"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special,” ~ Stephen Hawking

With the publicity of money-making opportunities and the prevalence of play2earn games, many companies began to create their productions as quickly as possible without regard to whether the game will appeal to the player. It was only about the fact that you can make money in it, which made many people quickly bored with such productions. I'm sure you can see for yourself what is currently happening in the market. Fortunately, there are still creators who apply themselves to their work. Such creators are the team from Star Atlas, which decided to produce a game using Unreal Engine 5 technology and The Solana blockchain!

Currently, the game is under development, but the developers have created a "minigame" for the duration of the game so that people who want to invest can already buy their ships or space stations.

Introduction

Star Atlas is a virtual gaming metaverse based in the year 2620. In this distant future, three major factions have emerged; The MUD Territory governed by humankind, The ONI Region as a consortium of alien races, and The Ustur Sector controlled by sentient androids. These factions are in an ongoing struggle for resources, territorial conquest, and political domination. You, a faction citizen of Star Atlas, will have the ability to influence the outcome of this intergalactic conflict while creating the opportunity to earn rewards for your contributions.

Gameplay

In their game, the developers assure that it will not be an ordinary game where we fly a spaceship and shoot other players. In this game, we will have many different opportunities, starting from the strategy of space exploration, through controlling space territories to different types of fights and missions in groups.

1. Choosing a faction

Each new player is initially given the choice of one of the factions and begins his adventure in the safe zone.

MUD
Manus Ultimus Divinum, The Last Divine Hand, a spacefaring faction of humans originating from their home planet of Earth. After uniting under a common cause inspired by a benevolent Photoli scout, humans harnessed Earth's resources to set off for the stars.

There are currently 26,093 players in this faction and the total asset value is valued at $25,842,744.00 USDC

USTUR
Ustur cybernetic sentient beings have an origin shrouded in complex mystery. One legend tells of a Dyson sphere-powered supercomputer harnessing the energy of a magnetar class neutron star. The energy throughput allowed the installed AI to advance beyond its physical location and withdraw from the parent machine without a trace.

There are currently 25,347 players in this faction and the total asset value is valued at $17,437,606.00 USDC

ONI
The ONI faction is a harmonious consortium of diverse species. The people of the Om sector, Segal, Akenat, and Neuno systems collectively set aside their differences in the hopes of a more bountiful life in space.

There are currently 30,702 players in this faction and the total asset value is valued at $14,604,838.00 USDC

With combat-free areas, each player will be able to learn the basic functions of the game, but the moment they understand the basic mechanics the real game will begin. When leaving the safe zone we will have two options first is a medium-tiered safe zone where players can fight each other but in case of destruction, assets will be restored. The final distant zone of Star Atlas is a wild frontier
where full combat and the destruction of assets is a permanent
event. However, only a portion of assets in combat are
destroyed permanently.

2. Space exploration

A very interesting theme is to allow the player to get to any place in the game that they can see. Therefore, it will be possible to command to every star in the game!

All visible stars are real assets and can be visited. Although some distant stars can be prohibitively distant and will require proper fueling to reach. There will be no actual skybox so
exploration can be done visually. This gives all players open exploration to go anywhere in the Star Atlas universe

While exploring the universe, each player will have the opportunity to find all sorts of things to sell on the market.

3. Combat modes

The game would not be without fights between players, of course, this is really the main purpose of the whole game. Each ship can be equipped with a variety of weapons including weapon turrets and missile bays. All players can mark their stance as aggressive or passive to signal their desired combat engagements. Passive stance affords a shield and maneuverability buff to allow for escape if attacked without formal declarations.

4. The ship doesn't just fly and shoot

Another variation in the game is that each ship has its own crew. Therefore, depending on what it will be used for we will have to choose the appropriate crew and take care of their food. In the game itself there are supposed to be many different professions depending on the chosen role of the ship, such as:

Transport, Rescue, Freight, Repair, Construction, Refueling,
Miner, Salvage, Entrepreneur, CEO, Broker, Bounty Hunter,
Pirate, Smuggler, Data Runner, Commander, General, Mercenary,
and Scientist. Crew members within a ship also have individual
station roles such as: Pilot, Engineer, Repair, Scanner, Science,
Gunner, Mercenary, Rescue, Power Manager, Janitor, Cargo
Foreman, Hangar Foreman, Salvage Operator, Science Officer,
Military Commander, Military General, Private, Sargent, Rookie,
Smuggle Cargo Foreman, and Captain.

5. Guilds in Star Atlas.

Due to the size of the game, the developers have also made it possible to create Decentralized Autonomous Corporations (DACs), calling them spice-cities, in which players will be able to create their own micro-economies dependent on the people who create them.

Star Atlas Economics

As with many projects, the currency is divided into the governance token POLIS and the ingame token ATLAS.

One of the very interesting things about project economics is that unlike many projects in the crypto economy, the development team retains zero stake in the undistributed token supply. I honestly wonder if this can be true but this is what the developers assure us.

In the whitepaper, the developers provided the following breakdown in Star Atlas Economics

The undistributed balance of ATLAS at game inception (80%) will provide incentives to early adopters as a network subsidy over the course of five years. Following the subsidy period, a standard inflation rate of 4% per annum into perpetuity will be implemented as a necessity for the long-term viability of gameplay incentives.

Team

The entire 56-person team is managed by four people:

• Michael Wagner - founder of Automata Pte, founder of Multichain Ventures, and founder of Digital Assets Holdings
• Danny Floyd - Art Director at 1047 Games, Chief Experiance Officer at Multichain Ventures
• Jacob Floyd - CTO at Multichain Ventures, Developer at Tokes Platform
• Pablo Quiorga - Founder of Fuelixir Labs

From the review of the employees themselves, there are also no random names, most of them are people who have already created games in companies such as Electronic Arts or 9 Axis.

Partners

Among the partners of the project are many companies, but three immediately indicate the seriousness of the situation and they are Solana, the very blockchain on which the project is created. FTX is a cryptocurrency exchange and Serum which is a leader in decentralized exchange technology.

Roadmap

How to play

At the moment, the developers have launched their first mini-game, in which after purchasing a ship we can send it on its first missions. I think this is a very good move to attract new players because often play2earn game developers just sell their NFT and then nothing happens for a year.

To start your adventure with Star Atlas, at the very beginning we have to go to their website https://staratlas.com/ and press the button "Play Now".

You will then be redirected to a new tab https://play.staratlas.com/ where you need to link your online wallet.

After pressing the button we can choose one of the possible wallets and if you do not have any I recommend you to create Phantom, it is very similar to the wallet known to the general public Metamask.

After installation and connecting our wallet we can start our adventure by buying the first spaceship. However, the prices are not low. Currently the cheapest ship costs about $70 despite the low price of ATLAS on the cryptocurrency market.

Summary

Looking at the whole project, the people involved and the number of people who have already bought their first spaceships, it feels like a great challenge rests on the shoulders of the developers. The game currently looks amazing and I hope that it will not disappoint when the full version comes out. Unfortunately I didn't manage to buy my NFT when the prices were still low but I'm starting to wonder if maybe I shouldn't buy the weakest ship just to be able to explore the whole world when the full version comes out.

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