Pre-Cursor Chain

[Damedius]

I used to have no problem completing this at launch when it was broken.

Now I'm lucky to find 2 or 3 of 6 in a game.

What changes were made that makes this so hard to complete now?

 

[lwarmonger]

I think it might be the automatic open borders. Now that open borders is default, the AI can survey everywhere, and once one empire finds an anomaly on a planet, there will be no more for anyone else.

 

[Damedius]

Unintended consequences of the changes they made I guess.

 

[Mitchz95]

They really should make it so that the Precursor events can't be used by the AI. That way we'll still uncover them even while treading territory the AI already visited.

 

[drake546]

I used to have no problem completing this at launch when it was broken.

Now I'm lucky to find 2 or 3 of 6 in a game.

What changes were made that makes this so hard to complete now?

Its not just that quest. After a bit no star system has any anomalies anymore, because the AI takes them all. It really sucks out any fun that was left in the science ship stuff.

 

[lwarmonger]

They really should make it so that the Precursor events can't be used by the AI. That way we'll still uncover them even while treading territory the AI already visited.

Once any anomaly is discovered there will be no more anomalies no a given planet.

The way to fix this is to have all the precursor anomalies spawn either at once (like the zoo event chain), or in sequence (the way events like the cultists do), that way it doesn't matter what the AI is surveying.

 

[drake546]

Once any anomaly is discovered there will be no more anomalies no a given planet.

The way to fix this is to have all the precursor anomalies spawn either at once (like the zoo event chain), or in sequence (the way events like the cultists do), that way it doesn't matter what the AI is surveying.

I think a better solution is to make an exception for the player to find anomalies even where the AI has already found them. This would keep any individual planet from going crazy as a result of anomalies, but not screw over the player like what happens now.

 

[Kyle Lionheart]

All those anomalies for the player...I feel it would be too much of an advantage, and we already have enough of them over the poor abused AI

But making it so the quest anomalies are special and can be always found if you have them in the log seems reasonable.

 

[-Marauder-]

Once any anomaly is discovered there will be no more anomalies no a given planet.

The way to fix this is to have all the precursor anomalies spawn either at once (like the zoo event chain), or in sequence (the way events like the cultists do), that way it doesn't matter what the AI is surveying.

A better fix might be to do away with this. The AI isn't a player, it collecting anomalies might have some "balance reason" even though most of them give negligible boni but it kills one of the most fun aspects of the game. The AI doesn't care, it doesn't have fun nor will it be bored. It shouldn't take fun from the player.

All those anomalies for the player...I feel it would be too much of an advantage, and we already have enough of them over the poor abused AI

But making it so the quest anomalies are special and can be always found if you have them in the log seems reasonable.

The AI gets massive advantages in 2/3 modes. Most of the anomalies aren't even that great or that much of an advantage. Simply doing away with the "once and never again" thing except for colonized planets would already solve this issue aswell.

I can see someone else finding a modifier that screws over a planets owner to be a problem. But on a barren planet, sun or somewhere else it really doesn't matter if 10 people find 10 different anomalies on it.

 

[Kyle Lionheart]

Anomalies can give fairly substantial(for early/early mid game) science stockpiles, planetary resources, and in a few cases fairly useful ships. I wouldn't call them negligible...

 

[ponasozis]

i still have not done any precursor events even before that
always got stuck at 5/6
now i get stuck at about 2/6
and i don t even bother with this event anymore

 

[drake546]

Anomalies can give fairly substantial(for early/early mid game) science stockpiles, planetary resources, and in a few cases fairly useful ships. I wouldn't call them negligible...

Early game isn't when you run out of anomalies, its midgame and end game. Early game there's plenty of star systems near you that haven't been used up by the AI.

All those anomalies for the player...I feel it would be too much of an advantage, and we already have enough of them over the poor abused AI

But making it so the quest anomalies are special and can be always found if you have them in the log seems reasonable.

Anomalies aren't so powerful they break the game. Especially once you get to midgame. But not having them just means there's nothing to break up what quickly becomes boring tedium.

 

[smjjames]

For some reason, the Cybrex ones seem a whole lot easier to get, but yeah, even with multiple science ships running around (up to three), I often only end up with between 3 and 5, sometimes less.

I've found the Cybrex one to be the only one that is actually useful and is the only one that makes me go 'oh awesome', the rest range from meh to eh.

Also, has anybody EVER managed to complete the Vultaum one? I tried to do it on a small or tiny elliptical galaxy with a single AI empire and I killed the AI empire and FE to make sure that I could get the anomalies and still couldn't complete it.

 

[Vind7]

Anomalies totally luck based and this is bad.Never completed 3+ chains and looks like unless i turn down advanced AIs and number of AIs i never will.

 

[harvesarmy]

Maybe some random spawns of anomalies later game might help this. Fluff wise, this could represent imperfect scanning of a system. You might even want to link it to colonisation or number of pops on a planet.

Or perhaps there could be an option to "resurvey" a system with a small chance of discovering an anomaly. I guess it would be nice to just give the game a bit of flavour towards the end.

One final idea - you could have a shared pool of anomalies. I.e. allow the ai to have anomalies, but if you conquer that planet you can also follow up on that quest line. Maybe there could be sone espionage element to the game here, whereby you can steal or trade secrets.

I also think that the shards and gas grazers should be able to respawn in certain areas, just so that you have a chance at more of the tech they carry.

 

[Salaman Der]

A better fix might be to do away with this. The AI isn't a player, it collecting anomalies might have some "balance reason" even though most of them give negligible boni but it kills one of the most fun aspects of the game. The AI doesn't care, it doesn't have fun nor will it be bored. It shouldn't take fun from the player.

how about giving Anomalies a "flag"?
if the one that collect the anomaly isn't a human player (it means, is the AI), the Anomaly is "flagged" and can be researched again by another player for a 1/10 of the original points (it means, it is only for fun or quest-related reasons)

 

[dying0d]

If you want anomalies:

Don't scan systems not controlled by you or that are unclaimed

Don't trade star charts

Eliminate an ai empire entirely before scanning conquered systems.

Removing the empire removes their flags from the game, unlocking anomalies only flagged by them.

Sucks because it basically means you're dedicated to conquering the galaxy, if you're interested in event chains

 

[AvalancheZ250]

I used to have no problem completing this at launch when it was broken.

Now I'm lucky to find 2 or 3 of 6 in a game.

What changes were made that makes this so hard to complete now?

Started a new 1.4.1 game
Found 11 anomalies within the first 7 years
5 of them were Precursor anomalies

I was shocked to see so many Precursor anomalies. Its great I can actually get more than 2 per game now, but it might be a little too much. Your just unlucky I guess. Gotta get them systems before the Xeno's do

 

[The Educated Fool]

So I've found 7/6 precursor artifacts and the Quest is still not completed ... is this a bug or am I missing something?

 

[Rip Off Productions]

I thought they added random chances of precursor artifacts being "discovered/detected" in already surveyed systems to avoid exactly this scenario? I remember that the first time I finished the Cybrix chain it was through two of those kinds of "hey we found something in this system, go check it out." events.