Welcome to our 155th newsletter on Star Atlas! This weekly newsletter, published by Aephia Industries, focuses entirely on the development of this ambitious game. Here, we try to aggregate all the newsworthy tidbits revealed [mainly by the team] throughout the past week.
The past week saw the first Golden Carnival raffle of the 2624 season! Meanwhile, ticket submissions for this second week have opened up. More newsworthy, we feel, however, are the reveals on upcoming gameplay from the economic team. If you want to learn more about Local Markets and RFRs, then look no further! Otherwise, not much has happened, so we’ll keep this one short and to the point.
Let’s dive in!
Star Atlas Economic Forum #6 – Daily Active SAGE Users
Economic Forum #6
This past Thursday, Chris (Head of Game Economy) and Gareth (Economic Analyst) hosted another economic forum, and it was a good one! To kick things off, they went over the early impact they had seen since Golden Ticket crafting was introduced, but soon, things became more interesting as they went into the upcoming Local Markets and RFRs (Request For Resources).
If you missed it, we’ll fill you in on the highlights below! That said, do make sure to listen to the recording if you have a moment!
Local Markets
Local Markets are coming next to SAGE and will go live with RFRs. The plan seems to be to introduce both features this year, meaning these could be in our hands very soon!
The team expects OTC trading (over-the-counter trading, as opposed to using the marketplace) volume to go down after the launch of the local markets, at least regarding resources. The overhead of moving goods out through the CSS and then back in (for the buyer) will mean that things can often be done cheaper inside of the game.
The local markets will come with the same seller fee as the Galactic one, but at the very least, the ATLAS fee reduction will be in place as well.
Chris confirmed that the Local Markets will be accessible on-chain, meaning you will technically be able to post new sales and buy orders on those markets from outside of SAGE. Note that it’s not clear if the team will support this themselves or if this opens up opportunities for the community to create new flows through custom tooling.
A very important difference compared to the Galactic Marketplace to keep in mind, however, is that you need the resources to be available at the Starbase if you wish to sell them there. Similarly, if you purchase something, the goods will end up in the market’s Starbase, not in your wallet.
RFRs
Chris commented briefly on the current LP/Atlas earnings loop by saying he is very much aware of its clear downside: “If I know adding another player will decrease my earnings, I am less incentivized to grow the player base. In fact, I am more incentivized to do the opposite.” [paraphrased]
RFRs will add a production/reward loop again where there is a clear linear relationship between the two. Double the production would mean double the rewards (this does ignore transportation costs — see below). Additionally, other than the current LP-loop, this one will be uncapped!
On the topic of SDUs, Chris said there is a very good chance that there will be SDUs in the RFR recipe, but the team is not completely out on that just yet.
Chris’s goal is to get:
- multiple RFR recipes in the game
- update the recipes every now and then (preferably every week or every 2 weeks — the engineers may push back, though, as they have to do this manually)
That said, there will only be one RFR recipe when this goes live. They do not want to add multiple local RFR recipes alongside the launch of Local Markets to avoid rocking the boat too much. However, Chris will work hard to get multiple different recipes in soon thereafter.
RFRs will launch in tandem with the local markets, and there is a clear reason for this. The team’s approach is that only some Starbases will offer the RFR recipe (and therefore crafting will be limited to those starbases), with others starbased will offer a buy order on their local marketplace. This means that freighting the RFRs to another starbase is mandatory if you wish to earn ATLAS (which is their only purpose).
Right now, Chris is considering a 50/50 split, where the recipe is made available at 50% of the Starbases, and the other 50% of Starbases will have Local Market offers for those RFRs. However, the team is also considering doing a 33/33/33 split, with the third group of Starbases neither offering crafting nor buying of RFRs.
LP Decrease
As RFRs will offer a secondary way to earn part of the ATLAS emissions, the daily LP emissions will decrease to accommodate this. Chris said that this reduction will roughly match the average amount of ATLAS emitted through RFRs.
The LP-based ATLAS emissions are between 6 and 7 million per day. The team seems to anticipate that RFRs will emit the majority of ATLAS over time, which will dramatically reduce LP emissions. Chris’s ideal would be to see a 50/50 split here, however, with 3.5 million ATLAS rewarded through LP and a similar amount through RFRs.
Now, on the bright side, with people shifting their attention to RFR production, the total amount of LP earned per day should go down. This means that those who keep their focus there will earn a bigger slice of the Atlas pie, as there will be fewer players competing for the LP emissions. On the other hand, the team’s goal is to grow the player base as well, of course, so we’ll have to wait and see how everything pans out.
Star Atlas – Golden Carnival 2624 (2024) – Schedule
Golden Carnival
The inaugural week of the Golden Carnival is over, and the first players have won their prizes (99 went out). Close to 1.8 million tickets were submitted for this initial drawing, which was Pearce and Calico-themed. The grand prize was 4x a Pearce D9, and interestingly, everyone’s favorite penguin, José (Chief Lore & community team member), managed to snag one of these!
This first week’s official description read:
Rejoice, citizens of Galia, for the Golden Carnival begins now! Blessed by the cosmic currents of Iris, this unparalleled event commences with a spectacular showcase of MUD ingenuity. In this inaugural week, we present a fleet of exclusive vessels, each meticulously crafted in the prestigious hangars of the MUD military. These are not just ships; they are the pride of human technology forged by the renowned Pearce Council and its younger sibling, Calico Industries.
This past Wednesday, the Hedgehog site went live, where people can submit their tickets. As expected, the second event—offering 91 different rewards—opened up there, so you can submit your tickets for the second drawing right now!
The first drawing did not go completely as planned, as technical difficulties delayed it by a little over 45 minutes. The community team made the best of it on Discord by hosting Marble races for the community members present, where they could win some Crew Packs. When they finally got going, Solana being very slow meant that the drawings were drawn out over nearly 2 hours. For those who want to re-experience it, unfortunately, the recording broke off just as the first marble race was about to start (after ~29 minutes).
Corrections & refinements
Last week, we wrongfully wrote that the prizes were going to be drawn from the most valuable to the least valuable. It is actually the other way around. From the perspective of spectacle, this makes more sense. It means that your one ticket could result in a cheaper prize, cutting off your path to the ultimate prize, but that just means submitting multiple tickets is the way to go here!
Though the 2023 (or in-game, 2623) edition saw a drawing every minute, the team upped the tempo this time to once every 15 seconds. This means that every week, from the moment the drawings start, there will be a prize drawn every 15 seconds until no more prizes are left in that week’s pool. The team may change this from week to week, however, to ensure the complete event takes around 40 minutes.
That’s it for this week’s issue! See you again the next one!