Star Atlas Event Recap 61: Atlas Brew #189

In this episode, hear an AI summary of the latest Star Atlas community event.  Full video recordings can be found on the YouTube channel of Star Atlas TV at https://www.youtube.com/@staratlastv.

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Star Atlas Event Summary

Hi, this isn’t Matt with the Intergalactic Herald. I am an AI. Welcome to a Star Atlas Recap of the latest Atlas Brew from the Star Atlas Community Team. The following summary of the Atlas Brew was AI generated so no guarantee it is 100% accurate because I am an AI after all. If you want to listen to the entire recording, please check out the YouTube channel of Star Atlas TV. Enjoy the summary. The latest Star Atlas “Brew 189” was an explosive session dedicated entirely to the core engines of the galaxy: C4 (Sage) and Holos Sim. Hosted by Xcode, John, and Jim, the mood was electric, filled with deep-dive theory crafting and major alpha drops about where our empire-building adventures are headed. First off, the team confirmed that the launch window for Holos Sim Chapter 2 is “super close,” though they’re still holding off on a hard date. But they didn’t hold back on revealing the chaos currently unfolding in the testing environment. John shared that the current issues with allied NPCs getting wrecked by rival factions are actually an intentional, algorithmic feature. The more heavily your faction mines in a sector, the more attention you draw from the hostile Ecosystem Operation Services (EOS) NPCs. It’s a moment of pure, lore-consistent chaos, designed to start testing how hostile NPCs will interact with player mining rates—a mechanic that will feature heavily in the next chapter. This discussion naturally led into the philosophy underpinning C4, or as Jim prefers to call it, the next iteration of Sage. Holos Sim, which was never intended to exist in its current form, started as a zero-fee onboarding tutorial that grew into its own testing ground for fast-turnover features like quest systems and automation. Sage, on the other hand, remains the definitive Web3 economic and empire management game. C4 is essentially the “architectural toolkit” that will bring more complexity. The community provided clear feedback during the event, emphasizing that they want to port the best parts of Holos—namely, the rich quest progression, the NPC systems, and PvE content—into the deeper, higher-stakes Sage environment. The theory crafting session hit a fever pitch when the panel debated the concept of safe zones. John firmly pushed for their eradication, arguing that players should instead be protected by a visible, overwhelming force of faction NPCs—say, a fleet of Titan ships guarding the border—rather than magical barriers. This led to an agreement that this kind of immersive, militarized protection would be far more compelling, even if it requires players to field their own enormous forces to breach enemy territory. As a major piece of alpha, the team also revealed that Faction Reputation is coming in future game modes, allowing players to ally themselves with—or alienate—even rogue factions. Looking far ahead, the conversation shifted to massive future developments. Xcode outlined a must-have feature for C4: political gameplay loops. This system would integrate the various DAOs, regional governments, and the Council of Peace, transforming them into the primary quest givers. Players would receive missions aimed at expanding their organization’s influence, tying political strategy directly to gameplay. Meanwhile, Jim pitched an ambitious, game-changing concept to respect players’ real-world obligations: AI Agents. Imagine having an autonomous agent that you can instruct to manage your claim stakes, run your supply chains, and even negotiate political deals on your behalf while you’re offline. This idea, which could open up entirely new economic loops tied to crew and skill progression, was enthusiastically embraced by the community, as was the long-overdue need for an integrated Guild/DAC system that supports organized play, group warping, and battle battalions. Finally, the team addressed the technical turbulence caused by the recent transition away from the costly Starcom V2 infrastructure to direct RPCs. While many players reported extreme lag during this period, Jim explained that this move was necessary due to the old system’s astronomical operational costs. The current issues are being fixed in real-time and, crucially, this transition serves as a vital stress test for the upcoming Holos launch, ensuring the foundational technology—which will eventually lead to the Zinc Network—is validated and ready for launch. As the Brew wrapped up, the message was clear: expect continuous iteration, new chaos in Holos Sim, and truly ambitious new features coming to the Sage universe. Don’t forget, there’s a Galia Gaming Night this Friday—use the code Nagash Mixmax—and keep an eye out, because the next wave of Star Atlas releases is imminent!

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Star Atlas Event Transcript

Morning or afternoon wherever you are in the world. can’t hear you. >> No, we could see you but we can’t hear you.

No, >> we got to like Yeah, reinvite him. >> Maybe. Maybe.

>> Oh, good.

Good afternoon to you now, Xcode.

It’s been so long since we talked. Long time. Long time.

>> What about now? >> Yeah, we can hear you now. Ah, >> there you go.

>> Oh, thank God. How’s everyone doing? >> Good.

>> All good. All good. Ah man, I’m happy today.

I’m happy today. John and Jim, I got to host very interesting topic on today’s brew. am almost done with all my commercials, all my reviews for Hollow Sim.

Things are looking good. Things are looking good. And yeah, things are coming together.

This is good.

This is good. Uh, Funk Cracker is saying that he’s sad because he never get to see you, John, on stage.

Yeah, I’m like debating whether or not should turn this on and invite you into my messy office here. >> Feed the fish. >> Yeah.

Can you guys hear that? Can you hear the fish tank today? >> No.

No. >> filled it up with water, so there’s no splashing. >> Yeah, >> virtual background.

don’t know if Linux supports that. >> It doesn’t. It doesn’t support it.

He knows me too well. Uh All right, everyone. >> All you Linux fans that love self torture, love it.

>> Yeah, self torture. Let’s give everyone minute or two to join because this topic today is going to be fire and I’m sure the community will want to engage because uh the theory crafting and the alpha that we are going to talk about today they will inform the future release of products of Star Atlas.

So, if you guys in the audience, you come up with some interesting stuff, if you guys come up with some good ideas, uh maybe they make into one of our games, C4 or Hollowim. Gaz is saying, “The baby’s kicking my ass. ” Yes, she is.

Gas, not easy.

Not easy. Today was with her from midnight to 5:00 a. m.

[laughter] >> remember remember those days.

Yes. >> You remember those days?

Yes. >> Yes.

It’s was there in the darkness looking to the wall trying to figure out if there would ever come to me. It eventually did. It eventually did.

But yes, it is.

It’s surely interesting.

But the show must go on.

There’s no rest for the wicked. And we have lot to cover.

