Welcome to our 25th newsletter on Star Atlas! This is a weekly newsletter published by Aephia Industries, that is focused entirely on Star Atlas . Here we try to aggregate all the newsworthy tidbits that were dropped by team members throughout the past week.
Media releases
This week saw another Town Hall, in which Michael - and two guest employees: Mo & Eric - shared a lot of information. Additionally, the team released the 6th edition of their Atlas Star newsletter, which included updates on the roadmap. The most important takeaways can be found in this newsletter.
Galactic Marketplace
Great news on this front as the team has wrapped up the prototyping of all aspects and is now busy building and finalizing this module. The new marketplace, which will come with ATLAS staking, is looking to become the first release of the year.
Michael shared that with the release of this new marketplace, they will no longer rely on the (currently underlying) Serum dex.
Before the official release will take place, the team would like to perform a final Q&A test soon, for which community members can sign up using a form they published during the town hall.
POLIS DAO
We already knew that the POLIS DAO was competing with the Galactic Marketplace about who gets to launch first, so it should then come as no surprise that this module has also fully moved ahead into the building phase. All prototyping is done and the team is moving full steam ahead with implementing the UI and getting all the contracts audited.
Michael shared a ton of information during the town hall concerning the POLIS DAO, which we compiled in a separate article.
”Special Project”
Danny alluded to it before, but during the town hall, Michael revealed that Danny set up a separate team that is focusing on a new kind of Unreal experience. They are experimenting with free flight, using fully modeled and animated ships. They are building an independent level for this and it comes with some mini-game features built into it as well. If, and when this sees the light of day, it will only work with a limited number of ship models, as most are still in the production pipeline and are not finished.
Operations
A total of 23 people were hired since the last Town Hall (so, in the last 20 days).
SCREAM
The SCREAM mini-game module is about character progression, leveling up, and access to exclusive items. Additionally, it contains a strategic and competitive open world where players will play collectively. Game mechanics will be simplified while aiming to bridge the gap between SCORE and the UE5 game in a very significant way. Important to note here is that, unlike SCORE, SCREAM is not set to become a temporary, short-lived module. Instead, it will become a core pillar of the mini-game going forward and will see constant improvements and expansions.
During the Town Hall, Mo (Product Manager / Producer) explained SCREAM as
“the first time players can use their ships, to fight for the future of their faction, with fun, active, repeatable, on-chain gameplay, with in-game economic potential.”
When asked about the priorities for SCREAM, Mo gave us the following list:
- Community building, by working within factions, through the use of ships
- Immersive 3D graphics
- Closed-loop gameplay
As to the last point, closed-loop gameplay here means that SCREAM is a standalone game in the sense that it does not rely on other (future) gameplay mechanics that exist outside of it. In other words: it has all the ingredients to be a fun game in and on itself and is playable on its own.
Mo went on to describe their goals for SCREAM as:
- To build a repeatable and engaging group strategy game, focused on ships.
- Players have persistent levels (across realms).
- Rewarding factions that win, but also rewarding the players at the top of the leaderboard.
- Encourage teamwork and communication.
- Build faction identities and ultimately proof out strategic gameplay at scale on Solana.
DAC
Ever since Star Atlas was announced, the term DAC (Decentralized Autonomous Corporation) has been used by the team to refer to gaming guilds within their metaverse. During the past Town Hall, we learned that the team is now differentiating between gaming DACs and non-gaming DACs.
Non-gaming DACs: refers to corporations/brands wanting to participate in the economy & want to have exposure to the people in the metaverse.
Gaming DACs: the (gaming) guilds
The team put a lot of effort into looking at what a DAC platform might look like and what tooling they should make available. And though a simple registration for DACs could be launched, they cannot yet deliver all of the toolings they think are important to the DACs. The decision was made not to rush out the registration process, as they want to make sure they can first build out all of the toolings and provide that from the get-go.
In short: It’s an area of focus, but the team is not currently putting much time into it.
Concerning the tooling, Michael mentioned a few things they are thinking about, including:
- issuing your own governance token
- creating your own governance system & defining various policies that impact all members, like:
- access to assets
- lending of assets
- taxation rights over all members
- access to exclusive resources
- treasury management
- governance
- in the further future:
- assisting with minting nfts
- Issuing your own governance token
Ship releases
The past week saw the release of the Calico ATS Enforcer, a medium fighter that has a capital-size weapon hardpoint slot as its most defining feature.
The coming week we expect to see another ship being released that looks to be the Pearce R6, a small repair ship.
Podcast
Star Atlas just announced their collaboration with Award-winning Studio Audio Up to create a Sci-fi adventure Podcast. The eight-episode series, entitled Moon Station Six, is set inside an experimental prison in the far reaches of the Star Atlas universe and features both characters and lore from the game as the basis for the series’ narrative. The series follows an android bounty hunter wrongfully convicted of a murder he did not commit.
We wrote a separate article on the upcoming podcast, which dives deeper into how NFTs tie into this and the release.
Live events
The Star Atlas team is attending two events over the following weeks, and they invited everyone who is in the neighborhood to drop by and say hello. You can find them here:
- Crypto Bahamas — April 26 – 29
- FTX Off The Grid — Miami Beach Race Weekend —** **May 6 – 8
For more info on these events and the team’s whereabouts, check Atlas Star #6.