Weekly Star Atlas Newsletter #215

Welcome to our 215th 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.

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This past week was a heavy one for the Star Atlas community. The studio restructuring and its aftermath continue to shape conversations across the ecosystem, alongside Jose’s community proposal to preserve core creative functions during a fragile period. Beyond that, we saw a major backend infrastructure shift with the sudden sunset of Starcomm V2, ongoing DAO voting, fresh UE5 patches, and a handful of smaller updates that round out the week.

Without further ado…

A Note from Michael

This past week brought one of the hardest announcements the community has faced in a long time. In response to continued market pressure and financial realities, the studio restructured parts of the team, resulting in the loss of several deeply valued contributors. While Dominic (Marketing) and Jose (Lore & Community) were publicly named for their visible community roles, many others behind the scenes were affected as well.

Below is Michael’s full message, shared directly with the community, outlining the decision and the path forward.

We are here to stay, but I have some difficult and important news to share today.

In response to the ongoing market conditions and the need to align our expenses more closely with current revenues, we’ve made the tough decision to restructure parts of the team. These steps are essential to extend our runway and keep pushing forward on the long-term vision of Star Atlas; something we’ve done in prior cycles to reach where we are now.

This round hits the community especially hard. With a heavy heart, I’m announcing that we’ve had to eliminate several key front-facing roles, including those held by @DominicVain and @⪛⦿⫺ZeSKK. These departures follow @Santi’s recent decision to start his own venture (completely unrelated to this restructuring).

Dominic, Jose, and Santi have been among our most passionate voices, representing Star Atlas publicly every day with energy and dedication. Their contributions over the years have been immense, and words can’t fully express my gratitude for their tireless efforts. These were not easy decisions; if the opportunity arises, I’d welcome them back in a heartbeat.

On a brighter note:

• Jose remains fully committed to our weekly community events, including Atlas Brew and Lorekeepers. (Also, keep an eye out for his upcoming PIP which he will be posting shortly).
• We’re also preparing a couple of new economics-focused events to roll out soon.
• We have a number of team members who will continue contributing to the project for a time in an unpaid capacity.

The team is now leaner, but intensely focused. We’re pouring everything into delivering considerable updates for Holosim, C4, and z.ink in the coming weeks. A tremendous amount of work has already gone into these and I’m genuinely excited about their potential to reignite growth and bring more energy to the ecosystem.

This journey has never been easy, and we never expected it to be. We’re incredibly fortunate to still have some of the brightest talent in the industry driving Star Atlas forward.

So today we say farewell (for now) to friends, colleagues, and true dreamers. But the mission continues. There’s significant potential for momentum building, and a lot to look forward to very soon.

Thank you for your continued support and belief in what we’re building together.

– Michael

Moments like this are never easy. Star Atlas is shaped not only by its public faces, but by the many people who work diligently in the background. The contributions of everyone affected helped build the project the community knows today, and their absence will be felt. At the same time, the message is clear that the studio continues forward, leaner but determined, with major milestones still ahead.

Some of those impacted have chosen to continue supporting the products the team has been building, even without formal employment, and that commitment is deeply appreciated!

Jose Requests Temporary DAO Role

Following last week’s restructuring, Jose (ZeSKK) has submitted a proposal to the Star Atlas DAO seeking a temporary six-month engagement to continue supporting the project he helped shape for years. His request would allow him to keep working on lore, Holosim systems and quests, UE5 narrative support, legal documentation, and the community events many players associate with his presence. The proposal is framed as a way to preserve continuity in creative and community-facing work during a fragile moment for the ecosystem.

Jose stresses that this is not a sympathy appeal. He asks voters to evaluate the proposal purely on whether his continued involvement serves Star Atlas’ long-term interests. The tone of the submission reflects both his personal attachment to the project and a clear understanding that the decision ultimately belongs to the DAO.

You can find his proposal in the governance section on the Star Atlas Discord.

Starcomm V2 Sunset

Last week, in a surprise move, the team migrated SAGE and the Play-portal from StarComm V2 to direct RPC connections. This project was spearheaded by Jacob (CTO), with a colleague providing peer review. Unfortunately, the transition was not very smooth, despite some internal testing.

Today, we’re introducing a significant overhaul to our backend infrastructure. We have replaced Starcomm (v2) with a direct-to-RPC solution. While this has been tested internally and stress tested in Holosim, we are requesting that you submit any bug reports to us should you identify any issues with data accuracy across the ecosystem. We’re continuing to work on improvements for a new version of Starcomm (v3).

