Welcome to our 52nd 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.
The news shared by the team last week was a day-and-night contrast to two weeks ago! So, get a comfy chair and your favorite drink, this newsletter is bursting through the seems with news and updates!
The reason there is so much to share is that the team organized the first Townhall in many weeks, and on top also released their newsletter, the Atlas Star issue 12, which nowadays is the only source of progress updates from ATMTA’s many internal teams working on Star Atlas.
On the topic of the Atlas Star: Those interested in getting a feel for the many roles that will one day be available in Star Atlas should definitely check this issue out!
Feedback
The team would love to get your feedback on the events they are currently organizing such as the Townhall. To that end, they published a form you can fill out.
Breakpoint
Michael shared a few more details on their presence at Solana Breakpoint this year. This is what their schedule is looking like:
Nov 4th - Games Day
On November 4th, there is a game-focused event being organized to kick off the Solana Breakpoint conference. This event is free for all (as long as the venue is not yet at capacity) but does require registration.
The team managed to receive one of only 8 speaker slots, during which they will give a 45-minute game demo using a pre-release version of the Showroom R2.
They are expected to give a 5-minute intro and then have 8 professional esports players (each on their own machine) battling it out on stage in both the racing (10-15 mins) & dogfighting modes offered by R2, before Jim & Brett from ATMTA will take the audience on tour through the blockchain architecture at Star Atlas, with an emphasis on the F-Kit (Foundation Kit).
Furthermore, the team has a Games Booth in the venue where the team will be present and where they will be showing off R2 as well. Lastly, there are several twitch streaming booths on the floor that will stream R2 footage throughout the day.
For those interested, here is the official description from the Solana Foundation:
Games Day is a community event where we will showcase mobile and PC games launching on Solana. Attendees will be able to hear from Solana game builders, chat with game developers, and play games. There will be 33 game demo booths featuring Solana game devs, an open games area with 16 gaming laptop set-ups, and a mini esports stage (4v4 format). Come check out all the Solana games!
Breakpoint
The team will be attending the Breakpoint conference as well, attending presentations from other teams and of course networking. If you catch any of the team members live, be sure to say hi!
Nov 7th - Keynote
On the very last day of the conference, Michael Wagner (CEO) will give a 20-minute keynote presentation (starting at 15:15 UTC). He will be showing upcoming game content, including SCREAM and Showroom R2, but will also share an exciting announcement regarding the upcoming Graphic Novel!
🗓️Mark your calendars!🚀
@staratlas CEO and co-founder @at_mwagner will be speaking at @SolanaConf Breakpoint on Monday, November 7th, at 3:15PM (GMT). 📍Carlos Lopes Pavillon
#SolanaBreakpoint #WeAreStarAtlas https://t.co/rXhLuNtuJi
Showroom R2
Dogfighting
Michael confirmed that they’re not only going to allow you to race with your Pearce X4 (and possibly the Floyd Liner) but there will also be a stand-alone, PvE (Player-vs-Environment) dogfighting module coming with R2!
No further details were announced, but it will be limited to the same ships as racing, as those are the only ones fully flight-capable in R2. And it won’t include any PvP (Player-vs-Player) support just yet, you will be fighting AI-controlled opponents.
Other Updates
- The racing & dogfighting modes are hooked up to leaderboards so everyone can see each other’s progress! The player competition will be heating up!
- R2 is on the horizon, but won’t yet be feature complete at Breakpoint.
- Multiplayer support means you can host your own (open/closed) instance
- There will be both text chat and proximity-based voice-chat
- There will be skin & character selection
- The team is working on 12 ships that are scheduled to be added next (likely one at a time)
Progress
Over the past few weeks, the art team has been busy finalizing and optimizing the art, while also polishing lighting. Meanwhile, the design team has been working on the Air track integration, which is likely the name of the Racing module, or more specifically the first race track being deployed.
The UX/UI teams are currently performing a final cleanup of several modules, after having integrated them into R2. The report specifically mentions Photomode, Characters Skin Selection, Multiplayer, and the Air track HUD.
Lastly, the Core Gameplay Development team reports it has successfully integrated the aforementioned modules and is busy integrating Chats & Friends list, and NFT stands/banners. They expect to be wrapping this up soon, after which they will focus on bug-fixing.
SCREAM
Michael mentioned that SCREAM is still on track for an end-of-year release (of the test version), but added that this deadline could extend into Q1 2023.
The very first alpha version will go live on the Solana devnet (not mainnet) and will not yet offer a persistent or economic loop. It is meant exclusively to alpha-test the game.
