Artifact

[12jn00gb]

1. Does it work when I hold it in hand?
2. Does it have any range?
3. Does it work in caves?
4. Does it prevent enemies from spawning or it makes them more rare or it doesn't let them attack players or it makes them weaker? (in blue mode)

[RequiemsRose]

Let's see how well I can do lol:

1. No, the artifact ball has to be "planted" to work.

2. It does, but I couldn't say exactly how to measure it. I just know that in multiplayer games an artifact at another camp has no affect on me even a relatively short distance away (in some cases, still in render distance/sight even).

3. Not exactly. The blue part can cause the same sort of hesitation/fleeing affect, the red side wont spawn anything extra inside caves, and there's a decent chance of the artifact glitching entirely if planted in certain spots in caves as well. I just generally avoid doing so.

4. The blue mode essentially puts them in a fearful/hesitant state when nearby. or as some say, it "pacifies" them. They can still attack in this state, but its far rarer and usually that little smack and run rather than their chained combos. It doesn't reduce overall spawning, nor does it weaken them, but it can cause the enemies near you to prefer to just, walk away, potentially before you even notice they were there in the first place. They can still spawn, and still attack, and still kill the player. They are just a lot less likely to try when the blue artifact is down (if they seem to be getting more aggressive after it's been down for a while, it may be worth picking it back up and placing it back down as well).


Sidenote about the artifact mostly related to multiplayer: the artifact has it's own icon and all players on the server can see it. Be careful about its use in multiplayer games, as all players can also go pick it up when it's placed, and some are known to flip it to red and replace it just to cause a bit of chaos.

[jswarpaint]

This is from the forest wiki

Gameplay

The artifact ball is used to alter the way the cannibals work. It may be held in the hand or stuck in the ground. It will have its own HUD icon for you to be able to locate it. When placed down, the artifact can still attract or repel enemies, but it is unknown as to if this also applies to enemies that spawn inside the caves. The Artifact ball affects all enemies spawned on the map.

There are two modes:

Blue: Activated by the Right Mouse Button (L2 on PlayStation). Will cause enemies to become passive, or run away from the artifact ball. It seems to be a good solution for crisis situations. It provides security in every minute of gameplay, making it possible to gather supplies, project new base elements and even rest - being completely safe. This can allow the player to safely build bases in the more dangerous areas of the game before switching to red mode for a siege.

Red: Activated by the Left Mouse Button (R2 on PlayStation). Will attract enemies and make them very hostile. From here, the player are able to break routine of safe farming by organizing your own death matches. Cannibals summoned by the power of the artifact are violent, they might come in big groups. As observed so far, 6 creepy mutants and up to 15 cannibals might come at close time distance. Previously, the game never gave the player this kind of opportunity to test their combat abilities. Red Mode can be also useful during bone/skull/creepy armor/body parts/head trophy farming due to the high number of enemies. It is intended to replace Horde Mode, which existed many updates ago and was removed prior to the full release of the game. It is a good way to test your base's durability, against a massive invasion of cannibals and mutants. After killing all enemies, there is a cooldown before more of them will spawn in the world. It will often take until the next in-game day for the enemy resources to fully reset. To ensure that the maximum number of cannibals and mutants show up on red mode (or to quickly get some action again without having to wait for long) the player should save and exit, then load in their world again. Doing this will refresh the daily enemy resources; they will start spawning in again after a few short minutes.

Closed: Activated by clicking same mouse button twice. This mode, from what is known, has no effect on gameplay.

After retrieving the artifact ball, the player must keep it safe at all costs; if they lose the ball and then save over their current save slot, they will lose it forever, as it will not respawn in its cave location. You can obtain two or more artifacts in multiplayer, just make sure that a griefer does not steal one in the process of duplication.
Theory

According to a Cajun survivor who shut down the Second Artifact, the Artifact Ball may be tied to the cannibals origin as a behavioral manipulator. The blue mode causes the enemies to fall into a dormant/docile state by quickly draining the urge to hunt/eat, even replacing their desire to kill and eat people/each other with a strong fear of strangers.

Incredible PC game bundle, from $10

On the flipside, the red mode causes the Artifact Ball to produce rage-inducing waves of energy throughout the peninsula, even going so far as to draw enemies towards its location. This may have been used by its creators to send large groups of cannibals to exterminate intruders via planting it discretely at said intruders location.
Known bugs

The Girl mutant can still spawn even while blue mode is active.

[grinsekeatzchen]

I use the artifact since a few days and have also the Map-mod.
On the Map you can litlerly see how the Enemys change their routes, but the Radius is quite big, at least for my purpose. I'm actually making a Build on an Island, which is why i build a zipline from the nearest forest to this Island. I always plant the Artefact when i chop trees. And one time, there where still cannibals but after i planted the Artifact, they instantly left atlghough their route was not finished(i watched them a bit).

https://i.ibb.co/zftbJFK/theforest.png
Blue point is the artifact and red is the border where they changed their route, which would normaly go straight trough with 2 patrols.
And sorry i have no idea how can implement pictures.

I even encounterd a bug. As i was looking on the map one time, i noticed solo cannibals(which is rare, i'm on day 50 or so and see mostly groups of 3-6 or larger) wandering the border of the artifact where they changed their router. And sometimes, they just vanished and as i was looking there where just 5 dead cannibals laying on the ground ... free bones xD.

So they still spawn, but they don't cross a certain border. I chopped Trrees for days on a route which was before i get the artefact quite active.

What i observed is, when you activate the Red phase and kill all the stuff that comes, there is a downphase where nothing really new spawn until a new day starts. But this does not always work. SOmetimes after you killed everything that came and take the artifact, new cannibals will start spawning on their spawnpoints.

And a tipp, don't use this when cannibals are near you and aggressive. The animation to stick this thing in the ground is LONG. And cannibals can and will still attack you. I learned this the hard way while wearing my cold-armor. This was actual my first dead in this playtrough after 45 days xD.