Weekly Star Atlas Newsletter #247

Welcome to our 247th 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.

SAGE C4 PTR Phase 3 went live last week, shifting the test toward a much closer approximation of mainnet progression and balance. With it, attention is increasingly turning toward refinement: a deeper UI/UX pass, the long-awaited Democracy Module, and the foundations of the Unique Crew system are all being worked on during this phase. Meanwhile, the fourth DAO Council election has concluded, with all three candidates officially elected.

Let’s dive in!

SAGE C4 – Phase 3

SAGE C4 PTR Phase 3 finally went live on September 8th, José reported during last week’s Atlas Brew #221. So, a few days after the release window Michael (CEO) gave us last week had passed.

Earlier PTR phases handed out large quantities of ships, resources, and bonuses to help players reach new systems quickly. Phase 3 starts players with much less and should give the team better data on progression speed, crafting XP, resource distribution, career balance, Council Rank, and where the interface gets in the way. José had already relayed two early concerns to the team: testers needed more ATLAS, and crafting XP still needed adjustment. Another possible wipe came up in the conversation, but no decision was announced.

UI/UX

UI/UX is now one of the main Phase 3 points of attention. The single-player campaign already looks and feels cleaner than the online client, and Danny and Jeff are expected to use player feedback to carry those improvements over. The aim is a substantially better interface before Phase 4, though not every issue may be resolved by then.

Democracy Module

The Democracy Module did not ship with the first Phase 3 build. It is reportedly in final development and bug fixing, and remains planned for this phase. It was originally scheduled to go live with Phase 2, but it appears converting the proof-of-concept to an actual core primitive in the game has been harder than they first thought. Once live, it will let players use POLIS to vote on regional fees and other local decisions.

Unique Crew

Work on the Unique Crew is also progressing. Michael said earlier that this was a lower priority and would not block phase 3 or phase 4. But during last week’s Brew, José shared he and John are working on an integration that should at least establish the foundation for PTR testing during phase 3.

Players should eventually be able to view their unique Crew, send them on missions, and transfer or trade them in-game. Crew stats are also meant to affect ships, combat, and other systems. Missions could be the first playable slice. As we learned earlier this year, these are not supposed to be simple passive reward timers: mission outcomes may alter Claim Stake yields, pirate pressure, and faction reputation.

DAO Updates

Voting for the fourth Star Atlas DAO Council term has finished. All three candidates were elected, with earther finishing first, followed by emperor and jith_blade. The final vote drew 33 ballots representing roughly 32.5 million PVP, and the new Council term begins on October 11th.

PIP-35: Council Election #4

This proposal determines who will serve on the Star Atlas DAO Council for its fourth term (October 11, 2026 – July 11, 2027). As outlined in PIP-10, there will be one round of voting. Three candidates nominated themselves for five available seats. Because the number of candidates does not exceed the number of available seats, all three candidates will be elected and will officially begin serving on October 11, 2026.

Structure:

• Structure: Single Transferable Vote (STV)
• Voting Opened: Sunday, August 30th
• Voting Closes: Sunday, September 13th (end-of-day UTC)
• Available seats: Five
• Council term: October 11th, 2026 to July 11th, 2027

Final results (~32.5M PVP committed):

1. earther
2. emperor
3. jith_blade

News Bits

Now that the UE5 matchmaking servers are back, Galia Game Nights have kicked off again! Join Jindo and other community members for a friendly brawl in Star Atlas UE5 on Friday night!

In the absence of official news from the team, here are two bits of community work that got highlighted during the Brew:

• Ark of Arkaelia — Enigma42 has released a fan-made, 3D-printed desktop storage box based on Star Atlas lore. It is available through Star Atlassian for $80 to $130, depending on the finish, and is not associated with or sponsored by ATMTA or Star Atlas.
• Siphaawal’s combat mini-game — Community member Siphaawal is looking for roughly four or five testers for a Star Atlas-themed Unreal Engine project with wallet-linked cargo and winner-takes-all combat. The project remains separate from ATMTA; interested testers can follow or contact Siphaawal on X.

That is it for this week! Thanks for reading, and until the next!