Town Hall Report – December 17th, 2025

Note: If you prefer to watch the 3-hour live recording (worth it for all the video footage, especially the second half), check out the video here from our friends at StarAtlasTV.

On stage are Santi (VP of Community & Ecosystem) and Michael (CEO). The first topic discussed is…

Tether Partnership

Star Atlas is collaborating with Tether! This was the famous Switzerland deal that Santi and Michael have been working on. Michael gives props to Santi for cultivating this relationship over the last 18 months:

• Part of the partnership is transitioning the marketplace from USDC to USDT
• Part of the objective is to provide value to them by distributing USDT to more wallets and accounts and by increasing volume.
• This is part of a larger plan they are developing with Tether. Some details are still being discussed.
• Their contribution will enable the team to deliver value through promotional campaigns with Tether.

Iris’ Blessing – Month 3

Noteworthy News

• Iris’ Blessing – Double XP weekend coming to the weekend between Christmas and NYE!
• Shout out to the Superphoenix DAO for organizing the biggest Star Atlas tournament to date! And also for introducing a skill-based betting application!
• Z.ink O.rigin is now live. More on that later on during this Town Hall.
• Brief updates on the DAO: DAO Council Term 3 was elected, and the vote for the first 5 DAO Casters will soon go live. You can now also apply for DAO sponsorship prizes through a form.

Holosim – Chapter 2

Holosim – Chapter 2

Holosim – Chapter 2

Holosim

John, aka Xcode (Product Manager), is joining the team onstage to discuss the next chapter of Holosim.

The major focus was reliability and stability. It’s now fast, and using RPC directly throughout.

Here are some of the changes we can expect:

• Starbases are now actual starbases.
• Asteroid belts are real asteroids.
• Game design improvements. There is now better game design and more guardrails. The marketplace has been seeded with data from Chapter 1, and now NPCs will create buy and sell orders at every local market.
• This allows you to convert whatever you mine into other resources easily.
• There are now buy orders for your old ships.
• You can no longer disband a damaged fleet.
• NPC fleets now spawn into medium-risk sectors (ECOS). If you go to their sector, they will attack you.
• Combat ships now defend your mining ships when in the same fleet.
• Leadboard changes: No more XP cap. Uncapped mining XP. That XP is directly related to the number of enemy encounters your mining triggers.
• New story for chapter 2
• Achievement system, through mining at medium-risk zone asteroids
• As part of the territory control aspect, you’ll want to capture and hold enemy starbases
• You must fully repair your ship after it is destroyed.
• Combat is not an XP-giving activity — Combat XP will be added back in when the combat mechanics are more polished.
• Focus for now is on the mining and enemy NPCs coming in.
• You get notifications from SAGE as points of interest are found or certain actions are taken. You can adjust the types of notifications you receive.
• The new quest system will come with dialogue between the characters.
• Each faction has a unique questline, though their objectives are the same.

The plan is to release Chapter 2, with the above-mentioned updates, in January 2026.

The team is looking into introducing Tether as the sponsor for Chapter 2. This will add USDT to the reward pool.

Play Video: Town Hall Holosim Chapter 2 Summary

Z.ink

The official airdrop season has started: O.rigin. This campaign/season will distribute 10% of the total ZINK supply.

Claim Stakes were added right before O.rigin kicked off. However, these received more zXP than was intended. This will be corrected retroactively.

Z.ink’s zProfile allows, beyond influencing the $ZINK airdrop, other projects to potentially airdrop or reward z.ink users of a certain level (or higher). They can combine this with other on-chain activities as requirements.

z.ink Airdrop Roadmap

Multipass rewards

Only activates when you subscribe. It’s an additional layer of rewards that are Star Atlas in-game assets. It has its own leveling curve, but uses the same zXP.

In the future, the multipass may also offer rewards from 3rd parties.

Airdrop

At the close of the O.rigin campaign, your zXP will directly influence your airdrop allocation.

Before the genesis event, the team will kick off the C4 PTR. When the mainnet goes live, C4 will launch alongside it. It will bootstrap the network.

The C4 mechanics will drive more transactions, even at the current user base size. Hopefully, the campaign will also grow the user base. This will make z.ink more appealing, as activity will look better.

Bridge

There will be a 2-way bridge, with no fees, but the Solana fees

The team will not require SAGE players to transport everything back to the CSS. This will be done automatically for you, at no cost. The migration from SAGE on Solana to C4 on z.ink should be as simple as a button click. This should result in a seamless transition.

Validators

Chain will be open and permissionless from day 1. Anyone can become a validator. The team will be hosting workshops for potential validators. The intention is for players to buy $ZINK, stake it on validators, and earn inflation rewards.