The team is currently figuring out how to distribute assets to alpha tests on devnet, and they have come up with two potential strategies.
- A 1-to-1 distribution of your main net assets to devnet (you get a test copy of every ship you own).
- A paper portfolio, where everyone starts with the exact same set of assets.
The latter solution will allow the team to run a competition, as everybody is starting on equal footing.
It’s important to note that any assets you receive on the devnet will be worthless, as devnet assets hold no value, and can not be used outside of the alpha test.
Progress
The Game Design team is still busy defining all the requirements for core gameplay mechanics and game design. Recently they have been specifically busy refining the combat mechanics.
In parallel, the Blockchain team has been making unspecified changes to the Starbase upgrade logic, while also having put in work on the Mining program.
The UX team created flows for crafting and additionally which the UI team has implemented. Furthermore, they have been refining the inventory and cargo UX.
Game Economics has been busy fining the SCORE to SCREAM transition strategy.
The Web team has been migrating the codebase to a new software architectural pattern, to ensure scalable and performant game systems. Besides this considerable effort, they have kept themselves busy with work on the fleet creation system and the ship spawning system, using the right metrics. Next up they will focus on implementing additional UI functionality and data handling.
Last but not least, the art department has continued working on starbases and planets. They also integrated some of the Starbase assets into PlayCanvas. An ongoing task is the refinement of textures and lighting on assets.
Play Portal
During the Townhall, Michael shared that the team is working to extend the Play Portal (play.staratlas.com) with a number of incredible features. Mentioned were:
A Player Profile system (more on this below)
Early stages of work on the DAC platform:
- Multi-sig wallet
- Guild registration
- Adding/removing/promoting/demoting players
- DAC leaderboards
- A portal with a dedicated page for each guild
Historical transaction charts - trading history on the marketplace.
No further information was provided, and it’s unclear exactly how soon these features will be published.
DAO
The DAO/Governance platform can also look forward to upgrades over time, among which:
- A new way to connect to the portal
- Dark mode
- Treasury reports page coming later this year (includes tracking of both revenue & spending)
- A section on the reward emissions wallets
- Early-stage planning for the full governance functionality
Player Profiles
The team has been working on a truly revolutionary piece of Solana technology (a smart contract, or program) that will allow players to use multiple Solana accounts when playing the game (SCREAM for starters).
You will be able to set different permissions for these wallets and how they can interact with both the game and your assets. In short, the idea would be that you could have:
- your assets in one wallet (e.g. a Ledger), which is the only wallet that can move those assets around, and move them in and out of SCREAM
- allow another account (e.g. Phantom) to use those assets in a limited manner within SCREAM, for example, initiating mining or component construction
- have a third account that is only allowed to move your fleets around and initiate combat. However, that account is configured to auto-approve those actions, meaning you will never be asked to approve these SCREAM interactions.
This has hugely positive implications, such as:
- You can safely keep your ships inside a cold wallet
- The number of approvals you have to give in-game will be greatly reduced (if you so desire)
- Potentially some actions can be automated
Besides this impressive Solana tech, the launch of Player Profiles will also unlock the name selection and registration process. No details on how this will work were provided.
Lending
Player Profiles form a significant milestone (or primitive) on the road toward implementing asset lending into Star Atlas. The team has stated they won’t work on this themselves, but when Player Profiles arrive, anyone who has experience with implementing lending programs on Solana will be able to implement this.
In theory, Player Profiles allow you to create a sub-account and then assign it to a different player (profile), setting limited permissions. That way the ships would remain in your wallet, while they are able to utilize them in limited means, as defined by the permissions set.
The exact granularity of the permissions has not yet been revealed, but it stands to reason that moving from one security zone to the next (e.g. from Safe to Medium) will be one of those (many) permissions that can be defined.
Atlas Brew
The community team recently shared their new publication schedule, which will go into effect after Breakpoint (we’ve learned meanwhile), and now they are looking into bringing more structure to their community theorycraft-event, the Atlas Brew, as well.
To that end they’ve identified 4 key themes that that represent the three main pillars of Star Atlas plus its community, and they will discuss all of these over a 4-week schedule, after which they start from the beginning again.
Here are the Atlas Brews themes:
- Theory crafting Economics
- Theory crafting Politics
- Theory crafting Game structure
- Freestyle and Community updates
This new schedule will go into effect after Breakpoint as well.
💫Town Hall Alpha Drops Are Here!💫
👀 See development footage of the #UE5 Fimbul Lowbie. Did you know that this spaceship has falcon wing doors?
Join https://t.co/LdjcSyJ9wC to see all other alpha drops! https://t.co/i45yCXG3Gg