Star Atlas Event Recap 64: The Atlas Brew 191

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.

---

---

Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

---

---

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. GM, Star Atlas family! If you missed this week’s Atlas Brew, you missed a massive session filled with “victory” vibes and enough alpha to fill a capital ship’s cargo hold. The team was fired up, the community was buzzing, and the main theme of the day was clear: the future is knocking on our doors, and it’s time to get to work. We kicked things off with some deep-cut technical updates from Jim regarding Zinc, the ecosystem’s reward program. The team has been grinding away at those pesky wallet-linking bugs that have frustrated many players using multiple ledgers or hot wallets across Sage and HoloSim. Jim confirmed they’ve identified and fixed six major bugs in the linking system, meaning your ZXP should soon flow much more reliably into your main profile. Perhaps more importantly, they’re overhauling the way ZXP is earned in Sage to prioritize real gameplay. Moving forward, the algorithm will reward active mining and crafting rather than just “worthless flying” to burn fuel. All your activity will now be tallied up daily at 1:00 AM UTC, ensuring that the players truly contributing to the economy get the biggest slice of the pie. The conversation then shifted to the highly anticipated C4 update. Jim didn’t hold back, declaring the feature set “feature ready” from soup to nuts. This includes everything from combat and territorial control to the intricate new coordinate system that replaces the old sector-based map. We’re moving toward a world where ships have specific “areas of effect,” allowing for much more strategic, localized skirmishes. While Jim wouldn’t pin down a specific public launch date just yet, he confirmed that the internal team is moving into a “polish and bug-fix” mode on the Zinc testnet. This means the Public Test Realm (PTR) is the next major milestone on the horizon, where players will eventually get to help stress-test these massive expansions. But the real showstopper of the event was the official announcement for HoloSim Season 1, Chapter 2. Mark your calendars for February 19th, because that’s when the next evolution of the simulation begins. John walked us through some incredible changes, starting with the removal of the old Starcom infrastructure in favor of a much more reliable RPC system. This means fewer stuck fleets and a way more stable experience. Gameplay is also getting a major strategic facelift; the old faction contracts are gone, replaced by a “Dominion Point” system based on territorial control. You’ll be mining asteroids to earn achievements and ZXP, but there’s a catch—the “Ecos” NPCs are now “agentic.” They will strategically react to your mining rates and faction standing, meaning if you’re dominating the leaderboard, expect the NPCs to bring the heat with stronger patrol fleets. John also clarified some important rules for this new chapter to keep the playing field level. To prevent exploits, withdrawals from HoloSim have been disabled, and the marketplace now features “guardrail” pricing to stop wash trading. For those looking to gain an edge, the Battle Pass is officially back, and here’s a pro-tip: if you have a monthly Zinc subscription, your Battle Pass is already included! Before wrapping up, the team took a moment to give a huge shout-out to community testers like Sims, Jindo, and Funcrack, who have been instrumental in the SAK server testing phase. Their hard work behind the scenes is what allows these updates to reach the rest of the community in top shape. As we look toward the February 19th launch, the message is simple: gather your guilds, prep your fleets, and get ready for a five-week sprint for glory and a 25k reward pool. If you want the full technical breakdown on the C4 coordinate systems or the new story arcs, make sure to catch the replay on YouTube. We’ll see you in the medium-risk zone!

---

---

Star Atlas Event Transcript

and GM. My dear friends in the audience, today today’s an epic day.

It’s special day, day of victory in many senses.

So, I’m super excited for today’s brew. The time is coming.

It’s knocking on our doors. John, how are you feeling right now? John, >> feel great.

[laughter] >> I’m ready. >> You feel great. bet you feel great because you have been working hard for all of this to happen.

So, yes, you as you should.

Well, we are going to wait for Jim for little bit. Funk Cracker is already spoiling his stuff. John, >> don’t look at that.

Don’t look. >> Yeah, you can’t look at the amphitheater. >> The future of Hollowing is almost here.

Interesting. think we we should talk little bit about that today. Joan.

>> Uh yeah, guess we could talk little bit about that. >> think it’s important. see Chris in the audience.

Chris, feel free to join the stage if you want. really wanted you to to spoil ecom stuff of what we have for today.

So feel free to jump in if you want.

Hey Jim, welcome to the stage. >> Thank you very much. >> Pleasure to have you here as always my friend.

>> Yeah, absolutely. >> So as said, today’s big day.

We have lots of things to talk about, but the way that want to do this, John and Jim, is to roast our beef slowly.

You know, like let’s cook, let’s take our time before the main dish that we have prepared for this Atlas Brew.

So maybe maybe we should start with the side quests. the the dessert first.

No, tar.

We can’t We can’t have dessert first. We got to eat the vegetables. We got to drink water.

Yes. And Funk Cracker is pointing something important. Chris’s name doesn’t start with J.

His name is J in reality. Uh so yes uh think can get started and I’ll ask Jim to get us started because the first topic that want to talk about today in this very special brew the it’s time brew that we have today is about zinc. Jim, can you share little bit with the audience how zinc is moving forward?

how things are working. >> Yeah.

Yeah. mean, one of the reasons that I, you know, came on here and can you hear me?

Okay.

Good. Yep. >> Yeah, >> got you.

>> Perfect. Uh, you know, is to give give, uh, you know, kind of an ask anything with the development team and and kind of, you know, help people understand with the, you know, what’s going on in terms of development. And so, Zinc has got basically three things um that are in testing kind of right now.

Two, two are bug fixes. Um uh so basically there’s in in zinc and I’ll get little technical sorry for those who haven’t done zinc but you know for those who haven’t done zinc zinc uh I’m talking about the reward program not the bigger zinc uh blockchain but the reward system where zinc uh you you do things inside the Star Atlas ecosystem and you get awarded ZXP those ZXP will then become airdrops um and and different uh in-game reward assets and things like that.

