Star Atlas 101— Current Gameplay Options Overview
Current as of Jan 29, 2024
Welcome to the Star Atlas universe! If you’re brand new to this project and ecosystem, this overview will get you a quick glimpse of the different gameplay loops available to you today. Star Atlas is still in very early stages, so there is much to come; even today though, there are a variety of gameplay loops you can participate in.
In this article, we’ll take a high level look at the following:
- The Star Atlas Game on Epic Games: This is an immersive, playable experience in Unreal Engine that today includes ship racing, ship combat and FPS (first person shooter) modes.
- Star Atlas Golden Era (SAGE): This is a browser-based strategy-like game that currently enables mining, logistics and manufacturing gameplay loops.
In addition to these two main experiences, we’ll also look at some of the basic concepts of Star Atlas. We’ll also link to some other guides and tutorials built by our great community members. Let’s dive in!
All information in this article is for educational purposes, and does not constitute financial advice. Please do your own research before making financial decisions.
Key Aspects and Terminology in Star Atlas
Star Atlas Discord: This is likely the most important place to start, if you haven’t already. Joining the Star Atlas Discord will give you a place to interact and chat with the community, get help, tips & tricks and much more. Even if you haven’t participated in Discord before, it is highly recommended to join here!
You can find the Star Atlas Discord here.
ATLAS Token: ATLAS is the main currency in the Star Atlas ecosystem. Certain game loops can produce ATLAS as rewards, ATLAS is used in trading in the Marketplace, and being a cryptocurrency, ATLAS can be swapped with other cryptocurrencies.
You can see ATLAS on CoinMarketCap here.
POLIS Token: POLIS is the governance token within the Star Atlas ecosystem. POLIS holders will, in the future, be the driving force of key decisions in certain aspects of the ecosystem. For newer players, this is likely something you’ll get into later.
You can see POLIS on CoinMarketCap here.
Star Atlas Marketplace: The Star Atlas Marketplace is the official marketplace where game-related items can be bought and sold. This ranges from ships to resources to components to skins.
You can access the Star Atlas Marketplace here.
At Galia Crafters, we do not use referral links; if you are clicking on links on various community pages, please be mindful and check if you are using a referral link or not. A link like ours above is a ‘clean’ link. Referral links are a great way to support the referrer, but currently they bind the referral permanently to your crypto wallet, with no option to disassociate. For more details on this, feel free to ask in the Star Atlas Discord.
Ships: Ships are the primary asset within Star Atlas from a gameplay perspective. Ships range in size from XX-Small to Titan class, and are priced accordingly.
Resources: There are dozens of types of resources currently in Star Atlas, with more to be added in the future. Different resources are used in different ways, including allowing ships to mine, fleets to move, crafting to happen and more.
R4: One term you may hear often is “R4”. This refers to the four “core” resources that are required in most basic actions. These four resources are Ammunition, Food, Fuel and Toolkits.
Star Atlas on Epic Games: One of the keystones of the Star Atlas project, this is an immersive game built in Unreal Engine and currently hosted on Epic Games. Players can bring their on-chain ships directly into a playable environment. More details below.
Please note that currently, a game code is required to access Star Atlas on Epic Games. Join the Discord and one of the community mods or members will share a game code with you.
Star Atlas Golden Era (SAGE): This is a browser-based, strategy-like playable experience that focuses on mining, logistics and manufacturing. For those players who like a larger macro game, this will likely be of high interest. More details below.
Faction Fleet: Faction Fleet allows players to stake their ships (in Star Atlas terminology, this is referred to as ‘enlisting’ ships). The ships consume resources (specifically R4), and in return provide ATLAS rewards. Besides interacting with Faction Fleet periodically to refill the consumed resources, this is a fairly passive option.
Before SAGE, Faction Fleet was the primary method of engaging in browser-based loops. Faction Fleet still exists today, and is being phased out over time.
You can access Faction Fleet here.
