Welcome to our 39th 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 the team throughout the past week.
Official news
Star Atlas released issue #15 of their roadmap scan: Punaabs Secrets — Roadmap Scan #15. The lore continues with Wenn and Yago having no choice but to ally with the Punaabs Pawn and Fang to try to escape the frozen planet they crashed on.
POLIS Locker
Star Atlas DAO rewards for locking your tokens will go live on August 2nd! To that end, the very first snapshot for the POLIS Locker will be taken on August 1st, at 23:59:59 GMT.
This moment marks another major milestone for the team. It’s the first time people will earn POLIS through staking on Star Atlas’ own platform. But more importantly, the POLIS Locker marks the first crucial step to allowing the community to determine and influence the future of Star Atlas through the POLIS DAO. You can learn more by visiting the official Star Atlas DAO page.
The Team’s Stake
As of the time of writing, the team has staked 8.5 million POLIS on their behalf, with potentially more coming over time as the share of external (non-team) Voting Power (VP) will grow.
Michael (CEO) shared that the team carefully planned their staking strategy to make sure they stay in control of roughly 60-70% of the total Voting Power present in the DAO. That said, the plan is still to stake their full 108 million POLIS allocation over time.
This strategy is beneficial to the community as it means the initial POLIS rewards have a chance to be significantly higher than anticipated, due to a smaller total amount of POLIS locked (and subsequently a lower total VP present in the DAO.
Below is an excerpt from the team’s official statement:
We will be dynamically managing the ATMTA locked tokens to maintain a PVP target weight in the Star Atlas DAO at a ~65% total weight, or enough to provide a buffer against new daily locks, and assuming the actual day-to-day percentage will vary. Although the Economics Paper makes clear the team’s balance of 108mm POLIS is available for locking, we will not lock the full balance at the outset in order to ensure maximum community benefit and that ATMTA does not collect an overwhelming share of emissions. Over time, we intend to lock the entire Team balance as additional POLIS enter the locker, and we will be locking tokens across the 5-year as well as the 4- and 3-year locking period.
To help people with staking their POLIS, the team released a short helper video on Twitter:
Make your voice echo across the galaxy with the brand-new Star Atlas DAO. 📣🌌
Lock your tokens for Polis Voting Power (PVP) - rewards are going live on August 2nd! 🗳️
Learn more 👉 https://t.co/mXOR0jq3qW https://t.co/yyXa426sqm
Star Atlas DAO
Progress
The team has been busy preparing for the upcoming DAO releases, such as the ATLAS Locker and the proposal/voting mechanisms. The first proposal (PIP - POLIS Improvement Proposal) is being drafted, while the developers are finalizing the ATLAS Locker’s design and implementation.
The team is also looking to expand the statistics and information on the reward emissions regarding the POLIS Locker.
ATLAS Locker
With regards to the ATLAS Locker, Michael has provided a bit more information on what the team is planning:
- Once your ATLAS is staked, it will remain locked for 21 days.
- The more ATLAS you stake, the higher the discount on the upcoming marketplace transaction fees. There will be 5 tiers of discounts on these fees.
- POLIS rewards will be distributed based on a user’s total share of ATLAS locked x the POLIS emissions curve
- The emission curve matches the one defined for the POLIS Locker, but with 10.8 million POLIS being allocated over the 8-year curve, instead (compared to 127.8 million for the POLIS Locker).
SCREAM
When asked about faction-specific resources, Michael responded that the team is working on locking some resources to specific factions. However, this might not yet be present in SCREAM v0. The way the team is thinking to accomplish this is by adding tags to the metadata, storing the origin of those resources, and then apply program restrictions on transfer.
Progress
Last week, the Game Design team has started to work on finalizing ship/fleet statistics. Meanwhile, the UX team focused on creating wireframes and interaction flows for the onboarding system, HUD system, structure system, and inventory system. And lastly, the Web team has been adding the 3D WebGL-enabled ship models into the game, made by one of the external studios the team has partnered with, The Lost Pixels.
Flyabout Teaser
The team unveiled a teaser for their upcoming “Flyabout” module in the tweet below. This game module -or at least a toned-down variant offering free flight- is expected to arrive soon after the Showroom’s official release later this year.
🚀 Star Atlas alpha drop from the edge of space: 🚀
Here is a sneak peek at another unreal thing we’ve been working on: A ship flight module. 💥
Zip through the orbital track with team member Brad from the MUD faction and tell us if you’d like to be in the pilot’s seat: https://t.co/w4fknxeyqB
Showroom Module
Last week the art team finished their showroom improvements and they have moved their focus now to fix any remaining bugs. Meanwhile, the blockchain & core gameplay teams are finalizing their wallet integration after which the blockchain experts will focus on regression testing.
With abundant space and a name that invokes the source of light in the universe, this brand-new ship is a joy to behold - and transport. ☀️🌌
Stay tuned for this dazzling ship dropping next week on the new Galactic Marketplace at https://t.co/d3qnLgGmhW! 🚀 https://t.co/BfWkf7uvG6
Ships
The team will release a new ship this week, which they have been teasing with a tweet. It is rumoured to be the Ogrika Sunpaa, a large freighter.
OMA3
Together with Animoca Brands and other metaverse platform creators, Star Atlas founded the Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3. Their vision:
Building infrastructure to ensure the metaverse operates as a unified system where digital assets (such as NFTs), identities, and data are permissionless and interoperable for all and controlled by users, not platforms. Users will immutably own these assets and transfer them to any OMA3™ virtual worlds freely, without needing the platform’s permission.
You can read more in their announcement.
Web3 CEO-CEO Debate
One event that caught many people’s attention the past week was the “debate” between Illuvium CEO, Kieran Warwick and Star Atlas CEO, Michael Wagner, moderated by Cagyjan.
The seed for this debate was planted by Kieran on Twitter when he attacked Star Atlas by stating they “are going to burn the fuck out of retail”. Michael responded, which triggered Kieran to ask for a 1-on-1 debate. Michael agreed to this, after which Cagy set it all up and broadcasted it.
What follows is one hour of Michael, (mostly) patiently explaining Star Atlas to Kieran and the audience, based on questions/accusations from Kieran.
Viewer discretion is advised, this is definitely not like any other debate out there, if it can be really called one, to begin with.