So that’s the the Zinc reward program called kind of the Zinc dashboard internally, but it’s it’s ultimately reward program.

So um there’s this this concept of being able to link wallets inside of Zinc.

So you when you come into Zinc and you you you sign in with your wallet, it will either create player profile on chain or it will try to link with an existing player profile on chain. Um and [clears throat] um and one of the things we were attempting to do was to allow you to to if if we you know there’s lot of members in our community that they use one wallet maybe ledger or something with the DAO they use another ledger with the Galactic Marketplace inside of Portal or or Play and then you know then they play Sage with different wallet and then of course in Hollison we’ve got kind of this whole hot wallet that’s being generated in the background. And so there was this there’s this concept in in zinc of being able to link wallet with your profile.

So you create Z profile and then you’ll be able you’re supposed to be able to link wallet and then if that wallet is what you play Sage with, then you would link that. If that’s if that’s the wallet that you get DAO that you do DAO stuff with, you could you would get the DAO. Um, and that that had basically about six different bugs in that whole linking and switching of wallets that uh we’ve identified, we fixed, and we’re in active testing with right now.

So, that’s one thing kind of the link wallet uh bugs um that were there. Um, then the other thing that we’re we’re we’re in testing right now, and this is something that lot of people have kind of been very vocal about in the community that’s related to that link wallet is if and again, I’m sorry if I’m being super technical with people here, but um but um so uh when you when you come in and you create you come into Zinc and you say you log in with wallet that you did Dow stuff with and it’s not the same wallet you play Sage with, what would and and what would happen is it would create player profile profile in on chain uh for that that wallet and then you could link your wallet if you happen to get through the bugs, you could link your wallet with your Sage profile, but because of kind of how Starcom version 3 is sending data, we we are not actually able to link those two player profiles. Um so you’ve got you’ve got your zinc player profile and you got your Sage player profile and they weren’t really linking and so people aren’t getting their ZXP from Sage.

Um, so now what we’re doing is just like with the with if you if you do link there’s link epic account there’s button that basically says link Sage and you click that you can go to any wallet that has your Sage.

So if you have say you’re like Cracker or somebody crazy and they maybe have six different wallets they’re playing Sage with or something. I’m exaggerating to have fun here. Um, but you can then link those wallets.

you can then select those those those those um Sage player players and then you can link them to that zinc zinc account. Um and then you can start getting the Sage XP coming through properly.

So that um so that that’s kind of the next big kind of bug fix that again is in testing um right now. Um and members of the SAK server um will be seeing this shortly. Um, and then so those are the two bug fixes and then there’s an actual change to the way that Sage um XP comes through.

Um, so right now and maybe Chris maybe we put him on the spot if he’s here or whatever, but but right now basically as as as you do as you do transactions in Sage, they get posted to the blockchain. The Starcom version three is then is seeing those indexing those and sending those instructions to Sage saying, “Hey, you just burned this, right? You just burned this R4.

” And then what we would do is we give you ZXP based on the amount of burn that happened. And so you you basically as you’re doing Sage all day long, you’re getting all these ZXP events. And what we’ve kind of found is that um what we’ve done is changed the algorithm.

Now uh and again this is testing so it’s not live but in in staging in the algorithm is instead of immediately getting ZXP we just record that and then at the end of the day about 1:00 a. m. UTC time we sum all that up take that um and then give you the rewards based on everything you did that day.

And basically the purpose of this is um I’m sorry I’m not answering any questions of people asking them. really can’t read them and get through this.

But the purpose of this is that we we just noticed people were like basically just flying back and forth in the map to burn fuel. Um and and getting basically ZXP, more ZXP than we would have liked for this non-gameplay action. This just kind of right.

Um, so the the thing that this does is that if you actually do things like mining and crafting that really burn R4 for gameplay activity, um, it will it will reward you more for that.

However, if you’re doing lot of kind of worthless flying back and forth to burn fuel just to get ZXP, you’ll actually get less ZXP. Um, and so those are kind of the three major things that are coming up uh with Sage uh in the very near future. mean, maybe probably not this week because we want to test all these things thoroughly.

Um, but um and and again, thank you for people like Sims and and Jindo and Funcrack who are in the in the uh sack server test and are able to kind of, you know, be the the testers for us outside of this. Those are the things that are going on with Zinc. >> Awesome.

as developer update, guess.

So, >> yeah.

No, and that’s very important because lots of people having problem with the multiple wallet stuff. Lots of people farming zinc without proper gameplay loops.

So, yeah, everything that you said is good news, Jim. And want us to move forward here because we have lot to talk today. see some people are already spoiling what we are going to talk about, but keep it steady because as you guys know, the brew is the place to get the real alpha.

So, today we’re going to do deep dive, really strong, very uh true deep dive on many cool stuff that are going to happen. And the next topic of our conversation today is about C4 HR.

This is something that you guys have been waiting to hear about. And think Jim also has some interesting sites that all of you will be excited to hear about it. >> Yeah, it’s No, it’s not canceled.

Firecraft.

It’s canceled.

It’s canceled. Um, >> it’s Yeah.

Yeah, we’re we’re creating new product called Oni Fans. Um, no, just kidding. Um, so um, [laughter] sorry having some fun.

Um, so yeah.

No. Um, yeah.

So C4, what’s going on?

So can say that in from from uh the internal build and development, um, all of the C’s are are working, right?

So, we’re able from from soup to nuts to to uh do combat, do territorial control, um and and and all the regional control kind of stuff that that happens with part of C4. Um you know, the the crafting habs are all there. All the ship components pieces are all there.

