Welcome to our 59th newsletter on Star Atlas! This weekly newsletter is published by Aephia Industries and focuses entirely on Star Atlas. Here we try to aggregate all the newsworthy tidbits that were dropped by the team throughout the past week.
Last Friday, the team organized a big event that included the launch of the Showroom Pre-release 2, a short Townhall meeting (recap), and the conclusion of the Joni Awards!
A lot of content came with that, including updates to the Start Sequence, SAGE Game Manual, and a surprise drop of ship skins! Let’s dive right in!
Volant Studio Showroom - Pre-Season R2
Last Friday, the team released the second release of the pre-season version of the Showroom! It includes many anticipated features, such as:
- Character & Skin selection
- Flying ships (only: Pearce X4, Calico Medtech & Floyd Liner)
- Racing (2 tracks)
- Dogfighting in space (player-vs-environment)
- Multiplayer (up to 32 players)
- A larger map
- More ships (in various states)
With regards to the multiplayer, Michael (CEO) cautioned during the Townhall that there are some known bugs that the team still has to address. However, the decision was made to open it up regardless while they are attempting to patch it.
The team released an extensive article covering all the new features and how to get started with playing this UE5 experience, which is definitely worth a read!
The next release: 2.1
During the Townhall, Michael also shared what we can expect in the next 2.1 patch. It will include the following:
- Upgrade to Unreal Engine 5.1 (allows for larger maps)
- A working train - This will function as a lobby of sorts. Upon your first arrival in the Showroom, you will start at the Train station.
- Group Chat & Proximity Voice Chat
It might also include a special ground racing mode, though that is not sure yet.
Flight Instruction Video
The team has also recorded a small video to help players along with flying their ships around in R2:
Start Sequence - Phase 2
Phase 2 of the Golden Era: Start Sequence is kicking off this Tuesday at 17:00 UTC! The team has even assigned a unique name to this stage: Cosmic Overture. A new article and an updated version of the original PDF brochure were released to prepare everyone for this event.
Check the image below for a summary of the most important properties of the Claim Stakes:
Similarly, for the CSS Land Plots, the image below contains the essential information (find a higher res in this PDF):
SAGE
One of the highlights of last week was undoubtedly the release of the first draft of the (Second Volume of the) Game Manual for SAGE (the first Volume being the Economic Manual released recently). Not only does it contain everything you need to grasp what the gameplay will look like, but it also contains a section on how Ships will differ from one model to the next and an appendix that sheds more light on the Claim Stakes that will go on sale this Tuesday.
In other news, during the Townhall, Michael mentioned that the devnet release of SAGE would not happen before February 2023. Not all the V0 features will likely be in there (the same is stated in the manual).
SCORE - Surprise X4 Skin Drop
To celebrate the first anniversary of SCORE (aka Faction Fleet) and to thank the community, the team airdropped exclusive skins to everyone who had ships enlisted for over a week. Depending on the max enlistment duration on your account, you would have received different (and potentially various) skins:
- 7+ days enlisted: Suntiger Pearce X4 Skin
- 150+ days enlisted: RedX-IV Pearce X4 Skin
- 300+ days enlisted: Blue Tigu Pearce X4 Skin
For example, if you have been enlisting a single fleet for over 300 days, you should have received all three skins by now!
Joni Awards
The first-ever annual Joni Awards winners were announced during the big show last Friday. The winners for 2022 are:
- Favorite Solana Project: Phantom
- Most Knowledgeable Community Member of the Year: Prometheus
- Community Helper of the Year: Morpheus
- Community Created Project of the Year: Tufa Attack
- Meme of the Year: Santi’s Prairie Dog
- Small Guild of the Year: Dark Matter
- Medium Guild of the Year: ROME
- Large Guild of the Year: Quimera
- Best Guild Website: aephia.com
- Video of the Year: How to Play Star Atlas | FULL WALKTHROUGH by DAOCaster
- Content Creator of the Year: Metaverse Explorer
- Community Member of the Year: Funcracker
Short Tidbits
To wrap this newsletter up, here are the last small tidbits of news we gathered:
- Star Atlas has won the Best Graphics prize in the Game3 Awards!
- Michael mentioned during the Townhall that 76% of the POLIS locked is locked for five years.
- Updates to the Star Path referral system are forthcoming (no date yet).
- Claim Stake functionality integration into SCORE will come in January (they will emit R4).
- The team plans to release a window into the DAO Treasury this week. This new view will show the DAO’s token balances and income streams.
- The Marketplace was upgraded with minor Quality of Life improvements.