Podcast 171: Star Atlas Weekly Review

Podcast Transcript

Hi. This is Matt with the Intergalactic Herald. Welcome to my startless week in review podcast. This is podcast number hundred and seventy one. Any articles or videos mentioned can be found on my website at intergalactic herald dot com.
Just look for weekly recap newsletter two one nine. So just a quick summary of things that’s happened this past week in Star Atlas. There was Atlas Brew on Wednesday, and then there on Thursday was a town hall, which, was the…
announcement and the launch of the…
c four version of Sage, in the public realm. So talk mainly about that today actually quite a bit. So anyways, but before I get to those two things, again, just wanted to mention, things I’m doing in Star Atlas. Of course, my website, intergalactic hero dot com. Great resource website for guides for the current version of Sage, directories recaps, and the Discord announcement news feed which was very helpful this last week when there was lots of announcements.
Also, I do have a Star House merch store at intergalactic gear dot com. You can check that out. And then I would love to get together with other Star Atlas gamers, form a community, not necessarily guild, where we can hang out and chat about Star Atlas and things like that, and that’s at intergalacticcoalition…dot com. So let’s go ahead and get in to, well, pretty much the main topic which will be the Town Hall, but there was an Atlas Brew before, a day before,
but most of the content was reserved for the Town Hall so they basically just talked about some theory crafting of things…beyond in Star Atlas, kind of going, as I said, back to the origins of the brew where there wasn’t a lot to talk about so they just talked about the future. So if you do wanna listen to that, again, it was…
fine. It just, unfortunately, was overshadowed by the town hall. you can check that out on the YouTube channel for Starless TV who has that Atlas Brew and the entire recording of the Town Hall. so the way I experienced the Town Hall is actually I read, Atheist’s…recap of the Town Hall, so that was really good. So I got all the kind of highlights there in written form, And then I watched the town hall in its entirety again on Star House TV, was two x.
I think it was, two hours and forty minutes or so. it was a good amount. So…
anyway, so I’m just gonna kinda dive right into that. normally, if you listened to in the past, you usually do a kinda state of star atlas segment. I have to admit, I was trying to take notes of, like, oh, I wanna talk about that. I wanna talk about that. But it got to the point where, there was just so much content.
I…and, again, I to even at listening at two x speed, that was still over an hour and a half, which is way longer than I take but we spend on Friday nights when I’m recording this. So, I think I’ll just kinda merge the two together. I’ll just go through the checklist of everything that caught my attention from the town hall and occasionally I’ll throw in, different items there and, as hopefully, more information comes again. Just it’s this classic thing. And, again, I’m totally…
excited for the town hall, but there’s just too much content. But, it actually is very focused. It’s just each one of those areas was quite exhaust or not quite exhausted, but had a lot of points. So, but I guess before I get started, one thing I will mention on this town hall, kinda was alluding to that they needed to…
really come out with something or definitive. And, again, spoiler, the…
c four PTR public test…release realm, whatever, is live. And, there was announcement on the Discord. I don’t remember what the URL is because I…
sorry I don’t have time tonight to look at it. So but it will be on my agenda to take a look at some point, hopefully. So, yeah, so I think, just kind of the ending at the beginning. Yeah, it was a great town hall, They hit all the important things, tons of information, tons of, things, and even to the point of not setting a date, but setting the criteria to set a date. and I’ll get into that.
I did write that down at some point. So, so yeah. So I think this was a great one. Yeah. I mean and again, I think I kinda alluded to it in a couple earlier podcasts.
to me, this was the make or break, town hall, and they made it. I mean, they were prepared. I think they even alluded to in the last week, they had a, what do you call it, a non public test,
with a few community members. And so, but this date of releasing it was set there. So, yeah, so, I mean…
we’re seeing progress. you know, it’s been a long time coming, but, yeah, we can just move forward. So, anyway, so, yeah, town hall…first started with u UE five, which was great still. they demoed some of the recent changes again to the single player…mission based Project Galia. so showed some of the missions, which was interesting.
couple, so, again, I just sorry. It just got overshadowed by Zinc and c four. But, the they did, release a new version of that. But a couple little tidbits, one, was alluded to that pretty much shows one primary developer of UE five. So, yeah.
and oh, and there’s, it sounds like his specialty isn’t multiplayer, so bug fixes to multiplayer may not come. So, I think this is the true…yeah. They’ve pivoted away from UE five, which is both…
makes sense, but unfortunate. there was a lot of…
interest in the multiplayer, and it sounds like, again, they had to…you know, You couldn’t do everything, and so, sounds like the single player at least has…staff member continuing to work on it. so, I mean, you kinda, I guess, see that as maybe the next phase, if multiplier was deemphasized. So, but, yeah, there’s supposed to be a new release, coming as soon as it gets approved. So, then they pivoted to Zinc. Oh, and, actually, again, kind of the intro thing.
