Weekly Star Atlas Newsletter #138

Welcome to our 138th newsletter on Star Atlas! This weekly newsletter, published by Aephia Industries, focuses entirely on the development of this ambitious game. Here, we try to aggregate all the newsworthy tidbits revealed [mainly by the team] throughout the past week.

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The past week saw the launch of the DAO Governance, with the first two proposals meanwhile having been opened up for voting! This has been the focal point of community discussions on Discord ever since the full PIP descriptions were revealed. In other news, as announced, the Community Team updated their live Roadmap to reflect the UE5 pivot mentioned during the Town Hall the week prior. But perhaps much more interesting are additional details shared by Michael (CEO) concerning the upcoming Fleet Rentals (later this year).

Without further ado, let’s dive in!

Governance

Last Monday, the DAO Governance kicked off with an in-depth Medium article by the team, going into what the team is trying to accomplish at this time, the first four POLIS Improvement Proposals (PIP), and how the governance process has been set up.

All four foundation PIPs were published last week on Monday, with voting going live for PIP-1 and PIP-2 this past Wednesday.

• PIP-1: Star Atlas DAO — Lays the groundwork for how proposals work, how to create a proposal, discuss, revise, and vote.
• PIP-2: Star Atlas Foundation — Ratifies the operations of the Star Atlas Foundation incorporated @ The Cayman.
• PIP-3: Star Atlas Council — Foundation for Council (elections coming soon after); The Community Team & Dan will form the council before it has been elected.
• PIP-4: Star Atlas Ecosystem Fund — Create an ecosystem fund from 20% of the ATLAS present in the DAO’s treasury to be used exclusively for ecosystem growth. If this passes, community builders will be able to create a proposal to get a slice of that fund.

Voting is open for two weeks, with the voting period for PIP-1 and PIP-2 ending on July 23rd. Below, we posted the full timeline as planned by the team. Note that this is valid only if all PIPs are approved. Any rejection will lead to a significant delay.

Planning

• July 8 – Founding 4 PIPs go live (read-only)
• July 10 – Vote on founding PIPs 1 and 2
• July 23 – Voting on founding PIPs 1 and 2 ends
• July 24 – Vote on founding PIPs 3 and 4 (As long as PIPs 1 and 2 passed)
• August 6 – Voting on founding PIPs 3 and 4 ends
• August 7 – Nominations for Star Atlas DAO council start
• August 20 – Nominations for Star Atlas DAO council end
• September 4 – Election for Star Atlas DAO council members commences
• September 17 – Election for Star Atlas DAO council members ends

Reception

Shortly after the proposals were live, a good few community members started asking questions and sharing concerns on the Star Atlas Discord. Instead of going over them here, we suggest checking out bETH’s (Community Member) video summary on this from late last week on X.

Clarifications

Though the team was not very responsive when it came to these concerns, over time, both Michael and Dan (Legal Council) shared short statements and reactions, which we have included below for your convenience:

The DAO is a non-jurisdictional, unregistered entity. It’s an entity in the sense that we all are collectively agreeing on how it operates in a decentralized fashion. This is why the Foundation is a requirement, acting as an agent on behalf of the DAO. The Foundation does not subjectively decide on DAO operations, unless the DAO wants to do something illegal, like hire a hitman with DAO funds.

– Michael Wagner

People are seriously overstating the authority of the Foundation. The Foundation is a legal requirement for a DAO to operate, based on significant research conducted by Dan, Walkers Global, Latham & Walkins, etc. This is industry best practice, to our knowledge at this time. But it would be more appropriate to think of the Foundation as working for the DAO, not controlling it.

– Michael Wagner

Role of the Foundation: There is a lot of concern about the Foundation’s role. The bottom line is that the Foundation doesn’t have shareholders, it cannot unilaterally remove assets from the DAO treasury, and it has a singular task of carrying out the will of the DAO. It is, however, necessarily structured the way it is – with the ability to act independently of the DAO – for a variety of legal reasons, and as far as I know there is no other way around this without (1) a change in regulatory requirements and/or (2) technological advancements that make DAO operations purely autonomous without the need for any human intervention. The idea is that the DAO’s operations will become more programmatic and autonomous over time, such that a multisig is not required to, for example, disburse funds to a developer who is awarded funding through a PIP. But we are not fully there yet. Also it’s worth noting that the DAO always has the recourse to identify a different entity to act instead of the Foundation, if the Foundation proves not to be sufficiently supportive of the DAO’s directives. Additionally, there are some concerns about the cost of running the Foundation – but it is as leanly staffed as possible. This may change over time if the DAO’s needs grow (and with it the need for more operational interaction at the Foundation), but it would do so in the open subject to DAO oversight. For transparency, here’s the Foundation’s articles of incorporation.

Updating PIPs and the Governance Structure: As a final note, PIPs 1 and 2 are starting points and capable of being amended or replaced entirely. In fact, it’s expected that the basic proposal system will require a complete overhaul once more of the governance processes can take place in a more automated fashion. They merely represent the bare minimum to get governance started, especially so that the DAO can start making decisions about the use of the treasury in order to fund ecosystem projects. We’re just getting started here.