And there are lot of ship components. Um, so you really be able to make a really just crazy cool ships and fleets out of those. Um, all of the council rank, which is, you know, basically your your character skill levels and and different skills that they have.

Um, that’s all there. Um, and I’m don’t know why I’m suddenly drawing blank on what the the other the last C4 is. Um, >> crafting habs, combat, claim stakes, >> claim stakes.

Yep. Yep.

So, yep.

So, claim stakes.

So, being able to to purchase claim stakes, be able to put buildings on, to be able to configure them, to be able to get different resources out of both the claim stakes that you put on the planets and the ones that you have uh on the on the star bases.

So, that that all is working um from like said from soup to nuts uh on in kind of this developer environment. Um, and we are working now to put it into our our kind of first on zinc uh on zinc test net and have it internally for everybody to be playing it um internally.

So, so kind of the the short answer is that all the feature sets are essentially done and we’re just kind of in bug fix polish mode internally to get it ready for for PTR. Um, >> when you say, >> sorry Jim to cut you like that, but when you say feature ready, >> you’re talking about like coordinate systems, faction chat, all the C4s, like yes, everything. >> Yeah.

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Yep.

So, so faction chat is something that we’re still so um but but yeah, so one of the major pieces of C4 um was this whole change to the galactic map so that it’s not sectors anymore. Uh that there’s an actual like coordinate system. Um and uh so you you can’t be like at pierce, you know, your little pierce triple small ship and you’re shooting at at you know across the entire sector because everything’s sectorbased.

Now the ships actually based on their configuration and their components have areas of effect, right? They they have kind of this circle of what they can actually interact with. And so um that allows for lot more ex uh you know fun and interesting exotic gameplay.

So yeah, so that that whole that map piece is working. Um and uh and so all of that is working.

And then the other piece that you were kind of alluded to because we were talking to it on the on our our we actually do prepare for this uh as unprepared as may seem. um is so one of the things we’ve done for Hollow Sim is we we we refactored uh the faction chat and the Sage assistant chat. Um so those who played Hollow Sim Chapter 1 know that the you know the factions can you don’t have to go to Discord or something else.

You can chat internally. Um and then there’s this whole Sage piece where you can talk with the Sage AI assistant that has the information about the game. And one of the things that we saw uh extensively like we were getting 3 to 5,000 requests day for like the first 3 or 4 weeks that we had that was people asking about things in their own native language.

Uh so people, you know, were asking explain this quest to me in French or in Spanish or or Vietnamese or whatever, right? And so um so we’ve refactored all of that.

So now we can have that in hollow sim and we can have that in see in Sage as well.

So there will be faction chat in Sage is the goal. one that there’s then also the Sage AI assistant uh inside of uh of Sage and it can help people like how do you know how do get from assets from my wallet i. port of entry into Starbase into fleet that kind of stuff.

So um so those are the kind those yeah so that’s another piece that um is not working yet but is is now in position because of the work that’s been done in Hollisim to be migrated to Sage as well. Awesome. Awesome.

Yes, we got we got we are cooking, boys. Boys and girls, we got some really cool stuff coming. I’m super excited for the PTR gym.

Just to give the community like brief overview of the road map right now.

So, we are about to start the this the internal team testing phase of the C4 PTR. Correct. Correct.

Yes. Yep. Um we we’ve been waiting um one for the development, but we’ve also been waiting for for Zinc test net to get to very specific spot.

know people can remember was talking about that we’ve been running zinc test net um for while now. Um but we we we wanted to get it upgraded to some certain things. Get some stuff like you know Metaplex’s new uh NFT standards and and things like that.

um get that all kind of merged and up there. And so um so we we’re finally getting to that point where the where we want to get it deployed in in testn net and then once we have it deployed in testn net really start doing that internal play testing where we’re you know hoping to have everybody on the team you know basically playing it all day long um and and >> enjoying it.

So >> absolutely and once this internal testings ends it is already time for the community to start testing as well or we have another phase between >> we’re going to we’re probably going to have another phase between that that there’s still think think you know we’ve got to we’ve got to do some internal testing and we need to do some things where uh you know people like Chris can can can really analyze the the economics that are happening internally and you know Danny can get real chance play through all the systems.

You know, we’ve we’ve done lot of internal demos to leadership. Um but uh but but there’s difference between, you know, having a playthrough with, you know, it’s kind of scripted and the developer showing you how the feature set works and there’s another thing when you’re actually in and playing it. Um and so uh we want to give time internally to to do that >> um before and that’s and then we’ll have the whole PTR and PTR is going to be the bigger community test, right?

So >> yes, exactly.

This is but the PTR shouldn’t shouldn’t be very far, right, Jim? >> Oh man, you’re trying to pin me down. [laughter] >> Yeah.

Yeah. Uh I I mean think technically I you know want to see what the feedback is internally. Um and um you know there’s there’s D4 is such massive expansion.

mean there I’m I’m going to shoot from the hip with this, but say there’s something like 5,000 new components. Um an ungodly amount of napkins.

So, um, now with listening, the comments are getting kind of down. Um, but uh so so you know internally we we I’d really like to for us to to be doing some playing to to be seeing to be to be figuring out and and um because the last thing want is for it to go out to the community and and and have some really bad rough edges that that maybe as developer you’ve been working on it for for year and you don’t you don’t see the forest from the trees and it’s like wait second we need to work through this before we get new people on that have never played it.

So, um, so I’m not going to commit to specific date or time frame, but but we’re in that next stage where everything is actually working and and um and that may be little bit maybe I’m little bit too transparent here, but that that’s been long time coming and uh, you know, lot of credit to Yees and Jerry and and uh, Tanner who’s on the you know, there was just lot of work that’s been done in the last two months. um to really get this whole thing this whole thing working and you know Kelvin and and others on the team.

