What to do with Artifacts?

[Captain Skinny]

I've been slowly accumulating artifacts and relics, and now am sitting on a whole bunch. I've only encountered two or three of those huge trade towers, and each one only takes one or two and gives me back one anyway, so I never really have fewer than I did before.

So looks like selling them is the way to go. Now the real question is, How do I know which ones to sell, and which ones will be accepted by the next artifact vault I come across?
There seems to be some sort of system as to why which relics will be accepted and which won't. How do I know this? Essentially, how do I know which artifacts to sell and which ones can be traded into vaults?

[Galactic Starman]

There is some information in other threads on this. It can be tricky to ask the right search questions though!

Basically though the relics or artifacts of each type (there are several) can all be submitted to the massive Archive library trading posts on planets. However pay attention to the colour and type of the artifacts to return the chosen items to the correct type of library machine. The kiosks will unlock with a question asking for a type of relic that matches your chosen item to be submitted.

There are currently three kiosks at every library on both levels of the building. Wander about to find them. It is possible with the lowest tier of relic (defined by its colour) to submit it at one kiosk and take the result to submit again at the next kiosk and then finally submit it at the third kiosk. Each time the kiosk will usually swap the relic for a higher tier, that is higher in value (tier colours, blue, purple, gold). The highest tier (gold colour) can be sold for millions. So hang on to even the lowest tier (blue) as they can be swapped successively at a library archive and then sold at the highest tier. : )

If a relic is already at the highest tier, it may be exchanged for a similar tier that my vary slightly in value and return a differently named item. Every item found is I believe procedural in generation so many of the names of relic items can be unique. Though some may have similarity of type.

The trick is to decide if you want to spend time travelling to one library or another (which might be marked by your bases) and which artifact to submit. Holding some relics in freighter or ship storage can be useful to submit later when a library is close by. So no need to keep travelling all over the place. Some relics are fun to hang on to just for the fun names. The trick to selling things that are worth selling is to upgrade the lowest tiers to swap them at libraries for more expensive artifacts, worth selling.

[Dirak2012]

Meh, just sell them all, credits are credits (and you will reach the money cap anyway).

[<RED>Sentinel Soldier<>]

basically if it's not for crafting, or a quest it's junk. only an tradeable item that you can sell. this game isn't complex at all.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

I would agree that there is no real need to over think it. As you have probably already deduced, they are not hard to come by. Keep a minimum of 5 of each type if it feels right and sell the rest. I keep a larger supply of each type, but I no longer need credits anymore and have more storage than I can possibly use.

There is always a remote possibility that HG will provide them a new use and/or makes them hard to obtain in a future update.

[Redlegoguy1]

Originally posted by Captain Skinny:

There seems to be some sort of system as to why which relics will be accepted and which won't. How do I know this? Essentially, how do I know which artifacts to sell and which ones can be traded into vaults?

• Archives in all systems will accept artifacts of type "Lost Artifact" and "Biological Sample".
  
• Gek systems will also accept "Unearthed Treasure" (Note: these are not the same as "Aquatic Treasure")
  
• Korvax systems will also accept "Historical Document"
  
• Vykeen systems will also accept "Fossil Sample" (Note: these are not the same as "Excavated Bones")
  
• All other artifact types are not accepted and can only be sold, which primarily include "Excavated Bones" (from digging up skeletons), "Salvaged Scrap" (from digging up scrap), "Aquatic Treasure" (from underwater ruins), "Delicate Flora" (mostly from farmer), and "Terrifying Sample".

More info on the vault can be found here:
https://nomanssky.fandom.com/wiki/Artifact_Exchange_Vault
Typically I would try to link a nomansskyresources page instead, but unfortunately in this case I wasn't able to find one with this information. They do have all the relevant artifact types listed in the "Treasure" section on the curiosities page, but there's missing info regarding which are accepted at archives.

Edit: Upon further inspection, I'm not certain that much of the other info on the fandom page is actually correct (e.g., I've never seen 5 vaults at one archive). The things I've restated here do line up with my own experience though, so I'm fairly confident at least this much is correct.

[smurfy]

Originally posted by Redlegoguy1:

Edit: Upon further inspection, I'm not certain that much of the other info on the fandom page is actually correct (e.g., I've never seen 5 vaults at one archive). The things I've restated here do line up with my own experience though, so I'm fairly confident at least this much is correct.

2 of the 3 vault locations in a Colossal Archive have 2 vault "terminals" each. They used to both be usable, giving 5 in total. Not sure if they still are as I rarely use them.

[Captain Skinny]

Hey thanks!
I appreciate all the answers. I figured the finish line was always going to be to sell them, but all the minutiae of which ones are sold where and so forth is very helpful. I tend to be a little uptight about things like that...

