Welcome to our 29th 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.
News
Star Atlas released their weekly roadmap report: Mierese Dance in the Blizzard: Star Atlas Roadmap Scan #07.
We also got to see new pre-alpha footage of the Showroom module on Twitter! Watch the clip here.
Lastly, the team announced the first-ever Council of Peace Assembly (COPA), edition 2022, that will take place on the Star Atlas Discord server on June 16th.
COPA
The Council of Peace Assembly, or COPA, is primarily a contest where guilds can showcase themselves to the full Star Atlas community in order to sell themselves to potential future members. Guilds that want to join have to submit their pitch deck before June 7th, after which a jury will select a limited number of guilds that then have to pitch “on stage” during the event. The top 3 pitches will take home a prize pool worth up to $8,500 worth in ships.
Additionally, a gaming PC set sponsored by iBUYPOWER will be awarded to one lucky member of the audience. For the full overview, visit the official event page.
Finance
Michael reiterated that all in-game economic capture (effectively a form of taxation) is allocated to the DAO - R4 markets, hangar space, and more as those game mechanics come online.
On the other hand, all out-of-game revenue goes to the Star Atlas team. These include NFT sales, licensing fees on any IP they develop, a portion of royalty fees, treasury ops, advertising, and brand integration fees, and environment instance sales.
Gameplay
- It is possible that there will be restrictions to the number of players on a specific battlefield on the game board.
- Hangars on ships will not be used yet in SCREAM v0. Functionality for this will be added over time.
- Loyalty Points that players will earn in SCREAM v0 will count toward their faction. Loyalty cannot be earned yet for manufacturers or banished factions in SCREAM v0. This feature will come in an expansion supporting the ship crafting/mission system.
- Since the game is hosted on the blockchain, the team is currently working on the visibility of ships. Even if/when all fleets are visible, it still becomes a massive game of chess and does not take away from the strategic elements required to succeed in the game.
- Exploration will come into play when traveling and exploring each star system to find resources and enemies start. There are no dedicated career/missions for exploration in SCREAM v0.
- Players will have the option to flee from combat.
- When SCREAM comes out, there will be new contracts. The bonus from badges will be recognized ahead of the rollout of SCREAM so players will effectively secure rewards from participating in SCORE. The team will take a snapshot of existing badges and players will be free to delist from Faction Fleet without consequences.
Showroom
Last week we’ve learned that there will be several extensions to the Showroom module after its release, including one that will add a basement section. The primary enhancements will be delivered in the form of support for additional ship models as they become production-ready.
Art
The art team has been working on polishing the glass roof window, trees, and other outdoor elements. The interactive outline is in progress. This week they are going to fix feedback received from reviews.
UX/UI
The UX/UI devs have worked on the visual implementation for integrated UI screens. Next, they will work on splash screen delivery, tweaking in-engine integrations, performing QA reviews, and bug-fixing.
Blockchain
The team is working hard on the delivery of plugins, data tools, and documentation.
SCREAM
All teams are still busy working on a variety of prototypes.
UI
The UI team has focused on several SCREAM screens, including the ship management screens. This week they will do a UI review with the Design lead and CPO.
Galactic Marketplace
The blockchain team has addressed the feedback from the code audit and will send the modified to the audit firm this week. The UX and the Front-end teams are doing their final polishing. We’re almost there!
POLIS DAO
Blockchain
The audit of the last 3 smart contracts (programs) is in progress, and meanwhile the team has been working on ATLAS staking, in particular on the unstaking and withdrawing of ATLAS. Staking of ATLAS won’t come with the first release, it is instead planned to be part of the first update after.
Front-end
The front-end department is working on further integration of the Blockchain SDK (required to interact with the blockchain).
Ships
Last week saw the release of the second Busan ship so far, the capital Maiden Heart. There are only 375 of these fighter ships available, starting at 29,300 USDC.