Gameplay

Some thoughts on emerging gameplay in Star Atlas

Fixed Faction Earnings

Since the introduction of SAGE Labs: Starbased, the base ATLAS emissions/earnings for each Faction are fixed* per epoch (day).

Every day, each Faction slices its ATLAS pie based on each of its members' relative contributions compared to the total contributions by all members. The result is that every player will receive a slice based on:

1. Individual Contribution — The effort they put in that day

2. Collective Contribution — The effort everyone else put in on that same day and within the same faction.

Note that not all effort is rewarded. Only the gameplay loops that have been singled out as benefiting the Faction will earn a player Loyalty Points (LP) and through that ATLAS. Immersively speaking, each Faction's government earmarked a certain daily budget to reward all of its constituents for the work they have put in, which benefits the Faction directly.

This has two obvious consequences:

1. Internal Competition — Because the size of the pie is fixed, the amount of ATLAS earned by a player does not solely depend on the effort they put in (i.e., the amount of LP they earn) but also on the amount of effort everyone residing in that same Faction puts in. Consequently, if a player puts in less effort one day, everyone else earns a little more. On the other hand, if that player puts in more effort, then everyone else earns a little less. Of course, this is only a theoretical example, as the effort of the other players will not remain constant either.

2. External Balancing — If, on average, the total effort put in (expressed as LP earned) in Faction A is higher than the total effort in Faction B, then a player could improve their earnings by migrating from Faction A to B. After all, with ATLAS budgets for each Faction being close to equal, their slice of the pie would, on average, be bigger over there.

In our New Economic Paradigm article, we covered the above in more depth [before Starbased was released].

Let's go a little deeper into these two topics.

* Every Faction rewards its contributing members a base of 2 million ATLAS per epoch. However, every Starbase upgrade [within that Faction] unlocks a small bonus emission in addition to that.

Internal Competition

Labeling this Internal Competition is perhaps an overly one-sided view. However, it has quickly become the predominant way players characterize the internal dynamics of this approach. After all, one player's effort affects everyone's earnings within the faction. If a player puts in twice as much effort, their earnings will be higher, whereas the others would earn a little less (all other things remaining equal).

However, the team may not have intended this. It is more likely a side-effect of putting a hard limit on the amount of ATLAS the team emits daily.

When the world outside of crypto has a limited budget, government bodies often subsidize/reward citizens/companies until their budget runs out. The team's approach to this ensures everyone is rewarded and no one loses out, although the amount you're getting is not clear until received.

Because every blockchain transaction is visible, the level of transparency regarding individual earnings is a day and night difference compared to similar approaches in the "real" world. This means that besides looking at their own contributions, players are now also easily able to see what other players brought to the table, which could lead to animosity/jealousy that would likely not be present were such a system introduced by governments (which would be a black box solution).

External Balancing

The team has always promoted the fixed ATLAS earnings per Faction as a great way to balance the game's factions. After all, if there is a runaway Faction attracting more and more players, the earnings of the players in that Faction will likely trend downward. As a result, the earnings potential in the other two Factions will then become increasingly attractive.

New players coming into Star Atlas have many things to ponder when choosing their faction. Their earnings potential (in the short-term) across the various factions is one of them. If the difference between factions is big enough, it could sway them to go with the one where they would earn more. Of course, what number constitutes a big enough incentive to get new players to abandon their initial choice will differ from person to person.

If the rate of new players joining doesn’t quickly balance out the disparity in earnings, the temporary spike in earning potential in another Faction may tempt existing players to switch to—or create a secondary account in—that faction. At Aephia, we fully support and encourage this.

It remains to be seen what the primary driver of Faction adoption will be. If new players exclusively cared about their bottom line, then the faction earnings would even out. But, while one faction may offer highly attractive earnings today, the situation could change within days. Therefore, both new and existing players may want to take historical earning trends into account as well.

Maximizing Profit – Collectively

A core part of our mission is to help our members maximize their in-game profit. With fixed daily ATLAS emissions, an individual’s profit would naturally increase if others in their faction played less. However, we cannot encourage players to underperform or stop playing altogether just to boost someone else’s earnings.

Instead, we focus on empowering every team member to enhance their own profit through proactive strategies, not by limiting others. We want to give our members the tools to do more and/or to adopt different strategies to improve their bottom line.

Our goal is to ensure that every member benefits rather than shifting profits from one player to another. Our focus is on collective progress. We want to grow the size of the pie for Aephia and increase everyone's profitability.

Ultimately, everyone is playing the game to enjoy themselves and earn profits. Our goal is to enrich that experience. It’s not about creating a trade-off at the expense of some players for the benefit of others. We are always looking at the collective, not at specific individuals.

We are not here to judge the value someone has put into their game assets. We don't know if the $10, $10k, or $1 million worth of assets acquired represents their lunch money or life savings.

Faction Sniping

A few Brews before Starbased was released, ZeSKK/José (Community Team) shared that the game would come with an interesting mechanic bound to upset some people. Whoever finishes the last part of a component upgrade would be rewarded with Loyalty Points, but all other upgrade jobs still ongoing (or unclaimed) would see their input materials refunded to the player without them earning LP.

He predicted this would spark intense competition among players—and he was right!

Naturally, players with greater crafting capabilities can finish the job before you do. This game dynamic introduces a layer of risk, making participation in these upgrades a more strategic and potentially riskier part of the game. Figuring this stuff out and rolling the dice is what makes this game fun!

Now, what game devs perhaps did not expect is players focusing on producing (only) the most lucrative components and then going from 0% to 100% with an upgrade in a matter of hours. However, this has turned out to be a viable strategy for playing the game. Like with any multiplayer game, this game is not played in isolation. Other players affect your gameplay and the outcome of your actions. If you don't like that, a single-player game might be more for you.

Note that with the update that introduced auto-redemption of LP for ATLAS, Faction Sniping has become less prevalent.