So, again, these aren’t chronological, but so there was a Zinc segment and then there was a C4 segment and each of those were presented by the other two co founders. And, again, I don’t think it’s been stated publicly exactly how many team members are left, but, you definitely see that the two founders or all the founders stepping up,
in different capacities, but definitely the…
chief technical officer. I don’t anyways, the one Floyd…brother who does the technology and the other one who does the game design. So, they both did the, presentations of their, obviously, areas of focus. So, but I’ve said this before, every time you get a chance to hear from them I mean, one, you hear the passion, and two, they have the skills. I mean, they know what they’re doing.
This is, yeah, they know what they’re doing. So, anyways, again, this will be kind of an all over the map, whatever pops in my head I wanna talk about. So, anyways, on Zinc, it was again reiterated, and I’ve kind of stated that too that, you know, c four needs to launch on Zinc and Zinc needs to launch with c four. So they are definitely tied together. there was a little bit of the history of why we got to this point of zinc.
again, it was, I didn’t even realize this. They mentioned that it was almost too expensive to test original things because, they had to get Solana, and they even said they got, like, a ten…thousand dollar grant from the Solana Foundation, I thought, just for testing purposes. And, I mean, I don’t know how much that was back then, but, I mean, that would be very expensive. I it’s a lot of money. But, anyways, but they said, yeah.
It was, it just wasn’t working. So that’s one of the reasons they actually developed their own internal copy or clone. And then, of course, we had the transaction fee problem for all the gamers. And so, I guess, in hindsight, this was all kind of a natural progression to get to where they’re controlling their own blockchain. And, they did mention they pretty much been developing it in one capacity or another, I e, for their own testing purposes, and then finally as an actual product for over three years.
So, again, this isn’t like when this was announced, I feel like last year. Again, it was already…
a product or the thing, the technology they were using internally. So so the big…
things they mentioned was…
developer yeah. Developer documentation has been released…
I’m not sure where. Maybe I think some of this was in the announcement channel in Discord, but I need to go back now that I’ve heard the town hall and kinda go back to that. so that’s been out there, and then they were talking again about hopefully this they need to start doing some outreach to get hardware, validators, and things like that. So…
that’s there. They also mentioned the bridge, which if I remember correctly, this is how we’ll be able to take, Solana assets from Solana…
blockchain to the Zynch blockchain. they did mention this again was homegrown. they’re starting to test it with this thing, and again, I am I don’t know everything about I don’t know anything about blockchains. But, there was a lot of emphasis about the bridge and the security and there hasn’t been an audit, but they can’t afford it. And so, again, not sure I’m following all that, but it definitely sounds like stuff that’s important.
So…
next, they mentioned, the road map to launch. So it sounds like and, again, I’m kinda piecing together parts here that because Zynq had been…in use within…internal things, that this is a very mature product. And so, as soon as, I’ll get to that. But, again, they know what to do next, and that’s all been mapped out and things like that to actually launch sync. So…
it was also mentioned, I think it was a community question about, the origin season. Again, what we’re doing right now with sync, and, again, stated and it’s been stated before that, you know, this will end right before they launch. So and then there was one new thing which is the, I think I wrote down, claim investing portal. So on the Zinc website they have a test version of how you’ll be able to claim your…
airdrop. Zynq. Yeah. I get it. I’m not sure I got it all used right terms.
But anyways, how you’re gonna get your experience points converted into…Zynq tokens. And, for this test, apparently, they did a snapshot, so it’s not you’re not gonna get any anyways, but at least you could pretend to claim them. and then some little, additional information that I think has been said before, but I don’t know. It was maybe just kinda put together. Like, apparently, we’re gonna get, like, five percent.
We can claim immediately, and then ninety five percent of our allocation will be vested. And then there was this statement, the longer you wait, the more you keep her. Yeah. Again, I…
maybe this has been spoken I was it wasn’t that it was hard to follow. I just it was hard to follow. So and then there’s something about a hundred and eighty days, and then somebody asked a question. It was mentioned that, well, you can either…claim it all or invest it all or I don’t know. Anyways but, yeah, there’s a whole lot more that needs to be understood there.
