Podcast 150: Star Atlas Weekly Review

Podcast Transcript

This is Matt with the Intergalactic Herald. Welcome to my Star OS weekend review podcast. This is podcast number one five o hundred and fifty. Any articles or videos mentioned can be found on my website at intergalactic herald dot com. Just look for a weekly recap newsletter, a hundred and ninety two.
Oh, lots of milestones. Anyways, gonna, do things a little differently. if you just listened to my last podcast, kinda did a Starless year end review, which was the first half of twenty twenty five. This podcast is gonna be the second half of twenty twenty five because the Starless team’s on…
break. And even if there was any other news, I’m gonna hold it till the first of the year so I have something to do, on my podcast that first week. So, anyway so yeah. So, that’s pretty much what this is gonna be, part two of the year end review of Star Atlas. But before I get to that, again, if you’re interested in any Star Atlas resources, please check out my website at intergalactic hero dot com.
It’s a great place for guides, directories, recaps, and Discord news. Also, I have a merch store, intergalactic gear. don’t have a lot of stuff. Just some Star House mugs, but you can check that out. And do want to try to get a community of Star Atlas gamers who aren’t joining guilds together.
if you’re interested in that, please check out intergalacticcoalition dot com. So as I mentioned, gonna do kind of a year and review of Star Atlas for twenty twenty five. This is part two.
so as I mentioned in the first podcast, any dates I mentioned are more related to when they were in my newsletters because I went through all my old newsletters trying to find highlights. So those aren’t, necessarily matching up there. But other than that, let’s get right into it. We ended, twenty twenty five or excuse me. We ended, June twenty twenty five with announcements of community week and other things like that.
July started out kind of slow in the sense there wasn’t anything. all I could find was basically the end of a Halsim test. But I believe at the time, they were hyping the big, Star House community event, which they rebranded as Star Atlas Summer, and that was gonna involve many things. So in early so, yeah, July was pretty much nothing. August was when that kicked off.
so they did, a number of events, that had been traditionally in community week, and I think that kinda first week in August was that community week. So what they did is basically the COPPA, which was the guild presentation. They did have another town hall where they did another,
UE five update, and then they did the Joanie Awards for community. and I think no. The town hall was that was proof. So and then they, did a whole bunch of Discord, activities and things like that with, Discord bot and things like that. And then start out with summer was gonna be a couple more events every two weeks.
So in kind of mid August, they had the next one, which was the release of the new hollow Holosim new season, what they then at that point called chapter one because they had just done a test before. We also got the first announcement of Zynq, which, as I alluded to in the last one, this was kind of, I think, well, partly a response to the many transaction issues, but it was also, as mentioned at the time, this is, a way they could actually grow with the product because the Solana fees were always gonna be an issue, and this was a way that they could control the blockchain,
lower the fees a lot, but also have another product and another business, and basically run a blockchain with validators and things like that. they also, that Star Atlas summer event did announce a new website landing page. Basically, kinda took down the old website, put up a new one, different graphics, email sign up to get a code to join UE five, and, yeah, that was pretty much it. So then, next week, the Haul sim launched. again, we’re referring to it now as chapter one.
And then two weeks later, end of August, we had the third kind of big, Star of Summer event. This one, they announced the, star frame, which I remember correctly is some Solana framework development type of things. they also announced some changes to Sage, one of them being a Phantom star base, and this was a way that people could keep playing even though all the other star bases had been already, I think, leveled up to five.
talked a little more about the next things coming in UE five, and they showed off a new tool, which was a Sage editor suite. and reality, even though it’s for Sage, this was really more of a development tool for c four, so you could do a lot of different things like that. I have to admit, I still haven’t had a chance to check it out, but, it’s one of my winter break plans. And, again, depending on when you listen to this, I may have already checked it out. But, anyway so yeah.
So that wrapped up a really interesting and, I think, great community event. got a lot of Twitter, postings and things like that. So, yeah, it was definitely a great…outreach, updating the community, releases, new announcements, and things like that. And not surprisingly, September then was pretty calm. Again, a lot of things were already done.
But in late,
September, we did get the first mention of something called Project Galia, which was a part of the UE five version that had been coming out and they’ve been it’s been something there, but it was much more focused on…
well, not the shooter and not the racing. So it was more of the exploration thing. But, anyways, they announced a single player campaign that they were gonna hope to try to develop by the end of the year. Spoiler. It did happen.
It is out there. So we got our first kinda look at that and where that would be. And then finally in, late September, the patch Sage, which I don’t remember why. And, oh, Holosim infrastructure improvements. Yeah.
