Welcome to our 211th 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.
The final Town Hall of the year closed out the team’s last working week with a mix of major updates and tempered expectations. While some anticipated milestones have been pushed into early next year, the session delivered a notable partnership announcement, a substantial UE5 update, and the first concrete steps toward Open Market Operations. In this issue, we break down the Town Hall outcomes, the launch of z.ink O.rigin, the latest UE5 additions, market changes, the newly published Q4 Economic Report, and more!
Let’s dive in!
Town Hall
The last week of the year (last work-week for the team, that is) came with the last Town Hall of the year. It came with high expectations (see also last week’s issue), but not all were met. While we did get a great partnership announcement and a big update to UE5, we’ll have to wait a while longer for Holosim Chapter 2, the SAGE C4 PTR, and (by the looks of it) the Z.ink O.rigin “massive marketing campaign”.
As always, we have written a comprehensive report on everything shared. Alternatively, you can also rewatch the recording of this 3-hour event.
Of course, you’ll find the most important news bits in the remainder of this week’s newsletter!
Tether – Pay game items on Star Atlas with USDT
Tether Partnership
During the Town Hall, or rather right before on X, the team announced that they have solidified a partnership with the company behind the biggest USD-pegged stablecoin in crypto: Tether! Michael (CEO) noted that many details still need to be worked out, but that this could also lead to promotional campaigns using USDT.
One logical consequence is that the team will exchange USDC for USDT across its ecosystem. A date for this token change has not yet been shared. In return, the team will be able to do promotional campaigns in collaboration with Tether.
Michael revealed that this deal was the reason for the trip to Switzerland. Santi (VP of Community & Ecosystem) played a significant role in initiating discussions with Tether and exploring opportunities for mutual benefit.
z.ink Airdrop Roadmap
Z.ink O.rigin
The z.ink O.rigin campaign went live last week, on December 16th! This is the official $ZINK airdrop campaign kick-off, where participation will earn you $ZINK! The sooner you get on board, the more $ZINK you stand to gain, so make sure to go https://z.ink to create your zProfile and start earning zXP!
For those of you who participated in the A.lpha (test) campaign, the changes made since are as follows:
- Redemption codes are no longer required
- Claim Stake staking was added as a zXP-rewarding activity
- There is no longer a zXP/level cap; you can now progress past level 20
- A separate Multipass award track was added; although the UI is not accurately displaying the numbers behind it, it appears. No doubt this will get patched after the team’s break, if not sooner!
There is no sign yet of the social activities initially mentioned that would reward zXP. It’s not clear if these will be added at a later date. It also appears that the massive marketing campaign mentioned earlier by Dom (Marketing Lead) has not yet kicked off.
There was a snafu with the Claim Stake scoring, which the team fixed after the first day. Staking Claim Stakes awarded way too much zXP, and this was quickly (retroactively) corrected.
At this time, there are still issues with some SAGE activity not being rewarded if you are playing SAGE on a non-primary wallet.
It’s not clear yet how long the campaign will last. During the z.ink launch event, Michael shared that they expected the campaign to run for about 3 months. This suggests it will end around mid-March 2026. The code behind the z.ink website currently shows 26-04-26 as the campaign end date, though this may be a placeholder. That said, given the popular 426-meme in the Star Atlas ecosystem, it would make for a great date! This would also give the team more time to cook on SAGE C4, but more on that below.
UE5 Update
As expected, the team released a big UE5 update at the very tail-end of the year. This update includes several improvements, which we’ll list below in the patch notes. The spotlight items were, however:
- Racing
- Siege Mode
- Galia Mode
We’ll go into more detail on these first.
Racing
The team brought the Exinade map from rough blockout to near-gold state. More work will be performed here, but this map looks really good already. In addition, to round out the faction-racing maps, the team has started working on a new map in the caverns below an Ustur temple on their home planet, dubbed Cynosure. This map is currently available as a rough block-out. It contains more sharp angles and jumps than the other maps so far.
During the Town Hall, Danny (CPO) explained that while working on the race tracks, they are also assembling asset packs for the three different factions.
But that is not all! Beyond work on maps, the team has now implemented combat on the race tracks! This is turned on by default in multiplayer races using matchmaking.
Star Atlas – LAR-4 [screenshot from the Town Hall live-stream]
Siege Mode
The team added a brand-new mode to the game: Siege Mode! This is a team-based ship-dogfighting mode that is live today as a straightforward deathmatch variant. They also created a brand new map for this mode, called LAR-4. This is a mining station built atop an asteroid. As such, there are pathways into the asteroid as well, which make the map pretty versatile and impressive.
In the future, the team plans to incorporate objectives into this mode, but they need more time to do so. When they do, the plan is to have structures that can be captured, and Pearce C9s on both sides of the line, which need to be blown up.
