Weekly Star Atlas Newsletter #228

Welcome to our 228th 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.

This week’s update is led by the long-awaited Holosim Chapter 2 rewards announcement, which quickly became a discussion point after the community flagged discrepancies in ship valuations. Alongside that, we got a solid look at ongoing UE5 progress, movement in the Embercoil campaign selection, and a rather unusual outcome in DAO governance, with PIP-31 passing on paper but ultimately being withdrawn.

Let’s dive in!

Holosim – Chapter 2 Rewards

John (Product Manager) finally published the Holosim Season 1 Chapter 2 phase 1 prize list on Discord last week. The published pool lists $8,815 worth of ships, which will be distributed to the top 200 players. However, players who have a rank above 200, but have at least reached 1,000,000 XP, are set to receive a single Explorer Pack as well. The team set Tuesday, May 5th, as the distribution date, along with a mainnet wallet deadline.

That should have settled the matter, but not long after the announcement, community members pointed out a big discrepancy. Both the Armstrong IMP Tap and the Ogrika Tursic are medium-sized ships that both trade for less USDC on the marketplace than the large-sized Opal BitBoat.

Michael (CEO) acknowledged this, and the team is currently investigating. They are expected to publish an updated prize list that corrects this issue before distribution.

Important: If you haven’t already linked your primary wallet to your Holosim account, and you are eligible for prizes, you need to do this before Tuesday, May 5th (in other words, directly after reading this – if you read this on the day of publication)!

UE5 Progress

Brad (Gameplay Engineer) joined José during last week’s Atlas Brew to show off some of the UE5 progress teased on X over the past few weeks. The team has solved surface AI navigation on planets, meaning bots no longer have to be restricted to space stations or workarounds for interiors. That unlocks combat against enemies directly on the surface.

The first implementation of that work is a new elimination mission flow with three outposts, each carrying its own threat level and payout. On stream, Brad showed how those missions fit into the station menu, how stealth and alarm behavior work, and how this system opens the door to a more natural form of planetary combat than the team could support before.

Lastly, he showed off the new water/ocean renderer and how the waves affect a ship hovering above.

These updates are expected to roll out with the next UE5 update, though it is not yet clear when that will occur.

Embercoil Update

José (Lead Lore Writer) pushed Embercoil into its next phase last week. Two weeks ago, you could nominate yourself through a form, and now José has narrowed those 22 applicants he received down to a top 10. Now it is up to the community to decide the final five members of the cast for this first campaign.

Unlike PIPs, this is a simple Google Form that limits each person to one Google-authenticated submission. In other words, one person equals one vote, making this unrelated to the amount of Polis you have locked. The poll closes on May 11th, so you have almost a week left (as per the date of publication of this newsletter) to make your voice heard!

Here are the applicants (showing Discord names):

• [HEIM] Dinarei | DARK
• [AEP] Lerinor
• ! SH | Bohemian ⪛⦿⫺
• ROME | Saint-Just
• ROME | Oneleggedjustin
• eSlicer
• anektomaros
• ONIH
• | Thor |
• Atlas Theory

DAO Updates

Last week, the voting window for PIP-31 closed, with the official result being that the PIP was approved. Despite only 40% of voters being in favor, the large number of abstentions meant the Against side ended up with ~35% of the vote. Since there is no rule requiring at least 50% of the votes to approve a proposal, it officially passed.

However, in an unexpected turn of events, and a first for the Star Atlas DAO, the PIP’s creator withdrew the PIP hours from the voting window closing. This was discussed by the DAO Council and Michael (CEO), and they went along. As there is no way to pull a PIP from the system while being open for voting, the vote simply continued and passed.

So, while the PIP may have been technically approved, no ATLAS will be disbursed to PG, and the PIP will be effectively ignored by the DAO going forward.

PIP-31: Star Seekers 2 — Mobile Game DAO Funding Proposal

This proposal requests 13,000,000 ATLAS from the Star Atlas DAO Ecosystem Fund to complete and launch Star Seekers 2, a cross-platform mobile space-combat game inspired by the Star Atlas universe, on both iOS App Store and Google Play Store.

Structure:

• Requested funding: 13,000,000 ATLAS
• Structure: 1-off PIP
• Author: PG Metaverse OG
• Voting Opened: Friday, April 17th
• Voting Closes: Friday, May 1st (end-of-day UTC)

Final results (final, ~134.5M PVP committed):

• For: 40.0%
• Against: 34.6%
• Abstain: 25.4%

Iris’ Blessing Continues

Though the 6-month Iris’ Blessing campaign officially wrapped up last month, Michael had already shared earlier that the campaign would continue until further notice. That means there is a double XP weekend (UE5 only) coming up from May 29th to 31st, and a raffle with prizes this Friday, May 8th!

Below are the prizes given away during Iris’ Blessing Month #7:

• 10x Fimbul ECOS Unibomba
• 10x VZUS solos
• 5x Fimbul Lowbie
• 1x Busan Thrill of Life
• 1x Calico Shipit
• 1x Opal Rayfam
• 1x Pearce R6
• 7x Crew Gold 5
• 10x Crew Gold 1
• 10x Crew Silver 5
• 10x Crew Silver 1
• 5x Crew Plat 5
• 10x Crew Plat 1

News Bits

But that is not all! Here are some more news bits that are simply too short to warrant their own section. That does not mean they are any less important, however!

Crafting Habs reveal — Star Atlas shared a short video on their X-account showing off Crafting Hab management in SAGE C4.

z.ink Airdrop — Michael has, with the help of AI, been working on the z.ink airdrop claim program and interface. It is currently being tested by some community members. Below are two screenshots that were shared during the Atlas Brew. Note that the VTT here is a test token, replacing zink.

That is it for this week! Thanks for reading, and until the next!