We have lot to cover here. Gazner is just saying we need alcohol, weed, or cocaine.

That’s problem. don’t use none of those substances. I’ll need to >> I’m drinking tea today.

So, yeah, >> maybe tea. I’ll hit V. He will fix me something good.

Okay, think we have enough people to start.

Welcome to Brew 189 C4 and Hollowos mix. Today uh Jim, John and Jose are going to explore the two main onchain games of Star Atlas.

We are going to discuss the rationale uh that informs each game development, how things evolved through time and what the present and the future of those products look like.

So you guys are going to learn everything from the guys who are literally building all those systems. You guys will be able to participate in our crazy theory crafting about the new mechanics, the new stuff that we are working on. And hopefully we’ll come out of this brew with more ideas, more alpha and lots of fun.

We are really close, really close to being able to release Hollow Sing. John will kill me for saying this, but it is true. [laughter] We are not doing dates yet, but we are super close to that.

Super close to that.

We are excited. C4 PTR is also evolving well. And if actually if you are paying attention to holosene, you are already able to experience some of the things that you’ll be uh engaging with in the next chapter.

Uh only players have been complaining on the chat that the only NPCs are getting wrecked by the NPCs of other factions. It is pure chaos now in hollow scene as we test the limits. >> can tell them why that’s happening since everybody’s asking.

>> You’re going to explain, John, what’s going on there? >> Yep. >> Okay.

>> Uh so the algorithm that we’ve designed matches the NPC’s response to the mining rate of the fleet in that sector.

So if you are Anie and you guys are ripping all these materials out of the ground, the EOS are going to take notice and they’re going to spawn ships and they are going to destroy you.

So uh yeah, if you if you have particular sector that’s getting hit really heavily, that’s that’s the reason why. Um >> yeah, so so just don’t mine and you’ll be fine. [laughter] >> That’s simple, right, John?

Don’t mine in holos. Everything will be fine. The eagles will be happy.

you won’t be targeted. >> So yeah, guys, uh and as you if you have been following the Statatus lore, that’s precisely what the EOS do. Whenever they see someone having fun making money and mining resources, they go over there and terraform your star bases.

And we figured that it would be something really fun to bring to Holene to get our NPC systems started to start testing how NPCs will work in Star Atlas. Are you guys liking it? Because it’s going to get lot more ugly in the actual season.

You guys will need to fight off the EOS.

It’s going to be blast. Really looking forward to that. I’m sorry, guys.

I’m reading the chat as well, having fun.

But with that piece of alpha that John just shared, this is also something that uh will continue when we release the chapter 2 of Holene. You the the NPC’s algorithm in chapter 2 will be based on the mining rates of each one of the factions.

So, see Agent Solace saying that he can’t wait to fight Galaxy World bosses. Maybe you’ll see something like that happening at the end of this chapter 2 as well.

No promises, but who knows. And yeah, but let’s get started. Let’s get started.

Let’s get started.

We have lot to talk and wanted to get started here and Joe and Jim surely have lot of content to add to this conversation uh with brief summary of the history of those two products, right? Because holos is how can we put it John? Holosene was never intended to exist, right?

[laughter] It was fortunate accident. We could say it like that. How would you say it, John?

>> So, so like Polyim in its current form wasn’t the original design. And it was meant to be um developed along with the C4 um the Sage upgrade called C4 and it was intended to be an onboarding like zero fee >> tutorial something like >> tutorial.

Yeah, an onboarding thing for for C4.

So the top of funnel would be the hollow sim tutorial and that system would be reset regularly so that new people could come in and experience it and then they would get transferred over to the the mainet product.

So um as things with C4 um they were progressing slower than than we had hoped and the hollison product had matured quite quickly.

So we decided to release it on its own and um take the good pieces from that and help inform uh C4 development uh from our learning experiences.

So, so we’re we’re helping stress test Atlas Net, which is ultimately going to become the Zinc Network, and we’re uh doing like fast turnover um testing of new features that we think will align well with the gameplay of Sage Labs as after it’s incorporated the C4 um tool set.

So, yeah, that’s kind of the that’s how the hollow thing got started. Anyway, >> yeah. And from there it gained lot of popularity, right?

Hol scene has very interesting premises that deferred from C4. Like everyone starts at the same place.

It’s the journey of zero to hero.

We have the quest system.

We have now, for example, the achievement systems.

We have NPCs.

We have inbuilt automation in game automation as well.

So it start growing, right? And uh for me it has been blast working with the holoscin team because we just go like man what if we did this and then 48 hours later that thing is already being tested. This thing is already happening.

Since we don’t have economic consequences as C4, we have lots of room for creativity, for fun, and to just test stuff.

You know, something like for example, you guys will remember this in the previous chapter of Hollow Scene, we had combat permits, uh merchant permits, data runner permits. We we thought this would be good idea.

And then also we added this to the game. It turned out that people really didn’t like this.

So this was something that we learned getting stuff getting ship crafting on things that players cannot can only obtain through few quests and daily stuff. They don’t like it.

So we already removed it from this next chapter and we are going to roll with totally different system that you guys will be testing. And think this is the beauty of holosene. Parallel to that we have C4 which has total different vibes.

think Jim was saying what uh this before our conversation here. C4 is like building your intergalactic empire in total different pace with supply chains, money on the table.

It’s like the ultimate adrenaline game, right Jim? How do you feel about the vision for C4 here before we start going over the the interactions between the products? >> Yeah.

No, I think it’s good way to put it.

Yeah. I’m really excited about the the vision of C4, you know, and to kind of add little bit of spice to to again Yeah. Hollow Sim kind of origin of this.

Hey, you know, lot of people come to Star Atlas, lot of people look at at Sage, but they don’t have wallet. They’re not web 3, and so they leave. Like, how could we make walletless experience and an easy onboarding, right?