Conquest Mode
During the Town Hall, the team briefly outlined their vision for what comes after the completion of Siege Mode. They envision combining Siege Mode with the hover mode from Racing and their Gunplay mode to create a multiplayer game where teams can jump in and out of ships while shooting both ships and people in a grand fight for an objective. This best compares to Star Wars: Battlefront-like, with the team calling this mode Conquest.
They plan to make that mode the first crossover between SAGE C4 and UE5 by battling for actual planetary domination in UE5 after conquering a system with ships in C4.
This Conquest Mode could arrive in late 2026, but Michael dampened expectations right away, noting it will be a significant lift.
Star Atlas – Galia Campaign Mode [screenshot from the Town Hall live-stream]
Galia – Single Player
As expected, this release brings the first MVP version of a single-player campaign to the Galia game mode! You can now jump in and work your way through missions, slowly expanding your gear and ship, and enjoying the lore written by José (Lead Narrative Writer).
Although it is single-player, this experience offers a glimpse into the MMO content the team plans to introduce.
Patch Notes
Here are the official patch notes:
New:
- Added a new single-player experience
- Added new high-fidelity racing map, Exinade
- Added new Siege game mode and arena (Spaceship PVP Arena)
- Added three new shooter weapons (Rocket Launcher, Shockwave Pistol, Shockwave Rifle)
Updates:
- Added new health/shield consumables in the grenade slot (Swap consumables with Shift + E)
- Adjusted team-based shooter modes to allow any species on any team. You can now always rock your favorite Star Atlas Crew member!
- Added new leaderboards and stats
- Expanded progression with firearm and vehicle mastery tracks
Improvements:
- Upgraded to Unreal Engine 5.6.1
- Improved Matchmaking UX (Separate Team & FFA matchmaking playlists)
OMO — A Three-Part Plan
Open Market Operations
The team has begun implementing its new approach to the market economy, as outlined by Chris (VP of Game Economy) at the last Economic Forum. This means several changes have been made (with more to come) to ensure ATMTA can become a market participant. The following changes are live since the Town Hall:
- All of the team’s outstanding sell orders have been removed, and new sales batches for specific ships have been added. In addition to several ships, the team added Claim Stakes and Pearce MR8 (by popular demand) assets to the marketplace.
- Trading fees on secondary sales have been reduced to 0. OTC deals are no longer necessary (unless you want to select your trading partner).
- The Buy-Sell channel has been opened up again on the Star Atlas Discord.
- The Fimbul Mamba Ex and Calico Maxhog recipes were overhauled and now cost less to redeem. A new recipe for the Fimbul BYOS Butch was also added. This ship is slightly more expensive (relatively), on purpose.
For more information on the exact plans, check out our overview in issue #209.
Star Atlas – Pearce MR8 [Concept]
New Ship: Pearce MR8
It’s been a long, long time since a new ship was officially launched on the Galactic Marketplace, but as part of the OMO econ update, the team is now officially selling the Pearce MR8! This large ship is assigned an epic rarity and is a multi-role vessel that requires 10 crew members. The team is offering an initial small batch of 9 ships for 1575.93 USDC.
The official description reads the following:
Pearce is proud to introduce the MR8: a large, multi-role workhorse engineered for the reality of the frontier—changing conditions, shifting objectives, and no time for a refit. With integrated scanning, tractor capability, and configurable capacity for fuel, cargo, and ammo, the MR8 can escort, supply, recover, and return without breaking stride. Bring a full-spectrum crew, set your heading, and let the MR8 turn chaos into schedule.
Note that this ship can not yet be used in SAGE. The team hopes to remedy this after the holiday break. It’s also not yet available in UE5.
Star Atlas – Weapon Skin (Progression) Exploration – by Gary Sanchez
Tangential World Partner
During the Town Hall, Michael announced that they had found their first partner, who will implement their own world within the Star Atlas universe.
This topic has come up several times in the early years of Star Atlas, with the idea that a third party could acquire a planet and create their own custom games and/or expositions on it.
In a follow-up interview with Virtuwul, Michael noted that an official announcement is pending the back-end system going live, which he expects could happen in Q1 of 2026.
In that same interview, he states that no money is changing hands as part of this deal. This other party, with years of experience building similar experiences in other games, will instead invest their own time and money in creating this first experience. Star Atlas will gain an enriched universe from this and, of course, set an example for what other companies could achieve by following suit.
SAGE C4 Update
During the Town Hall, Michael shared that the team initially hoped for a June mid-2025 release. Clearly, that did not pan out for a variety of reasons, primarily the complexity of this new game. There is still some work to be done, primarily on the front end. The following list was shared during the Town Hall:
- Almost every single on-chain instruction has been tested and verified
- The C4 core program is feature complete, and the team is fixing the last bugs they found
- The configuration for deploying the program and its data to initialize the on-chain game is near completion.
- The new version of StarComm (v3) is nearing completion as well
- The main piece remaining: Front-end UI
There is a chance the PTR could go live in January if all the stars align after the holiday break. It looks more likely to go live in February or even March 2026.
