found (and lost) ancient ruins

[Bullwinkle]

I started digging up the ruins. Got 5 keys so far and unlocked one chest and got something worth about 200k. Then suddenly on the ground in front of me was my first ever Gravitno Ball. I picked it up and was surprised to learn that this action spawns sentinels. I'm not yet good at combat, and there were a bunch of them, so I killed one and had to run. Got in my ship and hid. They started firing on my ship, so I flew directly north about 10 seconds worth. New building here, observatory or something small, so I spent about 5 minutes checking that out, and tried to go back to the ruins to finish the job. Can't see any markers for it, and scanning reveals nothing, but I tried orienteering my way back, and can't find it. I'm not very good at orienteeriing, but I tried.

Is there any way to find where I was besides blind search? Or did it maybe despawn?

[Miral]

They don't despawn, but planets are so large that unless you left some kind of marker behind it's going to be fairly difficult to find it again.

But the good news is that you don't need to. The one chest with the thing worth 200k is the main point of the ruins (the reward is random, you can get up to 2M I think), so you've already completed it and can move on. The gravitino balls are a bit of a bonus, but you can eventually just grow those or find a rare planet that has literally thousands of them just lying around on the surface, so it's not worth spending too much time hunting.

FWIW, the ruins always have four gravitino balls. One is in open air, two are underground, and one is inside the stone structure and you can't actually get it. But with a bit of planning you can get all three of the balls and leg it to your ship before the sentinel know what's going on.

[Bullwinkle]

So why were there (at least) five keys if there isn't a second chest?

[Miral]

Presumably, so you can just grab the easiest ones to find, or you can save a few extras up for next time.

[SirProsik]

There are 5 chests with keys for the main chest. Sometimes 1 or more of the 5 will be below 'bedrock' that can't be accessed.

[Bullwinkle]

I found my way back, and there were a total of 6 keys and 2 chests. At first I thought the second chest gave me nothing. I wasn't watching the message and I had my sound turned low. Checked my inventory, and didn't see anything notable. Then about 15 minutes later, I noticed that for the first time, I have quicksilver. 150 to be precise. Maybe I got it somewhere else. I really don't know.

This was my first ancient ruin, and it took about 2 hours to fully dig it out. I suspect it was a double. I had to repower my terrain manipulator about 20 times, and I now have over 5k silicate powder. Every time I was sure I was finished (which was like a dozen times) one little corner or edge would lead to another massive beam or sidewalk.

[Kabob]

Originally posted by Bullwinkle:

I found my way back, and there were a total of 6 keys and 2 chests. At first I thought the second chest gave me nothing. I wasn't watching the message and I had my sound turned low. Checked my inventory, and didn't see anything notable. Then about 15 minutes later, I noticed that for the first time, I have quicksilver. 150 to be precise. Maybe I got it somewhere else. I really don't know.

This was my first ancient ruin, and it took about 2 hours to fully dig it out. I suspect it was a double. I had to repower my terrain manipulator about 20 times, and I now have over 5k silicate powder. Every time I was sure I was finished (which was like a dozen times) one little corner or edge would lead to another massive beam or sidewalk.

I never considered completely excavating a ruin before, just digging around like some crazed mole finding keys/chests. Now I have a use for that Exotool mod which uses the huge exploding weapon charges... 2 hours.... that's dedication :)

[Fienyx]

Kinda feels good when you finish, then , in the back of your mind, you get a little mad because you know the game is going to fill it back in. Then you smile again, lol. :)

[Bullwinkle]

The more it wouldn't end, the more I took it as a challenge. And what with the quarantine... but yeah, I won't be doing that again. Just the first time to find out exactly what I was dealing with. I read a couple posts about people finding more than 3 keys and only 1 chest. I suspected maybe they just didn't look hard enough for a second chest.

[Kabob]

I've only found 5 keys/1 chest. All the online stuff I look up leads to the same conclusion. More than enough keys to get the job done because stuff (loot beneath the non-excavatable surface)

If you suspect you received Quicksilver it's likely a community challenge tier completed while you were digging.

[Bullwinkle]

Community challenge? Are they posted somewhere?

[Kabob]

Originally posted by Bullwinkle:

Community challenge? Are they posted somewhere?

The very first 'secondary' mission listed in your LOG tab.

I suspect you get 300 (total) each time it 'completes'. I have 550 now and never lifted a finger to Nexus missions. It may be more though as the tiers complete... I remember having 300 from nowhere shortly after I started this game around 2 weeks ago...

[Bullwinkle]

Yeah, that mission is Community Research and ... oh, I see... it completed a research tier while I was digging... misread... thought you meant *I* completed a community challenge *by* digging. LOL. Thanks for the info, that must be it. So I guess the second chest gave me nothing interesting at all.