
Patch day is here! Bringing a visually complete Pearce X5, a Paizul’s Arena level up, the long-desired dedicated servers, and shiploads more! There’s also a bunch of quality-of-life tweaks and bug fixes.
With this update, our monthly patch cycle is taking a short break as we gear up for a major mid-year release featuring gunplay matchmaking and the first version of progression.
MAJOR HIGHLIGHTS
- Dedicated servers for gunplay lobbies with 4 or more players
- New multiplayer hosting/joining lobby flow
- Paizul’s Arena overhaul & Gateway redesign
- Pearce X5 in-game model completion
- Custom keybind remapping and improved controller support
- Co-op Dogfighting
- Multiplayer racing improvements
- Mining minigame improvements
GUNPLAY

Balance Changes
- Adjusted melee, jettie boost, fall and weapon damage values: People should die a lot more quickly now!
- Reduced firearm swap cooldown from .75s to .1s
- Fixed accuracy values of sighted weapon in and out of ADS: Sorry, no more easy sniper no scopes
- Gunplay Trainer bots no longer spawn with a grenade
Weapon Changes
- Added new shotgun model
- Added new optimized weapon models that support weapon skinning
- Added Gatling Gun Spin Up and Spin Down delay when firing
- Added increased bounciness to grenades
- Changed Auto Rifle pickups to be Scout Rifle pickups: you now spawn with Auto Rifles, so we’re switching old Auto Rifle pickups to be Scout Rifles now
- Added lag compensation support for melee hit detection
- Increased pickup radius on weapon spawners
HUD Changes
- Refactored the minimap: Supports building interiors, added new mini-map icons for vehicle/trains/race gates/zones, added new states alive/dead, damage direction indicators and increased enemy visibility radius in the minimap
- Added crosshair aim obstructor indicator “X” on player HUD when your bullets hit a wall
- Added kills/points in the match HUD
- Added team population when in team selection
- Added new icon for Gun Game winner
- Adjusted Shield, Health, and Jettie Juice HUD bars
- Added killstreak callouts in game feed
- Added zone capture callouts in game feed
- Added crosshair animations and damage numbers for Grenades and Jettie Melee
- Added incoming missile indicator on Ship HUD
GALIA (OPEN WORLD)

- Added new vehicle modes: Combat, Tractor Beam, Scanning, and Mining
- Added new tractor beam tether/vacuum mode
- Added different-sized asteroids for a variety of difficulties in the mining minigame
- Added “Mock-Credits” that can be earned through gameplay and saved between sessions
- Added mineables on planet surfaces
- Adjusted vehicles to now use gravity volumes instead of portals
- Optimized API logic for getting gravity on an actor
- Improved character movement transitions between different gravity directions
MAPS AND ENVIRONMENT

Paizul’s Arena (Arena Map)
- Updated Paizul’s Arena with new textures and a higher resolution blockout
- Updated exterior environment of Paizul’s Arena with atmospheric ship traffic and references to the ONI CSS
- Added new lighting
- Added destructible pillars
Gateway (Arena Map)
- Updated map layout based on community feedback: Some players expressed their feelings of the map feeling bigger than it was, so we’re adding more ways to get into the action quicker
- Updated the map with various optimization improvements
- Added new lighting
- Fixed various collision issues
Uru (Arena Map)
- Updated the map with additional progress on the white box phase
- Added new lighting
- Fixed various collision issues
Gunplay Trainer Map
- Added the ability to shoot through railings and other smaller holes
- Added the ability to fly/mantle through the wider gaps in the building walls
- Adjusted the stairs to be smoother
MULTIPLAYER

- Added new multiplayer lobby support
- Added dedicated servers for lobbies that start a gunplay match with 4 or more players
- Improved multiplayer support for vehicles: Replicated vehicle animations, reduced rubber banding, fixed vehicle visibility issues and fixed floating characters
RACING AND DOGFIGHTING
Racing
- Improved user experience for starting a multiplayer race
- Added support for reverse direction races (and leaderboards)
- Added jump pads to scale heights in tracks
- Fixed a variety of issues surrounding vehicle race times on a leaderboard
- Added a wrong-way/missed checkpoint HUD indicator
Dogfighting
- Added a CO-OP version of the dogfighting minigame
- Added drop pickups after you destroy enemy AI spaceships
- Improved enemy AI bots logic
- Added new leaderboard
VEHICLES