Regarding its official release, Michael reiterated that the plan is to launch C4 alongside the z.ink mainnet. It is meant to bootstrap the network.
He also shared some good news regarding the migration from SAGE Starbased: Players will not need to transport everything back to the CSS. This will be done automatically for them, at no cost. The migration from SAGE on Solana to C4 on z.ink should be as simple as a single click, ensuring a seamless transition.
Holosim – Chapter 2
The team needs a little more time to polish Holosim – Chapter 2, which is why it will launch in January next year rather than this past week. The z.ink O.rigins campaign will not reward Holosim participation until this new chapter is live.
Star Atlas – State if the Economy – Q4 2025
Economic Quarterly Report – Q4
The Econ team also published its final quarterly report for 2025 on Friday. This one is a little different, in part because Gareth is no longer doing the brunt of the work (since he left the team), and all of the work now falls on Chris (VP Game Economy).
The 14-page document provides the latest insights into the Star Atlas economy, highlighting topics such as Faction Infrastructure Contracts, Grey Markets, and Commodity and Capital Markets.
Star Atlas – State of the Economy Q4 2025 – Figure 8: Asset Price Indices (USDC vs ATLAS)
For your convenience, we are including the executive summary below:
The fourth quarter of 2025 has continued a year-long trend of a deteriorating macro economic environment for web3 gaming, testing the Star Atlas economy once again. While gaming ecosystem token prices have declined by more than 70% in 2025, the Star Atlas economy remains resilient, with SAGE (i.e., Starbased) consistently seeing over 850 daily active users and the entire ecosystem seeing more than 3000 monthly active users. Token emissions have held steady since last quarter, with a daily growth rate of about 10.5 million ATLAS. In USDC terms, GDP was roughly $1.2 million in Q4 and $4.5 million in H2. Star Atlas’ GDP will settle around $14.5 million in 2025.
Star Atlas ecosystem wealth remains large with Star Atlas asset valuations around $36.5 million (23.5 from assets and 13 million from ATLAS and POLIS). 1 Income inequality settled around 0.65 and 0.7 Gini, a decrease from last quarter. Ship prices increased in ATLAS terms and decreased in USDC terms, while Resources fell in both terms. Other assets like crew, claim stakes, and story items’ prices were flat in ATLAS terms and increased in USDC terms.
OTC trade hit all-time highs, presenting new challenges in data collection and ATMTA revenue. The advent of Open Market Operations moving into 2026 should discourage OTC trading and provide ATMTA with new revenue opportunities and completely offset token liquidations. Finally, outstanding Faction Infrastructure Contracts have remained stable over the quarter, fluctuating between 25 and 45 million outstanding units. The current ATLAS equivalent liability of FICs is 67 million.
Iris’ Blessing – Month 3
Iris’ Blessing – Month 3 of 6
This coming weekend is the next Double XP weekend, December 26-28. During these days, you can earn double the XP in the official matchmaking modes, which also means double the Ink, and double the zXP! In short, it is a terrific time to jump into the game and enjoy all the new updates!
Raffle
The 3rd monthly raffle will take place on Friday, January 9th, during the (first) Galia Game Night. The following prizes can be won:
- 1x Fimbul BYOS Ranger
- 1x Calico Medtech
- 1x Opal Rayfam
- 10x Fimbul ECOS Unibomba
- 5x Fimbul Lowbie
- 10x VZUS Solos
- 5x Platinum Crew (5) Pack
- 10x Platinum Crew (1) Pack
- 7x Gold Crew (5) Pack
- 10x Gold Crew (1) Pack
- 10x Silver Crew (5) Pack
- 10x Silver Crew (1) Pack
Note that to participate, you must claim tickets during live events (Atlas Brew, Game Night, and any other events the team organizes on their Discord). The team distributes codes that can be claimed via a Discord bot. Another way to earn tickets is to post a “!gm” in the daily-check-in channel every day.
Star Atlas Town Hall – Tim McBurnie Announcing CORE Act 3
News Bits
Here are a few last tidbits of news for you:
- Break — As they do every year, the team wrapped up their last week and is now enjoying 2 weeks off during the Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. They will return to work on January 5th.
- Bug — Racing XP is lower than it should be, due to a bug in the latest UE5 update. The team plans to fix this in the new year, so unfortunately, you will earn less XP, including during the Double XP weekend!
- CORE — Wrapping up the Town Hall, Tim McBurnie showed up in a pre-recorded video announcing that CORE – Act 3, Star Atlas’ Graphic Novel, will kick off in January 2026! He also shared that he has been working on the design for the physical edition.
Holiday Break
During the team’s annual holiday break, there will be no official updates for the next 2 weeks. For this reason, as we always do, this newsletter will also take a 2-week break. The next issue, 212, will be on your virtual doormat on January 12th, 2026!
On behalf of all of us at Aephia, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thank you for reading!
A Merry Christmas from Aephia Industries!