competing for anomalies?

[Dedmoin]

I am wondering if there is a competition between government's scientist on to find anomalies and study them?

My scientist cannot survey systems that have already been surveyed by another government's scientist. So the first scientist 'claims' the anomaly.
At least this is true for systems owned by a government. I am not sure if not owned systems could be surveyed several times?

I now surveyed all possible systems but didn't study any anomaly. Did I now claim all anomalies and the NPC got much less opportunity to find bonuses for their systems?

Or are foreign scientists able to study the anomalies I found?

Do NPC scientists even find anomalies and study them?

[Dedmoin]

'After any empire has surveyed a celestial body, no other empire can reveal an anomaly.'
https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Exploration#Surveying

Ok, so the first scientist can find anomalies but the system can be surveyed several times.

But i could not find the info if NPC actually find anomalies or kind of 'lock' the system for my scientists.
Also there is no info if everyone can study anomalies regardless who found them. But I assume this is not possible

[Elitewrecker PT]

The anomaly is only investigated by who found them.
You can only ever survey a system yourself once.

[The Renderer]

Surveying and researching anomalies are two different things.

If you already surveyed a system, you have to specifically tell your science ship to research the anomaly, NOT to "survey the system" again. Any science ship can do it, not just the one who discovered the anomaly first. There is no "claim".

Edit: Talking about your own scientists here. Other nations don't see your anomalies, so in that case, yes, you kind of claimed them. But can still research them with any scientist.

[ShandoKhan]

While you compete with other nations to survey a system first to get the anomalies, you still can sometimes find an acheological site, even if the system was already surved by someone else`:

Most archaeological sites are revealed by surveying, with a 1.23% chance of creating a site, if the celestial body can support one. If a site is created this way, the chance is reduced to 0.25% for 5 years. Unlike anomalies, each time a celestial body is surveyed, a archaeological site can be created.


https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Archaeological_site


So it still has some value, to survey systems, even if you know another empire was there already..

[Dilophosaurus]

Yes it's a competition.

Anomalies are generated when a science ship surveys a celestial body not previously surveyed by another empire.

Once an anomaly is generated it can only be researched/seen by the empire that was responsible for generating it, except for standard archaeological dig sites which are available to whomever claims that system and starts digging (origin and precursor dig sites should remain hidden, among some other select few? but if a dig site is discovered consider it a priority system to get before your opponent assuming it's close enough).


Anomalies can give all kinds of goodies and boost the output of a system by adding deposits, in this regard you want to avoid surveying a system another empire has already covered as these systems have no more potential value from being surveyed.

There are two major exceptions.

The first is that this may be a critical system to grab before the AI and you'll want to claim it ASAP so consider moving your builder there if the system is close enough etc.

The second reason is for completing your habitable world quest, consider surveying the planet before first contact is complete and moving on (if they own the system there's a greater risk they'll use hostile first contact actions on you and zero value from surveying).


The best way to go about this is to send a science ship to survey (where possible) in every direction from your empires capital, ignoring all the ''side stars'' until you find another empire or their science ships (black holes may be an exception since they typically done fast but higher chance of killing your science ship with nasties).

The ideal outcome for this approach is to find a choke point system that you can claim snake towards to:
a) be defensive system against hostile empire
b) protect all those unexplored systems allowing you to survey, generate anomalies and claim at your leisure (remember to close borders and complete first contact/go hostile first contact before they 'get past')

What you do from here will heavily depend on your galaxy settings but typically follow the rules above and either start backtracking and surveying the systems you ignored before the AI or try and 'steal' opposing systems by surveying the ones near the AI they haven't got to yet.

To boost the anomaly discovery rate you can use the scientists with +10% and +5% discovery chance respectively and use the edict from the discovery tree you'll unlock by taking the opener. There may be other sources but these are the ones available to all empires.

These are great on a larger map with fewer AI but if you have a highly populated/smaller galaxy (such as PVP settings) then their value drops significantly and likely not worth using since you may only be able to survey a handful of systems the entire game.

Having access to better sensors can greatly aid in this strategy and the best way to get this at the start of the game is with edicts, namely the discovery tree opener or from crystalline sensors if you manage to start with rare crystals (lithoid/cheaters of the shroud).