Um, and and you know, even kind of the concept of free-to-play game. Um, and and like you said, without necessarily real world consequences financially, right? And you So, C4, yeah, ultimately, like I’ve said before, to me, games are about choices.

what what how many choices you get and then what is what’s the layer of each choices? how is it approachable but yet very very deep and engaging um as you get more and more into it. And so C4 is ultimately taking that that empire management that’s you know and obviously now there’s going to be combat but but you know there comes this whole character creation and skill trees and what they call council rank right which I’ll be I’ll admit is bit confusing at first but ultimately it’s it’s skill tree right it’s it’s what you can do um and and and benefits that that that can unlock and so you have to you have to earn the skills and so you get just lot of more complex decision making and lot more complex um you know there’s so many more configurations and so much more stuff to do um and and how they all tie together um and that that is really think going to be the the the gist of you know the this next release of Sage and think it is very important to think of Sage as game and C4 as the next kind of release of Sage and uh you know Xcode had talked lot about that in our in our pre in preview.

We do actually try to like prep for this so don’t just ramble like an idiot.

But um so um so you know, but other thing too that also wanted to talk about kind of if you think about how MMOs, you know, because ultimately Star Atlas is an MMO. Um, if you think about it, you know, there’s there there’s events that happen in the season seasonal cadence and, you know, in World of Warcraft and and EverQuest, their expansion packs and the lore change and things happen and there’s epic galaxywide stuff that has to happen and and Hollow Sim has been kind of way for us to to explore that. Um, and also because it is an MMO to make it um, you know, to make it uh, social, right?

So that’s why there’s faction chat in there, right?

And then it’s also kind of playground for, okay, what if we were to build this agentic assistant, which isn’t agentic yet, but this sage assistant, right, that can be there to help you learn how to play the game and to be someone to strategize with, uh, you know, and and not necessarily have everything just flow to Discord. Um, which don’t mind Discord if it if it wasn’t kind of the land of of scammers as well as such as well as great community members, right? Um, but but having kind of that social aspect and having that that piece of it too.

So, do think uh fairly quickly C4 will see lot of that social activity. think faction chat will be there very very soon.

But but those are other things that think don’t we’re getting I’m getting ahead of my skis here because like to talk.

But >> no worries. >> Ultimately, yeah, ultimately C4 is that that empire management web 3 resource supply chain.

But again, lots there’s going to be lots of combat. The first in C4 is combat and combat will have territory and control and think lot of people got to see the the the the first iteration of that in the first season of Hollow Sim.

So, uh the C41 will be more complex uh probably by the end of PTR, but think the beginning of PTR will have the kind of what Hollow Sim has today and then we’re going to start to again tweak that. Um, so if anybody’s looked at the Sage editor tools, they can see what the vision of combat for C4 will be uh in in the future without the auto resolution of the entire combat, which is just there for simulation purposes. >> Awesome, Jim.

And think this is good transition to the main topic of today. Uh, the idea of how we mix or how we can synergize the two products together. really want to see and let me know in the chat guys what kind of features from Holosine would you see would you like to see in C4 and what kind of features from C4 would you like to see in hollow scene like what’s the most important thing for you that one product has that the other product don’t have at least for now this is super helpful for us So, uh, see lot of people typing the chat.

Groove just said fun. And this is funny because we spoke about that. Laror is saying, “Holy into C4.

Lots of ship crafting.

Nice. ” Yes, this is something important. really want to >> definitely don’t want to see Jindo in bikini.

I’ll just put it that way.

So, >> Jesus, Jindo. Agent Sol is saying automation combat NPC PFP AI patrol proper progression. Do you want to just do you want to talk little bit more about this?

Let me know. Uh combat is nice but any chance of rescue and repair operations with the rescue ships?

This is very interesting topic. We should talk about this gang ganging mud from both sides. Jesus.

Teddy bear. Uh, fun cracker is saying the mission quest progression plus NPC fleets.

Okay. Uh, PVE into C4. PVP is fun, but all the time it gets tiring and lot of friction.

So from what get here, John, funny thing is that most people want to see more elements of the holosin design into the C4 design. And think the main thing that they want to see is the quest progression, which think is super cool. Uh they want to see the NPC system.

Flamingo legend.

Welcome to the brew. I’m glad you you’re here. Uh you want to see PvE content and what else was there?

>> Mhm. >> I think those [clears throat] were that you >> Yeah, this actually uh brings me back to conversation we had just before the brew. Um, and was saying that C4 is architectural toolkit in lot of ways.

It’s it’s all these tools and these new programs and it gives us great big set of tools that we can work with to create fun game on top of our team. While that tool set was being built went, what are the fun game things? What can we do?

What what’s cool about combat? What what’s the pacing going to look like? what’s um what’s territory control going to feel like and what what do you get for owning territory?

So, we’ve been experimenting with all of those things.

So, when hear C4, think of tool set and we’ll have to come up with some kind of name or we’ll just have to adapt the name C4 to actually mean the game loops and the activities that we’re going to build with with that tool set as well. um and take it take that conversation in that direction.

So um yeah, lot of the Yeah. Go ahead, Jim. >> said, would it be better to just kind of frame it as Sage?

Just keep calling it Sage. Exactly. >> Because yeah, like you said, C4 is is like chapter of Sage that will add all this other Yeah.

So So yeah.

So Sage, we’ll just call it Sage and Holim maybe. >> Yep. >> Okay.

So, Sage has new tool set and Hollow Sim has bunch of now vetted um gameplay loops and we’re going to take and start porting those over. And I’ve I’ve seen some of that already uh talking with uh Eve with Xenor. um he’s been taking UI elements and adding them and we’ve been discussing how to add quests and um uh you know we want to we want to chapter 2 is very story chapter 2 of Hollow Sim is very storyelling like it’s there’s lot of very rich storytelling in in the game and it’s we’re going to see if that type of narrative is something that you guys really like or if you’d like um even more or if you want it in smaller doses, but think you’re really going to like how the story is delivered.

And it will inform how Sage storyline goes. And um do like thinking of hollow sim as these isolated snapshots in time and as sage as having like Sage timeline has already started and it’s you know it’s linear and holy can just be anywhere we want it to be.

So that’s pretty.

Yes, >> this is something that’s really important for us because hol scene the way that the holos scene lore exists is that every scenario of hol scene is simulation.

So can go super crazy with the lore of hol scene because it’s literally hollow scene the AI creating scenario with the variables that he wants to create. On the other hand, the C4 lore is the actual world lore of Staratlas.

So there is less room for going crazy with [laughter] [gasps] the lore in C4. It it needs to be something that drives the game in micro extent but also allow the players to have that impact be relevant in micro or minor scale in the game as well. have some ideas uh have some ideas on how this can play out uh and want to share with you guys later during this brew.