Unfortunately, the chapter one of the Holosim had a lot of, infrastructure problems and did, yeah, just didn’t really work right out of the box for a few weeks until they can do it. So yeah. and then in early October, they announced they were doing some, bringing on some zinc testers, and this was the first indication that they were kind of on track to where they were hoping to get zinc out by the end of the year…
Yeah. By the end of the year. I’m sorry. I was thinking there’s something in the middle there with the zinc. The announcement.
Oh, it was yeah. Again, they were supposed to get it out sooner than that. That’s what it was. It was supposed to come out in September, if I remember, but it doesn’t matter. also, then in kind of the middle of October, the, a new kind of community campaign called Iris Blessing was announced.
It allowed oh, yeah. One of the things that they did on the UE five actually, I totally forgot to put in there. One of the things they added in one of the updates was…Zinc Inc. No. Excuse me.
Inc. It was a…
resource that could only be found playing UE five and then that could be actually sold to people who needed it in Sage. I forget. Sorry. Didn’t put that on there. so anyways, one of the good things, to gain XP was now there was these, weekends where they would double the XP, and so it actually got a lot of more people involved.
plus they did start part of this iOS plus in another Discord bot where, yeah, involvement could, relate to, I think, raffles that would occur every couple weeks and things like that. So, yeah, another great community…engagement mechanism. So, late October, on one of the Atlas brews, Jacob, the CTO, did some updates on some of the technology, and I think this was great because, I haven’t really heard much from him. but, again, I think it’s just that, you know, there’s different roles and different people,
in those roles. But as a cofounder, it was great to hear him speak. Then, early…
November, we did get some more road map updates, and this was kind of where things were kind of coming. I think, if I remember correctly, they kind of said, hey. These aren’t the dates, but here’s the order. Unfortunately, some of those things didn’t actually come by the end of the year. They also mentioned a trip to Switzerland, which, again, spoiler alert, we now know what it was, and it was the final town hall when they mentioned a partnership with Tether.
And, early November, they did the first…alpha launch of the Zynq dashboard. So this was the first chance. It was again just testing, but we could actually interact with what would be the way that we could gain experience in Zynq which was connecting things to a z profile and then doing different things in start ups from, playing Sage to playing Holosim to…other things, playing in UE5. So that was when that was first launched and it was going to be a six six week test. Mid November, we got another update on the Project Galia single prayer experience, so we were able to see more.
And then kind of in late November…
Danny, the…
CPO, chief product officer, actually published in this foundation room, kind of how all the products stack together in an infographic. It was really a great way to see how things were all meshing together and things like that. so we’re now reaching end of November, which means we’re getting close to the end of the year. So in December, early December, that the economic forum, there was a first announcement of what’s been called the open market operations. This is some changes to the Star Atlas economy that will involve, Star Atlas actually engaging in ship sales and buying ships, so lots of changes there.
again, this is more current stuff, so you’d go a couple podcast backing, find more information about that. Then in the middle of, December, they did officially launch Zinc. I guess it’s called Origin, I think Yeah.
But this was the one where the points count. So that’s, was something they were able to release by the end of the year. And then final point, they were…
did have the final town hall of the year. And as I mentioned, they mentioned a partnership with Tether which is a stablecoin…coin…
Showed off the new Holosim chapter two which is slated to come out in January. Again, talk more about the economy and some of the open market operations changes went live. A little bit of talking about c four but the big takeaway was it not coming out this year. And then the UE5 update came out and some changes there plus…
the Galio single player…was released in that and they did make that UE5 out before they went on break. So that pretty much well, that is the end of second part of twenty twenty five and all the different things that came out. as far as thinking about all this in kind of a whole, definitely the start out of summer was, the highlight of the second half of the year. Tons of announcements, products, just information. Again, first great community event.
also great keeping people up. Kinda feel, like, in hindsight, again, was kinda quiet in the summer. But, again, they were kinda leaning up to this. Definitely released some things, but then it kinda went silent again, but kinda building up until this last release of things. So, yeah, everything kinda there.
So looking at kinda the bigger picture in twenty twenty five, actually, thinking back to twenty four, it was kinda quiet in the summer there. I remember,
when we did the year end review last year or year ago for the previous year, had Brianna Horizon on the podcast, and he kinda mentioned that same kind of thing. But, definitely think, but I think the slowness at different points in the year is more indicative of development. There just can’t be, that many new things coming out that frequently. I mean, there’s just not enough changes. But, definitely, if we look at each of the products, UE five, had a great cadence, went kinda monthly and slowed down a little bit.
But, again, a lot of things happen. better tournament or better features to enable the tournaments so people do that integration with getting the ink. So now it has a, experience you can, get and then take a resource and put it into Sage. Sage overall, now that I’m looking thinking back on the past year, kinda stagnated. But, again, I think all the effort was put into c four, which unfortunately didn’t come out.
