Welcome to our 232nd 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.
SAGE C4 is live on the PTR! SAGE’s biggest update to date is now available in open beta, running on the z.ink testnet, which also launched last week. The Town Hall also gave us the clearest z.ink update in quite some time, alongside the release of the UE5 features we’ve been seeing throughout this year’s Atlas Brews. Lastly, a new DAO funding proposal is open to support a community-run UE5 tournament from the folks at Superphoenix DAO.
Let’s dive in!
Town Hall Releases
The biggest development last week was simple: C4 PTR is now live. As we suggested last week, the closed beta could mean the PTR would launch during the Town Hall, and it did.
The team organized the first Town Hall of the year and introduced three releases during the almost 3-hour-long event:
- UE5 Update — A UE5 upgrade containing Minky Steer hunting, enemy bases on actual (sperical) planets and new missions with bosses, plus improved oceans.
- Z.ink Testnet — The z.ink testnet went live alongside documentation, the Solana (Atlasnet) to z.ink (testnet) bridge, and a preview of the Airdrop Claims portal.
- SAGE C4 PTR — No more words needed; this is the update the team has been working on for the last 1.5 years and the first major update to the product in 2 years. Of course, it’s not live on mainnet yet, but you can finally get your hands on it!
Lastly, they kicked off a 2-week promotional sale.
If you missed the event, we’ll of course summarize the news in this week’s issue. But you can also:
- Read our written report
- Watch the recording by StarAtlasTV
SAGE C4 PTR – Welcome
SAGE C4 PTR
The open beta of SAGE C4 is live right now, and players can jump straight in through https://sage.staratlas.com. To be clear: this version is still in active development, and bugs, slowdowns, and a suboptimal user experience are to be expected! The game also lacks proper onboarding, so overall, this version should definitely not be treated as a polished product.
On that last point, Danny (CPO) explained on Discord that the current focus is to expose as many mechanics as possible, with large airdrops of advanced assets so testers can reach late-game systems quickly. Additionally, no wallet is required. This is clearly not how any normal game would launch, but it does make sense for a PTR whose real job is scale-testing and feedback.
Michael (CEO) added a bit more color around that. He said the current complexity is intentional because SAGE’s economy depends on specialization, not on every player doing everything at once. Tutorials, storyline missions, daily missions, and bounties are still expected later, but for now, the PTR is much closer to an endgame sandbox than to a first-time user experience.
SAGE C4 PTR – Report bugs and suggestions using the red bug-button
The game is in open beta, meaning the work is done and all that remains is polishing and fine-tuning. Players are encouraged to report both bugs and suggestions for improving the game. This can be done while playing by using the red bug-shaped button at the top right of the screen.
z.ink Bridge
z.ink Testnet
The Town Hall also gave us the clearest z.ink progress update in a while. Jacob (CTO) said the network has now moved into its public testnet phase, with the network, bridge, and developer documentation all live. The team is actively looking for validator, RPC, and hardware partners to start getting involved. Interested parties are encouraged to contact the team!
These launches do not mean every hard problem is solved. Jacob once again emphasized that bridges are among the industry’s biggest security risks. It’s available now for live testing, but still very much in a testnet phase rather than something the team is presenting as production-hardened. They are considering a bug bounty program, with Michael sharing that the team is not in a position to fund an external audit at this time.
Michael also took a moment during the Town Hall to demonstrate the claims portal. Right now, it shows a hypothetical allocation based on a static snapshot taken the day before the event, and the tokens involved are still testnet-only. But the structure is very much in place, and the approach mimics what users can expect when it goes live for real later this year:
- 5% of a user’s allocation will be claimable immediately
- The remaining 95% vests over 180 days.
- Anyone who exits that vesting early forfeits the unvested remainder, which is then redistributed pro rata to users who keep vesting longer.
The O.RIGINS Airdrop season should end shortly before z.ink mainnet, but the mainnet push still depends heavily on confidence in the C4 roadmap and rollout. Michael mentioned that they expect a 3-4 month window after the C4 PTR is stable enough before the network genesis event of z.ink. This will give them time to properly promote the blockchain and reach out to potential interested parties.
![Star Atlas - Oceans [UE5]](https://assets.aephia.com/wp-assets/ce5d623b2074016eb1790429ad230909bdbfbddaeb29ac55b11c0badc3d5ce89.png)
Star Atlas – Oceans [UE5]
Unreal Engine 5 / Galia
Brad (Gameplay Engineer) used the Town Hall to show the latest Galia update in a fuller form than the earlier teasers. Players can now skip the intro mission or start directly at Nova Starbase if they have already gone through the opening once. He then demonstrated an elimination mission on the dark side of a planet, which is still the clearest practical example of the team’s spherical-surface AI navigation work.
