Weekly Star Atlas Newsletter #203

Welcome to our 203rd newsletter on Star Atlas! This weekly newsletter, published by Aephia Industries, focuses entirely on the development of this ambitious game. Here, we attempt to aggregate all the newsworthy tidbits revealed, primarily by the team, throughout the past week.

Last week’s Atlas Brew featured a special conversation with Jacob Floyd, Star Atlas Co-founder and CTO, who discussed the evolution of StarComm and what’s ahead with C4 and z.ink. Meanwhile, the team has been busy on multiple fronts, from attending the Plan B Conference in Lugano to preparing the next UE5 patch and the upcoming z.ink airdrop campaign. Overall, it’s been a relatively quiet week, so we’ll keep this one short!

Atlas Brew – Chat with Jacob

Last week’s Atlas Brew had a special guest: Jacob Floyd, one of the co-founders of Star Atlas and its CTO. They spoke about the early days, the evolution of StarComm, and looked forward to C4 and z.ink. Though there were no new reveals, the chat was definitely a good listen. Jacob does not appear behind a mic that often, so having the chance to hear things explained in his calm, soothing voice should not be passed up so easily.

One tidbit that we did pick up is that, besides SAGE C4, the z.ink dashboard is also fully running on StarComm v3, the upcoming, fully overhauled version of the game’s middleware. So, soon, we should be able to see how it performs in the wild!

News Bits

Here are a few more bits of news from last week:

• Santi (VP of Community & Ecosystem) and Michael (CEO) were in Lugano, Switzerland, the past week to attend the 2025 Plan B conference and hold several meetings. They just wrapped things up and are heading back home today (Monday).
• The next UE5 patch could be coming this week! Or at least, it was dubbed the “October patch” internally, and that month is about to wrap up. Of course, despite the name, no official timeline was provided, and a minor setback could easily delay things, so we’ll have to wait and see!
• Star Atlas is working with Solana Gaming on the latter’s Season 1 Gaming Pass. At the time of publication, there are fewer than 2 days left to wrap up the quests for their first week, which includes a few simple Star Atlas objectives to complete.

Z.ink Update

We’ve gathered some newsbits related to z.ink as well, which we’ve grouped separately for your convenience (so you won’t gloss over them by accident).

When the z.ink airdrop campaign goes live, the team will offer three subscription options with varying benefits. One of those is already known: a multiplier on the XP earned. Michael shared that they are currently considering the following pricing for these subscriptions: $10/month for the lowest tier, $20/month for the middle tier, and $30/month for the highest tier.

More will be revealed when the airdrop launches! This, by the way, could be imminent, based on a recent Discord post by Michael.

In preparation for the Airdrop Campaign, the team has been signing on content creators to promote z.ink, the campaign, and Star Atlas. For example, Cagyjan posted on X that he is now an official ambassador and will share content on z.ink. Dominic (Marketing Manager) shared that they have already signed deals with multiple others, as well.

That is all we’ve got for this week! Thanks for reading, and see you next Monday!