So know I’m missing some people there and I apologize but uh it’s been tremendous amount of work uh and and you know it’s kind of like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel when we couldn’t see it for long time. >> This is this is super cool.

So Jim, thank you very much for for everything for the Ste update, for the zinc update. And now I’ll turn to my silent friend John who is there hoping that won’t call him out to start talking. >> But John, >> this is your time and to introduce your portion of the brew.

Let’s say it like that. >> would like to share something that the Star Atlas main Twitter account just posted. >> Yeah, >> it’s on the Star Atlas Amphitheater and we have Holos Returns.

Season 1, Chapter 2 starts on February 19. >> Yep. Yep.

So that’s next Thursday. Um very very excited to see all of these um all these pieces come together and to have firm date. Um we are pretty confident in everything that we’ve got and think everybody’s going to really enjoy chapter 2.

Um, so I’m going to start with uh brief like overview of kind of new features. Uh, know we’ve been trickling this stuff out over the last few brews. Um, so we’re just going to solidify what these like what these new features are and I’ll try not to get into too much detail so as not to spoil it for you guys, but um >> spoil [laughter] it all.

Go for it. >> Exactly. Today Today’s the day to go all in.

>> We It’s been while, but people >> It’s tight group, too. >> Yeah, >> exactly. There are only 70 people here.

We can We can speak freely.

It’s the brew after all. >> Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, I did did bring lemon thriller tea to the brew today, which is pretty wild for me.

So, um yeah.

So, okay.

So, we we’ve been talking about infrastructure changes for long time. We’ve been on the on the dev server. Anyways, we’ve been without Starcom and the account uploader program for uh over month now.

And we’re really confident that that change is um providing really reliable data. Uh and as as we make optimizations, it’s it’s approaching the same speed as what we had with uh with Starcom.

So the the problem with Starcom, as you know, was that the data wasn’t always reliable, and you’d Yeah. Lemon Thriller. Exactly.

Uh [laughter] that’s exactly what I’m drinking. Um Yeah.

So the data wasn’t reliable like and and every once in while you’d just have totally missed update and your fleet would be stuck because we couldn’t account for these random bits of data being dropped.

So we don’t have that issue anymore. Uh the account uploader’s gone, all that Starcom infrastructure is gone and we have this RPC in its place. Um you’ll see the reliability and uh performance improvements right away from that.

Um, we have new gameplay mechanics. Uh, the existing territory control, we’ll start there. That that system’s been reworked and is now uh handinhand with mining the focus of this chapter.

Um, there’s good synergy between game mechanics and your progress. As people uh as people mine more in the medium risk zone, they attract the attention of the ecos and those ecos NPCs come and oppose you. And they do that to the degree that you’re mining.

And so that that system has been um designed and programmed in way that it scales with your fleet’s mining rates. and it in the process of being handed over to an agentic system so that not only does it scale with your mining rate, but it looks at your leaderboard position and it looks at your faction’s overall position and it looks at number of other things.

So, um the the very first release uh will be this hard-coded um sort of map of how it responds and then over the course of the chapter we should see that aentic system kick in um as we get more comfortable with it. Hold on, John.

So, you are telling me that we have an NPC system that reacts to players mining rates right now. >> That’s right. >> But during this season of Hollow Scene, >> Mhm.

>> this will go to the agentic level.

So it will start to to think strategically how to react to the players and factions movements and status and and ranks and etc.

That’s what you’re saying. >> Yeah. Yep.

Um so we have on the on the on the road map we have an actual um threat system um in play and so you’ll get to see how you rank in that threat system. uh whether you have three stars or four stars or five stars, so you’ll know what to expect.

But um the the first stages of that are getting these like automated um automated responses going and then working them uh in in through the NPC.

So, uh, you may not see the actual threat system active in the UI until chapter 3, but, uh, we’ll definitely be handing over portions of the response to to an AI and training it. Um, so, for example, if have like one star, uh, I’ll just be chased around by few bombas. And if have five stars, I’ll be seeing three arrows and bombarellas coming after me.

So, think that the response will always be in proportion to whatever your your fleet is in the area. Um, but yeah, instead of instead of it triggering one fleet, if you’re if you’re most wanted, you might trigger two. Like, you might have to deal with double uh the amount of of uh threat that the others do.

And and even more um even more so, if you have no threat at all, maybe you won’t get any response. And we we just can’t do that in this version. everybody generates some kind of threat and some kind of response.

So, um yeah.

Yeah, it’ll depend on lot of factors, but that’s where we’re headed with that. Um, and then for the territory control throughout this chapter, um, I’ll just say it like this, like as the chapter unfolds, the we’ll make adjustments to the NPC response so that if faction is way out ahead of another, they will have harder and harder time on top of the their own personal hard time. Um, and if if faction is falling farther and farther behind, they’ll be boosted um through uh through air drops of items and ships and stuff.

And um that will that will not affect the end result like the end result is that the faction with the most uh dominion points, these are the territory control points, um they’ll end up with the biggest loot at the end of the season in in the way of like an airdrop to their mainet account. Um, and if you don’t hold enough territory, if you don’t meet certain threshold, you may not get anything at all.

Right.

So, um, yeah.

So, the goal the goal all the goals with all of these systems is to have an exciting and fun uh fun game, right? The players who are doing really well want high challenge and the players who are doing poorly want to don’t want to feel like they’re getting completely destroyed and they want to have objectives that they can achieve. Um, >> hold on.

You dropped >> you you dropped like billion alphas in >> one minutes of [laughter] >> of speech here.

So need to break down everything. >> Yeah. >> So uh first things first, you are saying that let’s say I’m mud >> and I’m hopeless hopelessly getting wrecked by the worsters in hollow scene.