Economic Changes

Chris (VP Game Economy) is joining the stage to talk about this next segment.

The main topic is the OMO (Open Market Operations) project. Quarterly Report is due this Friday due to the holiday period.

OMO – A Three-Part Plan

OMO

The goal is for ATMTA to behave as a market participant.

• Start selling ships in USDC from the team’s remaining inventory — Humans will determine prices, placed slightly above the current market price (today). This won’t be algorithmic and therefore not exploitable. The quantity for each batch is also determined by humans, with an effort to align it with what the market can bear. It won’t be the full remaining supply. The team will also re-evaluate the price after a batch sells out.
• Strategic ship buying in ATLAS (from the emission curve) — Players can redeem more ships, but they can also sell them back for ATLAS through these orders. Ships purchased by the team will be burned.
• Ship revenue in USDC (by the team) will 1:1 reduce token sales. Once the token sale is fully covered, the team will allocate 30% of revenue to buy back ATLAS on DEXes.

No one redeemed any ships for the past 3 months, since the overhaul of their recipes.

Econ Changes – Today

These changes go live today:

• All of the team’s outstanding sell orders have been removed, and new sales batches for specific ships have been added. In addition to several ships, the team added Claim Stakes and Pearce MR8 (by popular demand) to the marketplace.
• Trading fees on secondary sales have been reduced to 0. OTC deals are not necessary anymore.
• Buy-Sell channel will come back soon to Discord (for now).

The last 31 IMP ships are now for sale. Once these are out, no new Armstrong IMPs will be minted. This goes for all ships. Once the current supply sells out, no more ships will be minted.

The Fimbul Mamba Ex and Calico Maxhog recipes will be overhauled today. A new recipe for the Fimbul BYOS Butch will be added. This ship will be slightly more expensive (relatively).

Econ Changes – Next Year

• Introducing additional ship redemption recipes
• Introduce ATLAS buy orders for specific ships
• Pearce MR8 Starbased Stats added (so the ship can be used in SAGE)

Michael adds that they may use some of the USDT promotional funds to offer USDT buy orders on the marketplace in the future.

SAGE C4

Following a team gathering after Breakpoint 2024, the team decided to build C4 and intended to release it in June 2025. Unfortunately, they encountered a number of obstacles along the way, which has pushed that launch date forward. A lot of progress was made, and Michael shared some of the items the team listed for him:

• Almost every single on-chain instruction has been tested and verified
• The C4 core program is feature complete, and the team is fixing the last bugs they found
• The configuration for deploying the program and its data to initialize the on-chain game is near completion.
• The new version of StarComm (v3) is nearing completion as well
• The main piece remaining: Front-end UI

Once all items on the list above are complete, the PTR will be released. It’s possible the team is able to roll this out in January, but it’s not probable. It could easily slip to February (or even March?).

Star Atlas – UE5 Crew

Star Atlas – Exinade Racing Map (screenshot of video)

UE5 Updates

Danny (CPO) and Brad (Game Engineer) are joining the stage to talk about one of the segments many have been looking forward to: The next UE5 update.

Chip is busy, so Danny is introducing everything except Galia, which he leaves for Brad.

Updates in the upcoming patch:

• Upgraded UE5 to 5.6.1. The next release will be 5.7.
• New character skins – Progress has been made to bring more Crew Card traits into UE5. Many new combat skins as well. The loaner matrix has expanded significantly, and there is more to come.
• In Surge and team mode, you can now use your actual skin
• New weapons — Rocket Launcher, Shockwave Pistol, Shockwave Rifle
• New consumable options (health & shield) in the loadout screen.
• New leaderboard
• Vehicle Mastery is live! Racing and Siege Mode will yield vehicle XP, based on the vehicle you are using. There are various skins as rewards. Not yet on-chain, still working on that. Perhaps they can backfill, but no promises,
• Weapon Mastery is live as well! Using weapons will yield XP.
• Matchmaking now has a new screen, allowing you to pick Gunplay or Ship Play (beyond Galia and Training).
• Exinade – This racing map has progressed from blockout to something truly stunning! A little more polish is on the to-do list, but it is already in great shape. The map includes atmospheric elements, such as mist from waterfalls.
• Cynosure – New Racing (Training) map in an underground Ustur temple cave — This map plays with extreme angles and jumps. Blockout stage. This will become the next race track after Exinade. Every faction will have its own track afterwards. Also allows the team to start working on asset libraries for the different factions.
• Racing now has combat included! You can shoot your opponents.
• New ship HUD
• New gameplay mode: Siege Mode (via Ship Play)

Star Atlas – LAR-4 [Siege Mode]

Star Atlas – LAR-4 [Siege Mode]

Siege Mode (Map: LAR-4)

The new Siege Mode gameplay mode is essentially a dogfighting PVP Arena. That is, at this point. The team has bigger goals for it, but is now shipping this simple ship-based deathmatch first.

