Welcome to our 56th 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 Golden Era: Start Sequence campaign officially kicking off this past Wednesday, most of the community’s attention has been focused on its progress this past week. Meanwhile, the team has been generous with sharing information on various mechanics concerning the land that will go on sale in December. In this newsletter, you can find the highlights!
Before we go into the community-focused activities below, it’s important to share that the team has not come forward with new information regarding their external fundraising efforts. In response to questions, Michael Wagner (CEO) stated that they can share anything as they are under mutual NDAs with interested parties. He will share more, when they are allowed to and a deal has come to fruition!
Golden Era: Start Sequence
Last Wednesday, week 1 of the 4-week ship sales window was officially kicked off! This marked the start of the first phase of the two-pronged Golden Era: Start Sequence campaign that will see 4 weeks of ships sales (phase 1), followed by 4 weeks of land sales (phase 2).
During the first 5 days of their ship sale, the team has sold just over $400k of discounted ships.
As part of this sale, the team is also offering the first three different titan ships, but so far these have not found any buyers. If none sell before this coming Wednesday, it seems unlikely they will sell afterward, as the discounts on all ships will be lowered week after week.
In other words, there are less than 2 days left for anyone to pick up a titan -or any of the other 6 ships on sale- at the maximum discount of 80%.
This Wednesday the discount on ships will drop from 80% to 70%. See the list below for the exact discounts during phase 1:
- Week 1 (23 Nov - 30 Nov): 80%
- Week 2 (30 Nov - 7 Dec): 70%
- Week 3 (7 Dec - 14 Dec): 60%
- Week 4 (14 Dec - 21 Dec): 50%
Land Sales
Michael Wagner (CEO) shared that the team is working hard on getting an announcement ready to release to the community, providing more details with regard to the land sales that will commence with the start of phase 2. If all goes well, this information should arrive tomorrow, Tuesday 29th!
Over the past week, the team has revealed some of their thinking with the community, which you’ll find below. It’s important to note that things are clearly in flux, so not all of what you read in the upcoming two sections may materialize.
Central Space Station Land & Habs
The team plans to sell land & habs on all three Central Space Stations (ONI, MUD & Ustur) as part of phase 2 of their Start Sequence campaign. You can find a summary of this sale in our previous newsletter, but for more information, you can also check out this PDF document the team released.
Six Tiers
There will be 6 Tiers of land plots available on each Space Station, with Tier 0 being the smallest, and tier 5 the biggest plot & habitat. Some preliminary information on mechanics and pricing was shared over the past week:
Tier 0
Central Space Stations are among the largest man-made structures in space, eclipsing the size of even the Titan ships. As such, there is room for many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people to live over there. However, it is however near impossible to map all these homes out on the actual 3D model. So the team has decided to dedicate Tier 0 to s-called instanced habs. This means that these won’t occupy a unique physical location, instead, they all share the same physical space. Every individual will however see their own instanced hab on that location.
It’s not yet clear what the max supply of these will be, or if there even will be a limit, but it looks like there will be a good many Tier 0 homes available. Though you won’t have a land plot you can call yours, the pricing is subsequently much more affordable compared to the Tier 1+ structures that do come with actual physical, unique land plots. The current thinking of the team is that Tier 0 homes will be sold for about $80 each!
Tier 1
Tier 1 land plots are non-instanced land plots that are located at a unique location on their respective Space Stations. A Tier 1 package will come with both a habitat with an XXS landing pad, a deed to a Tier 1 land plot, and an XXS ship: the Calico Scud.
At a future date, that deed will be exchanged for an actual physical location on the Space Station. The team is not yet sure how this will work, but an option they are thinking about is to do location selection in the same order as these packages were sold.
Michael shared that the price for one of these will be just shy of $1500. Note that it looks like this is the price before any discounts have been taken into account.
Tier 2-4
Tier 2-4 land plots work mechanically the same as the aforementioned Tier 1 plots. They do come with more ships, a bigger landing pad, and a bigger habitat. No information has as of yet been provided as to their pricing, but Michael did state that these plots will scale fairly aggressively from the Tier 1 pricing, given the highly scarce supply of larger tier plots.
Tier 5
Every Space Station will have 4 Tier 5 locations. Previously the idea seemed to be that each Space Station would have one Tier 5 penthouse, however, it’s not currently clear if there will be 4 suites in that penthouse or if the team has come up with another solution to make this expansion work.
What is known is the base price, which will be $2 million. Like the Tier 1 price, it would seem this is the price before any discounts have been taken into account.
Given that the team is selling 10% of the land, but 10% of Tier 5 land plots would constitute 0.4 plots, they have decided to sell 1 instead (so 25% in this case) per Space Station.
Plot Upgrades
In response to a question about the ability to upgrade CSS plots, Michael came up with a surprising answer:
CSS plots can’t be upgraded, as there is a fixed quantity of land at varying sizes on the CSS. You would, however, be able to purchase multiple adjacent plots and combine them. Which is sort of like upgrading, but only works if the plot is available.
As always, there are no further details available. It’s food for thought, however!
Claim Stakes
The Claim Stakes (and associated mining-based building) that go on sale during Phase 2 of the Start Sequence campaign allow you to claim ownership of a piece of land on a planet, and mine its resources.
The biggest news last week came when Michael shared that Claim Stakes will already receive some form of utility in SCORE (Faction Fleet). This means that the time between buying these and being able to benefit from them will be potentially very short!
The exact utility is not yet known, but more info will surely follow soon!
Finite Supply
Claim Stakes won’t be available in infinite supply according to Michael, but the team does not yet know how many there will be available. The economic team is still working all of this out, and they have to deal with the fact that Claim Stakes were already rewarded to the people who bought Rebirth posters around mid-2021.
Star Atlas Today, Tomorrow & Forever!
Right around Thanksgiving, the Star Atlas team released a great video, showcasing some developer footage while various members of the community explain why this project matters so much to them. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can check it out below!
Polkastarter: GAM3 Awards
The annual Polkastarter GAM3 Awards are still ongoing and Star Atlas has been nominated in the “Best Graphics”-, and “Most Anticipated Game”-categories. If you want to help the project, then be sure to vote!
Star Atlas has been shortlisted as a nominee for #GAM3Awards prizes in two categories! 🎮
⭐️ Best Graphics ⭐️ Most Anticipated Game
10% of the final results is by community voting, so vote NOW! ➡️ https://t.co/wuxpo3BeFu
Winners will be announced on December 15, 2022. 🗓 https://t.co/CuL8JoqCV6