– Dan Park

Star Atlas – Faction Leader 1:1 unique spaceship [Large – Concept Art]

Fleet Rentals

Last week (also see our Town Hall report), we reported on the progress the team (and the 3rd party they are collaborating with) made on the Ship Rental system. Some follow-up questions [and answers] in the Foundation Room shed more light on the team’s current thinking regarding what this system will look like (which we’re sharing with permission).

Instead of Ship Rentals, it is more accurate to talk about Fleet Rentals, as it’s exclusively fleets that will temporarily change hands through this rental program. Players will be able to create fleets in SAGE that they are then able to rent out on the Marketplace. Of course, people can make a fleet with one small ship but that likely won’t be an attractive option for most.

Fleets come with many more limitations than a ship, such as:

• It can only be used and recognized within SAGE (Starbased)
• The renter can not disband it, so it can’t its crew (as provided by the owner – see below) can not be used to craft
• It can not be merged with a different fleet, nor can the fleet composition can not be changed

These limitations make the rental program less powerful, but they do make a whole lot of sense from a technical perspective. There are a few other important consequences due to this, however:

• Fleets with an inefficient ship composition will be much less appealing to players to rent. Fleets with only one or a few (small) ships will likely not see much demand.
• Small players who cannot create an attractive fleet will have great difficulty renting out their ships. Even medium-sized players may only be able to create a few fleets near peak efficiency to rent out, likely resulting in them having a good amount of ships left over.
• Of course, less efficient fleets may be offered at a lower price point, reducing their owners’ profits. Arguably, this makes sense as they would not have been able to realize significant profits with the fleet themselves either.

Mechanics

Going back to what was shared, Michael (CEO) shared their current thinking on the payment-mechanics as well:

• SAGE players will be able to set up their fleets for rental and choose a price point of their liking for each of these.
• During this process, they can assign crew members to the fleet/offering. The current idea is to allow them to provide no crew, the full crew, or anywhere in between. If not fully staffed, the renter would have to provide crew for the remaining crew stations before they can start operating the fleet.
• A fleet can be rented out for anywhere between 2 and 7 days (subject to change!). The minimum of 2 days protects the rentee (owner), so nobody rents the ships and then returns them right away to remove listings from the marketplace. The maximum of 7 days protects the renter (borrower). It ensures the owner can not reclaim the fleet before that time. Note that a minimum fee could also replace the 2-day minimum.
• To rent a fleet, the renter must deposit the funds (collateral – likely for the full 7-day period), after which they will gain control of the fleet in SAGE.
• The total amount paid will be determined at the close of the rental, depending on how long the fleet was actually utilized. It will be subtracted from the collateral, after which any remaining funds are returned to the renter.

Resources

Whoever is in control of the fleet also controls the resources that the fleet has stored. This means that the renter has to keep a close eye on the pending closure of the fleet’s rental window, or else the fleet’s resources will, along with the fleet itself, fall back to the fleet’s owner after it expires.

The team is looking into ways to keep the renter aware of their rented fleet’s expiration times to ensure they do not lose access to resources they were mining or transporting.

Another thing the team will have to work out is making sure the fleets return with the same amount of R4 stocked (fuel, ammo, food, and toolkits) as they had when they were rented out. Michael compared this to renting a car. You have to return it with a full fuel tank, or you get charged for that. Similarly, if you rent a ship that comes with a certain amount of fuel, ammo, food, and/or toolkits, those same amounts have to be present again when the rental ends. The rental system has to enforce this or potentially charge a fee if the amounts are too low.

Star Atlas – Faction Leader 1:1 unique spaceship [Large – Concept Art]

Roadmap Update

During the Town Hall, Michael shared that some major changes were made to the UE5 roadmap. In a nutshell, R2.2 is no more, with most big-ticket items having moved to Season 0 and many new third-person shooter modes coming with the next release: Preseason.

This past Tuesday, Dominic (Community Manager) updated the team’s live roadmap to reflect these changes. Surprisingly, several features touched upon during the Town Hall are not (yet) represented on this roadmap.

If you want to learn more, the Community team will discuss these changes this Wednesday during the Atlas Brew.

Developer Hour

This Thursday, July 18th, the team is hosting another Star Atlas Developer Hour, where community developers can ask developers from the team for advice and help. If you are a developer working on Star Atlas projects or you are looking to start doing so, then you probably do not want to miss this! The meeting is on the Star Atlas Discord and starts at 16:00 UTC.

Metaverse Nomads Interview with Michael

On Sunday, July 14th (the day before this issue’s publication), the Metaverse Nomads had a special guest during their livestream: Michael Wagner. They spent well over two hours asking questions and getting his feedback on a variety of topics, including the Town Hall and the DAO Governance process. It’s well worth watching, as it will likely shed some more light on topics you were curious about.

That’s it for this issue! See you next week!