– [Part of the] Announcement on Discord

During the Atlas Brew, Jim (Senior Web Director) shared that Starcomm V2 represented the most expensive infrastructure ATMTA has ever tried to use. On top of that, it simply did not perform well. Even after upgrading from V1 to V2, issues persisted, and regular “kicks” were still required.

Last year, the team already worked on pushing Starcomm out of Holosim during Chapter 1. For C4, the team relies on both RPC and Starcomm V3. Given the issues and the cost, the team decided to scrap it entirely.

Asked whether using direct RPCs would be even more expensive, Jim shared that the RPC costs do not even come close to what Starcomm v2 previously cost. In his own words, he shared that the costs of operating Starcomm V2 were “[…] an order of magnitude over everything else […]” (referring to the infrastructure costs, not total operating expenses).

When asked how Starcomm v3 compares, he shared that V3 blends the best of both V1 and V2 and should see much lower costs as a result of its design.

Lastly, John (Product Manager) commented that this transition is a nice stress test, as Holosim Chapter 2 will go live on the same architecture.

DAO Update

POLIS Improvement Proposal #26 (PIP-26) will remain open for voting for a little over 3 days (at the time of publication). You have until the end of the day (YTC) February 5th to cast your vote.

Below we’ll repeat the PIP from last week, and include the latest voting stats.

PIP-26: Star Atlas Crew Adventure Series – Season Production

The Star Atlas Crew Adventure Series is an ongoing cinematic storytelling project that produces AI content rooted directly in Star Atlas lore. This proposal funds the production of one complete season, consisting of:

• 2 months of weekly episodes (4 minutes or longer each).
• 3 weekly YouTube Shorts tied to each episode.

The request of 13,143,639 ATLAS covers the entire content pipeline: writing, worldbuilding, environment creation, character development, animation, sound design, original music, editing, and distribution on YouTube and X.

Earlier seasons (1–3) are already publicly released, demonstrating both capability and viewer interest. This proposal provides the resources for the next season, allowing the series to continue expanding the Star Atlas universe and offering consistent, lore-driven media that can attract new participants to the ecosystem.

See https://www.youtube.com/@StarAtlasCrewAdventures for the existing seasons.

• Requested funding: 13,143,639 ATLAS (max allocation from Ecosystem Fund)
• Structure: 1-off PIP
• Author: Hammerhead
• Voting Opened: Friday, January 23rd
• Voting Closes: Thursday, February 5th (end-of-day UTC)

Intermediate results (~11 days in, ~149M PVP committed):

• For: 33.79%
• Against: 47.36%
• Abstain: 18.85%

Star Atlas – Dogfighting in Space [WIP]

UE5 Patches

The team released two more patches this past week, focusing mostly on bug fixes and balancing. Below are the full notes for both patches.

January 29 – Star Atlas UE Patch Notes [LIVE]

Galia:

• Ship components can now be purchased from Chandlery shops at space stations and equipped via the ship terminal menu. Initial supported components are Shields, Hull Reinforcements, Energy repeaters, Kinetic repeaters, and Mining lasers

Gunplay:

• Improved reliability of explosive AoE damage from Rockets
• Prevented self kills with rockets from granting your team a point
• Prevented same team kills with rockets to be possible in the kill feed
• Added Rocket Launcher as starting weapon in Gun Game
• Fixed tiny melee icon in the HUD
• Made crosshair hit markers red by default
• Fixed issue making Photoli invulnerable to Rockets
• Fixed issue preventing Photoli from throwing grenade correctly
• Fixed issue where water footstep sounds persist for a short time when jumping away from the water
• Fixed issue where meleeing invulnerable players would incorrectly play the shield break sound
• Added more verbose server logs to better diagnose the character invincibility bug that can happen in Gunplay

Matchmaking and Lobbies:

• Improved Matchmaking logic to prevent long (>5min) wait times
• Improved server load times when starting a no XP dedicated server

Progression & Customization:

• Fixed an issue with the Select Ship Button in the Hangar not correctly checking Ship Ownership. Sorry, we had to fix it! But, we delayed the fix to let the party continue for a bit.
• Moved majority of the Blueprint logic driving the post match celebration sequence to C++
• Prevent camera from cutting to celebration sequence scene (where the 3 characters stand) until that area is loaded to mitigate popping