>> Mhm. the the mud fleet like the NPCs from the mud will start helping out and trying to level up the field. Is that what you are saying?

>> So, if you’re getting wrecked, you’ll be you as individuals will get airdrop items to help you repel the the enemy oosters. Um the the NPCs will already respond in greater number as the enemy is taking over your territory. Um your star bases may not just respond with guns.

They may respond by spawning in fleets as well. Um >> that’s cool. >> So the star bases will spawn their own defenses.

And the more wrecked they can >> the more wrecked you are, the stronger the defenses. >> That’s the idea.

So that that that part is still work in progress. What what we what we do have working currently is um response to to mining rate and um we’re working on more agentic approach where the starbase itself would have its own kind of response rules as you’re engaging it.

So hopefully those are online for for launch, but they they may be there um little bit down the road. >> Yeah. And that there’s no problem at all.

And there was something else that you said. Oh, about the victory conditions.

So, the last the last chapter of Holosene was all about faction contracts. Uh the the faction that finished it uh filling every contract that they had to fill in the meteorist zone, >> they would win the race. >> Correct.

>> Now, the victory condition is different. Can you uh walk us through here with little bit more detail on how this is going to play out? >> Yeah.

So, there are no more faction contracts. They’re they’re out for now. Um you can they’re the reason they’re not necessary is you can now buy and sell all resources at all star bases.

So, you won’t have problem generating atlas. If you go and mine some resource at at remote base, you’ll be able to sell that resource at that base in exchange for anything that you need. If you need if you need ammo, you can sell whatever you’re mining for for more ammo.

So, there won’t the like the logistics of it aren’t as crazy like you’re not required to have these like huge um shipping lanes.

Now, that’s not the most efficient way to generate income and resources, but it is way to do it.

So there’s no blocking because there’s no supply chain. [clears throat] >> Each base has its own lo like local market that’s very healthy just by default through the NPC.

So that that’s why we got rid of the contract thing. And the the the the purpose of the contract race was just to get us to territory control, proper territory control.

Now that we have it, we don’t need that to lean on that mechanic.

So, um, the way that contract the way, sorry, the territory control works, is at the end of each hour or each epoch, we’ll call it cuz we could change it from hour to 6 hours or whatever, but at the end of each epoch, it’s currently set to 1 hour. We look at how many bases you hold in your faction, and we look at the tier of those bases, and there’s there’s multiplier, there’s bit of math that happens, and it says, you know, Mud owns 10 bases. their tiers this they get this many points and each hour Mud gets that many points thrown up on the board and if Mud only had 10 bases it’s very likely that um Anie and Ster were you know at 20 bases each something like that and so Mud has two choices they can either take back the territory that they’ve lost or they can upgrade their bases above those other bases to make up those points uh they have to do one or the other or they lose their spot as time goes on.

They get they get lower and lower on the board.

Right? If you all maintain equal territory over the course of the thing, you’ll all end up with mediocre rewards at the end of the season. Um, if one play if one faction takes territory from the other, the other faction may be completely left out of the reward pool if they get too low.

And the faction that’s taking the the territory will have much better um reward at the end.

So even even though you’re not being rewarded through the season for having uh for having more territory, your rewards at the end of the season are bigger.

But you’re telling you’re telling me that the worsters can win all the prizes and leave the other factions without anything or barely anything. >> That’s possible.

Yeah, that’s possible. >> Yep.

But we’re not going to make it easy for them.

It’s going to be harder and harder and harder to do that.

That’s the idea. [laughter] >> Awesome. >> Yeah.

>> Uh >> yeah, >> there’s so many questions in the community, too. Holding lot. >> Yeah.

So, did want to touch on couple things real quick. This wasn’t even in my script here, but uh like alting accounts that came up. We’ll just address that real quick.

Uh we’re going to have clear sort of uh set of rules, very very small set of rules. And one of them is that you can’t withdraw anything from the game. We’ll make that easy by removing the withdraw buttons.

You can’t pull anything out of hollow sim. Um so, you can’t send items to another character. If we see that anything has come out of your account, we will just remove your account from the leaderboard and from the prize pools.

So, it’ll be very very cut and dry. If anything comes out of your account, you’re done.

So, if you want to be part of those award rules, uh yeah, you’ll you’ll keep all of your stuff that you mine. >> Uh >> was was just going to say, John, that we’ll send the punisher fleet after you as well if you do that. >> And and those Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. Uh second part to that is um the marketplace now has guard rails like it has buy and sell orders on it and so you can’t you can’t just like wash trade with yourself because the NPC is providing sort of um guardrail economics at the high and low end for buy and sell orders and what that means is that everyone has sort of minimum that they have to buy and sell for.

So you can’t just like arbitrarily give yourself an advantage by trading huge resource piles back and forth. And this was one of those compromises that we had to make that that wasn’t ideal, but it provides good balance, right? Um and and we want to have better solution for this in the future, but for now the market has like upper and lower boundaries and you just can’t buy and sell outside of those.

Um so yeah so you can’t withdraw anything uh you can’t wash trade uh terms of service say you know you can’t do those things right if you want to play multiple accounts and you want to coordinate them you go right ahead but there are lot of guard rails in place to make it so that those multiple accounts can’t share their uh their crew for example and make the the output of their crew and the the the economics of the game don’t reward that kind of play either. They also just reward single account that’s um got your energy poured into it. >> And think that’s good uh good intro to the topic of achievements, John.

know how they are going to work and then sync XP. >> Yeah.

Okay. I’ll also touch on >> I’ll touch on permits too.

So, uh currently permits are still in the game.

However, they’re in the marketplace.

