Exploit, infinite Xsotan artifacts

[apprentice]

Whilst doing operation exodus you can repeatedly ask the beacon "do you know how to beat the xsotan", and he will give you as many xsotan artifacts as you want. Its truly a game-breaking exploit as these are some of the best items in the game.

[KillerAO]

In my case he said i already had one, and did not give me more, but i guess u can just make a 2nd ship to put em on or something.
It is the same with Bottan, u can just keep getting the mission and kill him endlessly

[And-e]

They need to be infinite, if something goes wrong you need more of them, otherwise you can't get to the core or continue the story.
They also sell for almost nothing, so it's not really like you gain something from exploiting it.

In terms of turret capacity, idk, i might've had more luck, i had +4 items right from the start and +5 items way before i finished operation exodus, the artifacts give +5, so i guess you gain a turret or two and a little bit of flexibility if you go early. I'm assuming late-game they're worse.

Alternatively, the closest "fix" i can think of for this would be to remove the +5 to turrets.

[KillerAO]

nah the easy fix would kinda just be that u had to start the mission over, or have a cooldown on how often u could do it.

[Lord_Greyscale]

Originally posted by And-e:

In terms of turret capacity, idk, i might've had more luck, i had +4 items right from the start and +5 items way before i finished operation exodus, the artifacts give +5, so i guess you gain a turret or two and a little bit of flexibility if you go early. I'm assuming late-game they're worse.

They're still better than the +5 turret mods, as those use power. The artifacts don't.
The artifacts are allso an "any" controller, the +5 normal turret controllers aren't.

The +6 turret controls, now those are a choice, do you need some spare power, or that 6th turret?

[SteelFire]

Originally posted by Lord_Greyscale:

Originally posted by And-e:

In terms of turret capacity, idk, i might've had more luck, i had +4 items right from the start and +5 items way before i finished operation exodus, the artifacts give +5, so i guess you gain a turret or two and a little bit of flexibility if you go early. I'm assuming late-game they're worse.

They're still better than the +5 turret mods, as those use power. The artifacts don't.
The artifacts are allso an "any" controller, the +5 normal turret controllers aren't.

The +6 turret controls, now those are a choice, do you need some spare power, or that 6th turret?

The legendary All Turret mods are +5, it's the specific ones (Amred, Unarmed) legendaries that are +6. So yeah, the artifacts are slightly better if they don't draw power, but really, the power consumption on the turret upgrade mods is insignifcant, unless maybe you wanted to use all 15 slots for them. At that point though, you should still have way more than enough power available.

Either way, having as many of the articats as you want certainly isn't game breaking as the OP implies. There's a lot more to consider than just turret slots when outfitting a ship.

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by SteelFire:

Originally posted by Lord_Greyscale:

They're still better than the +5 turret mods, as those use power. The artifacts don't.
The artifacts are allso an "any" controller, the +5 normal turret controllers aren't.

The +6 turret controls, now those are a choice, do you need some spare power, or that 6th turret?

The legendary All Turret mods are +5, it's the specific ones (Amred, Unarmed) legendaries that are +6. So yeah, the artifacts are slightly better if they don't draw power, but really, the power consumption on the turret upgrade mods is insignifcant, unless maybe you wanted to use all 15 slots for them. At that point though, you should still have way more than enough power available.

Either way, having as many of the articats as you want certainly isn't game breaking as the OP implies. There's a lot more to consider than just turret slots when outfitting a ship.

welll, it could be thought of as imbalancing once you start building fleets, as getting enough high-tier modules for an entire fleet can be a chore/slog.

[OverTheWave]

Originally posted by And-e:

They need to be infinite, if something goes wrong you need more of them, otherwise you can't get to the core or continue the story.
They also sell for almost nothing, so it's not really like you gain something from exploiting it.

In terms of turret capacity, idk, i might've had more luck, i had +4 items right from the start and +5 items way before i finished operation exodus, the artifacts give +5, so i guess you gain a turret or two and a little bit of flexibility if you go early. I'm assuming late-game they're worse.

Alternatively, the closest "fix" i can think of for this would be to remove the +5 to turrets.

No, they should not be infinite. Lets say you have all the xsotan artifacts and somehow get a duplicate. What I was thinking is that if you already have the xsotan artifact, it shouldn't be able to give you more. I HAVE OBTAINED 6 DUPLICATES OF THE PIRATE BOSS ARTIFACT!!!

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by ItzVozf:

Originally posted by And-e:

They need to be infinite, if something goes wrong you need more of them, otherwise you can't get to the core or continue the story.
They also sell for almost nothing, so it's not really like you gain something from exploiting it.

In terms of turret capacity, idk, i might've had more luck, i had +4 items right from the start and +5 items way before i finished operation exodus, the artifacts give +5, so i guess you gain a turret or two and a little bit of flexibility if you go early. I'm assuming late-game they're worse.

Alternatively, the closest "fix" i can think of for this would be to remove the +5 to turrets.

No, they should not be infinite. Lets say you have all the xsotan artifacts and somehow get a duplicate. What I was thinking is that if you already have the xsotan artifact, it shouldn't be able to give you more. I HAVE OBTAINED 6 DUPLICATES OF THE PIRATE BOSS ARTIFACT!!!

