in any direction <Result: FAIL, no stars visible>. Also tested with lower values for "Star Count" to minimize possibility of error.