- Added the Pearce X5 with final art
- Fixed a variety of issues with the Pearce R6
- Adjusted the handling of various XXS ships
- Improved nametag support for possessed vehicles
- Restored the ability to customize equipment groups in vehicle configurator
- Added new HUD notification when trying to subwarp with insufficient fuel
CHARACTER
- Improved jettie dashing while hovering
- Added the ability to chain movement abilities: you can now chain a slide after a dash as well as instantly slide when landing if you held a slide input
- Fixed a character’s knees to point in the direction of motion during a slide
- Adjusted camera for all species: playing a Punaab has never felt this good
Special Effects
SFX
- Added new sounds: Game mod voice-overs, weapon swaps, Cockpit wind, Ragdoll Impacts, and states of character (alive/dead)
VFX
- Changed VFX on vehicle thruster
- Improved Jettie VFX and adjusted size/location by species
- Added grenade sparks on bounces
- Added new waterfall VFX
- Decreased lifetime of weapon tracers
OPTIMIZATION
- Refactored galaxy requests system
- Upgraded to Unreal Engine 5.5.4
- Migrated and refactored all Weapon Effects logic to C++
- Improved character/vehicle possession logic
MISCELLANEOUS BUGS AND FIXES
- Fixed an issue where traveling to edges of arenas in photomode would create weapon spawner icon visual artifacts
- Fixed scroll box height for accounts list
- Fixed a bug where some players would experience the lighting breaking in the configurator screen
- Fixed an issue where the HUD leaderboard wouldn’t reset correctly
- Fixed an issue where missiles would sometimes not apply damage
- Fixed an issue where kills/points/deaths would accrue between matches
- Fixed an issue where a character wouldn’t be facing the correct direction on respawn
- Fixed an issue where a player couldn’t back out of changing their team
- Updated celebration test from “Defeat” to “Match Over”
- Fixed an incorrect celebration screen when ONI wins in Surge
- Improved network reliability of character weapon drawing/holstering/swapping events
- Fixed an issue where players would pop/teleport when loading into a gunplay match
- Fixed team tile highlighting logic on the team select screen
- Added a way for players to switch teams mid match by pressing F2
- Fixed an issue causing some players to t-pose
- Added FX to melee hits
- Fixed toggled crouch desync on death while crouch
- Adjusted camera shakes to stop when a ship/character is destroyed
- Fixed an issue where players would sometimes take fall damage on respawn
- Added missing seat slots to double benches
- Fixed a memory leak where bots wouldn’t get fully destroyed on death
- Fixed an issue with max craning height in Photo Mode
- Fixed various edge cases around zone indicators disappearing or not displaying the correct state
- Fixed vehicle cruise control issues when a player would alt-tab
- Fixed an issue where header menu elements didn’t work in the vehicle configurator
- Adjusted scroll bars to be easier to use
- Fixed an issue where a ship would remain in a leaned orientation when exiting a ship during leans
- Added teleport FX that plays during multiplayer respawns
- Fixed an issue where grenade FX would not sync correctly in local clients
- Adjusted the ship configurator screen to not have the component selection menu automatically open
- Fixed an issue where crosshair animations would play immediately after respawn
- Fixed an issue where Photo Gallery drop down sorting filters wouldn’t work
ABOUT STAR ATLAS
Star Atlas is a next-gen gaming metaverse emerging from the confluence of state-of-the-art blockchain technologies, real-time graphics, and multiplayer video games.
Using Unreal Engine 5’s Nanite real-time graphics technology allows for cinematic quality video game visuals. In addition, blockchain technology using**Solana establishes a largely serverless and secured gameplay experience. Player assets obtained and traded within Star Atlas create an economy that replicates tangible world assets and ownership.
To learn more, join a faction at**Play.StarAtlas.com, get a spaceship in the**Galactic Marketplace, and start playing the**SAGE Labs browser game to explore, gather, craft and prosper on the galactic frontier.**
Then,**download the UE5 PC Game from the Epic Games Store.
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