But for now, this is something that we need to keep in mind that we need to be we need to take care with the cannon of the stratus lore because uh this will have if depends on me at least it will have real world impact in C4 and I’ll give you an example here for example I’ll give you an example here for example was bad but you guys got what wanted to say uh the eco’s base in the official lore of Star Atlas is in hanging gardens. It is re it’s sector inside territory.

So when when we are talking about uh C4 environment and we add NPCs in those environment, the EOS base must be on that sector to keep the lore consistent. And every sector they have their own NPC forces. They have their own NPCs with their own dynamics.

Every region has their own planets. Every planet has their own characteristics.

So while in hollow scene we can we have lot of room to experiment. C4 will be the live MMO world of Star Atlas. think this is super cool but this is also something that will be we should be super careful as well.

But it’s going to be fun. promise we are going to to develop quest system that allows you guys the freedom to explore those sectors and systems, but also don’t constrain everyone into main story line.

That’s how feel about this. Anyway, not sure about you, John, and and Jim, but that’s how would play this. >> Agree.

Yeah, it’s it’s and and and again having that whole hollowome concept and framework allows us to be very creative, right? You [snorts] know, um and to really, you know, do some pretty creative stuff that, like you said, doesn’t necessarily fit into the main narrative of the Star Atlas, right?

So, >> yes.

Yes. >> Oh, we just got we just got we just got shout out from Sante.

Hey Sati, glad to have you in the audience my friend. How is Dubai? hope everything is well over there.

All right, so Larino pointed something John that feel it’s really really interesting system. I’m not sure if we are able to do this on season one, but really like the way that territory works in C4. The way that the safe zone is not fixed place.

It moves as the factions expand that territory, etc. , etc. , creating new medium zones, creating new safe zones.

How do you feel about this as mechanic? Do you think this would work in hall? I really like this concept honestly >> like like new zones in general or expanding safe zones.

>> Expanding safe zones like if you capture star base, you open flank in your enemy and you can now attack more systems. And >> you want my personal opinion? >> Yes.

This is the place to give us >> no safe zone. [clears throat] That that that’s my personal opinion is there shouldn’t be safe zone. >> There shouldn’t exist safe zone.

>> No. >> Yeah, I’d say >> chat. How you feel about this opinion?

>> How do you feel about this opinion? >> Fun disagrees with you. You are wrong.

>> So So no safe zone, but I’ll caveat that. the the the the faction NPCs would just the way then you you wander into Orgramar as level one, you know, night elf rogue or whatever, they’re going to see you and they’re going to destroy you.

So the safe zone itself wouldn’t exist, but the like like where it’s this immunity, but um your faction would have eyeballs on people and your reputation, which is thing that’s coming to Hollow Sim and hopefully to C4, uh your reputation would dictate how quickly the NPC aggros you kind of thing. >> Um yeah, so there >> two two things here. First, John dropped major piece of alpha.

Factions reputation is something that’s coming in the future game modes, which think is very cool. By the way, you’re being able to ally yourself with rogue factions and everything. Second thing, uh actually really can’t say that disagree with John here.

Like don’t like creating place where magically you are immune to all attacks. Everything is everything is awesome like the Lego world movie.

But really like the idea of having of the mud faction stationing five Titan ships at the borders of their faction safe zone and anyone from other factions that try to come there to harm the citizens of the mud get wrecked pretty much instantaneously. really like this idea, John. I’ll change my opinion.

think it should be this way. Fun crackers saying he’ll compromise with your view. >> Yeah.

Well, think safe zones in MMOs and mo and you know, they’ve come out of this kind of gameplay mechanic like you said like new players need place to learn the game and they can’t just be pawned right away, right?

You know, the spawn camping, that kind of stuff, right? And that’s so so you create this magical force field barrier in the game. Call it safe zone.

It gives people place to explore, right?

So ultimately, if you create safe zone by having 50 Titan ships, you know, instantly able to warp immediately and know exactly what you’re, you know, what you’re, you know, and they’re able to just instantly destroy you. Um, mean, it’s ultimately the same thing, but do think it’s more immersive to do it that way, right? And think more people would be like, “Yeah, you know, ultimately that, you know, um, and it creates this whole weird, it may create really interesting gameplay loop where people try to like speedrun in and, you know, see if they can get through and how many ships they can destroy with, you know, with fleets they want to just kind of throw away, right?

You know what mean?

So, it creates really interesting gameplay mechanics. Um but uh yeah, no it’s it’s it’s cool idea and I also agree with it especially you know as and again don’t want to be giving away Hollison but you’ve already talked about it and also people are beginning to see it.

we have this ability to to to create NPCs and have them algorithmically make decisions, right? Um and so we could have again exactly police force that was is uber powerful in the safe zones, right? And you know, potentially really interesting gameplay mechanic would be for one faction to try to build fleet big enough to see if they could make an an impact on the the the other factions core central space station gameplay area, right?

So >> yeah, man, >> it would be really cool.

Yeah. mean, let’s let’s imagine here like if you want to attack safe zone, you would need fleet with something like few commanders with capitals or even Titan ship. Would you spend all this money because you are going to send your ships there, they’ll have their components and when they die, you’re going to lose those components.

You’re going to lose all the cargo. You’re losing everything. Would you spend that amount of money just to grief noobs in the safe zone?

>> I’m not sure. Maybe maybe it’s good thing if someone does that.

You know what I’m saying? This movement the economy. [laughter] >> Yeah, would.

[snorts] >> mean, you just never know, right? mean, you think about think about like watching my son when he was 12-year-olds play whatever Call of Duty and they spent however many what $300 million to make the most immersive, you know, uh, military combat game and basically bunch of 12-year-olds were running around seeing what they could blow up, right?

You know what mean? Like, you just don’t know what happens when your baby goes into the wild when your game, you know, comes out there.

So, >> um, True. >> Yeah, it definitely interesting. Yep.

All right, guys.

So, anything else the audience would like to see or discuss on the the features that could move from C4 to hollow scene and from hollow scene to C4?

Yes, Lar >> like to discuss dates.

You know, one thing and know you’re looking at thing, but other thing was thinking of as Xcode was talking.

