Welcome to our 190th newsletter on Star Atlas! This weekly newsletter, published by Aephia Industries, focuses entirely on the development of this ambitious game. Here, we attempt to aggregate all the newsworthy tidbits revealed, primarily by the team, throughout the past week.
The Community week is here! This will be a fun-filled week, featuring numerous activities and events for the community. With a Town Hall scheduled for Wednesday and two more planned for August, news has been scarce over the past weeks, and the previous one was no exception. The week itself, and primarily its two major community events, COPA and the Joni Awards, generated the bulk of the news we had.
But there was a little more! The Holosim beta is about to end, and Dominic Vain has transitioned to Marketing Manager!
Without further ado, let’s dive in!
Community Week is Here!
2025’s community week is officially kicking off today, Monday, July 28th! There will be a kick-off event that will come with:
- First code for the Exclusive Community Week 2625 Badge
- An overview of Community Week and Star Atlas Summer
- How to earn Community Tickets
- Details on the Carnival Raffle
- First wave of surprises and good vibes
The full lineup for the week (see also the above image) is as follows:
- Monday (July 28th) — Kick off
- Tuesday (July 29th) — COPA Finale
- Wednesday (July 30th) — Town Hall & UE5 Summer Patch release
- Thursday (July 31st) — Team vs Community Gunplay competition (with prizes)
- Friday (August 1st) — Joni awards
- Saturday (August 2nd) — Community Carnival Raffle
Exclusive Community Week 2625 Badge
The team is minting an exclusive, commemorative Community Week 2625 Badge for everyone who is joining the community week. To obtain it, you will need to participate in all the main events next week and claim the codes shared during these events.
Town Hall – July 30th
The first of 3 Star Atlas Summer Town Halls will take place this Wednesday. As mentioned last week, the team has already shared which product they will release this time: the UE5 Summer patch.
Chip (VP of Game Product) shared a bit more about what we can expect in terms of progression, building on what he discussed during the June 4th Town Hall.
Progression will not be on-chain, but instead will be using Epic’s Only Services (EOS). Progression can be earned for Character groups, with each group being based on a single species and sex. Since we have Tufa and Photoli crew character cards out in the wild, their owners will be able to rack up progression with those two species as well!
Here is the full list that Chip shared:
- Human Male
- Human Female
- Mierese Male
- Mierese Female
- Sogmian Male
- Sogmian Female
- High Punaab Male
- High Punaab Female
- Profound Punaab Male
- Profound Punaab Female
- Ustur .1
- Ustur .2
- Tufa
- Photoli
Chip also re-confirmed that the higher the rarity of the Crew Card used, the bigger the XP boost that character will get.
Michael (CEO) chimed in to caution that the XP and levels earned here will likely not persist into the final game. This could change, but there are no concrete plans to do this just yet. However, you’ll earn unlocks to make the game more fun, and loot on top!
COPA ’25
The 3rd-ever Council of Peace Assembly will take place on Tuesday, July 29th. Of all the guilds that submitted a pitch deck, the following 10 were chosen to present their story to a larger audience:
- Aephia
- Agora
- Bulk
- Coexist
- Heimdall
- Rome
- Quimera
- Star Atlas Italia
- Skull and Bones
- Vanguard
This year, there is no longer an obligation to present live, and it appears that most guilds will submit a pre-recorded clip. Each guild has no more than 10 minutes, so reserve at least 2 hours if you want to see these live! This time, in another deviation from the previous two occurrences, the team will skip live Q&A to keep the event shorter. The judges are able to ask questions behind the scenes, however.
Joni Awards
The nominations are in, and the form to cast your final vote is up!
Here are the categories and this year’s nominations:
Community Member of the Year
- Neo Armstrong
- Jindo
- Brujo
- NDR
Content Creator of the Year
- Beyond The Horizon 2620
- Neo Armstrong
- Siggy
- Rasputin
Most Popular Guild of the Year – 100% Community Voted!
- Aephia
- ROME
- COEXIST
- Vanguard
- Quimera
- Agora
Best Community Tool of the Year
- SLYA
- Atom
- Eveeye
- Aephia Data Dashboards
Star Atlas IP Project / Business of the Year
- Galia Merchants – https://galiamerchants.com/
- Superphoenix DAO – https://superphoenixdao.com/landing
- Star Atlas TV – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCElCan0ISZn68l7b341yxLA
- Enigma42 Ship and Crew 3D Models – https://staratlassian.com/
Community Helper of the Year
- Neo Armstrong
- Jindo
- Lerinor
- Randuxy
Best Gunplay Player of the Year – Defined through a live Deathmatch Match!
- James
- Hakmer
- Sakaleyn
- Stick
Most Knowledgeable Member of the Year – Defined through a live Quiz!
- Jindo
- Lerinor
- Eoganacht
- Virtuwul
Most Entertaining Video of the Year
- Gun Game Win by James – https://x.com/noisesang/status/1925506930421928180
- Onizuka Song Edit – https://x.com/OniZuK4Eikichi/status/1931001758416801803
- Starvlog Impact Summit by Atlas Theory – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBAN8bvRyL0
- Franziskaner SAGE Timelapse – https://x.com/Frankijdc/status/1888372337537691925/video/1
- BTH Building a Web3 Gaming Cybernation – https://youtu.be/tXKTpFZDMQI?si=4Fm4HLqy6LzzEeNP
You have until Thursday, July 31st, 19:00 UTC to cast your vote! Please use the official form to do so!
Note: Beyond the Most Popular Guild, Best Gunplay Player, and Most Knowledgeable Member categories, the community vote counts for 10%, while the team’s votes count for the other 90%.
Team vs Community Battle
On Thursday, the team will take advantage of the newly polished Gunplay game mode and the success they had during the first community-organized Gunplay competition to organize a team-vs-community event.
Guilds and groups were asked to sign up through a form, but it’s unclear if the team is still seeking additional contenders. They shared that they are looking for 10 teams at most.
Community Carnival
Throughout the week, the team will start random contests, quizzes, and other opportunities for you to earn tickets for the Community Carnival. You can also wager on winners of events and challenge other players in Rock, Paper, Scissors to win their tickets.
Darwiin created a Discord bot that the team will use to reward the tickets and keep track of them. Then, on Friday, they will be dropped on-chain, allowing you to use them for the special drawing on Saturday.
Then, you have until just before the raffle to submit your tickets and have a chance to take home one (or more) of the prizes in the $ 15,000 prize pool!
Holosim Beta Ending
The Holosim beta will wrap up in just a few days. If you have been playing, it is essential that you follow the in-game instructions to link your mainnet wallet. There could be something in it for you!
After a brief hiatus, the game will return and Season 1 will officially kick off!
To optimally prepare, be sure to check out our guide on Holosim!
C4 Regions Explainer
Perhaps not entirely new, but still relevant enough to share here: We’ve created a small guide with two shareable slide decks to help visually explain how Regions will work in SAGE C4.
If this interests you, be sure to check it out!
Marketing Manager
And to wrap this issue up, we have a non-community week-related bit of news:
Dominic Vain, formerly Senior Community Manager, has been promoted to Marketing Manager! In his new role, he is responsible for marketing efforts. He shared that he has been reaching out to dozens of influencers in both the Web2 and Web3 spaces over the past few weeks to kick off his new role.
That is it for this week! Stay tuned for the next one!
![Star Atlas - Pearce MR8 [Concept Art]](https://aephia.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/image-768x432.png)
