Welcome to our 205th newsletter on Star Atlas! This weekly newsletter, published by Aephia Industries, focuses entirely on the development of this ambitious game. Here, we attempt to aggregate all the newsworthy tidbits revealed, primarily by the team, throughout the past week.
Last week’s Economic Forum offered the first detailed insights into the z.ink A.LPHA airdrop campaign, including updated figures, adjustments, and target distributions discussed by the team.
Meanwhile, the DAO Council Elections are moving into their next stage, with self-nominations closing soon and seven candidates confirmed so far. Three new proposals are also open for community vote, covering event funding, ecosystem treasury updates, and SLY Assistant hosting.
Lastly, we’re wrapping up this issue with a few brief news updates and an intriguing sneak peek!
Let’s dive in!
z.ink Airdrop Roadmap
z.ink A.LPHA Airdrop Campaign
Last week’s Economic Forum was mostly focused on the z.ink test campaign, and Chris (VP Game Economy) dropped a few interesting tidbits.
First off, he shared the following numbers (this past Thursday):
- There are 1588 zAccounts, of which
- 844 had earned XP (so are active), and
- 726 had linked their Epic Games account (UE5)
He also noted that activity has picked up across the board since the A.LPHA campaign launched, including GM purchases, and in-game activity in both SAGE and Holosim.
Chris shared that about 3.2 million zXP is required to hit level 20. Note that he did pluck this number from the top of his head, so he was not 100% sure. Knowing this number allows everyone to perform simple math to figure out if they are on the right track, need to pick it up, or can take it easy going forward in the A.LPHA campaign.
However, that is not so easy to do for those who are close, as a lot of weightings were changed, and corrections made, after the first week of the campaign being live:
- The team discovered that Holosim was awarding the same amount of XP as SAGE, which was obviously incorrect. SAGE should reward significantly more zXP than Holosim. This was corrected.
- They also updated the way SAGE zXP is calculated, which should increase the XP earned there slightly.
- After the first weekend, they realized that a substantial number of activities had been overlooked in the zXP reward calculations. This was fixed retroactively, which saw people accumulate a lot of zXP overnight.
- DAO locker zXP was tweaked down a little, as it accounted for 70% of all zXP rewarded (above the target of 40%).
Furthermore, Chris mentioned that the 2x zXP multiplier awarded by the APEX Subscription will likely be tuned down a little, arguing that doubling the zXP is a bit too excessive.
Economic Forum – November 2025 – zXP Distribution after the first few days (roughly)
In the donut chart above, you can see the current zXP distribution over the various zXP rewarding activities. The DAO accounts for 70%, SAGE for 16.7%, etc.
Chris contrasted this to the team’s internal targets, which are:
- 40% DAO Lockers
- 30% Galactic Marketplace (primary sales)
- 15% SAGE
- 15% split over all other activities (e.g., Holosim, UE5)
Further adjustments may be made to bring reality closer to these targets.
Star Atlas DAO
DAO Update
The council elections are currently ongoing, and three new proposals have been opened for voting over the past seven days. We’ll go over all of these items below.
Council Elections
The Council Elections for the 3rd term were kicked off nearly two weeks ago, and the first stage, self-nomination, is about to wrap up. If you are thinking of tossing your hat into the ring, you have until the end of the day (UTC) tomorrow, November 11th, to make this known.
On November 12th, the campaign period begins, two weeks before the elections kick off.
At the time of publication, the following candidates have already announced their candidacy:
- Emperor
- Q | Morangø
- 𝐋ᴀɴᴢᴇʀ
- ROME | Winston
- [ECL] YassFreeks
- [EMP] jith blade
- ShadowKing808
PIP-22: Iris Bounty – The Arena
This proposal seeks 11,000,000 ATLAS and introduces Iris’s Bounty: The Arena, a program that empowers Star Atlas community members to host tournaments and gaming events by co-funding them with the DAO. Instead of flat grants, the DAO provides a 2:1 funding match for organizer-secured contributions, with DAO matching funds split between prize pools and organizer compensation.
- Requested funding: 11 million ATLAS
- Structure: 1-off PIP
- Author: King Bryan, Santi, Signal
- Voting Opened: Wednesday, November 5th
- Voting Closes: Wednesday, November 18th (end-of-day UTC)
Early results (~5 days in, ~110M PVP committed):
- For: 98.78%
- Against: 0.86%
- Abstain: 0.36%
PIP-23: Refresh of PIP-4 the Ecosystem Fund
This proposal continues the Star Atlas Ecosystem Fund and establishes a budget of 20% of the Star Atlas DAO’s Treasury.
- Structure: 1-off PIP
- Author: Council
- Voting Opened: Wednesday, November 5th
- Voting Closes: Wednesday, November 18th (end-of-day UTC)
Early results (~5 days in, ~84M PVP committed):
- For: 73.82%
- Against: 25.23%
- Abstain: 0.94%
PIP-24: DAO-Supported Hosting Service for SLY Assistant
This proposal introduces a DAO-Supported Hosting Service developed and operated by community member Arty, specifically dedicated to hosting the SLY Assistant automation tool.
- Requested funding: 675 USDC for a 3-month trial
- Structure: 1-off PIP
- Author: Arty
- Voting Opened: Thursday, November 9th
- Voting Closes: Wednesday, November 22nd (end-of-day UTC)
Early results (~1 day in, ~23M PVP committed):
- For: 19.05%
- Against: 77.40%
- Abstain: 3.55%
Star Atlas – Iris’ Blessing
News Bits
Lastly, here are a few smaller news bits before we wrap this issue up:
- After updates were made to the Holosim quest system for the upcoming second chapter, it had not been functioning in Chapter 1 for a while. Last week, the team successfully resolved the issue for the current chapter. In short, people can progress the quest chain again (from chapter 1, still).
- The team rebased the ATLAS prices of their offering on the Galactic Marketplace this past Friday. ATLAS prices are now back in line with the USDC side of the market.
- The first monthly Iris’ Blessing raffle will take place this Friday, November 14th! You have a few more days to score some more tickets! $5k in rewards is on the line!
Sneak Peek
During the Atlas Brew, the Community Team shared the following WIP clip of looting items from both cupboards and dead bodies. This is coming to the Galia Game Mode, when the first single-player sliver of quest-based gameplay will go live at the end of the year.
That’s it for this week! Thanks for reading, and see you next week!