But they did make some minor tweaks like the Phantom Star bases and some other things. But,
yeah, unfortunately, with the cost of Solana…
yeah, I stopped playing at some point and sounds like the daily active user account was, you know, the same, probably decreasing a little bit. C four didn’t come out. Again, as I think was mentioned at the…last Town Hall year, they had originally targeted this summer. It didn’t work, and now haven’t made it. But, as I mentioned in a couple past podcasts, now that c four and zinc have been tied at the hip, zinc has to come up first.
And it totally makes sense because Solana fees and transactions, it’s gonna be much heavier on the blockchain usage. It just makes sense on both of those. I mean, just one can’t come out without the other. Zinc is definitely a new, interesting development. We’ll have to see how that pans out.
But from the idea of more stability on the blockchain, cheaper…or sorry. I shouldn’t say stability. More reliability…
Reliability still, but it just works because they’re just less they have more control over it, plus the…
cost factor going down. And then the side benefit is it’s another coin you can own, so who knows where that goes with this experience gathering and then the airdrop, which will come sometime in twenty twenty six through our first quarter. Yeah. So Zinc makes sense. Let’s see.
So UE five, Sage, Holosim…Yeah. I mean, I think it’s a great idea. I just didn’t play it, so I don’t it’s not top of mind. But it is unfortunate that the chapter one, the launch had a lot of infrastructure problems, but sounds like they’ve addressed those, from what I remember watching other people play in videos, seemed very addictive, very interesting, showed the potential of how Sage c four, without the blockchain integration, even though it was still doing blockchain stuff. Yeah.
It looks like a great product. definitely the free to play is a good thing. So, yeah, overall, very interesting. Yeah. So I think,
I think that’s about it. Yeah. So we’ll just have to see what the twenty twenty six brings. Zinc should be on the horizon. C four test should be on the horizon.
Halsam should be on the horizon. And that’s pretty much, I think, all well, c four is a biggie. I’m sure UE five will keep getting developed. But, yeah, the c four Sage browser economy type game. Oh, and then, of course, we have the changes the economy with…
start out with selling and buying chips. Actually, that is one interesting one, doing a little kinda look ahead on twenty twenty six. Definitely, this is probably the first time that even though it hasn’t been spoken about, cash flow and runway and burn rate for a while, definitely feels like these changes, this open market, operations…Sounds like a key point of that is to sell ships again and get…USDC or USDT, whatever, but, I mean, you know, dollars into the team so they can stop selling tokens as their only revenue source. So it does feel like a little bit, twenty twenty six is the year that, the team needs to find a funding source, and we’ll see if ship shall sip? Say that fast.
Ship sales is, the way ahead. But, again, overall, the economy strategy sounded good. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. You know, ship prices aren’t what they were four or five years ago.
so why not see if people buy it? It’s a question of will they buy it, because you gotta have something to do with that ship. So, I think that’s probably one thing. again, Hall, Sim looking forward, season two, or chapter two, if they you know, down the infrastructure or excuse yeah. Infrastructure things, seemed like it was very…
interesting experience for people who wanted to do that. c four definitely something, I’m looking forward to. As I mentioned before, I’m kinda thinking of, going into claim stakes and buildings and stuff like that…
UE five just needs to keep being developed, which…it has got a good track record. We’ll see if people…
yeah. So I think that’s about it. again, I guess the hardest part about kind of procrastinating or not procrastinating. Sorry. Prognosticating the year ahead is, we didn’t get a lot at the town hall looking forward.
And even though it was forward focused, it sure felt, short term forward focused with Zinc and the economy and Holosim, which there’s nothing wrong with that. And, again, given the cadence of town halls every six months, they…
I mean, it sounds like they wanted to release a few more things in the end of the year and just didn’t happen, but they’re all in the pipeline, all being developed. In fact, they said c four was pretty much done except for the user interface. So, I mean, that’s something to say there. And, again, needing Zinc as its, blockchain, you know, makes perfect sense too. So, yeah, so we’ll just see how twenty twenty six goes.
Again, by the time you listen to this, it’ll already be twenty twenty six. So hope you had a great New Year…
celebration, and now we’re…back to normal. So, anyways, again, hope you enjoyed this. Thanks for listening to this year in review of Star Atlas, part two. again, if you wanna check out any of my things, please check out, my website, intergalactic carol dot com for lots of Star Atlas resources. I have my merch store, intergalactic gear dot com, and my Star House community, nonguild at intergalactic coalition dot com.
Other than that, welcome to twenty twenty six. Hope it’s great for you. This is Matt with Intergalactic Herald. Have a great week and year ahead.