Ship Play (Siege + Racing):

• Fixed issue preventing Ship Skins from being properly applied to Ships forcibly spawned by the server
• Prevented Ship weapons from firing until the first gate is passed in multiplayer races
• 3D Ship Marker and leading targeting PIP no longer show in hover mode outside of races
• 3D Ship Markers (3 Red triangles) visible when dogfighting now dynamically scale with target range for better visibility and target acquisition
• Fixed camera issue when entering spectator mode while in a ship
• Added a deadzone to mouse rotation input in Siege so its easier to have your ship stop rotating
• Fixed issue when mounting a bike while in Jettie Boost that would cause the character to fall below the floor

Stability & Crash Fixes:

• Fixed several uncommon crashes and cleaned up some errors that appear in Server Logs

Ongoing Efforts (Not Live Yet):

• Andrew is continuing the Hover mode refactor/migration. Right now he is working on feel of it to get close to match current physics based movement. This will fix the FPS dependency issue in racing.
• Brad is working on new Enemy Ship AI for better dogfights in Galia and in the Dogfight Module.
• Chip is looking at these issues for next patch:
  • Spectator mode camera underneath ship in racing
    • Dismounting a ship puts the player inside the ship
    • Sometimes ship can no longer shoot
    • [Fixed] Reset health of the ship when the race starts

January 29 – Star Atlas UE Patch Notes [LIVE] Part 2

We received reports of Sound breaking after completing a race and decided to roll out a hot patch.

Ship Play (Siege + Racing):

• Fixed issue causing game sounds to stop upon completing a race
• Fixed issue that could cause a server force spawned ship in Racing/Siege to start with less than full shield
• Added logic to reset Health and Shields at the beginning of a Race if already on a bike

News Bits

Here are a few more bite-sized news bits from last week:

• The team wrapped up their Econ Vantarah selection for the first round. Chris (VP of Game Economy) shared that the quality of applications was incredibly high, making this a very tough decision for the team. He furthermore shared: “We have decided to move forward with a small, intimate group. Our goal was to curate a team with a diverse set of opinions and backgrounds to ensure the best possible outcomes for the project.”
• The Atlas Brew from last week was great, though not much alpha came with it. Nevertheless, Jim and John provided some great insights into how things came to be and where we are going. Definitely worth a listen if you missed it.
• The team is experiencing RPC issues at the moment and is working to resolve them. Triton is helping them figure things out with their IronForge setup. While issues persist, John (Xcode) shared how to use your own (free) RPC to bypass these in a short thread in the Star Atlas Discord (sage channel).
• Last week, we shared a bunch of videos Jose had created to promote Holosim Chapter 2. Since then, he also finalized the ONI promo (the last one missing) featuring High Punaab Warlord Seeikolobe Mineefastu.
• UE5 earned Ink has been distributed last week, so this should now be in your inventory to claim.

Play Video: Star Atlas - Holosim S1C2 Teaser - Warlord Seeikolobe Mineefastu

Sneak peeks

To wrap things up, here are some more looks behind the scenes and beauty shots of the Star Atlas Unreal Engine 5 game. Make sure to click the links to see many other variants and angles!

Paizul’s Arena

Edward Denton (Lead Environment Artist) and Ainsley Langford shared some beautiful shots of Paizul’s Arena, on which they both worked:

Star Atlas – Paizul’s Arena – Posted by Lead Environment Artist Edward Denton [In-engine]

Star Atlas – Paizul’s Arena – Posted by Lead Environment Artist Edward Denton [In-engine]

Star Atlas – Paizul’s Arena – Posted by Lead Environment Artist Edward Denton [In-engine]

Star Atlas – Paizul’s Arena – Posted by 3D Artist Ainsley Langford [In-engine]

Star Atlas – Paizul’s Arena – Posted by 3D Artist Ainsley Langford [In-engine]

LAR-4 & Galia

The duo also worked on the LAR-4 map:

Star Atlas – LAR-4 – Posted by Lead Environment Artist Edward Denton [In-engine]

Star Atlas – LAR-4 – Posted by Lead Environment Artist Edward Denton [Development shot]

Star Atlas – Armstrong Starbase – Posted by Lead Environment Artist Edward Denton [Development shot]

You’ve reached the end of this issue. See you next week!