Faction Claims: Faction Claims are similar to Faction Fleet in that they allow the staking of certain assets. When staked, these assets produce R4 passively. R4 can also be produced through SAGE in active gameplay, so Faction Claims are a complementary option for more passive R4 production. Faction Claims are currently specifically for 2 types of assets, Claim Stakes and Mining Ships.
In the future, Faction Claims will likely be wound down as the Claim Stakes are deployed directly in-game.
You can access Faction Claims here.
Star Atlas DAO: The Star Atlas DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) is the envisioned governing body for Star Atlas in the long run. If you are not familiar with the concept of a DAO, you can take a look at the description here.
You can access the Star Atlas DAO interface here.
Star Atlas on Epic Games
Now that we’ve covered some of the core terminology, let’s take a look at the first gameplay option available today. In the Star Atlas game on the Epic Games store, several modes are available today. Once you have a game key (ask in the Star Atlas Discord), you can access all the modes, even if you don’t have a ship. A freebie ship is included to try out.
To get a more in-depth look at the different modes available, we highly recommend you check out YouTube videos the community has made on this topic! You can search for “Star Atlas Showroom” and get a number of related results.
Showroom: The showroom is an environment that lets you load in any number of ships you might own, of all sizes.
Flight Trainer: The flight trainer has Dogfight and Race modes, helping you get a feel for ship flight and combat in various situations.
Time Trial: The Time Trial lets you compete on the racetrack and try to take home the top honors!
Third-Person Shooter Arena: This arena lets you test out your skills facing off in a third-person shooter mode against multiple bots. TPS is still in very early stages, so expect a lot of changes for this mode!
The Star Atlas game today, even in an early state, continues to provide a lot of enjoyment through this gameplay experience. Read on as we explore the other side of today’s game loops!
Star Atlas Golden Era (SAGE)
SAGE is a browser-based gameplay experience that focuses more on the macro gameplay. It leverages the same ships and assets you own that are used in the Star Atlas game on the Epic Store, but here, they are used in a strategy game mode.
For those who would like a step-by-step guide on getting into SAGE, the Aephia Guild has written a great guide taking you through the basics. You can read it here.
Within SAGE, there are several game loops available today. We’ll cover the high level of each loop here, and link out to other guides for more details.
Scanning: Scanning is a game loop where players can use their ships to perform scans throughout the Galia universe. These scans can, based on changing probabilities, result in the finding of Survey Data Units (SDU). These SDUs are in-demand in the ecosystem, used by manufacturers. Those who scan can sell the SDUs in the Marketplace for ATLAS.
Strategy when it comes to SDUs involves optimizing fleets for scanning, finding the best scanning spots (which change dynamically over time), the logistics of managing scanning fleets, and more.
A great guide that includes the basics of scanning is from the Aephia Guild here. There is a section on scanning about halfway through.
Mining: Mining is a core activity in SAGE, and is the only source of most raw materials. This means that mining powers the Star Atlas economy by producing a constant stream of materials which can be manufactured into other components.
Strategy when it comes to mining involves optimizing fleets for mining, selecting the best raw materials and sectors to mine, transporting the materials, and more.
You can check out our introduction to mining here.
Manufacturing/Crafting
Manufacturing takes the raw materials and turns them into components, ships and other items. Over time, every single asset within the ecosystem will have to be manufactured by players, making manufacturing an absolutely critical function to have.
Strategy around manufacturing are selecting the most optimal items to craft, optimizing your pool of crafters, maximizing your margin, and more.
You can check out our introduction to manufacturing here.
While we’ve covered the very high level of scanning, mining and manufacturing here, there is a lot of depth in each of these loops, even in the early stages today. When optimized, these gameplay loops can provide a much higher ROI than passive staking, which is why many players engage within SAGE today.
At the end of the day, there are many choices available depending on your interest, and the key thing is to find something and have fun with it!
We hope this article was helpful to you as you get started on your Star Atlas journey. Please join the Star Atlas Discord where you can engage with our entire community!
