Star Atlas May 2025 Patch — Dedicated Servers, Pearce X5, and Paizul’s Arena Gets a Level Up

7 min readMay 14, 2025

Patch day is here! Bringing a visually complete Pearce X5, a Paizul’s Arena level up, the long-desired dedicated servers, and shiploads more! There’s also a bunch of quality-of-life tweaks and bug fixes.

With this update, our monthly patch cycle is taking a short break as we gear up for a major mid-year release featuring gunplay matchmaking and the first version of progression.

MAJOR HIGHLIGHTS

Dedicated servers for gunplay lobbies with 4 or more players
New multiplayer hosting/joining lobby flow
Paizul’s Arena overhaul & Gateway redesign
Pearce X5 in-game model completion
Custom keybind remapping and improved controller support
Co-op Dogfighting
Multiplayer racing improvements
Mining minigame improvements

GUNPLAY

Balance Changes

Adjusted melee, jettie boost, fall and weapon damage values: People should die a lot more quickly now!
Reduced firearm swap cooldown from .75s to .1s
Fixed accuracy values of sighted weapon in and out of ADS: Sorry, no more easy sniper no scopes
Gunplay Trainer bots no longer spawn with a grenade

Weapon Changes

Added new shotgun model
Added new optimized weapon models that support weapon skinning
Added Gatling Gun Spin Up and Spin Down delay when firing
Added increased bounciness to grenades
Changed Auto Rifle pickups to be Scout Rifle pickups: you now spawn with Auto Rifles, so we’re switching old Auto Rifle pickups to be Scout Rifles now
Added lag compensation support for melee hit detection
Increased pickup radius on weapon spawners

HUD Changes

Refactored the minimap: Supports building interiors, added new mini-map icons for vehicle/trains/race gates/zones, added new states alive/dead, damage direction indicators and increased enemy visibility radius in the minimap
Added crosshair aim obstructor indicator “X” on player HUD when your bullets hit a wall
Added kills/points in the match HUD
Added team population when in team selection
Added new icon for Gun Game winner
Adjusted Shield, Health, and Jettie Juice HUD bars
Added killstreak callouts in game feed
Added zone capture callouts in game feed
Added crosshair animations and damage numbers for Grenades and Jettie Melee
Added incoming missile indicator on Ship HUD

GALIA (OPEN WORLD)

Added new vehicle modes: Combat, Tractor Beam, Scanning, and Mining
Added new tractor beam tether/vacuum mode
Added different-sized asteroids for a variety of difficulties in the mining minigame
Added “Mock-Credits” that can be earned through gameplay and saved between sessions
Added mineables on planet surfaces
Adjusted vehicles to now use gravity volumes instead of portals
Optimized API logic for getting gravity on an actor
Improved character movement transitions between different gravity directions

MAPS AND ENVIRONMENT

Paizul’s Arena (Arena Map)

Updated Paizul’s Arena with new textures and a higher resolution blockout
Updated exterior environment of Paizul’s Arena with atmospheric ship traffic and references to the ONI CSS
Added new lighting
Added destructible pillars

Gateway (Arena Map)

Updated map layout based on community feedback: Some players expressed their feelings of the map feeling bigger than it was, so we’re adding more ways to get into the action quicker
Updated the map with various optimization improvements
Added new lighting
Fixed various collision issues

Uru (Arena Map)

Updated the map with additional progress on the white box phase
Added new lighting
Fixed various collision issues

Gunplay Trainer Map

Added the ability to shoot through railings and other smaller holes
Added the ability to fly/mantle through the wider gaps in the building walls
Adjusted the stairs to be smoother

MULTIPLAYER

Added new multiplayer lobby support
Added dedicated servers for lobbies that start a gunplay match with 4 or more players
Improved multiplayer support for vehicles: Replicated vehicle animations, reduced rubber banding, fixed vehicle visibility issues and fixed floating characters

RACING AND DOGFIGHTING

Racing

Improved user experience for starting a multiplayer race
Added support for reverse direction races (and leaderboards)
Added jump pads to scale heights in tracks
Fixed a variety of issues surrounding vehicle race times on a leaderboard
Added a wrong-way/missed checkpoint HUD indicator

