Weekly Star Atlas Newsletter #102

Welcome to our 102nd newsletter on Star Atlas! This weekly newsletter is published by Aephia Industries and focuses entirely on Star Atlas. Here, we try to aggregate all the newsworthy tidbits that were dropped by the team throughout the past week.

The team has upped their game, as we got a bunch of releases and information from them last week! Not only is there a new, impactful patch for SAGE Labs, but the team has launched a new show, kicking off with a rare interview with Danny (CPO), and Michael (CEO) appeared on both the Brew and a top-notch interview on FazRadio. To round it out, the Metaverse Nomads interviewed our Chief Penguin, the Foundation Room was completely overhauled, and a new issue of CORE is now available on the Marketplace. And did we mention the team plans to release a new ship model for sale this week?

Let’s go!

Star Atlas Video Show

Dominic (Community Manager) has kicked off a new video series that looks behind the scenes of Star Atlas development called Navigating Star Atlas. The first episode is now available, spans 45 minutes, and consists of an interview with Danny (Co-founder & CPO).

It is absolutely worth watching, as we haven’t really heard Danny talk about how Star Atlas came to be (from his perspective). He also goes quite deep into his extensive background in the gaming industry.

Future episodes may cover different topics, and you can reach out to Dominic if you have suggestions.

SAGE Labs

There have been multiple exciting bits of news regarding SAGE Labs. Not only did the team release a patch that came with big changes, but Michael also shared a good bit about the present and future of SAGE on the Atlas Brew last week.

Patch

Last Thursday, October 19th, a new patch for SAGE Labs went live. The most significant impact is related to scanning. Not only have toolkit costs been updated (often lowered) for most ships, but the Data Runner ships can now scan for free!

Of course, only one Data Runner ship is currently available, the VZUS opod (medium size). But the team is looking to change that this week. See the next section for more information on that.

Here are the patch notes:

• Data Runners no longer consume toolkits when scanning.
• Refilled Fimbul Airbike and CSS Tier 1 hab recipes with more resource-intensive redemption recipe options
• Updated scanning cooldowns to be based on heatsink manufacturer, spec bonus, and tier
• Updated toolkit consumption when scanning to be based on scanner manufacturer, spec bonus, and tier
• Reduced R9 mining rates

Atlas Brew

Last Wednesday, Michael (CEO) was a guest on the Atlas Brew (#84), answering questions about SAGE Labs and the future.

He started by sharing that they probably put more resources into Labs than they should have. But the team is learning a lot from Labs being live, and they will continue to fix things that will also improve the future iterations of SAGE. New features are currently on hold for SAGE Labs, however.

Meanwhile, most of the development team has transitioned to SAGE Starbased, the 3D browser game the team wants to move forward with.

On that note, Michael backtracked a bit regarding keeping SAGE Labs up-to-date next to Starbased. As the team sees the 3D SAGE game as their browser-based end-product, they may not want to spend manpower on keeping SAGE Labs up to date alongside it.

This means the next anticipated feature, Starbase construction & upgrading, will launch together with Starbased. It is not currently being developed for Labs, so it is unclear whether Labs will be updated to include it. It could be that Starbased will even launch before Starbase construction. In that case, it will have full feature parity with Labs and will not introduce any new features upon launch.

One front-end developer, Xeanor, has been working on Front-end optimizations for mobile, while a few others are wrapping up the first MVP for DAC support.

New Ship for Sale – Opal Rayfam

It has been a long time coming, but the team will start selling a new ship model on their marketplace again! At some point this week, the Opal Rayfam will go for sale.

The Rayfam will be the second-ever Data Runner ship to be sold by the team, joining the VZUS opod. Where the opod is a medium ship, the new Rayfam is a small ship instead. It will likely be more affordable than the opod, as the news of the Data Runner changes has sent the opod’s price soaring. We do not yet know the price the Rayfam will be going for, however.

CORE – Act 2

As we announced last week, the 9th issue of CORE was released on the Galactic Marketplace, which is the 3rd episode of Act 2.

Good to point out: Due to the new referral system, you can see people bought the issue and are reselling it at a lower price point due to the discounts provided by Starpath V2.

Though the goal was to have this issue of CORE available on MagicEden as well, this has not come to pass. It will, however, go live later this week, on Wednesday, the 25th!

Foundation Room Changes

Those who have been around on the Star Atlas Discord server have undoubtedly heard of the Foundation Room channel. This channel has been available to everyone who (Nitro) boosted the Discord server for the longest time.

Of course, boosting a server requires a Discord Nitro subscription, meaning your money will go to Discord, not the team.

This was changed last week. Everyone who had access before this change will find they have received an “FR – OG” role, guaranteeing they will retain access. However, it will not be possible to boost the server and gain access that way.

The team worked with Matrica to bring three new ways to get access:

• You own a wallet with 80k Polis Voting Power (PVP)
• You’ve been quite active on the Star Atlas Discord and have achieved level 45 (Mee6)
• You completed Never Alone quests and collected memory fragments.

FazRadio Interview

Michael has been showing up on various interviews and podcasts, but the one by FazRadio stands out. This is worth a watch for everyone interested in, or skeptical about Star Atlas. This excellent interview goes deep into all facets of the game and its development, and includes some juicy alpha leaks (see SAGE Labs part).

In short, if you are going to watch one interview this week, this should be it!

Lore Update

The Metaverse Nomads have been on a roll recently, having interviewed four Star Atlas team members back-to-back! This past Sunday, it was Jose’s turn -aka ZeSKK, aka Noot- (Star Atlas official Penguin). If you appreciate the richness of the Star Atlas lore and want to hear some brand-new revelations, do give this one a listen!

Breakpoint 

On Thursday, November 2nd, Michael will give a keynote on Star Atlas during the Breakpoint conference. Some topics that team members have confirmed that will be addressed are:

• Showroom Update
• SAGE Labs and SAGE Starbased (expect footage!)
• Lending / Rental system
• Build Program & Community Developers
• 30k simultaneous players in the Showroom
• Mobile Companion App

Meetup

If you want to join the meetups on Tuesday, October 31st, you better be quick!

Only a few spots are left on the boat for the DinnerCruise through the canals of Amsterdam. Registration for that will close on October 25th, so hurry if you know you are around and want to join!

The second part of the meetup, which takes place in a cafe in the center of Amsterdam, has been fully booked out, resulting in well over 100 attendees attending. Unfortunately, this means new registrations are going onto a waitlist. If you have been in the Star Atlas Discord for a while and forgot to sign up earlier, please get in touch with Funcracker on Discord to expedite your approval.

Below are the links you can use to register!

• DinnerCruise: Entry 74 EUR / person (Aephia is sponsoring the Lu.ma & Stripe processing fees)
• Drinks & Socializing: Entry is free of charge, but you’ll need to pay for your drinks & snacks

News Tidbits

• During the Atlas Brew, Michael shared that there were over 2000 downloads of the Player Profile code on the first day it went live.
• There are 1300-1500 players active on Sage Labs.
• Asked what comes after SAGE Labs, Michael responded that the team emphasizes establishing a sense of progression for the player. In general, they are focusing on:
  • Bringing the Player Profile system fully online
  • Making sure the player can earn XP (progression) and Loyalty Points (earnings)
  • Activate ALTAS emission in SAGE + Showroom.
  • Character leveling up (progression)
• The team is currently testing with 30k players (AI-driven for the test) in the Showroom.

Sneak Peeks

Besides the Rayfam (see above), the team did not really share any other visuals with us. However, they posted a short Twitter video showing a camera circling the Fimbul Mamba EX, and a new SAGE Labs meme was released.