So, so as we think about C4 as toolkit, excuse me, you know, ultimately there’s there’s an underlying re we we redid the map, right? We redid how we calculate space and allows for much finer grain uh you know like was don’t know what was being shared but like you know looking at the latest build ships actually having interaction zones right areas where they can interact.

So it’s not like you just have ship in sector and now it can shoot any other ship in that sector no matter how far they are.

Right? Because now now as fundamental building block of C4 is this much finer grain uh coordinate system. I’m sorry was searching for that word previously coordinate system.

And so, you know, when when the hollowsim team decides, hey, it’s time to upgrade to the next set of Sage blockchain programs, they’re going to open up that whole world of actual, you know, true finite coordinate systems. Um, and you know, your pure sex, you know, your your whatever, you know, your your triple small bike, your XXS small bike ship isn’t going to enability to attack ship on the other side of the sector, right? And it’s going to kind of change how combat works and all that kind.

So that’s something to think about too um as people think about how C4 can begin to fit into Hollowosome 2, right? And and yeah, there’s obviously um uh you know there’s crafting habs and there’s planet habs and there’s the whole skill trees and those kind of things. Um that again think when hollow just you know when the hollow team moves to that next they’re going to have to incorporate that stuff because that that’s built into the interconnectivity of the C4s are kind of built into each other.

And this is something interesting actually. You touch it, Jim.

Guys in the audience, do you think we should bring the claim stake systems, the way that they work right now to hollow sim? Is this something that you guys would like to see more in hollow scene?

Yeah, I fear it would be mixed response.

That’s why asked it. Let’s see. Fun cracker say he’s not sure.

G8 says would be nice. Moody says yes. Katy says GM.

Laren is worried that it might break the very dynamic pace of holosene. Chap saying not really simplified version.

Yeah. see people people are pretty divided on this one. [laughter] This is interesting because and let’s let’s summarize here the main points.

The claims stake system is totally different mechanic of how mining works right now in hollowim. Uh the way that we have mining working is just you get your ships especially in this chapter mining ships you’ll have lots of trouble if you try to mine with ships that are not miners.

So you get those ships you send them to sector and they start mining. Pretty easy straightforward everyone is happy etc etc. If we add claim stakes, the claimstake mechanics requires you to get claim stake on ship, bring that claim stake to sector, deploy that claim stake to planet, build the buildings that compon compound the claim stake into the planet and start the mining operation on those said claim state constructions.

As you can see, this has an entirely different workflow. And for example, if it’s super easy, as it is right now in Holene to destroy star bases, to conquer other factions territory, players won’t simply have the time to build those claim stakes, to start the mining operations.

So this would maybe stall the game.

This is something that I’m not sure how this would work. We would probably need to change the speed of hollow scene. Maybe probably if we are to add claim stake dynamics to to to hollow scene and that’s something that want to hear your guys’ opinions on.

Do we want slower hollow sim? Do we want to add more complexity to the to hollow sim?

Guys, just second. Be right back. >> Yeah.

And and I’m I’m going to kind of add on that because I’m seeing lot of comments on here. Like so think one of the other things about Star Atlas and and kind of a maybe return to development philosophy inside of Atlas inside of Star Atlas of minimal lovable product, right? Like let’s get shipping product out there.

Let’s let’s do PTRs. Let’s get Hollowosim out there. Let’s get Holosim out there with lot of warts.

Let’s fix those warts. Let’s get zinc out there with again people seeing the warts in zinc, right? Like so um you know think do think that when you know lot of what we’re doing now in this theor theory crafting is we’re talking down the road stuff like roadmap things.

These aren’t things that wouldn’t be delaying the next version of of of Hollow Sim, right? The next chapter of Hollow Sim, right? These are things like, okay, how do we figure that out?

And and then there’s also the balance when you talk about scope creep.

Well, okay. If if Hollow Sim is going to diverge on the blockchain side from Sage, now we have to maintain two sets of blockchain because if block if if Hollow Sim starts building onchain functionality that’s different than Sage functionality, now we’ve got lot of scope creep and continuing to maintain two very distinct code bases there, right? which we’ve already got on the client side, but [snorts] and now we’re beginning to see some of that beginning to happen in the in the blockchain side as well, which just adds more developer burden, right?

So there’s there’s balances there um that we’ve got to really focus on and and maybe come up with very creative ways, you know, potentially maybe in Hollow Sim you could hire crafting company or or mining company and they’re the ones that actually go and they’re an NPC that actually starts doing the cl the claim staking for you. Um, so, u, and then guess from the lore, you might be able to answer this better, but hollow sim is like this big, he’s he’s the AI running the hollowosim simulation and guess big part of that is so um, so anyways, like there there’s options that we may be able to do and we may be able to think about. Um, but yeah, you know, as my, you know, kind of official role and people don’t really know my official role is, you know, senior web director overviewing all the like I’m not the lead developer for C4.

That’s that’s XNR.

That’s Eve, right? And I’m not the lead director of Hollison, right?

That’s, you know, that’s Michael Kaine and and uh and Xcode is the, you know, the the product owner of it. Ultimately, from someone who’s kind of trying to overlook all of our web products, >> maintaining that consistency and not having 50 spiders in the code going all different dire splinters, excuse me, in the code going all different direction is something I’m very cognizant of. Uh, [clears throat] so I’ll stop ranting there, but but yeah, ultimately and the other thing was going to say is yes, I’ve I’ve been pushing Star Atlas as well as Brave Target to get back to this concept of release.

Get it out there. We don’t have to spend two years and come out with perfect product because we don’t even know if it’s going to be perfect. Let’s get it into the hands of the of the of our of the players and see what they think.

Let’s adjust quickly. Let’s let’s be more iterative and what they call in the in the scrum world fail faster. Get it out there.

Get feedback. Don’t take that feedback personally and adjust and make the product better faster.

So >> like this, Jim. >> Absolutely. >> think the community think the community likes this as well.

>> Awesome. Awesome. think think we can go into the if you guys don’t have any other topics on that segment.

think we can move on to the last segment. Exactly. G8.

That’s why his screen share never works. He’s an AI >> code is hollow sim hollow. >> Exactly.

>> It might be true. It might be true. [laughter] >> Oh man.

