Are quests like the Vultaum chain even possible to finish?

[Ariphaos]

Where the 'quest points' are inside anomalies rather than actual research points proper.

Since even if you avoid trading star charts, systems eventually become 'unsurveyable' the most I've ever managed to get in a run was one artifact - and this was in an incredibly aggressive run where I had -five- scientists running at a time. Hundreds of surveyed systems - and one artifact.

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I am personally of the opinion that at the very least, finding and researching anomalies is something that scientists should be doing on autopilot, as a separate concept from system resource surveys. Chance to trigger should be lower, but it should also continue throughout the game.

It'd be fun to see our scientists have minds of their own. Manually surveying and grabbing debris is honestly tedious.

 

[CommanderStrax]

I'm on my first playthrough, roughly 40% of the galaxy is known (surveyed) to me and I've found 3 of their artifacts.

I agree with the star chart problem, luckily (for me) enough the only species wanting to trade them has only mapped the systems I've mapped as well.

I completely agree on the 'automate science ships' however. Also there should be some kind of 'vocational education' or 'tutor' program where I can assign a young level 1 scientist to a > 60 year old level 4 scientist so that the level 1 scientist will learn a few things from the old one and become something like 'level=tutorLevel-2' scientist. (in case of a level 4 scientist, that'd make the scholar a level 2 scientist).

Same for Admirals and Generals and so on.

 

[Fonz]

I've had 4 games now and never managed to finish the precursor quests. The latest game is my luckiest and I've had 4 spawn in my own territory and my allies. But can't find anymore even in the space around fallen empires. I think 6 is way too much even on a 1000 star map, it's just so rare to have all of it that it's pointless to do that quest.

 

[Mar]

For me im doing a save and all 6 spawned within my very small borders and i have found the Valtaum homeworld however i have no idea what to do now

 

[henzington]

For me im doing a save and all 6 spawned within my very small borders and i have found the Valtaum homeworld however i have no idea what to do now

There should be a special project to track it on the map. With the exception of the ruined ring world the home systems are rather underwhelming. Hopefully they are improved in the future.

 

[Slingshot82]

I've been able to find the home worlds of different precursors a few times, but every time another empires science ship would nip in first and start surveying the system. Assuming this breaks the chain because I've never had a cool reward or had the chain end successfully...

 

[TheArchduke]

My suggestion is to do what I do.

Wait with the 6th event until you have truces and build 20+ science ships, spread them out over the galaxy and pray.

The rewards are 100% worthless, especially for the hassle, except for the Cybrex one, so you don´t have to bother with the others anyway.

 

[Me_]

Sure, they are perfectly doable, just remember 3 things:
1) don't anylyze anomalies that may be precursors', unless chance of failure is 0%;
2) don't buy star charts;
3) don't survey systems taken from enemies until you remove the target empire enitirely from the game (this clears a flag that prevents new anomalies).

Ever since I've begun to follow those rules I always succeed on 1000 stars maps. On smaller ones the chain may end up being practically impossible, though.

As has been said only Cybrex are really good, although I've had Irassia with some awesome resources in my current game. I've only managed to finish those two and First League, as RNG hatses me and keeps throwing Irassian chain at me.

 

[--Yigito123--]

I've "completed" it a few times before, but it seems that another empire always manages to get to the homeworld before I do and I'm just left there, unable to finish it because they've already scanned that world. That seriously should not happen.

 

[Avalon8782]

I've been able to find the home worlds of different precursors a few times, but every time another empires science ship would nip in first and start surveying the system. Assuming this breaks the chain because I've never had a cool reward or had the chain end successfully...

I managed to finish the Cybrex chain, and their homeworld was inside another Empire's borders. I managed to dash in and survey part of the ringworld, and got access to Living Metal, but it continued to show the quest as incomplete, because they had two survey ships and a constructor in there.

 

[scaper12123]

The way the precursor chains are set up makes them very unlikely to ever be completed, at least officially. You are not likely to come across all the anomalies you need to find the precursor planet from the outset, meaning you'll probably be at midgame before you reach the end of it. And then it's very likely the planet will be surveyed and discovered by somebody else before you can get to it, which prevents you from getting the anomaly.

There're other problems with the precursor chain as well, such as other nations having the same chain as you. For example, I randomly noticed the Yhut system pop up in my system despite me not having completed the chain, and when I hopped over there I was able to get the end of the chain. Of course, later I found the last Yhut artifact I needed and unlocked the location of their home system (which I'd already found) and thus have an eternal benefit of the doubt in my situation log (which really annoys me). The AI nations get precursor events as well and thus somebody must have gotten the same system as me and finished it, but it spawned in my system (the poor guys).

Honestly, I think the only way to address this problem is to have the precursor planet pop up as a research project when you enter the system as opposed to making it an anomaly. That and the frequency of precursor anomalies being spawned in your system needs to be increased during mid-game.

 

[GC13]

If the engine can't handle a system that only one empire can see, maybe it would be easier to make an empire for the precursor that holds that system, and give it closed borders to everyone except those who have discovered the system. The trick would be if you could have an empire with no Pops and no borders beyond their own system and that nobody could declare war on...

 

[Bob_the_Insane]

According to Steam I have over 500 hours played and i have completed a precursor quest chain fully exactly once. I think i just totally lucked out finding enough of those anomalies really early.

In fact this inspires me to run off and try a heavy under-populated large galaxy and see if that allows me to do it again...

 

[Kamakaze Panda]

I have completely the Irassian chain and found the Cybrex homeworld, though another Empire finished the quest, 'Cybrex Alpha' just happened to spawn in the middle of my empire.

I'm not sure if anyone else has experienced this and it may be due to me playing on a huge galaxy with not a huge number of empires, but in my current play through as of 2440 I have found the Irassian system, the Yuht and the First League, though only the Irassians were discovered by me and I only had the Irassian quest chain.

Also, they should really just have the system spawn in your borders if you found it and skip this mess, because it's implied that they operated primarily in your section of the galaxy and fiddling around with the console, I found that different parts of the galaxy have different precursors that the AI can complete as well.

 

[Pchang]

They all compete now with 1.4.1, but there are bugs with the situation log and multiple empires finishing the event chain. You have to be patient. It can take 100+ game years for enough events to spawn.