Weekly Star Atlas Newsletter #161

Welcome to our 161st 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 last workweek of the year—at least for the team—is behind us, and it sure was a big one! Beyond the Town Hall reveals, the Econ team released both their latest Quarterly Report and their brand new Ecosystem Dashboard! Furthermore, the team dropped a skin to SAGE Labs players; the Golden Carnival is entering its 8th week, and that is not even all!

So, without further ado, let’s dive in!

Star Atlas – End of Year Town Hall

EOY Town Hall – State of Star Atlas

The End-of-Year Town Hall was a blast! Though there were updates on various products, Chip (VP of Game Product) and Danny (CPO) really blew people away by showing a number of new UE5 gameplay modes before announcing—at the very end—that all these features are now accessible to everyone! We’ll dive a little deeper into the UE5 section below.

The rest of the event saw a variety of team members come on stage, in addition to the aforementioned duo and the hosts—Santi (Director of Community and Ecosystem) & Michael (CEO), which included Brett (VP of Engineering) and Francesca (Director of Marketing).

Beyond UE5, other highlights worth mentioning were:

• Fleet Command will see a major C4 update come around in 2025 (likely the latter half, though there is no official word on this)
• Fleet Rentals are coming very soon (according to Michael)
• Roll-out of StarComm V2 is going well. Most issues remaining are V1-related

If you missed the event or want to fill in some blanks, we wrote a Town Hall Report just for you! It, of course, goes much deeper into the items listed above.

UE5 Showroom

During the Town Hall, Danny and Chip showed off some great single-player content, starting with an unexpected highlight: Crew Card support! Though this makes for an obvious extension to UE5, and many have been expecting such a feature to arrive sooner rather than later, we previously learned that this was not on top of the team’s priority list. However, I am sure most will agree that it was indeed a much-desired update by the player base. It looks like the team understood and bumped this feature up a notch!

Star Atlas – EOY Town Hall – Crew Card Selection [UE5]

Not all Crew card attributes/aspects are supported yet, as the team needs a lot more time to bring all races and accessories into the game. But, like ships, you get what is there, including clay models, and you will get replacement parts where need be.

Gameplay

The highlight for many, no doubt, was the multiplayer game modes demonstrated by Danny and Chip. They played a round of deathmatch with their selected crew members and hover -racing in their ships. The very best about this: It’s out now!

The team updated the UE5 client during the Town Hall, allowing everyone to partake in peer-2-peer-hosted multiplayer gaming sessions, be it deathmatch, team deathmatch, surge, or racing!

Star Atlas – EOY Town Hall – ONI CSS [UE5]

In addition, they showed off the latest state of the ONI CSS and Project Galia. Both looked stunning, even though the ONI CSS is still being blocked out. An interesting highlight here: The team finished laying out all the Land plots for the various habs in the Sogmian District. Next up, they will work on getting the other districts to follow suit. This means that if you own a land plot, you can now jump into the ONI CSS and look at which plot you may want to lock down when the time comes (assuming you’d want a plot in that district).

Star Atlas – EOY Town Hall – Galia Project [UE5]

On the Galia front, the team showed spawning inside an actual Starbase, floating in zero-G, and flying towards planets and then over their surface. It was a spectacular demonstration and a hint at all that is still to come!

Once again, you can replicate all of this yourself by simply updating (or first downloading) the game client. If you need an access code, jump into the Star Atlas discord and request one there!

Fleet Command

Towards the end of the UE5 segment, the duo briefly showed the current state of the Fleet Command. Unfortunately, it is in view-only mode at the moment, which means there is no way to interact with fleets and give them commands. It does, however, look great, and if you wait a little bit, you will see all the fleets spawn in!

Star Atlas – Exclusive Limited Edition Calico Shipit “Dragon” Skin

Shipit “Dragon” Skin Gift

The team tossed in a holiday gift for everyone who has been playing SAGE Labs since the Dawn of the Freighter release (including Local Markets): A limited edition “Dragon” skin for the Calico Shipit! You can find it in your inventory, where it is waiting to be claimed.

The Calico Shipit is—fitting with the theme—a small freighter ship and also happens to be the smallest freighter out there!

Mobile Companion App

The Town Hall’s lowlight was undoubtedly Michael (CEO) his announcement they had put their mobile app on ice for now. Beyond issues related to the cNFT standard, their biggest stumbling block was the movement verification algorithm.

Depending on discussions with third parties, they may pick it back up. It may also end up being a feature in an existing app, as they are currently in talks with a big name in this particular industry (movement-registering apps).

Star Atlas – EOY Town Hall – Galia Project [UE5]

SAGE Labs

Two weeks ago, the team launched the Dawn of the Freighter update, expanding SAGE Labs to include Local Markets and Faction Infrastructure Contracts. This past week, they added a small experimental update in the form of a new Star Atlas (aka star map).