But yes, the last segment, the one that think it’s the most interesting of every segment that we have right here. What we want for the upcoming chapters and developments of C4 and Hollow Sync. mean, chapter 2 is right under around the corner and Michael has forbidden us from sharing more content than what we already have.

So you guys have something new to experience once the chapter starts.

But nothing stops us from thinking about the future, thinking about the upcoming chapters uh and the upcoming updates of C4 and Holy.

So uh I’m not sure where you guys want to start. if you guys want to start for with hol scene of C4.

But something that really want to see in C4, especially in C4 in the future in hollow CS, but maybe in chapter four or five, is the political gameplay loops. For me, this is mustave. And the way that see this, the way that see this is that we can fix two problems with just one release.

If we add the political layer to start at C4, we introduce the Dows, we introduce the regions government, we introduce the faction government, we introduce the the council of peace government. And that will allow us to create se quest system where those factions, those organizations and the NPC factions, the NPC uh organizations and governments, they are the quest givers of Star Atlas and they do that in order to expand their organization’s influence.

So for example, let’s say you are you want to work for the cons of peace. The cons of peace will be either ruled by deputies elected from the three different factions of Statlas and they would be able to issue quests for players to to for example destroy the pirates that are attacking region for example. Uh, of course the quest would have other quests coming from other places, maybe even procedally generated quests, but think having this political gameplay loop is something that no game that know about ever did, especially tying this with quest system.

So, don’t know. really think this should be one of the main things that we look forward to add in C4. And would love to hear everyone’s opinions on this as well.

>> Yeah.

Well, while you’re getting feedback from the community and I’m seeing messages going there, I love it. I agree with that. do think it adds ton of gameplay to the to to the game, right?

Because now you got this whole tree and then like you’re saying like getting the DAO and having pips be involved and getting people bringing it in and you know creating territorial. think it’s fantastic.

also think one of the things is is making the PVE of C, you know, making Sage PVE rich and engaging so that there’s always something there’s something fun to do. Um, you know, right now, if you really think about PV, it’s in in Sage, it’s it’s economic gameplay loops, it’s mining, it’s, you know, it’s just basically setting up supply lines and supply chains and and then, you know, dumping as much Atlas as possible. Please stop.

Um, uh that makes my atlas possible in the world. Um go go go stake that my atlas get more polless. We’re doing more governmental stuff.

Don’t don’t dump it. Go stake it. Dang it.

Um so um and um but getting that enrich and and you know lot of people are talking about in the community like how could the other thing would love to do coming you know people don’t lot of people don’t know this was originally brought back in Star Atlas because I’ve been deep deep into agentic AI systems and agentic uh you know how how could we build frameworks for people to that they’re not having to do the minutia that they could be creating AI agents and and training those AI agents and giving them backgrounds and giving them instructions and creating their own fleet of like uh Yeah.

Right. Uh it’s got some sharp claws.

Yeah. I knew about it when it was Claudebot.

Now that it’s VB bot, but yeah. Um, so, um, so you know that think that would be really cool because yes, if if if we have the government of Star Atlas, right, and we have this, for example, if you tied into political gameplay loop, well, people have have jobs and family and real life and and game isn’t I ended up falling away from MMOs when, you know, like in EverQuest, you know, to kind of age myself, was one of like the very first players on EverQuest and was like one of the first people to get to the to the secondary zone and get into the can’t remember the name of the the zone with the the mountain pass, right? Like like but as you got into level 60, it just it became something you had to do 30 hours week, right?

Yeah. Boomer. Exact not boomer, but very close.

Um uh so um you it just became something you had to do 30 hours week. And when you’ve got kids and family and job and and all that stuff, um it it it it just takes up so much time. And there’s this concept in my mind is like, well, if could create gym, gymbot in Star Atlas that could give it the instructions and it could be running my empire when I’m gone and I’m dealing with real life and come back um and could be like, “Okay, what happened?

What did you do? What what’s been going on? ” Right?

Um that that’s what would love. And that’s actually why wanted to come back to Star Atlas was to work on that uh specifically and um and um and so that’s one of the things personally would love to build into and build framework so that it’s not just us developers but it’s the community being able to build that >> um and and be able to build that and tweak that.

So >> Jim, now you now you cook it. >> Agents, AI agents [gasps] that would play as as the players in game so they could have real life while Staratos exists.

This is >> absolutely and and to me it also creates whole other if we tie it to the crew system for example it it could tie to whole economic loop of you you know hiring crew member giving them instructions they skill up they follow your your and again you know they follow your script in sense right and stay within the bounds of what and they get more experience and all sudden now it’s something that you’ve been they’ve been doing for year they’re more valuable and somebody else might want to buy them from you right may want to hire them from you right and there might a fee for that. You, you know, I’m trying to um so think there’s other really cool stuff that we could do and and think it it opens lot of that because ultimately, like you said, games are choice. You keep adding more and more choices.

More and more choices means more and more have to invest in the game, more time have to invest in the game. Again, how do we make that something so that can jump in and jump out? Anyways, won’t dominate the conversation also here, but but think those are really cool ideas, too.

think they tie in with the political well because again if we if we need vote right if we need I don’t know how many people are involved with the Dow but if we need major vote in region or something and we can’t get all the people to coordinate because somebody’s in this time zone another person’s this time zone and they got really hard but if you had an agent and you could say okay you’re going to go represent me in this in in this council meeting and these are the instructions and that agent literally is the one doing the negotiation on your behalf and you’re okay with that in the and like it degrees, boom, you know, hey, do it then. That allows the game to to progress even while you’re not there.

So, so here we are. Jim is looking forward to respecting your family time, dinner with wife and kids, [laughter] and you guys say devs are predators.

Look at that. Respecting everyone’s time and families, >> right? Any other ideas guys on on things that you want to see in the future of C4 or hollow scene besides political gameplay?

see lot of people chatting. >> Yeah, can’t even keep up with it.

Sorry, that’s what I’m doing right now. >> Groov is saying that you got it backwards, Jim. He needs an AI agent to do the chores, not play the game.

>> That reminds me one of the first uh videos saw. They’re like, don’t want an AI that, you know, don’t want want an AI that washes the dishes and doing laundry so that could write and could bake music. don’t want an AI that makes music and writes so that could do the dishes and do the laundry.