That mission flow looked a bit richer than the short clips implied. The alarm system can be triggered if enemies spot you; stealth still matters, and the objective is to take down a single boss rather than necessarily clearing every NPC in the base. Brad also showed that death now sends you back to your ship for a smoother loop, which is a nice quality-of-life improvement even if it will likely be tightened later.
The rest of the segment rounded out the patch nicely. Minky Steers now drop biomass, and the team has pushed the ocean renderer much further than before. At the end of the Town Hall, they said this UE5 update had already been submitted to Epic and should go live shortly after review. In short: It should be live by the time you read this!
Holosim
Holosim remained in cleanup mode last week, and the most important timing note was that zXP gains in Holosim end on May 30th at 00:00 UTC. Anyone still trying to squeeze out extra profile progress had a few days left after that announcement.
Beyond that, John also made it fairly clear that the long-discussed Prisoners-of-War fix is unlikely to arrive soon. He said that fixing it would require a program upgrade, and with attention now centered on C4 PTR, that work does not appear to fit the current priority stack. During the Town Hall, Michael reinforced what we already shared last week: with the PTR live, the team is fully shifting into C4 work.
DAO Updates
One new proposal opened in the DAO last week, and it is a sizeable one. PIP-32 asks the community to fund a community-run Star Atlas esports production around all three current UE5 modes.
PIP-32: Igniting the Star Atlas Triad Tournament – A Super Phoenix Sports Live Esports Event
This proposal seeks funding of the Ecosystem Fund limit (currently 13,576,392 ATLAS) for the production and broadcast of the Star Atlas Triad Tournament in June 2026, a first-ever combined competitive event spanning all three UE5 game modes: Racing Mode (Star Racer), Gun Mode (Star Shooter), Siege Mode (Star Fighter). Funding is to compensate the team only, it is not funding a prize pool.
Structure:
- Requested funding: 13,576,392 ATLAS
- Structure: 1-off PIP
- Author: Money, Lanzer, Njord
- Voting Opened: Thursday, May 28th
- Voting Closes: Thursday, June 11th (end-of-day UTC)
Early results (~3 days in, ~27M PVP committed):
- For: 61.77%
- Against: 27.42%
- Abstain: 10.81%
![Star Atlas - Calico Flattop [Concept Art]](https://assets.aephia.com/wp-assets/38c4cd99430f960d5c0d314257781ffdb080d670d6d2f1a570d724b07091bcf1.png)
Star Atlas – Calico Flattop [Concept Art]
Promotional Sale
Right at the end of the Town Hall, Michael announced the start of a promotional sale, featuring Cultivation Claims, and two new ships: the VZUS arma and the Calico Flattop.
The promotion will run for two weeks or as long as supplies last. All assets are available in limited quantities, and all come with bonus crew pack(s), which will be handed out after the sale ends.
Cultivation Claims
Cultivation Claims are closely related to Claim Stakes, except that instead of mining, they focus on cultivating plants and food. You may remember these assets, as back when Multichain Ventures was folded into ATMTA, the Tokes holders were given a chance to exchange their tokens for these very same assets.
Michael shared that Cultivation Claims are meant to become their own gameplay loop, feeding consumables like stims.
This sale marks the first time the team has ever sold these particular assets. While you will be able to use them in SAGE C4 when that goes live on the z.ink mainnet, you will be able to use them inside Faction Claims to produce R4 (like the Claim Stakes).
Offers:
- Tier 1 @ $15 (1,337x)— Bonus: 1x silver 1 crew pack
- Tier 2 @ $75 (400x) — Bonus: 3x gold 1 crew pack
- Tier 3 @ $274 (128x) — Bonus: 1x platinum 5 crew pack
- Tier 4 @ $639 (62x) — Bonus: 2x platinum 5 crew pack + 1x gold 5 crew pack
- Tier 5 @ $1,970 (25x) — Bonus: 6x platinum 5 crew pack
New Ships
The team also added two new ships to the market, which have never been sold (or awarded) before: the VZUS arma (medium fighter) and the Calico Flattop (capital freight). Their stats are available in both the Sage Editor Suite and the ship stats sheet.
Offers:
- VZUS arma @ $81 (185x)— Bonus: 3x gold 1 crew pack
- Calico Flattop @ $3,050 (20x) — Bonus: 12x platinum 5 crew pack
That is it for this week! Thanks for reading, and until the next!