You ever had an Artifact on your home planet, or seen one on an enemy homeworld?

By default, artifacts can't be created on the home planet (it starts 100% explored, also).

I'm pretty sure you could force it on a map or mod, but presently it doesn't happen.

Also, the "default" artifact frequency is 15% chance (no duplicates, for insanely large maps). It's 40% for exploration-based planetary bonuses.

Some maps force artifacts to certain planets, so that skews it a little

Hope that helps!

Thanks, Annatar! Can you clear up a few things?

1) If you find one every 15 planets, on the average, and there are 9 artifacts, then "insanely large" is 135 (9x15), if I'm following you right? (Related: by 15%, you must mean 15% of planets, not 15% of the time you Explore Planet, eh.)

2) Exploration bonusses always show up with the first Explore Planet, right?

3) When you say "Some maps force artifacts to certain planets", you must be talking about how planetary systems with e.g. gas giants can't have artifacts, eh? And also some of the exploration-based findings are related to the planet type, such as Glaciers on Ice planets?

4) In one game, I found 4 Artifacts (not planet bonusses) on the first Explore of a set of planets. One the second Explore, I only found 1 more. Any idea if they're more likely to show up on the first Explore, or was that a fluke?

5) Is there a file with the rules for generating these bonusses?

Thanks if you can help!! - Mike

All I know is I'm getting sick of having 8 artifacts in my list, with the ninth (required for the archaeologist achievement) nowhere to be found.

1) Yes, by 15% I mean 15% of the planets, not 15% of the time you Explore And yes, it would be something like that. Like Sp3ktr3 pointed out, sometimes you end up with just 8 even on Random Huge-sized maps

2) I don't think so. I've looked through the files that I thought would be relevant (gameplay.constants, GalaxyScenarioDef, and the planet/artifact files) and there's nothing jumping out as saying "this is how it works". My educated guess is that each stage of the upgrade is basically a chance to find.. so sometimes you find it on the first try, sometimes on the second. I've had both, and I've had variations of finding a bonus on the first hit, then an artifact and the reverse of an artifact first and then a bonus.

3) No, that's populated properly by default, as far as I know. What I mean is that some maps set artifacts on specific planet - when you make a map, you can make an artifact always appear on a specific planet, ignoring the random chance. There are only a few maps that do this, to my knowledge.

4) Like 2), I'm not sure. I'm guessing it's random-ish.

5) Not quite sure what you mean, but there are several relevant files. Firstly, each map file actually has this:

planetArtifactDensity .15
planetBonusDensity .40

Each artifact and planet bonus has an .entity file that basically sets what it does. Each planet has an .entity file where you can set the number of Exploration upgrade stages and costs. There's nothing that I could readily find that points out the chance of finding an artifact on the first vs a second explore stage, though. In the case of planet bonuses, each planet type entity file also specifies which bonuses the planet may be randomly assigned.

Thanks Annatar, now I see what you're saying. I found two .galaxy files with neither artifacts nor bonuses: Derelict and Gaean Crescent. And Tutorials don't have bonuses.

I've only just started watching my games - and indeed, I happened to see the exact reverse of what I said above ... I saw 1 artifact on Explore 1, and 4 artifacts on Explore 2, for a set of planets in my latest game.

However I still have not seen a single planet bonus on Explore 2; I've only seen them on Explore 1.

These things are easy to see if you wait, and then Explore a bunch of planets at once. I now do this often, because Exploring just doesn't seem worth it early in the game. Why not put the money into research where you have a 100% chance of finding something? Once I've got more money than I can spend, is when I go Exploring.

I guess that while it's possible to define particular planets with particular artifacts and bonuses, it probably doesn't happen much, if any, at least with the stock maps.

Those .entity files are odd... why make every other character be null? Oh well.

Sp3ktr3, if you include the roughly 1/7th of planets that are gas giants & plasma storms etc. (this probably depends on the map), plus probably however many players there are (if there are no artifacts on anybody's start world), then you probably need more like 150 or 170 "planets" (inc. gas giants etc.) to be pretty certain of finding all nine artifacts.

Erp, you need the text versions from the incomplete mod pack in the Downloads section

Cool, that'll help. If I get the time, I'll list them on the wiki for each planet type.

Eh - I just saw a clear example of a Planet Bonus on the second Explore. But it was for a planet with two bonuses. Hmm.

I want to know why every game, almost every AI gets an artifact on their second planet, and I never find any on about thirty.

About thirty minutes in, it's a list of 'An artifact has been discovered!' and what do I have? A Roider outpost. Wheeee...

Well... I did the 102 random map and ended up with 11 artifacts... two of which were duplicates. So... it seems that you can get duplicates, though, do they stack?