But, yeah, there’s that’s why they’re testing it. So, and then somebody asked something about liquidity pools. and again, I don’t understand blockchains, but sounds like these are important. And, yeah, I yeah. Just more I don’t know.
and then near the end of this segment, CEO Michael Wagner did kind of, announce dates, but not exactly, but again, kind of…critical path or, dependencies. So they said once they have the c four PTR figured out, then it’ll be,
three to four months when they can launch Zynq, and then, of course…
Zynq…and c four…
for real, are tied together. So, again, I think that we now have pretty much here’s how it’s gonna happen. So, which, again, it makes perfect sense. This is a test. When they’re done with the test, they’re gonna launch.
So, yeah, the biggest question is how long is the test gonna take, but that’s not a problem because if the product’s not good, there’s no reason to launch it. So sorry. bugs, not good. But, I mean, it has to work. So, so there’s that.
one other thing that kind of came up, small bits in time, and I think, actually, some of this goes back to a foundation post that occurred after the town. I forgot to screen cap it, but I read it. And they were talking like…
they no. It was also mentioned in the town. They gotta reach out to…
people. I mean, they haven’t publicized this. So, I kinda get the feeling too that maybe this three or four month period is when they’ll finally turn on marketing, they’ll finally do outreach, they’ll get everything lined up. because obviously, you can’t launch a blockchain unless you have these validators, and validators are gonna be done by others. So…
but on…the reading between lines, there’s a lot of things that have to still occur. So even though the game could be functional, if nobody’s interested in running these validators or nobody’s interested in setting up these liquidity pools. I’m not sure those are showstoppers, but, again, those seem critical. And, again, that’s not a problem, but, yeah. So there’s…outer dependencies, I guess, we’ll call it.
So, anyways but, nevertheless, it was still good to kinda get all that history, hear about the things that are important, and kinda, again, get this road map of how all this thing rolls out. So, again, this is probably the first time that I can remember that a town hall…
again, I’m not even caring that there wasn’t a date. That is, like, here’s the steps, so here’s all the things that have to occur. So it does, again, read between the lines, sound like they know what to do next. It’s just doing it. And the first step is…this game c four has to be tested and fixed to make it work well.
And but there’s some other things with tutorials and outreach and things like that. So, anyway so, yeah, that was pretty much Zinc. Yeah. I mean, it’s good to hear. And then, the…
I’m not sure with the bulk, but definitely the majority over half about c four. So, so apparently what this, public release is, as was screened up front by…Danny, the chief product officer, is that everything’s available and he totally wanted everybody to be aware. It’s gonna be overwhelming. I think a couple times he talked about god mode. So it…it’s just there.
So it’s like the end of the game at the beginning. When you just start, you just have everything. but, again, it’s for testing. You don’t wanna have anything I mean, you can’t spend time…leveling up and things like that. So, anyway, so yeah.
So, yeah, it’s quote, unquote overwhelming. this is all the first time they mentioned that this is a four x. We used to have I heard the couple times of this term four x game, but then there was, I thought, enhanced to say a four x blockchain game. So I’ve heard of four x before, but I haven’t played them before. And I don’t think that’s real time strategy, but what the demo was sure looked like real time strategy.
So I don’t know, maybe I just need to…
or I know what I was confused by, because I thought…
four x was turn based. But I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, and they can call it whatever they wanna call it. So, so that’s, interesting, and I think also, potentially the way to…market it. hey.
Here’s what we are. so we’re definitely this is not a UE five game. This is a browser based…four x blockchain game. so I think that is, potentially a good thing going forward because I think there was…well, let me back up. You can sell a vision of a grand strategy MMO with all these things, but if you don’t have something you can play, then what do you call it?
And, again, at some points, it was a racing game and it was a multiplayer shooter and all that, which is fine. Pivots happen. Things change. And, again, the team still has this gigantic strategy for this gigantic game, but that’s not gonna…
it can’t happen now, and definitely because of lack of resources, I e, employees. So, so then, Danny mentioned that, apparently, the engineers built something, and then he’s been refining it for months. And they showed a screen cap of what it looked like from the engineers, but, again, it was…engineered, not designed. And so he’s been working on it. And so, kinda that would be cool to see or hear more about that, but that that’s fine.
That’s, you know, behind the scenes or whatever. anyways and then he, started a demo, and he went through everything. So I’m just gonna kinda go down the list of what I wrote down. So, of course, you start the game, put your profiles in. it was mentioned there’s no wallet yet, kind of like call sim, but again, it’s a test.
and then he showed the map,
which again, visually is,
yeah, looks really good, but it still has the DNA of our original Sage, the triangle, upside down triangle, whatever, with the three factions, mentioned on these safe zones. And, again, now you’re starting to see the graphical elements of darker lines to represent safe zone and then where two factions touch and when safe zone and medium risk zone touch. so, again, some of this that never really…had those visual indicators are definitely there. regions, I think he called them. so then he mentioned there was sixty nine regions where there was, I thought he said, fifty two before.
