Welcome to our 33rd 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.
COPA
Last Thursday, June 16, saw the inaugural Council of Peace Assembly (COPA) take place, with guilds and community members joining from all over the world! The live stream, going on in parallel on both the main-stage and brew-stage, lasted roughly 7 hours, with over 450 enthusiasts watching live at all times.
Of the 39 guilds that sent their pitch decks to the team, 15 were chosen to present their team live during the event. The judges listened to all while asking questions afterwards. At the end of the event, they revealed the 3 guilds that scored the best according to the criteria.
Winners
The guilds that were given this honour were, in order of ranking:
- COEXIST
- Dark Matter
- The Club
Each of these guilds will take home a (relatively small) bag of ships.
Besides the guilds, audience members also had a chance to win several items, including a 1-of-1 custom-made Star Atlas PC, sponsored by iBUYPOWER. The team published an article afterward, listing all the prizes and winners of the first-ever COPA!
Congratulations to all the winners and thank you for making this historic and memorable!
Alpha
Besides the guild presentations, a DJ set by Bassjackers, and a breathing workshop, there was also a lot of information shared on upcoming Star Atlas features, such as the new marketplace and SCREAM. Michael Wagner (CEO) topped things off by sharing what we can expect to be released over the next 4-6 weeks. We wrote a separate article that goes into all of the alpha that was shared.
Roadmap Report
Star Atlas released issue #10 of their roadmap scan, switching back from the COPA lore to Wenn & friends - ONI Dream Within a Dream — Part I: Star Atlas Roadmap Scan #10.
During COPA, Michael shared a rough release outline for a number of upcoming modules, which we have listed below as “target dates”.
SCORE Fleet Badges
Michael shared that each enlisted fleet (ship model) is capable of earning a single badge. In SCREAM, the fleet badges “owned” will be converted into a Loyalty Point bonus. These LP rewards will not be terribly significant, but they should provide a nice initial boost. The team is looking to potentially also air-drop purely commemorative NFTs for these fleet badges as well.
Ships
The Fimbul Mamba, a medium-sized bounty hunter ship is now available in the Galactic Marketplace. It has an uncommon rarity rating and there are 5,900 for sale.
POLIS DAO
Michael reiterated that one’s share of rewards will be comprised of both staked balance and lock duration. The multipliers affect one’s share and reward calculation.
He also confirmed that technically they are capable of using players’ voting weight across multiple voting pools which could be relevant for the Faction-, and Regional DAOs. Since they don’t have the functionality for in-game DAOs yet, it’s likely that they will set the other pools up like this, but it is not yet guaranteed. More information on this could be forthcoming when POLIS staking is launched.
Progress
Last week the frontend team has been working on building unstyled components, that should integrate some of the locker functions. Currently, they are conducting end-to-end testing and validation. On the blockchain side, the team assisted the audit and web teams in reviewing the ATLAS staking program internally.
Target date: July 2022 - POLIS staking
Showroom
Besides the progress report, Michael confirmed that the showroom will not be able to be run on Macs natively.
As for development updates, with regards to the art team, they have passed the content complete phase for level art, props, lighting, and VFX. They are currently working on getting the environment art to the same state.
Meanwhile the UX/UI team completed the wallet/authorization mockup and are this week working on adding visual polish and completing the UI. Lastly, the core gameplay department has been working on the Options tab for the game, covering Graphics, Audio, Game, and Sound. Additionally, they have been working on delivery mechanics, in order for players to be able to get the client. This is also the focus of their work this week, next to finishing the UI integration.
Target date: July 2022 - Pre-Alpha release
SCREAM
Chip (Director of Game Systems Design) shared that they are targeting 3-8 planets per star system and that each faction’s Security Zone will contain fewer star systems than their (potential) Medium Risk Zone. He did not yet disclose the total numbers, as they are still balancing the numbers. The goal is to make sure the game feels vibrant with activity, but also large enough to attract a growing and competitive player base for months to come.
When asked by a community member, Chip clarified that Data Runners have above-average scanning abilities, data storage capabilities, and stealth. They are, however, not well equipped for combat.
Finally, he also stated that players will be able to manage multiple fleets and are encouraged to do so. He reminded us that there are individual fleet size limits. However, there will be no limits to how many fleets a player can have, provided that they have enough hangars to support the total number of desired ships.
Progress
During the past week, the team finished prototypes for upgrading of Starbases and for planetary resource extraction. They also onboarded a sound stakeholder (Art Director) and will refine the list of sounds to be included this week. Over at the web department, they started working on the combat functionality, while wrapping up work on warp gate functionality.
Target date: 2022
Galactic Marketplace
The front-end team is still hard at work, supported by the UX department, to complete the new marketplace. Last week, the team stitched mock data into the UI, finished the bookmarks backend and continued to work on the “Order Complete/Placed” dialogs. This week they are performing load tests and replacing the mock data with blockchain data.
Target date: July 2022