Cya

U235, now that you mention it, I see that in my Aerolian game ... a number of Artifacts are located just next to start-position planets. (Starting planets are real clear on this big map.) I'm only playing vs. 1 AI and yep, he has an arty one away from his home - but I don't. Maybe if I get some time I'll review my other Aerolian games. It does give the appearance of stacking the odds, in my current game.

Solar Ice - Artifacts, not planet bonuses? With the exact same description on both planets, and it's also on the research screen? (Maybe you can tell Sp3ktr3 your secret for finding Artifacts, hehe.) No idea if they stack ... do you have a savegame versus before finding the second one; is it an arty where you can compare numbers?

Annatar, thanks for that tip on the text versions...

I found that there is indeed a timing to finding planet bonuses (but not artifacts). I've checked it across about 100 planets and found it to work like a charm. It's the min and maxUpgradeLevelNeeded in the PlanetBonus.entity files. Check out the this page that I just made on the wiki (I'm RedKnight there).

you can get artifacts near your home plant, like the AI you were referring too, but it happen rarely. Plus, everyone should know that AI like to be cheap something. oo, and one more thing, Pirate base do have artifacts, and i found this out when i colonize my 2nd pirate base (it not the trade raid bonuses.)

I once had a case where I had an asteroid, explored it fully, then a bunch of siege frigates jumped in and lanced the colony. When I recaptured it adn explored it again, I found an artifact. I know it wasn't on my homeworld or the homeworld of an enemy, but it's still pretty wierd.

Landsraad, thanks for the info. I had not seen anything but Plundered Booty at pirate bases, so I was wondering if they were forbidden to have anything else. You saw something else? Cool.

Keil, that's very odd. I know from multiple reloads during testing, that bonuses and artifacts are normally fixed. So you're saying it looks like it's "reset" if one loses the colony?

I can confirm seeing artifacts on pirate bases - I think anything that can be colonized (and not a home planet) can house one.

Hmm, well, PlanetPirateBase.entity has these lines:

requiredPlanetBonusesCount 1
bonus "PlanetBonusPirateTreasure"
possibleRandomPlanetBonusesCount 0

And there is no list of possible bonuses, as for other planets. Are you guys SURE you saw something besides Plundered Booty? (On a stock map, right? Mod maps can do anything the designer wanted.)

Another question: Has anyone ever seen more than 2 planet bonuses on a planet? (Does not include artifacts, which are something different.) I haven't seen more than 2.

Final question: It's known that there are no planet bonuses for player homeworlds (more precisely, start worlds). In my limited experience, this also true of all possible start positions, not just the ones that were actually used... I've played it several times with only one opponent, so I could quickly conquer the map and test planet bonuses. I've never seen a bonus on a starting *position* planet. Has anyone else? These may not be clear on all maps, but if you know some maps well, you can tell.

Check out the latest update to the wiki Planets page. Comments welcomed![/code]

Artifacts are not a PlanetBonus

Actually, all the planet bonuses have entity files for them, so you can see exactly what they are. But yes, I'm definitely sure!

I haven't seen more than 2 bonuses on a planet either.



This should be true, yes. In the map, starting locations are set as "isHomePlanet TRUE", which likely does mean that the game ignores it for bonus/artifact placement even if there's no player enabled for it.

Yes, you can get duplicates - I've had them many times in huge random maps.

No, the duplicates don't stack. You only get the one artifact.

As for the "15% of planets or 15% chance from searching a given planet", these exactly are the same, when taken over an entire map. If 15% of planets have artifacts, you have a 15% chance of finding one in a random planet. And vice versa.

For my money, artifacts and planetary bonuses simply aren't worth the expense to search for. I'd be interested in seeing the odds table when it's done, NoSpamMan, but I imagine you will need a large number of planets, and need to plan to keep them for a long time, before the exploration upgrade becomes profitable.

Hehe, good point about artifacts, Anna :p 

Right, I made a list of all the possible bonuses versus planet type here.

I have yet to see any planet bonuses on start positions, and the Planet[Type]Home.entity files support that.

But I have definitely seen an artifact on a start position (which wasn't used because there were less than the max number of players). I can show you the savegame. And you folks say you've found an artifact on a Pirate Base. Keilworth says he had a colony with no artifact, lost it, then found an artifact when he re-captured it.

I am thinking artifacts follow their own set of rules ... look how there's nothing about artifacts in any of the Planet.entity files. Maybe they are even rolled for when the explore is done; it doesn't matter what planet, where. With one exception: Actual starts don't have artifacts. (Maybe that's why they come pre-explored - to get around the chance you might find an artifact on your start planet.) This may even mean you could find an artifact on some other actual start planet - but it wouldn't have been there for the original owner.

Hmm.

Excellent table there, noSpamMan. Good work - thanks