Guide:Getting started

Welcome Atlassian (a nickname given by the team to all Star Atlas enthusiasts)! No doubt you have many questions as perhaps you just found out about this game, want to know everything there is to know, but have no idea where to start.

You managed to solve one problem already though: You found the place to start 😉

The Game
The concept behind Star Atlas was conceived in the 2nd half of 2020. Execution on the team's vision began in earnest closer towards the end of that year. That’s to say the game is still in very early development.

The game is described in the White Paper as a hybrid between a Grand Strategy (think Stellaris), MMO (think Eve Online) and Roleplaying game. Fans often compare it to a mix between Eve Online and Star Citizen, but without the impressive/insane (you choose) level of detail the latter is going for. One of the most important aspects however is that it is being built on top of the Solana Blockchain. This means that all assets in game (ship, crew, land, mining stations, etc) are [[wiki:NFT NFT]'s that can be traded

The full game (also “3D game” or “UE5 game” - Unreal Engine 5) is currently in active development, but at the same time a mini-game (also “browser game”) is being developed in parallel.

Blockchain - Solana
The game is being built using smart contracts on the Solana blockchain. It’s assets (NFT’s & FT’s) and tokens also live on this chain.

This means that you will need a Solana wallet to play the game. There are quite a few of these, but one of the most popular -and often recommended- wallets is Phantom.

See the video below for instructions on how to set everything up: uAh4kLytbbI

Mini game
Because the team realized it would require several years to bring their vision to the public, especially as they started development before the UE5 engine was even available, they decided to first release a simpler game, with much reduced graphical fidelity, that would be playable in browser.

Though the gameplay is straightforward and the user-facing part looks simple compared to the full game, it is important to note that this version uses the exact same back-end (read: Solana blockchain) as the full game. This means that:
 * Everything you do here, also impacts the full game
 * Assets bought and used in the mini-game will transfer seamlessly to the full game!

Though originally planned as a temporary version of the game while development of the full game was ongoing, the team decided to keep it around for the foreseeable future as an alternative for those with less capable computers and in order to play the games on mobile devices.

Full game
The full game is the crown-jewel of the team, their magnum-opus. It will use Unreal Engine 5 to render a truly beautiful 3D world.

Though this part of the game is far from complete, the team did create a short trailer showing the Pearce X4 within the Unreal Engine: DxdEQSj-ZUA

Gameplay & Tokenomics
The White Paper was originally released upon announcing Star Atlas to the world. Its information is not completely accurate anymore (especially regarding the tokenomics part), but it is still a great first read to get an idea about what the game is all about. The Economic Paper (released August 17th) goes deeper into some aspects of gameplay, tokenomics and governance and is a great follow-up.

Lore
Through the White Paper and Rebirth-posters the team shared the most crucial parts of the lore, required for us to understand the current situation in-game.

Below is the first full-length cinematic trailer released by the team that highlights the lore that is central to the current situation in-game (the battle for Iris). ciFSSd39pAY

Land
Star Atlas will have land parcels you can acquire and use in-game. The team had a few ideas how they planned to implement this mechanic, but after having received some early feedback, they are rethinking it. Players will not be able to acquire land before the end of 2021.

LVT
All land in the game will be subject to a Land Value Tax. This is an upkeep that every land owner will have to pay, but that will be offset by the income gained through mining on that land.

The reason this tax was added is to prevent whales from accumulating land as a potential investment.

Roadmap
Originally the team updated the community on the development timeline via its Townhall meetings and through interviews. That all changed on October 27th, 2021 however, when the team first published its own roadmap using Notion’s platform.

For the most up-to-date information concerning the development timeline, please check the official roadmap.

Tokens
Star Atlas works with a dual token system. There is ATLAS, which is the in-game currency, and there is POLIS, which is a governance currency that is used on a more (geo-)political level inside of the game and provides voting power outside of the game.

For more information about them, please read the Economic Paper (and for an intro: the White Paper).

How to get them?
Since September 2nd both tokens are being traded on both FTX and Raydium:
 * FTX (ATLAS POLIS)
 * Raydium

Over time more services added these tokens. Below is a non-exhaustive list of them:

Centralized Exchanges (CEX):
 * AscendEX
 * BitMart
 * Bitrue
 * CoinEx
 * FTX
 * Gateio
 * Hotbit
 * MEXC
 * Okcoin

Decentralized Exchanges (DEX):
 * Dexlab
 * Orca
 * Raydium
 * Or really any of the Serum-based DEX's (list)

IEO/IDO
The IEO/IDO for this game took place end of August/early September. It was announced August 17, 2021, and took place on 3 platforms. FTX hosted the IEO part, which wrapped up August 29th. Apollo-X launched their IDO on August 30th, wrapping up on September 1st. And lastly Raydium organized an IDO on their AcceleRaytor launchpad September 1st.

A total of 2% of both tokens was offered this way (1% via FTX, 0.5% via Apollo-X and 0.5% via Raydium).

Note: There will be no further IDO’s!

Ships
At the moment ships that are useable in-game can be bought and traded on the Galactic Marketplace. In the future the team will release additional ships through the GAO.

Note: It is not necessary to own a ship in order to register for the game. You will need at least one ship however to start playing the game in the near future.

The smallest & cheapest ships are listed below:
 * Pearce X4
 * Opal Jet

Direct links to their respective marketplace entries can be found in their summary tables.

Locked & Loaded
Every ship bought comes with default components & a full set of crew members required to fly them. Additionally all ships come with a full tank of gas.

Fleets
You can use multiple ships in the game, either sending them on individual missions, or grouping them into a fleet to take on bigger missions. You can also team up with a different player to create a bigger fleet and do a mission together.

Rebirth
To get momentum going the team engineered a 14-week campaign centered around multimedia posters. This campaign started April 24th 2021 and lasted until July 24th 2021, and in that time 14 NFT meta-posters were being offered for sale, one each week.

Armstrong Forever
During the Rebirth one additional poster was released on June 15th 2021 that was not a part of the Rebirth campaign. This Armstrong Forever poster was a special collaboration with the USSF and kicked off the new Legends series of poster.

Rebirth Rewards
People who owned a specific set of Rebirth posters -or the Armstrong Forever poster- by August 25th 2021, got their rewards airdropped September 2nd 2021.

Townhalls
Early on during development the team decided to host weekly voice-enabled meetings on their Discord server. After experimenting with hosting one on Twitter Spaces, the team decided to stick to Discord. Currently a Townhall is organised most Friday's, so it's not always every week.

Originally Pablo Quiroga (aka Starsapa - CRO) organized and hosted them, but Santi (aka SantiACC) took over starting with episode 6.

Recordings
Recordings can be found here:
 * Audius
 * YouTube (voice only with art-stills)

Note: the very first Townhall was unfortunately not recorded.

Wiki
This wiki is community-maintained and therefore unofficial. Information contained here will not always be accurate and might be out of date. Such is unfortunately the nature of wiki’s.

In our quest to keep this wiki as up-to-date as possible however we would like to ask you to consider registering an account and correct any errors or oversights as you discover them.