Welcome to our 72nd 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.
Last week was, once again, a quiet week. But, could this perhaps be the calm before the storm? The end of Q1 is in our sights, and the team has become very quiet, almost as if they are in crunch-mode right before a possible release. We’ll learn more soon, no doubt!
There were a few interesting tidbits to report on, however! There was an official Paris meetup, an interview with Brett (Blockchain Architect on Twitter), and some discussion regarding the hangar size in ships! Let’s dive in!
From Paris With Love
This past Saturday, the very first team-organized community meetup took place in Paris, France! Dubbed the Atlas Brew Society, about 25-30 folks showed up, including team members Darwiin (Community Support) & Santi (Community Director). Gary Sanchez (Art Director & Concept Designer) had wanted to come as well, but he could not make it in the end, as his train was canceled due to ongoing riots in Paris.
Star Sequence Badges
The team has started “dropping” Start Sequence Badges of various tiers, to those who participated in the second phase of the Start Sequence sales. Or rather, they have been dropping claims into everyone’s inventory, like last time with the other Start Sequence drops. There has not yet been an official announcement from the team about this, and it is not clear if all the claims have been dropped so far.
These badges are purely commemorative and serve no in-game purpose that we know of. However, note that the team can always decide to change that in the future!
SAGE Dev Video
The team shared a new video showing off the technical capabilities of their engine when rendering planet shaders. Make sure to watch until the very end, as they go on to show a short in-engine combat scene playing out between various ships!
Ship Stats
As part of the team’s preparations for SAGE, a team of developers spearheaded by Chip (Director of Game Systems Design) has been trying to fine-tune the ship specifications. They are not done yet, but they are making good progress.
What we do know is that there will be many sweeping changes across nearly all ships. Danny (CPO) emphasized that the “current perceived power hierarchy will remain”, however. In other words, people have gotten a general idea about the power difference between any two ships, based on their size, class, components, modules, crew, and VWAP. Though the actual numbers may change, that perceived power difference will remain roughly the same.
Hangar Size – Work in Progress!
A Star Atlas team member, who goes by the name of AtomicWarHero on Discord, shared some information about where the team is currently at with their thinking, concerning the number of ships that can fit into a ship’s hangar. Specifically, he shared a graphic showing the max capacity of the Pearce C9’s capital hangar slot, expressed in ships of various size classes:
This image shows that a Pearce C9, which has a single capital hangar slot, would be able to store 1 large ship (or drone), 2 medium ships, or 4 small ships, etc.
A little earlier that week, Danny presented us the below concept shot of the Pearce C9’s hangar:
In this image, you can discern 2 Pearce X6s (small), one of which is being transported. According to the table above, the team is currently planning to allow space for four such ships.
Word of Caution
Note that the above C9 numbers are not yet final! Chip emphasized that the team is still fleshing out the next (closer to final) publication of each ship’s statistics. He went on by saying that they are unable to sign off on anything, until they are fully done, as updating one ship can cause cascading changes to other ships.
In fact, the table shared by AtomicWarHero above was later deleted (on Discord), to make sure people would not draw the wrong conclusions. Some folks had already started applying the hangar logic to other ships, based on the current hangar information. Seeing this information in isolation is bound to send people astray, as only when all the new numbers have been revealed would they make any real sense.
We decided to include the image here, however, as we do think that, given this (hopefully sufficient) warning, it does provide insight into what the team is working on, and what their current thoughts on the topic are.
Future of Web3 Gaming
Last week’s Future of Web3 Gaming, the weekly Twitter Space hosted by Ash, was a special one! Instead of inviting other players from the Web3 Gaming industry, Ash had invited Star Atlas team member Brett (BlockChain Architect) to talk about the blockchain programs the team has been developing and the significance of having the game’s logic running on Solana.
If you missed it, or perhaps you are not a regular listener because you care only about Star Atlas, then this episode is definitely worth checking out!
Work-in-progress Shots
Thanks to Danny, we got another great batch of work-in-progress shots, for you to feast your eyes on!
