Welcome to our 21st newsletter on Star Atlas! It was a relatively quiet week in Star Atlas, with the team releasing two new ships and not many highlights in the latest developer blog . Of course, there will be plenty of these weeks, as there is only so much one can do in a week, and major milestones will be reached only during a few of those, so there’s nothing to worry about! Below we’ll go into the latest information that was revealed in the developer update, and various other sources:
Gameplay
Danny (CPO) revealed that ship racing is a part of project Rosegarden, which is currently planned for long-term delivery. That said, they are experimenting with smaller tech prototypes, which may include a small multiplayer race mechanic. As with all experimentation, it’s not clear that all of this will ever see the light of day!
SCREAM
This module is still very much in the prototyping phase. Michael did elaborate a little on the upgrade to WebGL, or in other words the switch from 2D to 3D graphics in the browser version of Star Atlas.
He clarified that this upgrade does not currently affect the module’s release schedule. This is because engineering expects that experimenting with the blockchain-part of that module will take even more time. As this is done by different developers, the front-end developers can invest that extra time to get 3D graphics into the browser game.
He once again emphasized that they are building in a format that no other teams are, with actual game logic being on-chain. That’s why resupplying resources to ships in SCORE translates to real transactions on Solana. Michael admitted that it’s a complex process but foresees value in censorship resistance, permissionless systems, and greater decentralization.
POLIS DAO
The Goki audit is progressing, and the website is being built. Perhaps of some interest here: the team is now starting to prototype the reward algorithm!
Galactic Marketplace
The marketplace program (blockchain) is done! That part of the team is now working on ATLAS staking and assisting the front end engineers with prototyping the core user flow.
Showroom
The team is working on the User Interface and will soon switch to start work on the terminal system that can be found in-game.
Other news
Salvage Wars
The concept of Salvage Wars (as mentioned in the White Paper) might get scraped, as loot boxes are being highly scrutinized by regulators.
Growth target
Michael elaborated on the team’s target of hitting 1 million users in 2022, by stating that the team likes to set aggressive goals. If they don’t get there, that is fine. However, he did add that the team smashed through the goals they set for 2021.
Ships
Two new ships were released last week, one of which marked the first Busan ship to ever hit the market! The Busan Thrill of Life is a small fighter ship with gorgeous looks and the VZUS ballad is a capital fighter ship that is rocking an exposed hangar bay.