SAGE Labs – The brand-new Galia map

By default, this does not show; you’ll have to toggle it on in the Settings menu:

SAGE Labs – Settings – Preview: New Map Interface

Golden Carnival

Week 7 of the Golden Carnival, the second week sponsored by Fimbul, has wrapped up! A little over 2.2 million tickets were submitted, nearly the same as the week before!

Star Atlas – Golden Carnival 2024 – Schedule

Week 8, which meanwhile kicked off, is the second-ever MEGA week! This means it offers twice the loot (value) as the regular weeks that preceded it. This mega week also marks the midway point of the Golden Carnival as a whole, as the event runs 16 weeks in total.

For the second Mega Week, the Community team involved the community in the selection process (during the drawing event of week 6). The following loot will be available:

• 1x Busan Maiden Heart
• 1x Pearce D9
• 3x Fimbul Sledbarge
• 3x Armstrong IMP
• 3x Opal Bitboat
• 4x Fimbul BYOS Butch
• 3x Ogrika Sunpaa
• 10x Calico ATS Enforcer
• 11x Fimbul BYOS Ranger
• 29x Opal Rayfam
• 38x Calico Shipit
• 29x Fimbul ECOS Unibomba
• 50x Platinum Crew Packs

Lastly, here is the in-lore intro for week 8:

Step into the first-ever community-voted celebration where the finest ships from all Golden Carnival manufacturers gather, embodying the pinnacle of the Galia Expanse’s innovation and tradition. With a staggering $400,000 in cosmic loot up for grabs, this event highlights the unity and competitive spirit that drive our galaxy forward. Under the celestial blessings of the cosmic currents, submit your tickets and see what Galia has in reserve for you.

Star Atlas – Economic Report Q42024 – Local Markets resource trade activity

Economic Quarterly Report

At the tail end of the team’s last workweek this year, the econ team published their Q4 Report for 2024. This report is the first since introducing Local Markets and the Faction Infrastructure contracts. It provides some interesting insights into the early stage of player behavior around Local Markets. Additionally, the team experimented with combining Golden Carnival & Local Market data to create new and interesting visualizations.

The key highlights the Report mentions are:

• Star Atlas Census wealth expanded by 58.2%, with currency-holding groups experiencing the most significant growth.
• Quarterly GDP grew by 84%, and GDP per capita grew by 59%. The MUD faction saw the highest growth across per-faction GDP metrics.
• The 2024 Star Atlas annualized GDP equated to $21,110,542 with a GDP per capita of $17,731.55, ranking higher than many Central and South American countries in GDP per capita.
• Golden Ticket resource producers saw increases in liquidity across their respective resource markets.
• Local markets redistributed Galactic Marketplace liquidity across Galia, with USTUR’s MRZ-28 emerging as the most liquid market as of the snapshot date.
• The launch of the Star Atlas Community Economic Dashboard provides in-game data analytics that updates daily.

As always, if you care about the economy (and you likely should), this report is definitely worth a read over the holidays!

Star Atlas Ecosystem Dashboard – Starbased – Warping

New Ecosystem Dashboard

Beyond the Quarterly Report, the econ team has also published the first version (dubbed Version 0) of their Economic dashboard! Here, you can find near-real-time information on things like Daily Active Users, Production & Consumption of certain categories of resources, ATLAS emissions & claims per Faction, and Warping data.

It will be extended in the future, and part of these expansions will be based on community suggestions. So, let the Econ team know your thoughts and suggestions!

ATLAS Rebase Postponed

A few weeks ago, the team announced an imminent ATLAS Rebase of their items on the Galactic Marketplace, but last week, they shared that this had been delayed indefinitely. The token’s volatility was simply too great for the team to dare re-peg the prices to USDC.

Holiday Break

As shared during the Town Hall and in last week’s issue, the team has meanwhile kicked off their 2-week holiday. They will resume work again on January 6th! In their absence, a skeleton crew will maintain the game and services.

This newsletter will go on a 2-week hiatus as well, as there won’t be any team-related news to report on. That means you won’t find a new issue on your virtual doormat on December 30th and January 6th. You can expect the next one, issue 162, on January 13th, 2025!

Star Atlas: Checkpoint – The end-of-year Community Talkshow!

Checkpoint

This Saturday, December 28th, 14:00 UTC, Star Atlas: Checkpoint is back for the third consecutive time! This end-of-year, community-created talk show features a (slightly) varying panel of DAC/guild leaders (Witticus, DRUMCARL05, and Funcracker), Santi representing the team, and Metaverse Explorer as host/moderator.

Similar to the last two years, during this (roughly) 2-hour show, these five individuals will discuss the various highs and lows of Star Atlas (development) over the past year, as they perceived. Additionally, towards the show’s end, the panel will gaze into their crystal globes and share their hopes and fears for 2025 and (possibly) beyond.

If you find yourself aching for a Star Atlas fix during the holiday period, then this may be well worth your time!

You’ve reached the end of this week’s issue! See you in the new year!

Christmas Greetings from Aephia Industries!