Welcome to our 173rd 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 exciting thing about developing a game today is the opportunity to use AI in innovative ways we’ve never seen before. Undoubtedly, last week’s biggest news was the team’s announcement of its partnership with SingularityNET, a major player in this AI arena. Virtual companions and AI-driven NPCs are on their way!

In other news, Council Elections are open for one more week, the team has implemented two gameplay updates for SAGE, and another Lore Keepers event was held!

Without further ado, let’s dive in!

Star Atlas - SingularityNET Partnership

Star Atlas – SingularityNET Partnership

Star Atlas Announces AI Partnership with SingularityNET

For years, the rise of AI tools and agents has prompted community members to inquire with the team if they are using AI in their game, specifically to enrich NPCs, making them conversational partners that go well beyond the conversation trees that most RPGs use. The response was mostly the same; they had some interesting plans and ideas, but this would be coming further down the line.

Last Wednesday, the team announced its partnership with SingularityNET, a pioneer in using AI in games and a founding member of the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASA). SingularityNET is spearheaded by Dr. Ben Goertzel, a well-known name in the field of artificial general intelligence (AGI), known—among other things—for his work on the well-known Sophia robot.

The press release (see below) states the following areas on which the two teams will be collaborating (copied from the article):

  • AI-Driven NPCs: Powered by AIRIS, we are pushing to develop the next generation of NPCs. The idea is that they will evolve beyond static roles, learning and adapting to player actions. These dynamic characters and in-game factions will enrich the Star Atlas universe, creating a more responsive and engaging experience.
  • Virtual Companions: We’re laying the foundation for AI assistants that support players’ journeys, leveraging the ASI Innovation Stack to refine their capabilities and utility over time.
  • Advanced AI Agents: We are working to create agents that will streamline trading and resource management within our multi-token economy, ensuring efficiency and scalability as Star Atlas continues to grow.

Press releases:

On Thursday, the ASA hosted a 50-minute X Space with Michael Wagner (CEO) to discuss this collaboration and its potential fruits. If the press release contains too much text for your liking, this is a great way to get up to speed as well!

SAGE Gameplay Tweaks

The team implemented two changes impacting SAGE players this past week:

  • SDU Install Timer change
  • Calico Maxhog recipe change

SDU Install Timer

A few weeks ago, the team updated the SDU Install Timer from 1 second per SDU, to 220 seconds per SDU install. They quickly received feedback from the community that this was way too much, and this past week, they agreed, stating: “Our last SDU install change was a bit too aggressive, so we’re dialing it back.”

The install timer for SDUs has been lowered from 220 seconds to 120 seconds, or from 3 minutes and 40 seconds to a flat 2 minutes.

Calico Maxhog

The supply of redeemable Calico Maxhog ships ran out this past week, and—like the team did with the Mamba EX recently—they updated the recipe before reintroducing the ship.

The new recipe requires:

  • Titanium required: 1,892,949
  • Copper required: 5,678,848
  • Electronics required: 946,474
  • Power Sources required: 630,983
  • Energy Substrates required: 567,884
  • Crystal Lattice required: 436,834

Council Affairs

We’ve entered week two of the Council elections, and the race is on! At the time of writing, 262 players have voted, representing a little over 128 million Polis Voting Power (PVP).

During the past Atlas Brew, the team allowed the seven candidates to introduce themselves while also asking them some questions. If you are not yet sure how to prioritize the candidates in your vote, then you may want to listen to the recording (it starts after the 32-minute mark).

Below is a snapshot of the algorithm from a little before publication, showing the initial situation based on just the first votes (the starting position) and the output of the STV algorithm after electing winners and re-allocating the surpluses to other candidates.

STV - Results after initial votes: Drumcarl05 and Bodhitree have enough votes to be elected [Visualization by Aephia]

STV – Results after initial votes: Drumcarl05 and Bodhitree have enough votes to be elected [Visualization by Aephia]

Council Election Term 2 — Results after the algorithm is done: Jithblade and Mashalza don't make it [Visualization by Aephia]

STV – Results after the algorithm is done: Jithblade and Mashalza don’t make it [Visualization by Aephia]

You have until this Sunday (end-of-day UTC) to cast your vote and help decide the composition of the next Council term!

Council PIP Reviews

In addition to the elections, the Council also hosted two public PIP review sessions this past week, which you may want to check out if you are considering writing a Polis Improvement Proposal (PIP):

PIP Drafts discussed were Implementing Term Limits for Star Atlas DAO Council Members, The Rise of Ryden Systems, and Deepening THEO Integration into the Star Atlas Economy.

Lore Keepers Meeting

José (Penguin of Lore) hosted another Lore Keepers meeting this past Thursday (episode #9), dropping some alpha on a very old race that lives in the High Risk Zone, commenting on the partnership with SingularityNET, and sharing plans of him and Darwiin working (vibe coding, mostly) on a potential Discord mini-game (RPG dungeoncrawler) in their spare time.

If you missed it, then it’s definitely worth checking out the recording! At the very tail-end of the meeting, José shared that he has seen new pages of the CORE Graphic Novel, confirming that work on that has restarted meanwhile!

You’ve reached the end of this week’s newsletter. Thanks for reading!