Precursor Events

[advkow]

So once again I find myself chasing whatever died off or vanished precursor civilization there was. However, I've never been able to complete it. How do you do it and find the research projects? I sometimes have a hard time even finding six events to try and accomplish, much less getting them all done without a fail to find their homeworld/whatever prize is at the end.

[ArchaicReaper]

I've only finished it once and it was the Cybrex. Basically you just explore nearby systems to find the Research Projects and then have a Scientist on a Science ship with high enough skill level work the Research Projects until you get 6. For Cybrex it found me their homeworld, which was a Ringworld a few systems away I had yet to explore.

[wizardryforever]

If you miss getting all 6 anomalies, you'll get notifications of newly found precursor ruins later in the game on one of your planets. This will keep going until somebody resolves the chain. And the reward at the end is the location of their home system (which can't be reached until you learn its location). Upon getting there, you'll get a pretty hefty influence and unity bonus, in addition to a bit of energy and minerals. It's worth it, honestly. You just have to make sure you get there before the AI, they can and will rob you of your bonuses, since the system's location is revealed to everyone simultaneously.

[advkow]

Originally posted by wizardryforever:

If you miss getting all 6 anomalies, you'll get notifications of newly found precursor ruins later in the game on one of your planets. This will keep going until somebody resolves the chain. And the reward at the end is the location of their home system (which can't be reached until you learn its location). Upon getting there, you'll get a pretty hefty influence and unity bonus, in addition to a bit of energy and minerals. It's worth it, honestly. You just have to make sure you get there before the AI, they can and will rob you of your bonuses, since the system's location is revealed to everyone simultaneously.

That's good, but the main problem is that I can't even find six anomalies at times? And even with high level scientists continously looking around and trying to find as many as they can. I have 2/3 at a time, how many am I supposed to field?

[soylentx]

I've had the bonus artifact events come up but the system the new artifact is supposed to be in is blank and nothing appears to research.

[galadon3]

Originally posted by advkow:

Originally posted by wizardryforever:

If you miss getting all 6 anomalies, you'll get notifications of newly found precursor ruins later in the game on one of your planets. This will keep going until somebody resolves the chain. And the reward at the end is the location of their home system (which can't be reached until you learn its location). Upon getting there, you'll get a pretty hefty influence and unity bonus, in addition to a bit of energy and minerals. It's worth it, honestly. You just have to make sure you get there before the AI, they can and will rob you of your bonuses, since the system's location is revealed to everyone simultaneously.

That's good, but the main problem is that I can't even find six anomalies at times? And even with high level scientists continously looking around and trying to find as many as they can. I have 2/3 at a time, how many am I supposed to field?

You dont need to have your scientists looking for those newly showing up anomalies to have them appear you get a notification and a new anomaly appears at one of your worlds. Only then you need a scientist to research the anomaly.
Sometimes that feature seems to be bugged though. Had two games where the notification appeared but didnt specify a planet and that several times. In other games it worked fine.

[soylentx]

Gotcha. have yet to have a game where that feature is not bugged. Nice to know it works sometimes.

[Arcterian]

Had notification of "precursor" sites merchants avoided two or three time now but whenever I go to the system there aint nothing there. Seen complaints that this quest chain been broken from 2016 and its still as broken as ever......I given up that this quest chain will ever be resolved in any of my games.

[soylentx]

To revisit, I want to point out that I have had this work on occasion now, but there have still been times that the notice has resulted, like the above poster said, in nothing.

[NixBoxDone]

Two ways. You can finish it directly if you do what I do: make a beeline for discovery and get both the tradition that boosts your research for every surveyed planet and the Faith in Science.

After I get that and have my first 2 colonies up, I can usually afford to have a science ship for every free leader slot in my empire, all of them surveying and solving anomalies.

This let's me finish my pre-cursor event very often, except for when I am very unlucky and all of my nearby space is filled with unfriendly space neighbours.

Once I'm done with surveying each science ship starts advanced assist researching, giving me like 80 unity per month and boosting science on each planet.



Keep in mind that unless I'm harshly mistaken, pre-cursor events are still tied to your quadrant of the galaxy. So just imagine a big cross on the galactic map that goes through the centre of the galaxy, the four squares in every corner represent where to find each precursor.

Afaik you can only get the precursor that is seeded in your corner, so if you haven't completed your chain when you have surveyed all the systems in that quarter of the galaxy you'll probably have to wait for prompts.



If all else fails, you'll eventually get notifications that your scientists have discovered a previously hidden sign of precursor activity. Once that happened once, it usually starts a regular schedule of them until you finally get your full set.

Mind that just because a precursor anomaly is on a given planet or moon, that doesn't mean you're guaranteed to get it if you survey it. Get scientists with the meticulous trait, the edict "search the stars" and the curator modules to stack "chance to uncover anomalies" on your science ships for best results.

Also keep in mind that bigger galaxies have more stars and as such more chances to "draw" the precursor anomalies.

[Ruinous]

Wouldn't worry too much about not being able to pull it off btw, only the cybrex chain has a great pay-off. Other than that its a chunk of unity and derisory amount of energy and minerals.

[NixBoxDone]

Yeah, the precursors really feel like 3 duds and OHMIGOSH IT'S A RINGWORLD.

[Ruinous]

I'd suggested before that each precursor anomaly itself could give an interesting reward, like the abandoned cruiser or research outpost actually *giving* a high tech cruiser or outpost with a useful amount of research off of it. That way there would be a bit of benefit to tying up your lvl 5 scientist for a while with the three less-than-useful chains.
But it is what it is, I do hope the devs will go back to the events at some point and really spice them up a good bit, perhaps with branching narratives and more interesting rewards. Horizon signal was a high point of what could be achieved with the system, and I feel there is a lot more potential there. Its what makes the actual exploration the best bit of Stellaris, imho.

[NixBoxDone]

Yeah, have the anomalies give one-off stuff that isn't really a MASSIVE advantage (they're certainly difficult enough, being mostly dif 3 to 5 to solve) and the eventual pay-off being a ruined megastructure in each system.

Maybe rewrite the anomalies a bit to make each pre-cursor specialise, so the galactic super spies have the sensor array, the heartless scientific race having a nexus and the ruthless traders getting a ruined dyson sphere.

That'd be in theme, would tell people what to expect and would both give people something to look forward to and an incentive to work towards megastructure tech.

[Red Bat]

At the moment it's almost not even worth finishing the event chain. Especially since you could finish it, only to find that the homeworld is in the middle of a Devouring Swarm's territory that you can't afford to war with.

The Cybrex one is a bit more rewarding, and also more important to the lore since the Cybrex are the only precursor race who has any importance at all outside the event chain. It would be great if a biologically ascended empire would be able to revive a precursor species or something.