There are five races of Precursor: the Vultaum Star Assembly, the Yuht Empire, the First League, the Irassian Concordat, and the Cybrex. All five races exist in every game, each has an area of activity covers a number of systems. Default number is 100 systems each.
The start of a precursor chain is randomly triggered when you survey a planet within area of activity. It won't be triggered in your home system, though. Once you start a chain, you won't get other chains. In 1.5 only player can start such chain.
After a precursor chain started, you can find anomalies of that precursor when surveying planets within area of activity. Successfully investigating each anomaly and completing the following special project grants an artifact of that precursor.
After collecting 6 artifacts, the precursor chain ends and precursor homeworld chain starts. The first chain can end in two ways. If you are the first one to complete the chain of that precursor, the precursor home system will be spawned in vicinity of a random solar system within area of activity, and homeworld chain starts, pointing to home system. If you are not the first, it just starts homeworld chain and pointing to already-spawned home system. Note, the home system is just a normal solar system. Everyone can fly ships there, as long as you have border access there.
Surveying precursor homeworld can find an anomaly (precursor homeworld anomaly). Successfully investigate this anomaly will give you reward of the whole quest chain, and ends the chains. If you survey the homeworld after someone else gets the reward, you'll receive a notification telling you are late, and the chains end.
If you haven't completed collection of 6 artifacts in 50 years, an event will pop up from time to time, adding a new precursor anomaly to a planet in area of activity within your border.
The above is how precursor chain supposed to work. Before we come to bug section, let's first review some rules of anomaly mechanics.
1) You can find an anomaly only if you survey a planet with a science ship. No survey, no anomaly. So if you get survey data of a planet by any other means (such as from event, from star chart trading, or from data sharing from federation allies), no anomaly for you on that planet.
2) The above rule is also applied when an anomaly is generated by event. If the planet's survey data is gained by any means other than having surveyed that planet with you science ship, you won't get access to that anomaly.
3) You won't find anomalies inside border of another empire.
4) When another empire has surveyed a planet not within border of any empire and find anomaly there, you won't find anomaly there by survey it later.
Now you can already see some problems in precursor chains.
1) If the home system is within border of another empire, you can't find homeworld anomaly. So you can't get reward.
2) If the home system is in a neutral system, Your survey of the homeworld is after another empire's but before he investigate the anomaly he found, you will not find anomaly, nor will you get notification. So the chain lingers in your Situation Log forever.
3) If you gains survey data of precursor homeworld before you survey it with science ship yourself, you won't find homeworld anomaly. It is especially annoying if the home system is within your empire and science ship of your federation ally beats you to survey it, as they won't find homeworld anomaly and you won't, either. Moreover, since you are not able to survey it any more, you won't get notification of you are late. So the chain lingers forever.
4) If the new anomaly event is triggered on a planet you got survey data by means other than having surveyed it by science ship yourself, you won't get that anomaly. Worse, because the event is written under assumption that you can investigate that anomaly, it removes that anomaly from list of possible anomalies for later iteration. So it is possible to run out of anomalies.
Adding insults to injury, there are a few bugs caused by script errors too.
1) Other than Yuht chain, in other chains the you-are-late notification actually never fires. It's due to trigger of those notification events are not properly set.
2) If you are not the first to find 6 artifacts of League, Irass, or Cybrex, the precursor chain won't end when you do find 6, nor will it end after you collect more artifacts. So homeworld chain never starts. This is because of error in deciding which ending precursor chain uses. Granted, since in 1.5 only player can start precursor chain, this bug does not happen in single player games.
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Before Paradox fix precursor chain officially, we have to use mods to deal with it. For example, MEM Precursor Fix, or Risa's Precursor Fix. (Of course, I recommend my mod.)
The number is defined in common\precursor_civilizations\00_precursor_civilizations.txt. You can modify size of each precursor area to whatever number, though effective maximum size of an area is about a quarter of whole galaxy.
After a precursor chain started, you can find anomalies of that precursor when surveying planets within area of activity. Successfully investigating each anomaly and completing the following special project grants an artifact of that precursor.
After collecting 6 artifacts, the precursor chain ends and precursor homeworld chain starts. The first chain can end in two ways. If you are the first one to complete the chain of that precursor, the precursor home system will be spawned in vicinity of a random solar system within area of activity, and homeworld chain starts, pointing to home system. If you are not the first, it just starts homeworld chain and pointing to already-spawned home system. Note, the home system is just a normal solar system. Everyone can fly ships there, as long as you have border access there.
Surveying precursor homeworld can find an anomaly (precursor homeworld anomaly). Successfully investigate this anomaly will give you reward of the whole quest chain, and ends the chains. If you survey the homeworld after someone else gets the reward, you'll receive a notification telling you are late, and the chains end.
If you haven't completed collection of 6 artifacts in 50 years, an event will pop up from time to time, adding a new precursor anomaly to a planet in area of activity within your border.
The above is how precursor chain supposed to work. Before we come to bug section, let's first review some rules of anomaly mechanics.
1) You can find an anomaly only if you survey a planet with a science ship. No survey, no anomaly. So if you get survey data of a planet by any other means (such as from event, from star chart trading, or from data sharing from federation allies), no anomaly for you on that planet.
2) The above rule is also applied when an anomaly is generated by event. If the planet's survey data is gained by any means other than having surveyed that planet with you science ship, you won't get access to that anomaly.
3) You won't find anomalies inside border of another empire.
4) When another empire has surveyed a planet not within border of any empire and find anomaly there, you won't find anomaly there by survey it later.
Now you can already see some problems in precursor chains.
1) If the home system is within border of another empire, you can't find homeworld anomaly. So you can't get reward.
2) If the home system is in a neutral system, Your survey of the homeworld is after another empire's but before he investigate the anomaly he found, you will not find anomaly, nor will you get notification. So the chain lingers in your Situation Log forever.
3) If you gains survey data of precursor homeworld before you survey it with science ship yourself, you won't find homeworld anomaly. It is especially annoying if the home system is within your empire and science ship of your federation ally beats you to survey it, as they won't find homeworld anomaly and you won't, either. Moreover, since you are not able to survey it any more, you won't get notification of you are late. So the chain lingers forever.
4) If the new anomaly event is triggered on a planet you got survey data by means other than having surveyed it by science ship yourself, you won't get that anomaly. Worse, because the event is written under assumption that you can investigate that anomaly, it removes that anomaly from list of possible anomalies for later iteration. So it is possible to run out of anomalies.
Adding insults to injury, there are a few bugs caused by script errors too.
1) Other than Yuht chain, in other chains the you-are-late notification actually never fires. It's due to trigger of those notification events are not properly set.
2) If you are not the first to find 6 artifacts of League, Irass, or Cybrex, the precursor chain won't end when you do find 6, nor will it end after you collect more artifacts. So homeworld chain never starts. This is because of error in deciding which ending precursor chain uses. Granted, since in 1.5 only player can start precursor chain, this bug does not happen in single player games.
===================
Before Paradox fix precursor chain officially, we have to use mods to deal with it. For example, MEM Precursor Fix, or Risa's Precursor Fix. (Of course, I recommend my mod.)
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