Welcome to our 240th 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 continues to build on the momentum of SAGE C4 Phase 2. We learned more about the next challenge for the Nemesis Engine, why larger ships likely won’t race ahead in Council Rank progression, and what the timeline looks like for Phase 3 and beyond. Meanwhile, the latest DAO funding proposal appears to be heading toward defeat, and we wrap up with a fresh batch of Star Atlas concept art.

Let’s dive in!

SAGE C4

As so often this year, the biggest updates this week came from Atlas Brew #214 (thanks to Earther for recording the past 2 Brews).

On the topic of the Nemesis Engine, John (Product Manager) explained that NPC groups need their own identities, Starbase accounts, and territorial permissions before they can fight each other and cross faction borders. At the moment, they are all one faction and can not target one another. Because of that, this first version solely offers Jorvik pirates and merchants carrying relics, but José (Lore & Community) described a much larger goal: bringing all 88 established factions into Nemesis, with their own territories, markets, laws, and lore-derived behavior.

Council Rank progression is also moving away from one of its original assumptions. Michael (CEO) said the team had considered awarding exponentially more XP to players using larger ships, but now leans towards a much flatter model based primarily on active playtime. Larger assets would keep their economic and combat advantages without also racing through Council Rank. Unlike the accelerated PTR, progressing through the full system on mainnet could take years. This means that players with small ships can progress (almost) as fast as those with much more expensive, larger ships, when it comes to the gathering of XP.

On the topic of XP, John has been tweaking Pilot XP in Phase 2. For now, it comes with diminishing returns and a daily cap. An actively playing person should be able to reach that cap in roughly an hour. Warp and subwarp are both meant to award XP, although the points currently appear only after a later action such as docking or mining. John stressed that this is a Phase 2 (interim) solution rather than a final design.

Phase 3 & Beyond

Phase 2 has an internal target runtime of about 30 days. At that point, the team hopes to launch Phase 3, which has a single minimum requirement: the single-player campaign. Crew minting, marketplace trading, leveling, and missions may join it if the integration work allows.

Once Phase 3 is ready, ATMTA plans to announce the mainnet date and begin a 30 to 45-day launch campaign covering C4, the z.ink genesis event, token listings, and DeFi integrations. Michael still estimated mainnet at two to three months away, so the timing has not materially changed.

Being asked about the name of the upcoming game, as SAGE C4 is just the project name, Michael shared that the team now calls the perpetual browser game simply SAGE, rather than SAGE Labs or SAGE Starbased.

Star Atlas DAO

DAO Updates

Voting on PIP-34 opened last week, asking the DAO to fund a completely new season of the Star Atlas Crew Adventure Series. Unless the vote changes considerably before August 2, this proposal is heading for defeat.

PIP-34: Star Atlas Crew Adventure Series – Season Production

Follow the Star Atlas Crew as they face challenges in Galia. The series is an ongoing cinematic story rooted directly in Star Atlas lore. The episodes will bridge the gap and bring new players to the game. This proposal funds the production of one complete season:

  • Two months of weekly episodes, each 4 minutes 50 seconds or longer.
  • 12 or more weekly YouTube Shorts tied to each weekly episode.

The request of 13,576,392 ATLAS covers the content pipeline: writing, world building, environment creation, character development, animation, sound design, original music, editing, and distribution on YouTube and X.

Earlier seasons (1–5) are already publicly released, including the re-release of Season 1 (Reimagined). 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.

Structure:

  • Requested funding: 13,576,392 ATLAS
  • Structure: 1-off PIP
  • Author: Hammerhead
  • Voting Opened: Sunday, July 19
  • Voting Closes: Sunday, August 2 (end-of-day UTC)

Early results (~8 days in, ~45M PVP committed):

  • For: 22.0%
  • Against: 66.4%
  • Abstain: 4.7%

Sneak Peeks

The Sperasoft team is continuing their stream of crew renders, though more and more overlap with their previous art posts is starting to occur. Here is some of the “new” stuff they posted last week:

Star Atlas – Ustur Racer - T1 - Created by Vladimir Nikityuk

Star Atlas – Ustur Racer – T1 – Created by Vladimir Nikityuk [Concept Art]

Star Atlas - ONI Combat - Created by Sperasoft [Concept Art]

Star Atlas – ONI Combat – Created by Sperasoft [Concept Art]

Star Atlas - ONI T2 Racer - Created by Semyon Sokolov [Concept Art]

Star Atlas – ONI T2 Racer – Created by Semyon Sokolov [Concept Art]

Star Atlas - Joni Space Suit - Created by Ivan Podzorov [Concept Art]

Star Atlas – Joni Space Suit – Created by Ivan Podzorov [Concept Art]

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