Welcome to our 73rd 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 first quarter of 2023 came and went without any substantial releases from the team. Many held hope of seeing the SAGE: Movement Test and/or the Claim Stakes R4 production (for SCORE) in March, but with that month having come to an end, we now expect to see these in Q2 of 2023 instead. These two releases will join Showroom 2.1, which was already targeting Q2. And let’s not forget about the Mobile Companion app, which, according to leaked documents, was targeted for Q1, but which might now be launched in Q2 as well. In short, the second quarter of 2023 could become the action-packed month we really need!
And then, there is one more thing to (potentially) look forward to, coupled with the Movement Test. The team will launch an immersive social campaign. Nothing about it was shared, however, so we’ll have to wait and see what this will entail.
Let’s jump in!
Message from Michael
It looks like Michael (CEO) realized the community was expecting/hoping for a late March release of SAGE, or the Claim Stakes program for SCORE, prompting him to share a short message. He posted it in the foundation-room-chat channel, which means many will have missed it. To extend its reach, we copied it verbatim below:
Hey everyone, I wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude for your enthusiasm and support for Galia’s upcoming movement test bed, which we’ll also be coupling with an immersive social campaign. In the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing more details about what you can expect, including a Town Hall that we know you all have been waiting for. This will be worth the wait. In the meantime, stick with us on this journey. We’re extremely excited for everything lined up this year. Thank you for your patience and continued support. It means a lot to not only myself, but the rest of the team who’s building out this incredible universe.
Michael Wagner (CEO)
Economic Report
With Q1 wrapping up, ATMTA’s Economics team released their latest Economic Report, detailing the period from December 1st, 2022, until February 28th, 2023.
Even more so than the previous issues, this report focuses for a large part on economists and academics. In other words: gamers might have a harder time reading through and following along with this report. No doubt community members will step up to break it down, however!
Sneak Peek Video – Q1
The community team took some of the recent WIP videos and screenshots that were released these past few weeks, added some new tidbits to keep it fresh, put it in the blender, producing the video below. It’s worth a watch, especially if you’ve missed some of the more recent reveals!
News Tidbits
Danny (CPO) shared some interesting tidbits with us, which we’ve gathered below!
- “Dogfighting might not get gameplay enhancements next release because we are delivering on other items. But we do have major changes to that experience planned for R3”
- “We’ve refactored vehicles, so the hover mode and, to some degree, the flight model will feel different and much more improved. It’s feeling really great.”
- Asked about what animals the team has worked on so far, he responded with: “A stear, an ox, and a squid. Some will be pets, some will be mounts, [and] some will just be wildlife.”
- Asked about the size of Tigu, Danny gave us the following measurements (see below for images):
– Tigu: height: ~80cm, length: ~100cm w/tail, width: ~30cm
– Human: height: ~180cm - When asked about the maximum map dimensions in Unreal 5, Danny responded with: “88 million [square kilometers] per map, but we can fairly seamlessly just load into another one of these world partition maps and mesh them all together. Probably having seams between star systems. Another option being explored is an octree structure which would potentially make the whole galaxy seamless.”
Future of Web3 Gaming
Last week’s Future of Web3 Gaming, the weekly Twitter Space hosted by Ash, was again a Star Atlas-focused one! This time, Ash invited Star Atlas team member Steven Sabol (Director of Economy) to talk about the economy within Star Atlas, the Economic Report, and many related topics!
If you’d like to gain more insights into Star Atlas’ economy, then this episode is worth checking out!
Work-in-progress Shots
And to wrap up this week’s newsletter, here are most of the other WIP screenshots that Danny shared with us the past week:
