Welcome to our 174th 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.
The second Council Election has wrapped, revealing the community-elected members who will help guide the DAO over the next nine months. While two familiar faces return, three new members are stepping in to claim a seat. A new Roadmap update has also landed, introducing exciting additions to the upcoming Preseason.
The Q1 2025 Economic Report is now live, offering insights into ATLAS trends, the impact of fleet rentals, and the effects of the Golden Carnival event. We’ve also got highlights from Economic Forum #11, where the team discussed upcoming changes to Faction Infrastructure Contracts, a new XXS ship crafting recipe, and rental score updates.
On top of that, a newly published article outlines Star Atlas’s bold vision for a decentralized Cybernation. And, of course, April Fools’ Day brought a few laughs with some playful announcements from the team.
Let’s dive into everything that unfolded across the Galia Expanse this past week!
Council Election Outcome
Yesterday, on Sunday, April 6th, the window for Council Elections for the second term closed! There were little surprises in the end, with the following community members having been elected for the Council for the next 9 months:
- Drumcarl05
- Signal
- Bodhitree
- Emperor
- Lanzer
Though these members have now been elected, they won’t supersede the current Council until the end of the first term, which is on April 11th, 16:00 UTC.
STV – Results based only on initial votes: Drumcarl05, Signal, and Bodhitree are right awau elected [Visualization by Aephia]
STV – Results after the algorithm finishes: Emperor and Lanzer get elected as well [Visualization by Aephia]
With DrumCarl05 and Bodhitree reprising their seats, that means the Council will bid farewell to:
- King Bryan
- Funcracker
- JP
They were un-electable for this second term as they did not nominate themselves.
Roadmap update
Dominic (Sr. Community Manager) sat down with Danny (CPO) this past week to update the Roadmap.
Newly added to the Preseason content are:
- Loadout Workbench—Introduces the Loadout Workbench, where players will be able to change their weapon skin, add charms, equip to certain weapon wheel slots, and add attachments to their weapon.
- Dogfighting CO-OP PVE—Introduces CO-OP to our existing Dogfighting mode. It not only lets you team up with friends but also allows us to implement and test vehicle replication, which is a critical step for the future of Star Atlas.
- Emote Wheel—Introduces the Emote Wheel, which allows you to use specific emotes, including ones you own!
- Progression and Onchain Rewards—Introduces progression and rewards to Star Atlas. This includes:
- Ship Mastery: Earn points that unlock components and skins for your ship over 10 levels. (First available with 3 ships)
- Ability Mastery: Different actions in-game result in points being earned and the ability to unlock related rewards. For example, mastering Jettie Boost and unlocking abilities to improve performance.
- Weapon Mastery: Level up your weapons for skins and attachments for that weapon.
- UE5 <-> SAGE Tied Rewards: Hush-hush for now, but we’ll be introducing rewards that can only be obtained through UE5 that are important to crafting in SAGE/Fleet Command.
Beyond these additions, the Pearce X5 has been marked as finished!
State of the Economy Report
Quarter 1 of 2025 is now in the rearview mirror, and that means that the Econ team has published another quarterly report! This is a pretty insightful one, and we will share our summary of the report’s executive summary below before going into the key highlights.
A Summary of the Executive Summary
The first quarter of 2025 brought key updates to the Star Atlas economy, opening up new ways for players to earn and spend ATLAS. Highlights include the return of Faction Infrastructure Contracts, the launch of a fleet rental system, and growing activity in local markets.
While the overall population saw slight growth, total in-game wealth dropped—mainly due to a decline in the value of ATLAS. GDP also fell for most of the quarter but began to stabilize after the fleet rental system was introduced, showing early signs of recovery.
The Golden Carnival event added a short-term economic boost by encouraging players to burn resources in exchange for rewards, helping redistribute wealth and keep production levels up.
Local markets in SAGE gained traction, especially in Galia, where regional price differences created new trading opportunities. Fleet activity also increased, with rental trends offering a glimpse into player readiness ahead of upcoming combat features.
Ongoing economic changes continue to shape player behavior. Those actively involved across multiple systems consistently performed better than those with narrower engagement. While many players stuck to familiar strategies, the most successful this quarter were those who embraced new opportunities and expanded their output.
Key Highlights
Below is a direct copy of the key highlights mentioned:
- The ONI faction earned 12% more ATLAS this quarter than MUD and USTUR, dethroning MUD as the most productive despite the large wealth disparity.
- The Golden Carnival created approximately 158 million ATLAS worth of resource burn this quarter while simultaneously stimulating the economy through ship prize drops.
- Star Atlas’s GDP contracted by 44% this quarter amid volatile markets but showed signs of recovery toward the end of the period with the release of the Fleet Rental program.
- The fleet rental program generated over 1 million ATLAS per day for lenders, supported by an 80% contract acceptance rate across factions.
- Active fleets grew by 15% on average post-fleet rental release, and ship classes such as small and x-small saw considerable increases in demand.
- Local market volume share surpassed 30%, excluding transactions occurring at the CSS. Large discrepancies in price between markets provided opportunities for arbitrage.
If any of this piques your interest, go forth and check out the full report!
SOS Device from the Star Atlas Cinematic Trailer [by Gan Naran]
Economic Forum #11
Chris (VP of Economy) and Gareth (Econ. Analyst) hosted another edition of the Economic Forum this past Thursday. They went into updates to their dashboard but spent most of their time going over the Economic Report.
That said, we learned that:
- The dashboard server migration (to GCP) has been completed. The dashboard seems to have become a little snappier
- The team plans to introduce a new crafting recipe for an XXS ship later this month
- FIC recipes and price points will see an adjustment (likely around the time the XXS ship is introduced, but could differ)
- The team is considering (not final) changing the FIC rules so that a refill will only happen within a Faction when all buy offers for all FIC variants in that faction have been sold into, meaning none are left.
Lastly, the team has been working on overhauling the rental scores listed for each fleet. Instead of merely altering the scores, the Econ team will release a paper explaining the exact way the scores are calculated and the rationale for this.
Remember that teaser/trailer from the IMPACT Summit?
The Star Atlas Cybernation
The team published a new article last week that highlights Star Atlas’s innovative approach, distinguishes it from traditional gaming, and motivates both players and potential partners to participate actively in shaping a revolutionary, player-driven digital world.
Below is our TLDR:
Star Atlas is challenging conventional gaming by developing a decentralized gaming “cybernation,” leveraging blockchain technology, state-of-the-art graphics, and a player-driven political and economic system. Instead of following traditional game design methods, they envision an immersive digital universe where players actively participate as citizens, earn real-world value, govern through decentralized organizations (DAOs), and shape an evolving galaxy. The team is actively building strategic partnerships, inviting community collaboration, and progressively transferring governance control to players, positioning Star Atlas not just as a game but as a groundbreaking interactive digital society.
April Fools
Last week, Tuesday was April Fools’ Day, and the team happily participated! Michael (CEO) and the official Star Atlas account tried to pull some legs on X, suggesting the use of Clippy as the name for the virtual assistant in-game and a move to Ethereum, respectively.
Over at Aephia Industries, we contributed our part as well with a glimpse into a potential future…
You’ve reached the end of this week’s issue. Thanks for reading!