On a slightly tangential note, I do think its kinda comical that when I started I would try to buy ships and think "five MILLION units? I'll never have that much!" and now I have a dozen ships and well over a half a billion and that was just from puttering around.

[Foxglovez]

Once you hit 500mil you don't have to think about coinage again. It's actually a pain to figure out how to spend it all - which is what fitting out multitools helps with, as well as adding ship slots. And then there's the time when you are just plugging away and suddenly have no money at all. Good time to clean out the storage.

[umop-apisdn]

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

Meh, just sell them all, credits are credits (and you will reach the money cap anyway).

This.
Once you've been around the block a couple times, you recognize them for the "vendor trash" that they are. The difference between 100 K units and 1.5 M units eventually isn't actually worth the trouble of carting them around; personally, I dump them at the nearest vendor or terminal that will accept them, because all they do is clog the inventory.

Originally posted by Foxglovez:

Once you hit 500mil you don't have to think about coinage again. It's actually a pain to figure out how to spend it all - which is what fitting out multitools helps with, as well as adding ship slots. And then there's the time when you are just plugging away and suddenly have no money at all. Good time to clean out the storage. :steamdeadpan:

This, too.
Once you have a sizable chunk of change in your pocket, you stop worrying about units. In all honesty, I usually don't even think about them any more; pretty much everything they can purchase is more of a "nice to have", or at least an "ooh, i don't have to go dig that up now"... even at the very beginning of the game. I routinely toss "expensive" things out of my inventory to make room for the stuff I actually want/need, these days.

If money is an issue for you, find a dissonant system. Use an Echo Locator (acquired from the big drills in the fields of purple crystals, although most of them give resonant shards instead of locators) to find a harmonic camp, do a little primary school math to unlock the terminal, and do a tiny fetch quest to "repair" a sentinel interceptor. It's repeatable, and even the junkiest C-class can be scrapped for 20 million units.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

Okay, I was thinking OP meant the Vy'keen dagger, Kovax helmet kind of artifacts. I keep some of those around in case I need to find a portal but sell off the excess.

The Archive mini-game is kind of hit or miss. I have gotten lucky early game and turned in a 200,000 item and got a $2M item in exchange. More often than not, the difference either is a net loss or a minimal gain in value. It reminds me a lot of settlement decision logic where there is no weighting so you could hit 100 bad deals as easily as 100 good deals in a row.

Thanks to Redlegoguy1 for defining what you can exchange. That one reason I lost interest in them is because it was never clear to me (until I tried) what was acceptable and what was not.

[smurfy]

Of course, if you have hoarded a stack of them and fly in to see this... it's like Xmas all over again...
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3136716240
I have found 3 in very close proximity before, but good to see they can still appear together.

As stated, these are very much the equivalent of Diablo's Gheed/Kadala gambling "merchants" in NMS. Not quite as hit-and-miss as the in-flight random space trader selling one (hint: Never pay Units for those unless you are deliberately trying to empty your wallet).

[dreamrider]

Originally posted by smurfy:

Originally posted by Redlegoguy1:

Edit: Upon further inspection, I'm not certain that much of the other info on the fandom page is actually correct (e.g., I've never seen 5 vaults at one archive). The things I've restated here do line up with my own experience though, so I'm fairly confident at least this much is correct.

2 of the 3 vault locations in a Colossal Archive have 2 vault "terminals" each. They used to both be usable, giving 5 in total. Not sure if they still are as I rarely use them.

Only the main concourse vault location now has 2 vaults depicted...and they function as a single deposit point.
The other 2 vault locations at each Archive are in the ground level shelter/tunnels found in the bases of the support pillars of the elevated landing pads.
Each of those 2 locations only has 1 vault. But it still functions exactly like the main concourse vault station.

So...there are now 4 vaults depicted, in 3 locations at each Archive.
But each location will only accept 1 transaction, regardless of the number of vaults depicted...if you have one of the 3 correct Artifact types for that planet/Archives.

I have verified the above functionality & vault count at ~50 Archives visited over the last 3 months...so, recent information.

Each vault can only be used for one transaction on any visit, and will remain unavailable for a long time. However, eventually the vault availability at any Archive will reset, in perhaps a game month or so. So it may be worthwhile leaving a base computer to mark the Archives you find, especially on your home base planet, and on the other two race planets that you frequent most often.

[OldWhatsHisFace]

There is another reason to collect artifacts for late game players. I have unlimited resources, learned every word, maxed out on all standings, so all I do now is try to complete every catalog item, recipe etc. on every catalog screen, which includes 13 artifact types. Currently I have every treasure but one, that being one type of artifact…Delicate Flora (Farm). I don’t believe this is available through the Exchange Vault but haven’t given up. I’ve tried but no luck but the Vault hasn’t given any Delicate Flora of either type so trying other methods as well.