Welcome to our 41st 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
Weâre back to a relatively ordinary week for Star Atlas, being in between major releases. Last week, the team sent out issue 16 of the Weekly Roadmap Scan, where Wenn & Yago stumble upon Punaab secrets in the depths of planet Gerio!
Furthermore, more information about SCREAM was supplied, of which the highlights can be found in the SCREAM section of this newsletter.
Volant Studio Showroom
The team shared that you wonât need to delist your ships in Faction Fleet (SCORE) in order to be able to summon your ships into the Showroom. So just keep your ships enlisted.
Progress-wise, work on the distribution method continued last week. This week the team hopes to finish the UI/UX. If everything goes smoothly, the Showroom will be launched during the next 426Live event (not announced yet).
SCREAM
Last week weâve learned a couple of new things from Chip (Game Systems Designer) regarding how SCREAM will work.
Movement
First off, we received some information on how the movement of fleets will work in v0:
- Think of the map as a chess board: Fleets can move from space to space. Each such space will be represented on-chain.
- Warp dives allow fleets to skip spaces during their movement. The bigger the ship [âs warp drive], the farther it can jump on the board.
- A star system occupies a single space on the board.
- There will be warp lanes between star systems owned by each faction, which function like a fast travel network for members of that faction. This allows players to ignore their fleetâs warp distance limitation and right away move to a different faction-owned system.
- This chess-board-spaces-movement system is somewhat limited, and Chip confirmed that the team is looking to increase the granularity with future versions of SCREAM.
Combat
A few tidbits on enemy visibility, and the potential for ambushes:
- Players will be able to see the enemies in their sector/space upon entering it and will be able to see some data on the opposing fleet (most likely omitting fine details - like being able to see how full their fuel tank is).
- If you enter into a space that is occupied by another fleet, they can attack you. However, you do have a chance to right away flee and save your fleet!
- The above means that players can theoretically set up an âambushâ (though visible) in a star system and attack fleets that enter. However, you are never forced to travel through a particular star system. Movement is flexible, you can always go around.
Data Obfuscation
For v0, location/state data wonât be obfuscated on-chain. This means the community could theoretically build a tool to extract data from the chain (though that will take time), that would not be visualized by the Web game. Chip remarked had the following to say about this:
- The team is aware of this, and though it would change the gameplay into more of a chess game (where you can also see all your opponentâs pieces), they are aware and they will make sure the game remains interesting in both scenarios.
- The team will constantly increase the complexity of the game, and they will find ways to make some elements of data uncertain/unknown. Chip mentioned that ways to obscure data are already known, but that it takes significantly more development that will come with a future iteration of SCREAM. Over time, the team will increase their on-chain tech to introduce an on-chain fog of war.
Progress
The Blockchain team reported that they continued their work on the Fleets program, while also having worked on the Sector program. Meanwhile, the Economy Design team started economic modelling of planetary mining & emissions and starbase-crafting. Game Design worked on defining the combat mechanics through prototyping. And lastly, the Art department has started working on concepts for the planets.
Star Atlas DAO
The team updated the withdraw/unlock mechanism for the upcoming ATLAS Locker. The Web team worked on some components for this same module while the blockchain team has been busy reviewing their code internally while awaiting the official audit results.
Ships
Chip responded to a question about the relatively expensive bounty hunter ships with the following:
Just because another ship has more hardpoints doesnât mean a bounty hunter doesnât have unique abilities/perks that can outclass in other ways. While we are still refining the specific spec perks, we have bounty hunters earmarked to be specialized and warrant the premium.
Besides that piece of information, the team teased a new ship that will be released this Thursday. This drop is going to mark the very first Salvage ship ever!
Even in the cosmos, thrifting is in! đ« This mystery Salvage will help you collect the most useful components of ships that have seen better days. đ Dropping on the Galactic Marketplace 2.0 NEXT WEEK! https://t.co/d3qnLgGmhW https://t.co/9TxoJPE9UB
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Vacation
To conclude this weekâs newsletter, we included a fun video from DaveyB, Content/Creative Producer on the Star Atlas team. During his vacation, he shot a hilarious (or so we think) short movie from the perspective of a MUD Bitboat pilot.
What does a Star Atlas fan do on vacation? Quality time with family? Or⊠make a no actors/no crew/no budget Star Atlas movie! https://t.co/rf2LievoTH
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