Star Atlas 101 — Starbased Day 1… A Preview of Crowded and Popular Game Loops
With Starbased announced to go live April 2, we are just days away from this next major iteration of SAGE. Let’s take a look at the top Day 1 Starbased gameplay loops, as well as a thought about what loops will likely be crowded.
If you haven’t already, take a look at our prior article on some of the Starbased basics; that will give you a foundation on some of the concepts we’ll discuss here. We also wrote an article looking at some of the top, in-demand assets likely for Starbased.
Please note that this article is not financial advice. Always do your own research before making financial decisions.
In this article, we’ll talk about the following loops:
CSS Upkeep
Starbase Upkeep
Starbase Tier 1 -> Tier 2 Upgrades
Starbase Upgrade ‘Hot’ Sectors
Just as a reminder, remember that the Upkeep and Upgrade loops earn you LP, which can then be turned in for a share of the ATLAS rewards for each epoch. However, this doesn’t mean you have to do Upkeep or Upgrade in order to earn ATLAS. The Marketplace will still be alive and well, and players will be able to continue to earn ATLAS by buying/selling/crafting goods.
Also, as of right now, the current SAGE Labs econ loops (including crafting and redeeming RFR’s) will stay alive through April 16th, which means it’s still possible to earn ATLAS that way. Additionally, Faction Fleet will continue to function, though with a further 50% reduction in ATLAS earnings.
Because of this, it’s highly likely that a good portion of the playerbase will not participate in Starbased Day 1, but rather transition more gradually over time, and especially as we get closer to April 16th.
CSS Upkeep
LP Earning Difficulty: Very Easy
Likely Popularity: Very, Very Crowded
As we discussed in our prior article, CSS upkeep is the easiest LP earning loop to participate in. A player simply needs to import Food to the CSS, then can immediately contribute that to CSS Upkeep. (Note, it remains to be seen if Toolkits are needed for CSS upkeep, since the CSS cannot be upgraded).
The CSS has a maximum resource pool for upkeep, so this will likely be filled extremely quickly. ‘Topping off’ the CSS resource pool ongoing will also be very crowded.
Thus, while this is the easiest game loop, most players likely won’t get a chance to contribute the bulk of the Day 1 upkeep resources, especially if they join in a few hours after launch.
Starbase Upkeep
LP Earning Difficulty: Easy
Likely Popularity: Crowded
Next up in difficulty for Day 1 is moving resources to Starbases for upkeep. Starbases need Food to power crafting, and Toolkits to power Starbase upgrading. Both of these resources are very easy to obtain, so upon launch, players will immediately begin shuttling Food and Toolkits from each CSS to their faction Starbases.
Those who have faster warp speeds combined with higher cargo volumes will gain an advantage here, as being first to get to each Starbase ensures there is a higher chance they can contribute more resources. Like the CSS, upkeep resource pools for Starbases are also capped.
In going by the previously shared Starbased screenshot of a Tier 1 (basic) Starbase, and assuming numbers don’t change, we can see that the upkeep pool is capped at ~13.3M Food and ~6.6M Toolkits.
This is where freighters will shine, as they have the best cost/speed/cargo efficiencies.
We can expect that Starbases closest to each CSS will likely be filled up first, which means it may be worthwhile to consider going straight to a more outlying Starbase, to have the best chance of being able to contribute to the upkeep pool.
Starbase Tier 1 -> Tier 2 Upgrades
LP Earning Difficulty: Medium
Likely Popularity: Less Crowded
The Starbase upkeep loops mentioned above are the easiest to participate in and so will likely see the most popularity on Day 1. However, depending on the LP earning tables (which have not been released), it may be likely that Starbase upgrades provide more overall LP than upkeep, owing to the difficulty, complexity, and opportunity cost.
On Day 1, depending on how long upgrades take, it’s likely that Tier 1 to Tier 2 upgrades will get underway and/or complete, so we’ll focus on that.
As a quick recap, Starbase upgrades require both materials/components as well as crew. Exact mechanics have not been released in terms of how much crew is necessary.
Because this loop requires both materials/components and crew, players with both freighting fleets and crew-efficient ships (such as XX-Small ships) combined together will likely have the upper hand. Freighters can continually ship materials/components to various Starbases, and the XX-Small ships can go from Starbase to Starbase completing upgrades.
One thing to note is that during the Starbased Town Hall, a certain mechanic was noted by the SA team where, during Starbase upgrades, there could be a scenario when the Starbase is nearing upgrade completion that those with longer upgrade jobs could see those jobs not complete if the Starbase upgrade finishes.
What this effectively means is that towards the end of an upgrade cycle, it may not pay to have a large/long job started, if players with more numerous smaller jobs can finish it beforehand. In that case, the large/long job will not complete, and will not provide LP. There are open questions on why smaller jobs might complete faster if it’s the same materials/effort, those will remain to be seen when we get hands-on.
Regardless, this Tier 1 to Tier 2 upgrade loop will likely see larger players focusing on it, as it gives better opportunities to earn sustained LP, as opposed to fighting to be first to contribute upkeep. Additionally, upgrades to Starbases are critical to unlocking more advanced crafting which will is required for more efficient supply chains past Day 1.
Starbase Upgrade ‘Hot’ Sectors
To the last point above in regards to efficient supply chains, on Day 1, we’ll likely see an initial focus on more ‘strategic’ sectors, due to players wanting to prioritize mining/manufacturing efficiency.
The SA team have not announced widespread changes in resources for Starbased; while updates may happen, for now we’ll assume that resource locations are staying the same.
For each faction, certain Starbases are likely to be prioritized first where higher tier crafting is more efficient. Keep in mind that resources can be mined in Starbases of any tier, but higher tier Starbases are needed to craft more complex components.
Let’s take a look at MUD as an example. For MUD, some of the Starbases closest to the CSS are these:
MRZ-1 has both Iron Ore and Copper Ore, which makes it extremely efficient for a variety of manufacturing loops, including Iron, Magnets, Frameworks, Toolkits, Copper, Copper Wire, Electromagnets and Ammunition.
With Starbased, a fundamental change in logistics is that ‘making money’ (ATLAS) from mining/manufacturing no longer requires every material or component to be moved to the CSS. Materials are contributed directly at each Starbase. Thus, we will see shifts in what is considered ‘efficient’ from a Starbase sector staging perspective.
What we can also expect to see is that downstream components of resources available at each Starbase may also be a ‘crowded’ game loop. For example, MRZ-8 is rich for Iron Ore, meaning mining efficiency is optimal there. Iron Ore mined there can be turned into Iron, then into Frameworks, and contributed directly to the Starbase (assuming that further tiers of upgrades also require Frameworks).
We can perhaps visualize the impact of this by looking at the current MUD traffic (using Eveeye’s handy tool):
In the current version of SAGE Labs, MRZ-8 sees almost no traffic at all. Due to the distance from most other sectors, it costs a lot more time and fuel to haul goods to and from there, even if it’s more efficient Iron Ore mining than other sectors. Since all goods must exit via the CSS today to ‘earn’, players have no choice but to focus on Starbases closer in to the CSS.
However, in Starbased, we suspect MRZ-8 and Starbases like it will see relatively more traffic, since it will be an efficient way to produce Iron-based components for export to surrounding Starbases.
While these production loops are not available yet in Day 1, these factors may cause certain Starbases to be more ‘crowded’ than others upon launch from an upgrade popularity perspective.
We hope that you are all as excited about Starbased as we at Galia Crafters are. This is yet another big milestone in the development of Star Atlas, unlocking localized, in-game ‘earning’ possibilities. We can’t wait to see all of you in-game!