Dogfighting

Added a CO-OP version of the dogfighting minigame
Added drop pickups after you destroy enemy AI spaceships
Improved enemy AI bots logic
Added new leaderboard

VEHICLES

Added the Pearce X5 with final art
Fixed a variety of issues with the Pearce R6
Adjusted the handling of various XXS ships
Improved nametag support for possessed vehicles
Restored the ability to customize equipment groups in vehicle configurator
Added new HUD notification when trying to subwarp with insufficient fuel

CHARACTER

Improved jettie dashing while hovering
Added the ability to chain movement abilities: you can now chain a slide after a dash as well as instantly slide when landing if you held a slide input
Fixed a character’s knees to point in the direction of motion during a slide
Adjusted camera for all species: playing a Punaab has never felt this good

Special Effects

SFX

Added new sounds: Game mod voice-overs, weapon swaps, Cockpit wind, Ragdoll Impacts, and states of character (alive/dead)

VFX

Changed VFX on vehicle thruster
Improved Jettie VFX and adjusted size/location by species
Added grenade sparks on bounces
Added new waterfall VFX
Decreased lifetime of weapon tracers

OPTIMIZATION

Refactored galaxy requests system
Upgraded to Unreal Engine 5.5.4
Migrated and refactored all Weapon Effects logic to C++
Improved character/vehicle possession logic

MISCELLANEOUS BUGS AND FIXES

Fixed an issue where traveling to edges of arenas in photomode would create weapon spawner icon visual artifacts
Fixed scroll box height for accounts list
Fixed a bug where some players would experience the lighting breaking in the configurator screen
Fixed an issue where the HUD leaderboard wouldn’t reset correctly
Fixed an issue where missiles would sometimes not apply damage
Fixed an issue where kills/points/deaths would accrue between matches
Fixed an issue where a character wouldn’t be facing the correct direction on respawn
Fixed an issue where a player couldn’t back out of changing their team
Updated celebration test from “Defeat” to “Match Over”
Fixed an incorrect celebration screen when ONI wins in Surge
Improved network reliability of character weapon drawing/holstering/swapping events
Fixed an issue where players would pop/teleport when loading into a gunplay match
Fixed team tile highlighting logic on the team select screen
Added a way for players to switch teams mid match by pressing F2
Fixed an issue causing some players to t-pose
Added FX to melee hits
Fixed toggled crouch desync on death while crouch
Adjusted camera shakes to stop when a ship/character is destroyed
Fixed an issue where players would sometimes take fall damage on respawn
Added missing seat slots to double benches
Fixed a memory leak where bots wouldn’t get fully destroyed on death
Fixed an issue with max craning height in Photo Mode
Fixed various edge cases around zone indicators disappearing or not displaying the correct state
Fixed vehicle cruise control issues when a player would alt-tab
Fixed an issue where header menu elements didn’t work in the vehicle configurator
Adjusted scroll bars to be easier to use
Fixed an issue where a ship would remain in a leaned orientation when exiting a ship during leans
Added teleport FX that plays during multiplayer respawns
Fixed an issue where grenade FX would not sync correctly in local clients
Adjusted the ship configurator screen to not have the component selection menu automatically open
Fixed an issue where crosshair animations would play immediately after respawn
Fixed an issue where Photo Gallery drop down sorting filters wouldn’t work

ABOUT STAR ATLAS

Star Atlas is a next-gen gaming metaverse emerging from the confluence of state-of-the-art blockchain technologies, real-time graphics, and multiplayer video games.

Using Unreal Engine 5’s Nanite real-time graphics technology allows for cinematic quality video game visuals. In addition, blockchain technology using Solana establishes a largely serverless and secured gameplay experience. Player assets obtained and traded within Star Atlas create an economy that replicates tangible world assets and ownership.

To learn more, join a faction at Play.StarAtlas.com, get a spaceship in the Galactic Marketplace, and start playing the SAGE Labs browser game to explore, gather, craft and prosper on the galactic frontier.

Then, download the UE5 PC Game from the Epic Games Store.

Participate in governance of the Star Atlas DAO. Send your spaceships on a deep space mission by enrolling them in a Faction Fleet and harvest resources with Faction Claims.

Star Atlas