So I’m not really sure the difference. But then regions have systems and I had to rewind it a couple of times, so don’t quote me on this number, but I thought I wrote down he had said there were nine hundred and forty five systems…
Oh, you know, I just realized, are systems planets or planets in systems? So I don’t know. How many planets there are? That’d be a good question. Yeah.
Anyways, I wonder how many planets there are.
that’s actually a really good question…
Question. Anyway. okay. So then he went through…
movement…so, yeah, how you move around. So there’s, the standard ones, the subwarp, the warp, and now they’re the…
jump gates. No. I don’t think that’s the right term. Warp gates. I don’t know.
It’s things that make you go faster, and he was showing off the graphics, how that works. briefly looked at mining, scanning, tried to do some combat. Wasn’t…
that impressive, but it sounds like the two ships didn’t actually…fight each other. So, but again, it’s a test release. They’re get ships closer and something happens. So we’ll see how that goes. as mentioned that the planets have a finite number of claim stake slots.
So, yeah. So because claim stakes go in there. Showed how fleets are formed. Showed things about, ship configuration and how exhaustive that or extensive that is. Then went into some crafting, then the crafting habs, which apparently function very similar to claim stakes.
And if I remember, the habs are on the star bases, I think, and claim stakes are on the planets. So, again, we’ll see…how good my memory of things. claim stakes, I was talking about the…
seeing the resources on the planets, something about rent. kinda I was glossed over really quickly, so, don’t know. Yeah. I’m just rent. Okay.
then, claim stakes have buildings, and then the key was, again, claim stakes are auto crafting and no crafting fees unlike the other things. So…and then, he mentioned the council rank, which was the fourth thing. And…
yeah, I’ve always thought this one’s been kind of not promoted much. And, again, this was hour plus, so every one of these areas probably got five minutes and then moved on. So…
but it, kind of started clicking now that you’re seeing something again about leveling up, but there was, like, careers involved and other things, and then you might need Atlas and you might need resources. And yeah. Anyway, so it’s and it’s near the end and I met after two plus hours. So…
Yeah. It was just a lot there. So yeah. And then they mentioned, there’s a entire bug reporting…mechanism and they really encourage everybody to report anything.
this was kind of the thing that that’s why they’re doing this. So they want all feedback and they were kinda talking. This is where they really can enhance the game, obviously, fix things that aren’t working and things like that. they briefly mentioned something about a daily check-in, but I didn’t really figure that out. And then, kind of a new thing that got brought in was, cultivation claims.
they said these are gonna be similar to claim stakes, but will produce different resources. and then there’s something about seeds, and then there’s something about the other company that…involve TOEKS that they…used to have and I don’t yeah. It was I remember some of this a couple years ago, but kind of not there. And then they announced, yeah, it’s all live, but, unfortunately, I don’t remember what the URL is. But, again, I think it was in the Discord…
announcement feed. So, and then they had a little bit of questions and answers. One that I wrote down was, I guess, our Sage experience would transfer over, but I don’t think this is our…experience in Zinc. I think those are independent. So…I don’t remember.
Maybe this is somehow…things we’ve been doing at Sage will translate to…
council rank? I get I don’t know. But, again, it was fine. It was a demo of everything and anything. and then one of the last things I mentioned, was that the work on Halsim will be paused.
They want both the community to focus on the PTR, but also they can pull developer developers to work on…improvements. So and then the last thing they mentioned was they are, having a two week promotional sale. they’re gonna sell the cultivation claims, and a couple new ships, were released. And I think there’s…
a, if you buy it, there’s some crew you’ll get air dropped…in two weeks. Not sure. I can’t remember. Again, that one, I know there’s an announcement. I just…I skimmed it before the town hall, but it didn’t make any sense.
Now it does. So, anyways, yeah, so that was a very, quick overview well, quick overview, even though it wasn’t quick, of a very long town hall. So, again, if you want…
the, full, recordings for us TV, if you’re listening to this podcast feed a couple days ago, my AI summary came out. I actually didn’t read it. Sorry. I just created it this no. Actually, I created it this morning.
Sorry. What am I thinking? Yeah. I created it this morning. So I just I didn’t read it, but maybe I’ll listen to it myself.