So there’s you just go in there and you buy them and you apply them to your ships. They’re no longer aided by daily quests. may just pull them all out, but like the permit system and so may just think we’re just going to leave them in.

But they’re on the marketplace for about the value of what they used to be. Uh and they should not be thing where they hold you back. They should just be regular part of buying and selling ship sort of thing.

Um, and then just to to further that, like the marketplace at the galactic marketplace at your central space station has ships available for sale as well.

So, anything that you make that you grow out of, you can sell back to the NPC. And um, so you’ll be able to recoup some of the costs for these ships that were just kind of sitting around before. Um, yeah, last one.

Same crew. Crew is the same system. Dailies are the same.

Um, there are no daily quests on launch.

There’s just story line and really robust economy. Um, we may add um like daily quest line or we may add more more quests and stuff, but um just to speak really quickly on the the content that we’ve made. We’ve made very robust unique story for each faction and we want people to see that story as part of their gameplay.

We don’t want to limit that.

So the story line in the completionist award is as matter of course. you’ve invested so much time and you’ve watched the story line. Um, so you get the you get the faction badge at the end of that.

Uh, it’s not intended to be this huge like time gate, resource gate that it was before. Um, the the time and energy that you’re going to be spending is going to be exploring medium risk zone bases and trying to get achievements at those bases. And so we want people’s energy to go into ship crafting and supply lines for repairing those ships as they’re destroyed.

So we want you to be able to build lots of ships, move into enemy territory or your own territory for that matter, get those achievements at those bases, and then be able to um support yourself in your expansion. Uh so just to touch on uh segue into segue into um mining achievements and then I’ll talk about automation after that. Um, so each each uh as you can see in some of the screenshots that we posted, each sector has an asteroid field or multiple asteroid fields uh rotating around the star base around the star.

And each one of those asteroid belts is minable. And as you mine there, you get an achievement as you cross certain thresholds. Um, the thresholds aren’t completely set in stone yet.

So, I’ll just use round numbers like 100 ore, you get achievement one, thousand ore, you get two, and 10,000 you get three, and 100,000 you get four. And >> you mean mining or that kind of >> Yeah, you’re mining that ore.

Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And um yeah, those achievements are the source of your XP, your zinc XP.

They are the major contributor to your leaderboard position and your XP in general. And so to the degree that you’re successful mining asteroids, you’ll be opposed by the enemy NPC and you’ll be climbing the leaderboard, right?

So, >> and you’ll be earning ZXP. >> And you’ll be earning ZXP.

Yeah.

So, >> yeah. Picture this everyone. You’ll be mining resources to acquire achievements which will grant you zinc XP.

You’ll be cooperating with your faction to defend your territory while trying to seize your enemy’s territories all while the eos are running mo and trying to destroy everyone for destroying the ecosystems of Galia.

It’s going to >> such fun game.

It’s such fun game.

Yes.

It’s such fun game.

Yeah.

Yeah. >> Yeah. And and so yeah, mean saw question pop in there.

Yeah.

So so instead of hollowosim, the original hollow sim tried to follow sage and that as you burned you burned our foreign hollow sim that would come to to to zinc and you would get zexp for that. Again, that didn’t reward actual gameplay. And so what we’ve been working on now for Hollow Sim earning ZXP is that when you when you do achievements in the game in Hollow Sim, you will get awarded if you’re if you’re Zinc member, right?

So go sign up to the Z. inc if you haven’t already. Um and uh and you’ll get ZXP for those achievements.

Yes, that that’s the way that it’s going to work.

So, we’re we’re we’re really trying to really focus on again rewarding quality gameplay. Um, so that you know that answered your question, whoever posted that.

So, and didn’t mean to steal your thunder, John. Go ahead. >> No, it’s good.

Jay, it’s all good. Um, >> yeah, >> if could, could talk little bit about the story? Um, >> um, so so yeah.

So, so battle pass. Um, so that’s the other thing too like there so people know that we’re, you know, trying to feed our families and continue to make this great game by selling battle passes. Um, you can your the if you have zinc monthly subscription at all the zinc tiers.

It will count as the battle pass. You do not need to buy separate battle pass. It will be it will be your battle pass.

Um, and thank you everybody who who has done that um and been that again at any level except the free tier um obviously.

So um so so do that please. Um so and then I also just want to say mean one of the things and about Hollow Sim and why we were building Hollow Sim is is to be fun game but to also try to explore new fun gameplay mechanics outside of of earnings, right? Um love earnings.

earning is fun, but but you know, so so again, season one had quests and um and those those quest lines. And one of the things that think has been really awesome and I’m really looking forward to see people’s reaction is they’ve built Hollow Septe and again the whole thing is this kind of using all of the new agentic and and generative AI workflows like Comfy UI and 11 Labs and um you know the which one is the video generator again you use but but creating this whole pipeline to create this amazing immersional experience and right now it’s static story but it’s laying the foundation for when these are dynamic NPCs run by LLM right um the whole vision of creating this immersive game. Again, we’ve talked about NPCs becoming agentic and and being able to put together strategies and being unpredictive.

Uh, right? Those are lot of the things that we we wanted to build this hollow sim for so that we could test that kind of stuff and we could build out those those those workflows. And think it to me to be very candid, think it’s super cool seeing what’s been done so far.

So, anyways, >> yeah, give me second. I’m going to drop couple screenshots about the marketing campaign and the sink gun battle pass updates.

Yeah, you can keep talking. >> Yeah, want do do know some things.

Well, people have talked bit about the fact that like Yeah.