Yeah, I agree, man.

So, yeah. >> Nice. Huh.

Uh, another feature that VB is pointing out and think it’s super cool is guild/deck system that actually works and integrates in game.

So, for example, in C4, you have your guild bases.

So, you guys can someone can manage the claim stakes, the other ones can build the ships and control the fleets. The other guys just going to do the political work. think this is actually long overdue.

We really need to add DAX into the game for sure. >> We’re putting it on the backlog because just realized it’s not on the backlog. >> Yeah, they want they want tax, John.

>> They want tags. >> I want my deck on here. >> Yes.

Go. They want to create things like battalions, like putting three or four fleets into one larger group. This would be interesting.

Group warping.

Yes, >> man. This >> Yeah, music and sound effects.

Yeah, that that that’s another mean that’s that’s simpler one, right?

You know what mean? >> So, we actually have some sound effects. Um, and some music scores that we’re fiddling with, but nothing nothing don’t think anything’s going to make it into chapter 2.

But we’re definitely experimenting more with with sound. >> This is something important for chapter 3, John. Uh, play more with sound.

>> Yeah. Speaking of sound, can you hear the guys doing work on my on my basement bathroom? >> Nope.

>> Okay. Speaking of that work life balance stuff, >> just thought it was interesting in the background. >> Groov is saying he has prototype code for distributed crafting.

This is interesting. Bohemian wants to join NPC decks. He doesn’t want to play with other real humans.

Fair enough.

So, so the way see uh NPCs evolving uh currently they’re spawning as part of your faction. Again, sorry, let me rephrase that. as you’re mining in safe zone or medium zone that you own, medium zone that you own.

Um, if you’re closest to to the Anie space and you’re mud miner, anie NPC, aligned NPC will spawn and and attack you. We don’t want them to be onie or spawning against mud. We want them to be completely unaligned or aligned to the EOS faction.

And so this is sort of the first version of that. They’re spawning as allies and you’ll be able to leverage that.

So you see an ANI fleet is spawned in an area and it’s attacking, you’ll be able to hop in there with them. Um ultimately though, we want those NPCs to be um unaligned or aligned to a different faction and we want you to build reputation with those other factions, right? We want you to build either good or bad reputation with with the EOS.

And um yeah, love the chat right now. >> Yeah, can’t read it and talk at the same time.

It’s way too much going on. >> have to turn it off.

Yeah. >> Jesus Christ. We need to want to play house in chapter two so badly.

want to see everyone killing each other, the eagles wrecking everyone.

It’s going to be super fun. By the way, guys, totally different topic, but something important for us to maybe close this brew. How you guys are feeling about the transition to the RPCs and the end of Starcom as we know it.

want to get some feedbacks in the chat. know there were few bugs, but you guys feel it was an improvement. New was saying extreme lag.

Legendary disaster. Phenomenal decision. Totally unplayable.

It’s wonderful. Like drinking things. [laughter] Some people are saying it works well.

think it’s skill issue.

No, I’m joking. know there are few bugs.

Well, and you know, can can shed some light because you know at Funcracker you’re asking you know lie kind of so it’s just late stage. Um Starcom version two has probably been not probably would say it is by far the most expensive infrastructure this company has ever tried to use. Um and and so um you know and and it didn’t work well unfortunately.

Right.

So um so trying to you know and and we’ve been working in hollow sim we’ve been working in C4 to be removing Starcom version 2.

So there was kind of push internally to just let’s just try to get rid of it. Let’s it’s it’s costing ridiculous amount of money. And so you know there’s real push to just try to let’s try to get it out and get it done.

So that’s one of the reasons that we just kind we’re kind of pushing it forward. Um and uh and and it’s not it’s you know so hopefully that sheds some light on there. >> Uh Ronald is asking but isn’t direct RPC costing more?

>> Um no no >> not even close. >> Not not not even close.

Yeah, there was um there was there was decisions about the infrastructure and the some of the way the transport layer of Starcom version two was designed and yeah it it is by far the single largest infrastructure expense an order of magnitude over everything.

So >> he’s asking how is V3 doing in that aspect? Uh think well V3 is taking and and you know Don TT Donovan’s in here who’s one of the developers that’s taking completely different um architecture um and is doing doing really well. Um it’s you know ultimately indexing the block the Salana blockchain is an incredibly difficult issue and there’s it’s we we’ve tried to work with outside partners and I’m sorry if you guys hear big drill going in the background apolog it’s it’s it’s kind of heroically effort >> um to do it and not do it in an index but do it in real time.

mean, trying to get real time gameplay. Um, and so, um, version three, think, you know, we’re we’re learning from kind of what wanted to do with version one, uh, when wasn’t around with Star Atlas, what what they tried to do with Starcom version two, and now think version three is kind of blending the the both of those worlds uh, really well in my opinion. And yeah, significantly less expensive.

Yeah, if you think of just about cost there, basically there was third party provider was used in Starcom version two that that the bill is is why they’re $60 billion quarter company.

So >> yeah, >> uh people are asking about the current situation if there is fix on the way to improve how things are right now.

Not sure if you guys know how to answer this. >> Yeah, think think think the the team is working on you know, the team is working on that in real time. know yesterday was in meeting with Jacob and we were like, “All right, let’s cut it short.

We got to start fixing bugs on on on the direct to RPC. ” So, it’s definitely being worked on.

So, >> awesome. >> Yeah. And like said, everything that’s being built in in C4 >> has little toggle RPC Starcom RPC Starcom.

And so, um, you could definitely switch the the the vision right now is that you could play with either one.

So, interesting.

People are asking if they can switch RPCs now. >> No, it’s not manual switch.

It’s hardcoded. Um, and there isn’t choice.

Yeah.

No, no, think with with Sage uh Starbase, I’m pretty sure it’s hardcoded using our Iron Forge uh RPC. >> So, we have lot of like metrics. Um, and looking at the Iron Forge RPC requests, don’t think it’s the RPC itself that’s bad.

think that there’s very nuanced process that has to happen to cut every little thing over to RPC and away from Starcom V2.

So we we went through this on the Hollisim team at the end of chapter 1.

Actually in the middle of chapter 1 we started that migration and weren’t able to finish it and even now we’re still finding things.

