Welcome to our 192nd newsletter on Star Atlas! This weekly newsletter, published by Aephia Industries, focuses entirely on the development of this ambitious game. Here, we attempt to aggregate all the newsworthy tidbits revealed, primarily by the team, throughout the past week.
This past week was relatively quiet, up until the Econ Forum. Chris (VP of Game Economy) brought fresh alpha, including a new reveal concerning Black Goo, which is an upcoming UE5-only resource tied to exclusive combat components coming with SAGE C4. The team is also weighing whether to shut down FICs ahead of C4, and hinted at major changes to game economics in this week’s Town Hall. Last, but definitely not least, a new UE5 patch rolled out that nerfed the Profound Punaab and introduced several quality-of-life updates.
Let’s dive in!
Econ Forum #15
Chris shared a bunch of alpha during the past Econ Forum, though not everything is set in stone just yet. Before we get to the spicy stuff, let’s start at the beginning! For starters, he went into some stats related to UE5 and Holosim.
Star Atlas – Economic Forum #15
Going over UE5:
- 516 UE5 players who gained XP in the first week (a little less, actually), which is roughly the same as the number of daily active users in Holosim (518).
- 4 players managed to prestige a human male, three other character groups reached prestige 1
Looking more into Holosim, Chris showed us the following slide:
Star Atlas – Economic Forum #15
Black Goo
When SAGE C4 goes live later this year, a new resource will be added to the economy that will be exclusively obtainable in UE5. It will be an in-game reward, likely awarded in a similar way as the Crew Packs in the current setup, that will be a required ingredient in a few C4 recipes. There will be special, exclusive Ship Components, related to combat, that rely on this material to be crafted. This resource is named Black Goo, and it will be exclusively available through UE5.
Initially, the team was looking into bringing this live along with the previous UE5 patch, but since the June 4th Town Hall, they changed their mind and figured it would make a lot more sense to wait for C4. This major SAGE update will introduce hundreds of new resources and recipes, making it a natural fit from day one.
Black Goo being available only through UE5 gameplay makes this the first resource that requires skill to obtain. The team is observing the current XP mechanic in UE5 to inform their decisions regarding how much Black Goo to reward in-game.
Note: Black Goo will be tradable on the Marketplaces.
FICS
The Econ team has been thinking hard about FICs for the last few weeks. They are considering shutting FICs down completely soon, instead of waiting for C4. This would mean that the Loyalty Point mechanic is the only source of ATLAS emissions again, just as it was before FICs were introduced. The biggest issue with that system, which doesn’t incentivize you to get friends into the game, would return in full force as well.
In this scenario:
- FICS can still be sold (to get rid of stock).
- 9-10M ATLAS would be added to the LP pool
- New ship recipes would be added to keep the game loop interesting
Chris asked around what people thought about this.
An alternative idea, being proposed by some community members on the spot, is to introduce a new FIC recipe that would take the other FICs as input. Chris says he is not opposed, and they even have the recipe ready. It would lead to only this new FIC asset having buy orders. They will think about it.
Starbases Upgrade Completion
Another issue being discussed during the Q&A is what will happen when Factions near completing all Starbase Tier 5 upgrades, or when only SDUs remain.
Chris shared that they can only change future recipes. And indeed, every week that we go without C4, we get closer to the state where all Starbases have been leveled up.
The idea is to add 18th Starbase to each faction, and add T1 to T2 upgrade paths that will allow for infinite amounts of resources. This means T2 will never be reached, but at least people will still be able to earn ATLAS. This becomes a necessity when FICs would be removed, of course.
Star Atlas Summer – Town Hall Pt. 2
Star Atlas Summer – Town Hall #2
This Wednesday, the second Town Hall of this Star Atlas Summer will take place (during the Atlas Brew timeslot). Like the previous Town Hall (and the next), this event will go hand-in-hand with a product release.
The team has been very tight-lipped regarding what to expect, unlike with the previous event. During the Economic Forum, Chris was the only team member to leak some details. He mentioned that we can expect a pretty massive update to how Economics work in Star Atlas, going so far as to call this a revolutionary change. He went on to say that we can expect news related to lowering the cost of playing SAGE.
This could suggest there will be news related to either AtlasNet or the Atlas Locker, but it could be something unexpected as well.
It promised to be a very interesting Town Hall, so make sure to tune in!
UE5 Patch
The team released a small patch this past Thursday to address some of the issues and feedback they received since launching the Summer Update. One of the issues the team addressed is the Profound Punaab. Many streamers, influencers, and community members felt this little creature was simply too OP (overpowered) compared to the other species. The team has now nerfed it in response.
Below are the full patch notes for this release.
Changes were made to:
Balance:
- [NERF] Increased Profound Punaab hitboxes
- [NERF] Decreased Profound Punaab movement speed
- [NERF] Decreased Profound Punaab melee damage
- [ADJUSTMENT] Added respawn invulnerability
Progression:
- Players can now get rarity bonuses in team modes if the correct crew type is selected in the main menu
- Fixed an issue where a prestiging event would show negative XP
- Fixed an issue where players wouldn’t see their most recent XP gains
Loadout:
- Added free default MUD, ONI, and Ustur characters, so players can set their loadouts
- Removed pause menu loadout selection from legacy arena matches
Maps & Modes:
- Added Zones game mode to the daily arena match rotation
- Fixed various collision issues in Paizul’s Arena
- Fixed an issue where some pickups were double placed in legacy mode
- Fixed an issue in Galia where the Jettison task wasn’t working as intended
UI/UX:
- Added new background activity in the title menu level
- Adjusted Punaabs to now stand on the floor in the title screen
- Fixed an issue where a Surge tag notification would stay on the player’s screen
- Added the ability to sort the crew level rewards page by highest prestige and level
- Added several UI polish updates to the main menu and loadout screen
- Adjusted weapon studio lighting
- Increased key bindings and scrollbar sensitivity
- Added gamepad support for the loadout menu
Star Atlas – Community Week 25 – Badge
News Bits
To wrap this issue up, let’s go over some smaller bits of news from the past week:
- The Exclusive Community Week Badge is available to claim now! Go check your Inventory on the Play-portal.
- The Atlas Brew, along with a significant portion of community discussion this past week, centered on a new $600k POLIS Improvement Proposal aimed at funding a marketing/content push. Check out the #pip-ideas channel for more information (or check out the Brew recording)!
- Last week saw a Star Atlas Community meetup in Valencia (Spain), this week there is one in Utrecht (Netherlands), and next week is the big “Comet” one in Cologne (Germany)!
That is it for this week! Thanks for reading, and see you again next week!