So, Sage um so Sage having switched to RPCs. mean the the you know as someone who again was kind of the lead developer of the original Sarcom version one um also I’ll talk little bit technical you know RPCs or real time gameplay mechanics RPCs are less than ideal infrastructure right um however [snorts] as we’ve seen kind of and you know again I’ll be the first to admit this seeing the stumbles that we’ve done excuse me with the different versions of Starcom and I do believe that Starcom version 3 is is the best version. Um, and and we’ve seen that being tested in in in zinc, you know, handling 90 some thousand Sage instructions uh minute and stuff like that.

do think that it’s it’s it’s better infrastructure and better solution. will say that having again having that RPC fallback um is really powerful.

And then also think that the hollow sim team has had lot more time to play and test it against the RPCs versus the patch that was thrown out in Sage. Um perhaps little maybe little too quickly. Um but will also I do want to kind of put this we we’re going to have to scale our RPCs horizontally when we get lot of hollowosome players, right?

Because it’s less than ideal architecture. Um, and so hopefully, you know, we we’re building it in, and say hopefully, but building it in an RPC way that it can horizontally scale.

So if we get 5,000 daily active users playing it, we can have, you know, 15 or 20 RPCs in the background that are able to serve that data and keep it all going. Uh, which is something we couldn’t quite do properly in Starcom version two.

So don’t know if that filled enough time to talk about the RPC uh issue for those who are playing Sage and have have seen you know RPC issues there.

So and where did you post screenshots in the in the channel? >> posted them in the chat. Um let me uh just >> Yeah, we still have lot to cover.

John, you need just sec. One sec. Just uh yeah, if you’re going to use these images, wait for them to come out on our platform and repost what we post.

Um I’d rather you not individually start your own marketing campaigns. Although do want people to to take part in our marketing campaigns. don’t want them leading with our stuff.

Um Okay.

Yeah. did.

Okay.

So, really quick, want to touch on automation real quick. Um, there’s component here, like everybody loves automation.

That’s great. What we’re trying to accomplish with automation is abstraction of boring stuff. We want this to be fun game to play and we want you to not have to do the boring jobs, but we don’t want you to just sit there and walk away and have it do all the work for you.

So, what you’ll notice with our automations and any automation for that matter is that the game is calibrated in way that you have to leave if you’re going to mine. If you’re going to mine somewhere and you’re going to work on an achievement and you’re going to walk away from your computer, expect that you have to leave enough resources in the form of like fighter fleets on patrol there to defend whatever comes to attack you. the the mining is going to take lot longer and so your fleets are going to be stuck on those asteroid belts for 20 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour.

And during that time, enemies are going to be spawning in every whatever 5 minutes, 10 minutes, something like that.

Okay? And so unless you have enough firepower in those fleets to defend those, you will get destroyed. You also need enough ammo, right?

People are going to see their ammo banks depleted and so you you you’re literally going to have to have um fleets that are there to protect your stuff.

So um there’s no free lunch in Hollow Sim Chapter 2.

It’s it’s like the automation is stellar. The route manager for the mining route is been working beautifully, right?

There’s few edge cases with fleets that have been destroyed not registering that they’re destroyed and they keep trying to mine and like I’m working through those bugs.

But the the core automation works perfectly and triggers these NPC responses beautifully and um it’s really satisfying thing to, you know, set up really great fleet and send it out there and and watch that fleet destroy all the NPCs that come in and get it. And that’s going to take some getting used to. You’re going to have to figure out how many guns you need and how many fighters you need to protect your ships.

And you’re going to have to come up with some kind of like rearm and refuel regime to do it. The point is that all of that is strategy. It takes time.

It takes energy. You’re putting you’re putting energy into resources to keep your fleets alive and not just this like infinite expansion and steamrolling the other faction.

So, the automation is there. It works really really well. And um uh think you’re going to find that it’s so much it’s so much fun to play this game that um it’s it’s enough it’s enough automation that it’s it you get to do other things that are fun like strategize about what you’re building next and um crunch numbers and you know pick on particular star bases and um yeah think think people are going to be really happy with that.

We’re Wait, one quick question cuz just saw it. In the safe zone, will will enemies spawn while NPS if you’re mining? >> No, they can’t spawn in the safe zone.

>> So, spoiler alert, all resources are available in the safe zone, >> but at very low rate of extraction. And so you can get achievements there and you can get everything that you need to play the game in the safe zone, but at at almost at loss, at very low rate, right?

There’s there’s big incentive to get out into the into the world and mine fast and sell those resources to to buy the other pieces that you need and buy the other ships that you need.

So, um there’s the existing tutorial is still part of the game. Uh it’s the same tutorial as as last chapter, so it does help people. Um but as far as strategies and stuff go, um we’re hoping that content creators will come in and create their own strategies.

Uh yeah, and so currently the safe zone Yeah, the safe zone is the same as it was last time except all the resources are there but at much lower rates. And that gives people achievements to work toward without having any threat of being completely destroyed. And so you can always work toward your next piece, whether that’s building your fleet or uh repairing your stuff.

Um you can always do that from right within your safe zone. You don’t have to worry. Even if your your faction got completely steamrolled, you could still build and launch counterattack right from your safe zone without any kind of loss other than that it takes uh takes more time to do it there.

Uh yeah, and your your your zinc uh rewards won’t be as much from the safe zone either.

So you there’ll definitely be incentives to go to the medium zone.

Okay. Um Okay.

So, we’ve touched on zinc. Uh, combat we’re Okay, so combat is like going through is the last piece going through major facelifts. Patrol is still going to be thing.

Uh, it’s not finished right now, but it is going to be thing. And that gets into com combat as well. Uh, we have new combat uh UI that hasn’t been leaked yet.

And whether we get that in on launch day or if it comes out couple days later, I’m not sure.

But um there’s going to be really really cool uh upgrade for combat UI. Um yeah, what else? What else?

>> What about does scanning trigger NPC responses or is that only mining? >> So only only mining.

