Welcome to our 49th 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.
With the recent release of the Showroom and Fleet viewer, people have -for the first time- been able to enjoy the 3D rendered version of the ships they own, walk around them and explore the first small area of the future world of Star Atlas. As a result, user-created content featuring these products has started to spread on the internet and new players have begun to find their way to Star Atlas!
Star Atlas Publishing Schedule
In the week of 426Live:NYK, the team did not release a new Roadmap Scan, and it looks like there won’t be any coming in the future anymore either. This week, however, did see the release of a new issue of Atlas Star (#11), Star Atlas’ own newsletter, which every so often has replaced the Roadmap Scan. In it, you can find a summary of the events that occurred between this edition and the previous one, and a brand new edition of the Punaab Whisperer, in which The Most Successful Guide of Common Sense Material for Space Exploration (popularly known as The Guide) is being explored.
With regards to the Roadmap Scan, the team has announced a new publishing schedule, that will replace Roadmap Scans going forward:
- Week 1: A new issue of the Atlas Star - combining the roadmap reports of the 3 weeks preceding it
- Week 2: A Townhall - this stays the same as it was
- Week 3: A “major content piece drop” - no further information was shared
The 4th week will then see a new edition of the Atlas Star, starting this 3-week cycle again. In other words, the team is publishing a new edition of the Atlas Star every three weeks from now on, with the other two weeks being filled with either a Community Townhall or a major content drop.
Volant Studio Showroom - R1
Many have installed the game through the Epic Games Store and have started exploring the hangar and the surrounding land. There are some small easter eggs to be found as well, so make sure to explore every nook and cranny!
Unfortunately, some issues have also popped up (which is to be expected with this “pre-alpha” release).
RPC Error
At the time of writing, many users seem to get hit with a popup telling them that the RPC node they are using is at capacity. The team has fixed this issue on their end, and it should be propagated through the Epic Games Store soon.
If you want to check out the showroom in the interim, you can follow this “workaround”:
Click “OK” to close the dialog, then open the “Options” menu and exit that again. This should allow you to play the game when you then click “Play Now”. *Note that this won’t allow you to summon your ships, however. *
Volant Studio Showroom - R2
With the pre-alpha (or R1) version of the Volant Studio Showroom having been released, many are already looking forward to the first big upgrade, which is slated to be released in Q4.
Besides multi-player, a race track (Pearce X4 confirmed), improved photo mode, and a new area to explore, this week it became clear the team is also adding a friends list for the next release, and some form of character skin selection!
Target Date
Originally Danny Floyd (CPO) was hoping to release R2 in October already, but he recently shared that they are experiencing some delays on the multiplayer components, and therefore might not make that. As such, November seems to be a more likely candidate for now.
Progress
Now that the pre-alpha has been released, the team has started sharing their progress on R2.
The art team reported that over the last few weeks they have finished their work on both the fly zone and new buildings. Currently, they are working on environment art, including a new garden area, landing pads & foliage.
The design team has finished the overall game & level design and has started work on preparing characters, vehicles & environment for integration.
The UX/UI team has reportedly completed work on the photo mode and NFT stands/banners. They have begun to work on chat, a friends list, character skin selection, a HUD for the race track, and multiplayer.
Lastly, the Core Gameplay team has finished getting the Pearce X4 fully flight-ready (hover mode, flight mode, VFX & sound). Photo mode, character skin selection, NFT stands/banners, multiplayer, and medium-size ship flight (with ship interior, exterior, VFX and sound) are all in progress!
DACs/Guilds
The team has been pretty tight-lipped regarding their plans for DACs, but that may change going forward as Michael (CEO) shared that the team just approved the initial DAC Platform toolset. As they have not yet allocated resources to it, it’s difficult to name a target date, with Michael suggesting: “Best guess: end of Q1, or sometime Q2 2023”.
With regards to what these DAC Platform tools entail, he shared the following:
The DAC Platform includes a comprehensive toolset for guild management, including multisig wallets, guild registration, user name registration, player profiles, guild management functions, guild leaderboards, guild discovery pages on https://play.staratlas.com and more.
SCREAM
New Reveals
Chip (Game Systems Designer) shared that they changed their stance on allowing an unlimited amount of fleets. There will be both a maximum to the size of a single fleet and a maximum to the number of fleets you can deploy simultaneously. Levelling up will increase both those limits.
With regards to the maximum size of a fleet, Chip went on to clarify that they are using a point system for this, where each class of ship will is “worth” a different amount of points.
Another new tidbit that was revealed is that ships with hangars will likely increase the maximum size of the fleet they are in (adding to their fleet’s point maximum).
Now, some players have thousands of ships, and both Chip and Michael stated that they spent a lot of time thinking about them as well and that a strategic solution has been identified to accommodate them as well.
One last, unrelated, tidbit that was shared is that the warp range of a fleet is dependent on the ship with the best range in your fleet. This is opposite to how regular, impulse speed works, as that speed is tied to the slowest ship in the fleet.
Progress
The Game Design team has been working with the Economics team on defining & refining the player progression strategy. Meanwhile, the Blockchain team has completed Cargo Management (deposit to ship, withdraw from ship & transferring within a ship). They have since started work on getting the System Sector View to update dynamically.
The UX department has completed work on visualizing the high system density HUD & extending the functionality of the Overview. The team is now working on the crafting system and crafting tree, in addition to the Inventory & Cargo wireframes, and information architecture. The UI team has continued building SCREAM screens and elements, including a new look and feel of the System Sector view.
The Web team has launched the fleet viewer module and has since been refining the SCREAM codebase to increase performance and scalability. Finally, the art team has continued their work on starbases and planets.
Ledger Support
Last week the team implemented direct support for Ledger devices (cold wallet) into their web environment. This means it is no longer necessary to connect your Ledger through a different wallet extension, such as Phantom.
Support for the Ledger in the Showroom seems to be a top priority for the team, and they have been hinting that a release including that feature is in the works. It seems likely that a patch that adds Ledger support will be published before the upcoming R2 release.