This map/mode includes a new flight mode that is better tuned for smaller areas. The team is looking for feedback on this flight model.

The new map, LAR-4, is a mining node in outer space, built around an asteroid. It looks great and is highly tuned to the new flight model.

That said, Siege Mode was not intended just to be a team deathmatch. It will evolve into an objective-based gamemode with team objectives.

In that version, there will be C9s on both sides of the battle. The goal is to defend the C9(s) on your team, while destroying the one(s) on the other team. There will be structures in space that dispense ammo and repair kits when owned by your team, as well as turret structures. You use these to achieve the goal of destroying the enemy C9. This upcoming version of Siege mode introduces freight and repair, in addition to damaging opponents.

In both the current and future versions, you won’t be able to get out of your ship.

Conquest

The Siege mode is also a building block to a larger game mode called Conquest.

When Siege Mode is where the team wants it to be, they can combine this with the Gunplay and hover-mode from Racing to create a new Conquest game mode. In that mode, you will be able to disembark from your ship and engage in the battle on foot. Think Battlefield-style combat with vehicles and infantry, all on the same map.

The other major part of Conquest is that it will allow the first cross-over with SAGE C4. The team plans to use conquest matches (perhaps Siege mode first) to determine the outcome of territorial conflicts.

In essence, territory control in SAGE C4 will unlock a conquest map for that region, after which the faction conflict will be resolved through an UE5 competition.

Improved Character Locomotion (Coming 2026)

To wrap up his segment, Danny is showcasing a video demonstrating improved character locomotion. It won’t be included in this release, but it will be in one of the next releases. It shows the current movement system, followed by the smoother transition between movement modes in the updated version.

More on this Q1 2026!

Star Atlas – Updated Galia Game Mode [Note: No art-pass yet]

Star Atlas – Updated Galia Game Mode

Galia

Brad takes over and reintroduces the idea behind the Galia update in this release, on which he worked for the last 6 months, with the help (primarily) of José (lead storywriter).

They started by identifying what would be needed to improve the Galia game mode. The conclusion was that they needed to add progression & a storyline. You can’t do much in the current version, and you are being dumped into the world with no tutorial and no clear purpose.

Pjort is the dedicated main character for everyone in this updated Galia game mode. They needed to stick with the same character for everyone to deepen them and integrate them effectively into the story.

This mode now comes with missions, a storyline, weapon and ship progression, shops, inventory, and more. None of this is on the blockchain just yet. You start with a pistol and an Airbike, and have to go from there.

Brad shows some gameplay, which looks great despite not having received an art pass. He is showcasing Nova Station, NPC interactions, space travel, crafting, inventory management, ship purchases, and more. There are even selectable chat options with Commander Risla.

Star Atlas – Updated Galia Game Mode – Commander Risla

Star Atlas – Updated Galia Game Mode [Note: No art-pass yet]

Star Atlas – Updated Galia Game Mode – SAGE (old model) [Note: No art-pass yet]

There are no ship parts in this version of the game, but that will be coming early in the new year. There will also be bugs and rough edges. The team is trying to find the fun in this, deliver a good experience to players, and prepare for the full-fledged MMO game.

This UE5 build (with all the improvements listed above) is going live at the end of this week (at the latest)!

Partnership

Michael adds another teaser: There is an official co-development partner for the team’s tangential world concept. Michael re-explains this notion: The idea here is that the team licenses out planet-tech and lets external teams build on those planets. These planets will exist within the Star Atlas universe, which players can navigate. The name and details will be shared later. Michael notes that this deal came about through a former employee. The team they are partnering with did previously work on a video game, but their experience is in real-money economies.

This studio has already begun working with the team on this.

CORE – Act 3

The team shares a video of Tim McBurnie announcing that the Star Atlas Graphic Novel, CORE – Act 3, will drop in January!

Tim McBurnie – Announcing Core Act 3

Tim shared that they have also been working on the physical books already.

Michael reiterates that if you collect all 18 episodes, you can exchange them for a physical version of the novel. If you collect all comics within a single act, you can also get a (less luxurious) physical version of that.

The first episode of Act 3 will launch in January and cost $1 to compensate for the long wait. Players who complete the tutorial mission in Holosim Chapter 2 (when it goes live in January) can even claim it for free.

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That is it for this last Town Hall of the year (which lasted 3 hours). Have a great holiday season and stay tuned for all that is to come in 2026! Make sure to play the UE5 game once it has been updated, and grind the z.ink XP!

The team is going on a 2-week holiday starting this Monday, December 22nd.