The possibility to get duplicates is in because multiplayer is a thing, and the devs don't want one person to ruin the quest to get into the core just because they killed swok, grabbed the loot, then never showed their face again. They also don't want to screw players over becuase they accidentally sold one of the artifacts without realizing what they were for.

Coding in such a way as to make duplicates impossible, while still not making an insta-death esque situation with the artifacts, is a touch trickier than simply permitting duplicates.

[SteelFire]

Originally posted by fractalgem:

Originally posted by ItzVozf:

No, they should not be infinite. Lets say you have all the xsotan artifacts and somehow get a duplicate. What I was thinking is that if you already have the xsotan artifact, it shouldn't be able to give you more. I HAVE OBTAINED 6 DUPLICATES OF THE PIRATE BOSS ARTIFACT!!!

The possibility to get duplicates is in because multiplayer is a thing, and the devs don't want one person to ruin the quest to get into the core just because they killed swok, grabbed the loot, then never showed their face again. They also don't want to screw players over becuase they accidentally sold one of the artifacts without realizing what they were for.

Coding in such a way as to make duplicates impossible, while still not making an insta-death esque situation with the artifacts, is a touch trickier than simply permitting duplicates.

Also that you need research to obtain one and you are allowed to spend one on that research.

[Lord_Greyscale]

Originally posted by ItzVozf:

I HAVE OBTAINED 6 DUPLICATES OF THE PIRATE BOSS ARTIFACT!!!

That right there is yer problem. You are expecting the boss to give random artifacts.
They don't.

Lemme repeat that, the Bosses DO NOT give "random" artifacts. One boss will only ever give a specific artifact. (they do however, typically drop a random "exotic-tier" turret, along with other randomized bits 'n bobs.

In fact, Here's a list of where/how you get them.
{SPOILERS AHEAD, you have been warned}
-I is received by finishing the Project Exodus questline
-II is researched at the research station
-III is received by killing Pirate Captain Swoks
-IV is sold by the travelling equipment merchant
-V is received by the artifact delivery questline
-VI is received by killing the AI
-VII is received by the MAD science thing
-VIII is received by finishing the smuggler questline

Despite the numbering built into the things, the actual order of completion is probably more like:

1. #4 and/or #3: #4, being a merchant good, can re-appear at any time in any system, but you'll probably see it in the very first equipment merchant you find.
   
2. whichever one you didn't get before
   
3. #1, possibly a #3 either on the way to, or returning from. This may allso be your first #3.
   
4. #6, possibly on the way to, or returning from, #1, depending on how core-ward you were when the quest for #1 began.
   
5. #5 you need to be checking the bulletin boards for, and the "average" poo-flinging monkey doesn't wise up to this untill right about now, and I think you need to be closer to the core than #6s boss spawns at anyway.
   
6. #2: getting even two legendaries is hard, it's even harder to get 2 you absolutely don't want. But that's kinda the point. it helps make the quest feel more "epic" than the simple tab-a into slot-b repetition filler-quest that it actually is.
   
7. #7: kill 4 "MAD science energy research satellites" to summon the boss. Then kill the boss. Good luck finding the satellites, they're just as randomly generated as everything else, but will only ever be one to a coordinate.
   
8. #8 you may be close enough to the core for part of this quest to send you into the core. If so, abandon it, find a smuggler station much farther out, and try it again.

{SPOILERS CONTINUE, you have been warned}
Note that only three of the artifacts are not obtained in a glorious boss-battle. Those are #1, #2, and #4.

#1 and #4 are semi-difficult to locate, as the first is a "find the beacons" quest, the other is "get lucky when the item merchant comes to visit" semi-random encounter.

#2 is, literally, chuck three legendary items into a research grinder. Only one of the three may be a Xostan artifact. (to force you to go and get two other legendaries, I would assume)
It will vomit out artifact #2 every time you do so, even from the very same station, and without needing to close the window even.


The other 5 artifacts are varying degrees of puzzle/fetch-quest, ending in a boss-battle.

[SteelFire]

Originally posted by Lord_Greyscale:

Originally posted by ItzVozf:

I HAVE OBTAINED 6 DUPLICATES OF THE PIRATE BOSS ARTIFACT!!!

That right there is yer problem. You are expecting the boss to give random artifacts.
They don't.

That's actually not the problem that the people commenting against it in the thread seem to have. They seem to think the artifacts are OP, and therefore you shouldn't be able to get more than one of each, or more than one unless you use them in the gate array, sell them lose them, whatever, but no longer have possession of them.

Of course, my feeling is that's ridiculous. If you should be limited in your acquisition of artifacts, then why not limited in your acquisition of any exotic or legendary module? The reality is that the power draw of using an artifact versus a legendary all-turret module is insignificant by the time you're looking to use a decent number of either one. The stackability of something like shield or generator modules could be considered just as powerful, if not more so. But no matter what, by choosing to focus heavily towards one type of module over others, be it shields with less firepower, or turrets but with less shields and energy generation, or energy generation for high DPS/high energy draw weapons... by focusing heavily, you limit yourself in other aspects.

Yes, at current, you can easily way overpower the NPCs, but you don't need a ton of module slots or tons of turrets to do that. By the time you hit Xanion with 7 or 8 natural upgrade slots, you can easily curbstomp a large Xsotan group or get a half-way decent fight out of a pirate-controlled sector defense force with 3-4 destroyers in a group of 14-18 ships.