Welcome to our 28th newsletter on Star Atlas! This is a weekly newsletter, published by Aephia Industries, that is focused entirely on Star Atlas . Here we try to aggregate all the newsworthy tidbits that were dropped by the team throughout the past week.
Roadmap
This week, the roadmap update came as part of The Atlas Star ✧ Issue #7, the official Star Atlas newsletter. Besides roadmap updates, it also came with a meaty disposition on SCREAM’s upcoming gameplay and a new edition of “The Punaab Whisper”, an in-fiction Star Atlas tabloid.
Town Hall
Last Friday, the team hosted another Town Hall. This one was much anticipated as it was announced beforehand that Chip (Director of Game Systems Design) would join to share, for the first time, what we can expect gameplay-wise in SCREAM.
SCREAM
Besides Chip sharing a lot of info on the upcoming gameplay in SCREAM, and the Atlas Star offering a substantial amount as well, more information was shared afterward during the Twitter Afterparty and on Discord. We’ve compiled as much of this information as possible in a lengthy article, detailing all that we know so far about SCREAM.
There were also some SCREAM-related tidbits shared during the Town Hall that are not part of either of these publications, such as:
- SCREAM includes a full gameplay loop which translates to higher time requirements when compared to SCORE
- There will be a lot of decision points that players can make, both with regards to the types of activity they participate in as well as to their strategic positioning.
- Player actions (such as aiming) will not be skill-based at this time. The decisions players make will determine some probability of success.
- Chip confirmed that the SCREAM release this year will not unlock Ship Manufacturing. The team anticipates a few more releases before all the foundational mechanics are in place to support it. When ship manufacturing is implemented, it will require significant effort to make one.
- Once the High-Risk Zone is also implemented, ships will be permanently destructible. That will not yet be the case with SCREAM T0, as that only includes gameplay in the Safe, and Medium Risk Zones.
- Michael clarified that the UE5 experiences are built to cater to every type of gamer in the community. SCREAM is not meant to target all of these, at least not at this stage.
Secret Project
We’ve learned a little bit more about the “secret” project Danny (CPO) has a team working on, the one involving NFT ships and free-flight in UE5. According to Michael it will most likely be released at the same time, or close to the release of the Showroom module.
Progress Updates
SCREAM
Now that the tip of the curtain has been lifted, the team felt comfortable with sharing that they have been working on the hangar program. They also worked on two other programs (smart contracts) that have a dependency on the hangar program.
Meanwhile, the Economics department has been focusing on further R&D of the R4 mechanics in SCREAM, whereas the Web department has been focusing on prototyping ship movement and intra-star system mechanics.
Showroom
The showroom module is still in the polishing phase. The art department finalized the placement of all geometry into the environment, after which they have been busy with improving the quality of the assets, the lighting, and the visual effects. This week, they plan to look at improving the performance where necessary. The UX/UI department worked on tweaking the interface of the terminals on the map and the “splash screen”. This week, they will integrate the HUD into the game, to be able to test it.
During the Town Hall, Michael re-iterated that they have been developing a UE5 SDK that has a native connection to the Solana chain which means players don’t have to leave the game to connect their wallet and instead do it in-game.
Galactic Marketplace
This will be the first module that will be released this year. Feedback from the community testers has been incorporated. The audit has been completed and the team implemented some minor fixes. Michael finally felt comfortable sharing that this module will be released in about four to six weeks.
Meanwhile, the Front-end team finished the bookmarks page. Work is still required on the filter sidebar and the “my order”-page. This week they will also hook up the UI to the blockchain, instead of relying on (temporary) mock data.
This week, the team will finish the ATLAS Staking implementation.
POLIS DAO
There is not much to report on the POLIS DAO, after last week’s scope update. The team is planning to wrap up the UI for version 0 this week and they will calculate the rewards schedule.
Perhaps the most important news: The audits of the un-audited contracts will start this week.
Keeping it short
- The team had no exposure to Luna or UST, their funds are safu!
- The Star Atlas cinematic trailer reached 1 million views!
- Part of the team is going on a team-building retreat this week, which means we might hear less from the team than usual.
- Referral program is still coming.
- Multiple Unreal experiences are coming this year.
Ships
This week will see the release of the Busan Maiden Heart, a capital fighter ship. It’s also the second Busan ship to see the light of day.
Competitions
Sandbox
The competition to design an ONI, Ustur, or MUD avatar for use in the Sandbox game, has come to an end. New entries can no longer be submitted, as both the Sandbox and Star Atlas teams are judging the entries to decide the winners and the full ranking of the top 10!
Tufa Attack
Over the last week, the Tufa Attack Tournament has been ongoing, finally resulting in a thrilling finale between the two runner-ups, Khel (The Club) and Bento (Star Atlas Italia). In the end, Bento won convincingly, taking home the grand prize of an Ogrika MIK and two Tufa Feist ships. Congratulations
