Welcome to our 238th 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.

This week’s update centers on two major developments. On the governance side, the DAO approved ATMTA’s historic reimbursement proposal, bringing one of the most widely discussed PIPs in Star Atlas history to a close. Meanwhile, Michael (CEO) shared a much deeper look at how regional governance in SAGE C4 is expected to work, including the role of housing, crew, and voting power in shaping the political landscape. We wrap up with a few smaller community updates and a heads-up that SAGE C4 Phase 2 is now just around the corner!

Let’s dive in!

SAGE C4: Regional Governance

Michael spent a good part of last week sharpening the picture around regional governance in SAGE C4. The broad direction was already public. We covered in #235 that the Democracy Module would let players vote on local fees and treasury splits at the starbase level. What last week added was the practical gating around who gets to take part and how those incentives may work in practice.

We already knew that this system is not being built for passive POLIS lockers. Crew (diplomats/lobbyists) would need to be assigned to the diplomatic wing (once built) of King system’s Tier 5 Starbase. Michael now, however, confirmed that the player would also need to own player habs to ensure the diplomats have a place to crash after work and get some much-needed sleep. He also said players who only hold POLIS and PVP will not be able to participate. That lines up with the older Economics Paper, which framed lower-level governance as something tied to property and in-game activity rather than simple token exposure.

Another important detail is how scale may be handled. Michael said regional governance costs rise on a logarithmic curve once a player goes above roughly 1 million delegated PVP in a single system, while voting weight and rewards remain proportional. He also made it clear the design is not trying to flatten major holders into an equal-weight model. If a large DAC or player organization can dominate a territory through real capital commitment, the system is expected to allow that.

Michael shared a work-in-progress document (likely intended for Artemis, his AI assistant) detailing the exact numbers of Crew and habs required for various PVP levels. We converted his markdown document into a PDF, which you can view/download below:

C4 Democracy Module — Crew & Housing RequirementsDownload

That same conversation also brought a noteworthy update for old Start Sequence real estate buyers. Michael said the 2022 CSS Plot Claim packages are now expected to convert into galaxy-wide housing units that can be placed at any starbase, or even on planet surfaces, while preserving the original CSS land-selection rights for eligible buyers. That is a small reinterpretation of an older on-chain asset. When these packages were first sold in Start Sequence, buyers purchased claim rights tied to a future CSS plot, plus a bundled hab and related perks. The new plan keeps those original rights in place while turning the asset itself into the housing unit (hab). Most players likely won’t notice the difference, as the asset already depicted a hab since day 1.

There are still limits, though. Habs are meant to be portable and recoverable, but using one elsewhere in the galaxy would still require separate housing for your eventual CSS plot. In other words, the old package is not being split into two identical houses. It is one movable housing unit plus preserved priority rights when faction-specific CSS plot selection finally arrives.

DAO Updates

Last week, the loop was closed on the historic ATMTA reimbursement vote. After two weeks of voting, PIP-33 passed with a clear majority, and with the team’s vote representing over 90% of the Abstain vote.

PIP-33: ATMTA Historic Expense Reimbursement

This proposal seeks reimbursement of $469,513.53 USD from the Star Atlas DAO Treasury for verified historic expenditures paid by ATMTA on behalf of the Star Atlas DAO covering 2021 tax obligations and payments to two professional services providers.

Structure:

  • Requested funding: $469,513.53
  • Structure: 1-off PIP
  • Author: Michael Wagner, on behalf of ATMTA, Inc.
  • Voting Opened: Friday, June 26
  • Voting Closes: Friday, July 10 (end-of-day UTC)

Final results (final, ~279.0M PVP committed):

  • For: 61.0%
  • Against: 8.9%
  • Abstain: 30.1%

Michael shared the following announcement this past weekend:

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to send a special thank you note to everyone for the discussion, debate, participation, and support on PIP 33. I know this was a controversial one, and it ultimately saw the highest levels of PVP (voting weight) participation amongst all of the PIPs since DAO inception. On behalf of the team and myself, I’m grateful it passed. We will continue working relentlessly towards the dream of a persistent, perpetual, decentralized metaverse. And I’m very excited for the C4 updates we having coming in the days ahead.

Genuinely, thank you to everyone who continues supporting us through every challenging moment we’ve encountered. It means a lot.

-Michael

News Bits

To wrap up this issue’s news, here are a few last bits:

  • The 9th Iris’ Blessing raffle took place this past Friday. If you’ve won anything, you will find yourself tagged in the #monthly-drawing channel on the Star Atlas Discord
  • The dedicated multiplayer servers for UE5 are still offline. It looks like the team is postponing bringing them back until they manage to also include some multiplayer fixes. Michael shared:
    “Multiplayer services are currently offline. We’re working on a patch with a handful of bug fixes, and will reactivate multiplayer with that patch. You can currently play Galia single player mode in the client, though it is admittedly a bit buggy.”
  • The Atlas Brew was unfortunately not recorded this past week, as Odvb decided to retire. He has been recording almost all official events on behalf of the community since the project’s early days in 2021, and has now decided it is time for him to step back and pass the baton. We want to thank him from this spot for his tireless dedication to this task for the past ~5 years!
  • SAGE C4 PTR Phase 2 is about to launch! Expect a slew of major new features to be added to the game! However, also be prepared to grind some more, as the God Mode option has been removed from the Council Rank system. You now need to unlock all Tiers through grinding XP.

Sneak Peeks

The Sperasoft team has been at it for another week! They have shared another batch of crew outfits, going back to MUD Faction:

Star Atlas – MUD Military – Created by Sperasoft [Concept Art]

Star Atlas – MUD Military – Created by Sperasoft [Concept Art]

Star Atlas – MUD T0 Racer – Created by Semyon Sokolov [Concept Art]

Star Atlas – MUD T0 Racer – Created by Semyon Sokolov [Concept Art]

Star Atlas – MUD Exo – Created by Sperasoft [Concept Art]

Star Atlas – MUD Exo – Created by Sperasoft [Concept Art]

Star Atlas – MUD Support – Created by Vladimir Nikityuk [Concept Art]

Star Atlas – MUD Support – Created by Vladimir Nikityuk [Concept Art]

Star Atlas – MUD Support (Never Alone Edition) – Created by Ivan Podzorov [Concept Art]

Star Atlas – MUD Support (Never Alone Edition) – Created by Ivan Podzorov [Concept Art]

That is it for this week! Thanks for reading, and until the next!