Living metal tech

[artificial death in the west]

I've had a living metal deposit inside my borders for more than a 100 years but I still haven't unlocked the technology used to extract it. Are there any prerequisites for it?

[Wilson]

Aren't people supposed to instantly get the tech option? I always did soon as i found it at least.

[Bumbleton]

The only way I've managed to trigger the tech for it was by finding a destroyed ringworld, and a specific, rare-ish anomoly. Not sure if there are any other triggers.

[Chastity the Celibate]

Originally posted by Lord Bumbleton:

The only way I've managed to trigger the tech for it was by finding a destroyed ringworld, and a specific, rare-ish anomoly. Not sure if there are any other triggers.

And Contingency worlds

[Manthexxx]

There are certain prerequisites to be met for powerful resources like that. For example I know that Dark Matter requires Tachyon sensors to be researched first before dark matter can be researched. It's on the wiki.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

I've found living metal associated with two types of anomalies. One type allows you to discover living metal and also unlocks the tech to research it (with 20% progress completed for free). The other type of anomaly just allows you to discover living metal on the planet (or asteroid, or whatever) but does not unlock the tech for you. When you get that second kind of anomaly you have to find some other way to unlock the tech or just do what I am doing in my current game, which is watching the unexploited resource sit there taunting me the whole game.

[MightyFox]

You're supposed to unlock it upon finding the metal, but the research is around 16000 unmodified. If you want to research it then, go ahead, but you won't be researching anything else for awhile. It's a late game tech.

[Xobra]

LM is a Tier 5 Tech, so endgame if you want it to showup nomally. You get the research option per (rare) anomaly event too

[The Grand Mugwump]

The liquid metal anomaly does not always unlock the tech now. It used to just sit in the research screen for most of the game anyways, so I don't mind.

[mpnorman10]

Researching an advanced tech like living metal is almost never worth it until what is left to research on it (research cost minus what you might get as already researched from anomaly projects) is routine in size compared to your other choices.

Also, if it is partially complete it stays on your list indefinitely, so there is no rush until you need the result and it is time.

Assuming your empire is expanding, the cost of the large tech is whatever it is when you finish it. You get no credit for partially finishing it before you expand. The entire research cost you pay from start to finish is inflated by your current expansion at the time you complete it. So, if your expansion happens to hit when you are almost done the entire cost is inflated by that expansion and you might suddenly be 20 months away, for example, instead of 1 or 2.

If you wish to research say ten smaller techs after that big one they will be inflated by whatever expansion exists at that time, whereas if you did those first many would be complete before some of your expansion took place and the overall research cost would be much less.

For this reason I rarely chose an expensive tech when cheaper ones are available. I notice that attempting to omit a sequence of techs entirely (like avoiding anything robot related because of your ethics) tends to clog the selections somewhat.

Purple techs and techs partially completed for you can be skipped entirely without doing this (but, in the latter case, might hold back sequential techs you will eventually want).

[Shinzor]

They changed how special resourses work in the 2.1 update

[artificial death in the west]

Thanks for the answers, but I'm well into repeatable techs by now and it still hasn't shown up. I really need it for the megastructures, I can't even stockpile 50k of minerals (getting them is easy). This RNG system of research really blows compared to a traditional tree (or the one in Endless Space 2) I must say.

[Chastity the Celibate]

Originally posted by artificial death in the west:

Thanks for the answers, but I'm well into repeatable techs by now and it still hasn't shown up. I really need it for the megastructures, I can't even stockpile 50k of minerals (getting them is easy). This RNG system of research really blows compared to a traditional tree (or the one in Endless Space 2) I must say.

No, the RNG system is wayyyyyyy better. It’s an oversight the tech didn’t show up.

[チーズケーキ]

i'm having the same issue as well, wondering if there is any particular trigger other than anomalies on 2.1.1?
i'm at 2388 now and t he whole galaxy has been explored (except <10 points scattered throughout the map) so i dont think i can get them through anomaly research, is there any other way?

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by princeps12:

i'm having the same issue as well, wondering if there is any particular trigger other than anomalies on 2.1.1?
i'm at 2388 now and t he whole galaxy has been explored (except <10 points scattered throughout the map) so i dont think i can get them through anomaly research, is there any other way?

There's nothing you can do that is guaranteed to unlock the tech, if that is what you are asking. (Well, there's probably a console command that will unlock the tech, or else just give it to you, but I assume you don't want to go that far.)

You just have to wait for the tech to appear by itself (if it ever will).

Also, when the end-game crisis appears, if it happens to be the Contengency, then you can unlock the tech to use living metal by defeating one of their hubs.

[Aranador]

I think what really happened, is that your populations decided that since the metal was alive, trying to exploit it would be akin to slavery, so your people feel an ethical duty to leave it undisturbed.