But…
whatever the AI thought was important is what the AI put in it. So check that out. So, anyways, yeah, that’s, pretty much it. I guess to wrap up on my thoughts on the Town Owl, yeah, definitely, hit all the right points. Here’s what we’re building.
We built it. We’re ready to test it. And once we’re done testing, we’re gonna launch it, and there’ll be a product out there. So, I don’t wanna kinda sound whatever, but I’m I mean, it’s…not that I’m complaining it’s been a long time coming, but I think there is just that natural tendency. We felt like we’ve been here before.
however, they have never shown anything that truly…looks like a finished I shouldn’t say that. They have never shown anything that looks like a completed gaming game…
What they call them, loops? Game gameplay loops? Anyways, you know, I’m not taking away from the multiplayer. it was functional. People were having fun with it…
I guess it diff maybe, again, just from my perspective, you know, when mine having a multiplayer, when the mine racing…
yeah, single player never was totally released. It’s been a work in progress. So this one feels like this four x blockchain game that I’m like, oh, okay. I get it. And…
definitely nailed our assets are involved, ships are involved, claim stakes are involved…
Oh, actually they haven’t released crafting habs. Or do we…I don’t think we have those yet. But anyway, but it’s definitely a continuation of all the predecessors of the versions of Sage that have come out and so it and…it looks good. I mean, it looks…again, I don’t wanna sound whatever, but it looks like a real game. And again, obviously, everything they built looks real, but I guess I’m more saying that…I could see playing it, because the current version of Sage, especially with automation, is, not playing it.
I’m just letting my laptop do it. actually, that’s another good point. How will we automate this…
I mean, I don’t think you automate combat. That seems like something you would do you’d have to do manually. I don’t know. That’ll be an interesting thing to see how the automation tool, builders, interpret this because I mean, like…
like, building or wait. See. Claim stakes…are placed…crafting haves are placed and then you configure them. I mean, that doesn’t sound like you need automation for configuring. And it did say that the, claim stakes are auto crafting.
I don’t know if the crafting habs are. Combat, again, that feels like…
you’re gonna do it yourself. council rank, that’s just a thing. though it did I think he talked about tree build up leveling. But I guess mining still has to occur…
oh, Yeah Okay. So crafting habs auto, but mining by ships still exists on asteroids.
So that could be automated. And…transporting things definitely needs automation. There wasn’t any talk about that. So may maybe it’s again, I’m totally speculating now, that all the current…actions, mining, scanning, transport still would benefit by automation. But all the new stuff…seems to be more about configuration and then auto…
well, like, with exception of combat. Anyway, who knows? Again, this is the first real, look at all of this stuff. So, anyways, yeah. So, I mean, again, very impressed, very, enthusiastic about actually getting into something.
don’t think it’s gonna come next week. I mean, it sounds like there’s gonna be a lot of bugs. But, you know, whatever this testing time, it’s the right it’s a necessary thing to occur. and then…when they feel like they’re a place in the development of or in the…
when they’re in a place…
of milestones within the testing, then they can start going on the zinc rollout, which is getting sounded like they have that plan. It’s just really they won’t start…
the…
first step until they know where they’re at on the testing. So yeah. So that’s pretty much it. just wrap up real quick. My journey, still playing Sage, doing some mining, reserving our resources, so I’m transporting stuff around, and, yeah, pretty much the same thing.
I guess one funny thing now that I’ve seen that thing, yeah, it makes the current thing just seem totally…two d or not two d, but just…yeah. Just, yeah, boring, I guess. Or just, again, the lead. But, again, what we have now was so much better than what we had before. So it’s a natural progression, but, yeah, it’s definitely time to move into this kind of…interface and everything like that.
So, anyway so, yeah, just to wrap up. Again, if anyone wants to be a guest on a podcast, please go to my website, intergalactic carol dot com, contact page. Reach out on Discord. Again, while you’re on my,
website, check out all the old stuff about Star Atlas. Yeah. I haven’t even thought about new content yet, but I guess to keep with my…
traditional thing until something’s released. And then many months after that, I I’m not a news content creator. So, but I would love to well, again, we’ll see what the beginners part of what I did was because I just didn’t I think there was an opportunity to help beginners, but, there was talk about tutorials and game and things like that. So it may not be as necessary to have things, which that’s okay. served its purpose.
I still…like what I created, so we’ll see. Inner, intergraphic gear dot com, my merch store, and Intergrafted Coalition, my, future community. So, anyways, thanks for listening. That was this, past week in Star Atlas. I’m Matt with Intergrafted Herald.
Have a great week ahead.