Welcome to our 106th newsletter on Star Atlas! This weekly newsletter focuses entirely on this ambitious game’s development and is published by Aephia Industries. Here, we try to aggregate all the newsworthy tidbits revealed [mainly by the team] throughout the past week.
As we approach the end of the year, these post-Breakpoint days are slowly ticking away. We expect some cool bits and pieces of news before the year’s over, though, so stay tuned! The past week saw the release of a new issue of CORE, some changes to SAGE Labs, and -most noteworthy- the release of the Opal Rayfam for purchase!
Let’s dive in!
Opal Rayfam
This past Thursday, November 16th, at 19:00 UTC, the team published the sale of the brand-new Opal Rayfam ship! The Rayfam is a small data runner ship, which makes it the second data runner ever released, joining the VZUS opod. The total initial supply is 11,628. The team provided the following flavor text for the ship:
Whether under a heavily redacted contract to deliver competitive business intelligence without compromise, or to intercept encrypted security transmissions covertly, the Opal Rayfam wields power, and discretion, cloaked in opulence. In a galaxy where information is the name of the game, Opal’s proprietary remote scanning and signal-sweeping capabilities, as well as impregnable non-networked data vault, means this sharp, seductive, data runner, intends to win. You may not know the Opal Rayfam. But the Opal Rayfam, knows you.
Opal Rayfam Description
Armstrong Legacy
This is the team’s first new ship model made available for purchase since they added the Armstrong ships at the tail-end of June 2023. The Armstrong mining ships were added after an even longer period in which the team did not add any new ships to the marketplace.
The Armstrong ships’ total initial supply was divided into three tranches. The first tranch constitutes 30% of that initial supply, which has been available at a 50% discount since then. As there are still a good amount of these ships available, the team has not yet released the other two tranches (30% at origination, 40% at a 10% surplus on origination).
Rayfam Price
Now, the team has brought the Opal Rayfam to the Marketplace, and it has been assigned the same (origination) price as the Armstrong IMP, $860. Instead of cutting supply into tranches, the team made the entire supply available at a single price point.
Given that there are still a lot of Armstrong ships available, 50% off, and even steeper discounts on the secondary market for a slew of other ships, this could be considered a bold move.
Of course, we have Starpath V2 available now, meaning buyers can get an easy 10% off as long as they have been referred. If they ignore the intent of that system and set up a self-referral loop through two wallets, they can even get 32.5% off instead.
Rayfam Promotion
But the team did not stop there. They added an extra incentive, which only applies for the first 11 days of the sale. Everyone who buys an Opal Rayfam ship during the first 11 days (before November 28th) will also receive a free Ogrika Niruch ship. That ship itself has not been put up for sale by the team, but they have handed a few of them out as part of their Start Sequence campaign late last year (and early this one).
These ships will be sent to primary market purchasers on November 28th. Another cool tidbit about the Niruch is that this ship has been completely finalized for UE5. It’s not available yet, but once R2.2 arrives, you’ll be able to enjoy this ship in all its Unreal Engine 5 splendor!
Secondary Market Closed
In another first, the team has deactivated secondary sales for the Opal Rayfam for the first 30 days. This appears to be a new policy that the team will implement on any new ship-offering moving forward.
The team has not commented on why this was done, but three potential reasons come to mind:
- Some folks being (self-)referred tended to put their ships back on the market, undercutting the team (rather significantly) and leading to confusion among newcomers. More importantly, though, it promoted self-referrals, as people wanted to learn how these low prizes were possible.
- The revenue generated by the team does not change due to self-referrals, provided all the secondary buyers who would otherwise have bought the ship from the team would have been referred as well. By not allowing secondary offers to undercut the team and being purchased instead (also enriching the trader, who siphons funds from the community), the team at least has a chance to see some more sales going to people who have not been referred, resulting in increased revenue.
- Past promotions, such as the Ogrika Niruch promotion now, have confused some people. Despite the team communicating clearly that promotion only applied to purchases made from them directly, some still expected their purchase on the secondary market to qualify for the additional reward. Nobody can go wrong here by not allowing secondary sales for the duration of the promotion. Now, all sales will be eligible.
SAGE Labs
This is the first time a ship with instant utility in the game has been released! You can bring your Opal Rayfam into SAGE Labs and enjoy toolkit-free Scanning right off the bat! Though this may not register as a significant event to newcomers, it marks a significant milestone in Star Atlas’ development. Two years ago, the team started selling ships, and only at this point can ships be used actively in their game from the moment you buy them!
CORE – Issue 10
The Rayfam was not the only thing the team released last week. On Wednesday, November 15th, they released the latest issue of CORE, Act 2: Issue #10, or Act 2, episode 4.
The limited edition cover for this latest Star Atlas graphic novel issue can be bought on the Galactic Marketplace, where it is available for two weeks. At the time of publishing this newsletter, ten days remain.
This Wednesday, the limited edition Magic Eden cover should become available on Magic Eden as well. Previously, it looked like issue #9 would be the last to make it to Magic Eden, but circumstances seem to have changed!
SAGE Labs
SAGE Labs received some minor tweaks, with patch 1.18 being released this past week. Below are the patch notes:
- There was an issue where users would (un)intentionally send resources directly to fleet token accounts (which is not a shortcut to resupplying a fleet), which would cause issues in the UI for the owners of those fleets. We have adjusted the interface where necessary to use the token “delegated” amount instead of the UI amount. This should no longer hinder users attempting to transfer fleet cargo in SAGE Labs.
- You can now self-destruct while stuck mining because of having insufficient fuel to stop mining, a state that fleets can only get into using custom scripts and tooling.
- Consolidating cargo pods in the starbase inventory is now limited to 20 at a time to prevent errors with hardware wallets.
- Buttons in the interface will now temporarily disable for a few seconds when clicked to prevent double-clicking and accidentally initiating failed transactions.
If you are looking for the latest stats on R9, SDUs, and more, the Aephia Data Runners have you covered!
Golden Ticket Raffle
Week 3 of the Golden Ticket raffles has wrapped up, and another 150k (VWAP) worth of assets have found a new home! The drawing for Week 4 is currently open, and you can submit your Golden Tickets for that until November 24th, 20:15 UTC. Winners will be announced immediately afterward, following the same procedure as the last three drawings. One winner is drawn every 20 seconds, starting with the lowest-value assets.
Good to know: this 4th week has a slightly increased prize pool value. Instead of 150k, the prizes’ total (VWAP) value is 175k.
If you want to get an idea of what the supply & production of Golden Tickets has looked like until now, do check out the following chart:
Sneak Peeks
The team did not release any sneak peeks this past week, but once again, some of the artists working on Star Atlas shared some of their work on their online portfolios.
Sören Meding shared a few of his concepts for the race track. Check out the project on his website as well, as it contains a cool video, more perspectives, and some early in-game renders as well!
See you next week!