So, the way I’m looking at these chapters is um the next chapter of Hollow Sim, we’ll have either so either there’ll be combat overhaul or there’ll be scanning overhaul and we’ll attach achievements to that piece.

So, scanning is good one. scanning scanning could get huge overhaul and um it would trigger um an NPC response or loot pile or new asteroid field that can be mined or or or Zed and um you’d no longer have SDUs as part of the the scanning loop. It would be it would be more like um just the way we remove the contracts for an actual territory control.

we’d remove SDUs and replace it with proper proper game loop. Um, and actually can if you want to talk road map, can touch on all those pieces just super quick. I’ll just run down them in no particular order as to what comes next.

think we’ll we will take uh the community’s requests as the game unfolds as to what we pick next, but um so it’s either going to Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. >> Sorry.

Sorry. Just to real quick here. >> Yeah.

>> Right now, what are the next steps until release date so people can call their guilds, call their friends, get together start >> getting ready to master holos scene and try to get the most of the 25k of rewards. >> Okay.

So, internally, we still have few things that are that we’re lining up.

So, we’re doing complete wipe of Atlas Net today. And that provides us with really clean slate to build Hollow Sim Chapter 2 on.

So, should know in in day or two that all those systems are back online. Um, our play testers, all of the all of our internal play testers will have access to that build hopefully this weekend. and we’ll start running through um we’ll start running through the new account creation and they’ll get to see all the new content and they can share their enthusiasm with their teams about the new content and about how everything’s going.

Um that puts us squarely into next week and the the system will already be up and running fully. there won’t be this like on launch day um is it going to come out now or in 8 hours from now kind of thing because it will have been on since Monday type thing.

So uh so Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is all just polish and um you can expect we haven’t set time on Thursday yet, but you can expect sometime on Thursday on February 19th that’ll that’ll go live. And um yeah um should be good. Uh so really quick just wanted to okay so time span of the chapter again this is fiveweek chapter and so at the end of the five weeks that we we’ll look at who has the most um dominion points.

These are the territory control points and that’s when we’ll we’ll we’ll stop the leaderboard. We’ll we’ll do that and then we’ll probably have postseason. Um and then in the postseason we’ll um pick one of these features here.

Um so we’ve got combat revamp, we could do crew, we could do map and zoom levels. Um those are the three top priorities. Um you may see most of the combat revamp happen by the end of chapter 2.

So then we’re looking at crew and map revamp.

Okay.

And then the lower priority things in our backlog are to redo crafting, scanning, um um to add repair and rescue ships properly to the game, to add DAC support and uh cooperative gameplay, like better mechanics that way. Um our NPC should be getting work all all through chapter 2 and three.

So wouldn’t call that separate piece. Uh you can just expect that to evolve as we go. Um, and then as far as new story goes, we we have this huge like this story pipeline.

And so we’ll either lean into the cinematic narrative that is what chapter 2 is or we’ll shorten it up and we’ll make it more of information system in the way of notifications and stuff. Um, but there will be new new new story content for chapter 3. Um and then uh with those new story arcs, we can start looking at adding the faction specific ships like Pierce, Busousan, right?

Um and Vizus. Um and we basically have system here where we have the foundation to build any number of stories for forever and um on reliable scalable platform. And this this content creation and game system should uh we should be able to release regular seasons uh sorry regular chapters throughout 2026 and as long as we need to um until the the until the C4 game is out essentially.

Um, and then so season one, think of season one hollow sim as based on sage starbased. Um, and it’s it shares its roots with that.

And then season two would be um hollow sim based more on the the C4 stack. And so we can we don’t we don’t have to we don’t have to get into when hollow sim for C4 would exist. uh you’ll start seeing C4 um released to the public very soon in the PTR and then we’ll be ready to build hollow sim for it whenever it’s ready.

Um but we can we can now create season chapter after chapter after chapter of season 1 content and we can spin it in any number of ways that we want and really refine the features that are the best and and lose the ones that aren’t kind of thing.

So that’s our long-term plan.

Yeah, and just want to want to address one thing. will say that I’m really proud of the Hollim team in the amount of reliability fixes that have been made, right? Um think, you know, they they spent significant amount of time just making sure that everything is more reliable and then started building new features and think that was that was pretty awesome.

Well, people who experienced lot of the nagging bugs and again there will never be bug free situations. mean, you know, even the same feature can work perfectly fine for 80% of the of players and then not work for 20%. And we’ve got to figure that out.

But but ultimately, do think that this is far more reliable product. >> Me too. do too.

>> Yeah.

So, that’s it.

That’s all got. >> Yeah.

Yeah, just kind of briefly. mean, PTR, for those that aren’t so sure, that means uh uh public test realm.

So, it’s going to be the game and all the game mechanics. Um, but for example, we’re going to be like airdropping everybody resources and they’re going to all start from fresh and they’re going to have to build up and then we’re going to wipe it and start over again and like so so PTR just basically means that it’s it’s it’s basically set of servers that everybody can publicly test to make sure that the game system is working really well.

So although do like boots of tequila and whatever, but it uh it is definitely means public test realm and no dates yet.

Not telling anybody date yet.

So all right everyone, think this was very alpha packet, bro. Get ready, get excited, start sharing with the community, with your friends the release date of Holene, February 19. Be there or be square.

>> Yeah, >> John, >> Jim, thank you guys for being here again. Always pleasure. Any last words for the community?

Um, if people do want to know more about the details that gave about C4 in the beginning, go to YouTube and watch the first what, seven minutes of this. I went kind of into detail where we are in actual development.

So, >> thanks guys. >> Really appreciate it. >> Thank you everyone.

See you in Holene pretty soon everybody. Thank you everybody. See you.