So, so basically we have 4 months of migration under our belt and decided to take what we’ve learned from Hollow Sim and migrate it over to Sage Starbase. Um, what’s nice about the Starbase thing, know it’s annoying that it’s not working great, but um, it’s big stress test for the Holosim launch in in few weeks in some ways because they’re using the same architecture now.

So, that’s that’s good. Um, check this foundation room chat thing here. setting [snorts] yet just as customer >> and another question you know because it’s great question about you know will we lose all the RPC providers with zinc mean yeah so zinc is going to be another salana as SVM and and you know iron forge will not potentially I mean can’t speak for Iron Forge we don’t know what RPC providers out there are going to say yes we’ll we’ll do an RPC or zinc the the other flip side of that is you’re also not trying to compete with iron with that RPC that’s having to deal with everything else going on the Salana blockchain, right?

Um, so so our RPCs will be able to be really focused on just our gameplay systems to start, right? And as as more and more comes on to there, um, then those RPCs so so there’s kind of trade-off in terms of, yeah, you don’t necessarily have the horizontal RPC infrastructure out there, but that horizontal RPC is also on that load of the entire Salana blockchain.

So, uh, you guys, um, Anthony posted the picture of the custom RPC, so hadn’t seen that yet in in Starbased. Um, even if you did use custom RPC at this point. What was trying to say was don’t think that it’s the RPC necessarily.

So, if you put custom one in there, it may still have issues because um, because we haven’t found all the edge >> pieces. and and and you know want to also just as somebody who’s been building you know not just Star Atlas but two other you know uh blockchain enabled uh applications one for Pudgy Penguins and stuff like this idea that the RPCs like you you know Iron Forge or Hilos or Hello Moon you can connect to any one of them and get different states of the blockchain at the exact same time right like like the RPC infrastructure is not perfect either um so you know It it it it yeah [laughter] hear you on Hello Moon. Um so you know there’s RPC isn’t necessarily the solution.

We’re just trying to provide, you know, some way where, you know, there’s this kind of promise and almost illusion that Salana is like this, everything’s in sync in the Salana network and everything and and and yeah, for DeFi app where you’re talking decisions that are made in, you know, you’re not talking 60 to 100 decisions being made per second, they may be able to be synced enough, but in real-time game like this, it’s it’s there’s lot of work that has to be done on top of it.

So Awesome. Awesome. >> Yeah.

>> And it’s just bringing me back to the days when we first launched the Galactic Marketplace and we literally had 96 RPC servers spawn up from three different providers and was literally in had little debug view that was looking at the state of marketplace trades on all three RPCs and seeing, you know, two RPCs being several minutes behind while another one just saw the trade. And like it’s just that’s one of the reasons that when was here, you know, years ago, originally dived into Starcom into way that we could have direct feed from the Salano validators to the game and we could have the most accurate state directly to the game. Um, you know, that’s but unfortunately that’s bigger than just one programmer and and it’s why think it’s it’s been source of frustration.

So >> awesome. Awesome. Um, think we are well over the hour and we have still have lot of work to get done before the releases of C4 and Hollow Sing.

Yes, last question. Laror, >> happy to answer. >> Would it be possible to implement modular Starcom?

It depends on what you mean by modular. Um >> like it load things in blocks. >> There’s there’s it’s great question.

It’s again there’s big but you know have to kind of get it you know the the ultimate original goal like Starcom version one which architected would that was an end point real time endpoint in Starcom for each type of app.

So Galactic Marketplace would have its own and it could horizontally scale and things like that.

So yeah, mean ultimately think there are ways to do modular uh design in that. Um and and think that version three and again there’s there’s Starcom team again uh Tanner is part of that team. interact with that team lot and have influence over how it’s designed.

But those guys are the ones that really are into how Geyser works and how how Kafka works and you know how you know how the data is being cached in the in the in you know using you know SQLite databases on the on the edge nodes and how that’s being sent down over the websocket. There there’s there’s lot in there.

So, um, you know, and there’s will say will say this one last thing, and this is one of the big things that I’ve always struggled with from the beginning is that ultimately we’re though the immersion of Star Atlas is in the future where there’s some magical blockchain technology that keeps data synced across an entire universe instantaneously. We don’t live in that real world, right? We don’t we don’t live in that.

Like there’s, you know, you can there there’s there’s no MMO right now that has million connected players and they all see the entire world and they’re able to to be in god mode and look at every fleet, right? And so there’s this there’s internally this this this struggle inside of Star Alice to be able to go all the way up and see an entire galaxy of activity and of network activity. And that is tremendous amount of data.

And so yeah, so part of what we’re doing with version two uh version three of Starcom is to try to put spatial qu what lot of people in the tech world like Impossible and [snorts] uh and other you know MMO servers that you can buy commercially they do what’s called spatial and time querying.

So you have spatial query so you only see things that are happening within areas of re of interest and then they time slice things that are farther away from those areas of interest so you’re not getting those updates.

So if ship is three sectors away, you’re only going to get its updates once every couple of minutes.

But ship that’s right next to your ship, you’re going to get those updates very, very quickly. And so building that spir spirit, that spatial querying, that points of interest, that kind of thing, do think for us to get to our higher vision, we’ll have to build that at some point. and you and you won’t be able to see all five million fleets that are built in, you know, two years from now in Sage or year from now in Sage.

So, yeah, uh we we’ll have to get to that.

But again, there’s there’s again, just want to be realistic with the community. There are entire companies like Improbable and and others that are are of entire companies that are trying to build that, you know, not not singular development team.

So yeah, yeah. Anyways, that’s my rant. I’ve been ranting about that since 2022.

So >> no, no, no, no. Thank you, Jim. It was insightful.

And everyone, think this is this is wrap for today’s brew. hope you guys enjoyed. We had little bit of everything.

Alpha, tech stuff, theory, crafting. really like this brew. And yeah, get ready.

We have the Galia gaming night coming out this Friday. We already gave the code Nagash Mixmax. hope you guys enjoy it and get ready because we’ll be back next week with another exciting topic for our devs to talk about and we explore the world of Staratus.

Keep it steady everyone. The release the next release wave is coming. Get ready.

Get excited because we have some cool cool stuff for you guys to do pretty soon. Thank you all for joining and see you in the next brew. Bye everyone.

See you.