Space Station 14 – Ultimate Guide to Xenoarcheology

Xenoarcheology Guide

By Kiana.

Each Artifact contains a tree that has anywhere between 2 to 13 nodes.

Each new node you discover, or land on, will grant you points.  You can tell if you have gotten points when the extract button is green. When you’ve discovered all the nodes on an artifact you’ll receive an additional 25% of the artifacts overall research points. So it’s in your best interest to try and uncover all the nodes…. if safe to do so. 

To start, place or drag an artifact on to the pad and hit scan. This will take 30 seconds and will tell you details about the current node you’re on.  In order to move on to the next node, you need to fulfil the current stimulus, or trigger. Once you have done that, the artifact will produce an effect, and move to a neighbouring node.

You can see on the screen that each node has a Depth, and Edges. Depth is how many steps away from the root node you are.  And edges are how many directions you can move. It starts on a single node at depth zero and can then branch out from there.

Typically the closer you are to the beginning of the tree the easier it will be to fulfill the trigger, the effect will also be something minor, like producing light. The further out you are, the harder and more dangerous the nodes become.

Notekeeping:

Keeping track of your research is invaluable. It lets you know when an artifact is finished.  What artifact you’re on, and how to navigate through nodes you’ve been to previously.

To do this, you could use the in game function of printing reports. But I prefer to do it manually in a high tech artifact analysing software. Paint.

To keep clean notes, write the trigger and the effect at the depth the node is. Then for edges, draw one line to the node above, and the rest pointing to nodes on the next depth.  And that’s pretty much it, do that every node and you’ll have a much easier time with artifacts. You can even start using artifacts out in the field to produce effects quickly if you’ve got it mapped out.

You might also want to sketch the artifact so you don’t mix your notes up.

Here’s an example of a tree:

And this one is of a very large tree:

Equipment

To start out, each artifact lab contains at least one chamber, and an artifact scanning platform and computer. You can build more when you research the basic artifacts research, or if the station you’re on gives you a spare board.

For tools, you will need at the minimum:

• A multitool, you can print one at the autolathe.
• A wrench and a welding torch, either lying around or print them.
• An instrument, you’ll have to look around for one in maints or ask the musician.  Supply toolboxes frequently have a harmonica
• A bottle of water, you will start with one. Though I’d suggest upgrading to a mug at some point as they don’t get destroyed in explosions. You can find these at the coffee vending machines or print them off.
• And a syringe and a second mug, Syringes can be found in first aid kits or printed.

Things you might not need immediately:

• A pair of magboots, these can be either printed when you have the technology, or obtained by pleading engineering.
• A canister of pills. Medic kits have canisters of either Dexalin or Tricordrazine, this can be found either in maints or ask medical. Alternatively you can find syringes of Inaprovaline in O2 kits.
• A canister of CO2, some stations have a sci/atmos room with a bunch of canisters, if you don’t you’ll have to get it from either atmos or ordered through cargo. 
• A canister of plasma, this one definitely will have to be gotten from either atmos or cargo.
• A shard of uranium. For most stations a stack will spawn in engineering, near where they set up the singularity. If it doesn’t you’ll hope the salvage team makes it back.  You’ll only need one.
• Some monkey cubes, or a mouse you’ve found around.  If you put down some food you can sometimes lure critters into the lab.

Things that are nice to have:

• A crowbar, a toolbox, or a log or something that can do more damage than a wrench.
• A couple of buckets.
• Some Monkey cubes.
• Some chemical analysis goggles, And a chemmaster.

Triggers

I’ll be grouping these up by the hint they give, since some hints have multiple possible effects.

No Hint

TriggerTimer

This one is usually a depth 0 node.  It’ll auto activate after 5 seconds.  Might seem like a freebe, but the difficulty of this node comes from not being able to scan it fast enough to determine if it has any more branches. To figure out if there are, move back down to it a couple of times and just hope it’ll reveal it by itself.

Examination

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TriggerExamine

This one is also on a lower level node. Just shift click on it. That’s all.  Fun fact: this node can be triggered by ghosts… do with this information as you will.

Tool Usage

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TriggerAnchor

It says tool but only the wrench works.  Also the pad can’t scan it if its anchored down, so unanchor it again.

Electricity

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TriggerElectricity

This one is most easily done by using a multitool on the artifact. But if you don’t have one you can anchor it down on top of some wires.

Sonic Vibrations

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TriggerMusic

Science doesn’t start the game with any instruments so you’ll have to find one.  When you do get one all you need to do is activate or right click play music on it.  You don’t even need to load up any midi’s.

Physical Trauma

artifact-trigger-hint-physical

This one has 3 types.

TriggerInteraction

Interaction, In which just picking it up, draging it, or hitting it once can be enough physical interaction to set it off

TriggerBruteDamage

Theres brute damage one, which’ll any type of brute up to 50 damage.  So blunt slash and piercing all count towards it.

TriggerHighDamage

Lastly the high damage one which takes up to 500 damage, if you’ve been hitting it for a while then you know its this one.  Its usually on a higher more dangerous node, sooo wear a bomb suit.

Active Deceleration

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TriggerItemLanded

This one only occurs on the handheld artifacts. Throw it against the wall.

High Temperatures

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TriggerHeat

Activate your welding torch and click.

Hydro-Reactive

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TriggerWater

You start the game with a bottle of water, if you need to refill then theres usually a sink in the entrance to the science department.  To do this, open the bottle and attack with it once.  No need to spill liquid because you’ll probably miss, and there’s usually potassium on the floor.  Also you only need 1u of water.

Reaction with Hematological Fluid

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TriggerBlood

This is the same, just attack with a cup of blood in your hand. To get the blood, get the syringe, click on yourself… or the research assistant, wait for the bar to fill, then click on the cup. This can be either normal blood, insect blood, slime from slimes or sap from diana.  Even zombie blood works. Also you only need 1u of blood.

Therapeutic Chemicals

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TriggerMedical

The new one.  Any form of medicine works for this. The fastest I’ve found is to find an O2 cabinet in maints, they frequently have some Inaprovaline syringes in them.  Just transfer it to a cup or spray bottle and splash the artifact. You can also ask med for a canister of Dex or Tricord pills.  Put one in a bottle that has water in and it’ll dissolve into it.

Extreme Pressure

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TriggerLowPressure

Down to 50.

TriggerHighPressure

Up to 385 kpa.

This can be either High or Low pressure.  You can space the chamber for a second or two to quickly determine which one. If its high pressure, the easiest method I’ve found is to dump 2 canisters of O2 or N2 into the chamber. You can window off the air vent, reducing the amount you need but then you’d need to undo the window every time.

Alternatively you could hook up a passive vent or distro and leave it for a minute or two.  If you choose the vent then prop open the door to the lab with something or you’ll suffocate. You don’t need to plasma combust the room. Don’t waste your plasma.

Magnetic Waves

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TriggerMagnet

This is done by activating magboots.  The range of this has been reduced by a lot, so if it’s a dangerous node what you can do is open the door and just throw the boots in from a distance.

Standard Atmospheric Gases

artifact-trigger-hint-regular-gases
TriggerGas

• Oxygen
• Nitrogen
• Carbon Dioxide

If this is Oxygen or Nitrogen it will activate immediately, you can depressurise the chamber if you want to prevent this.  If its CO2 then you’ll have to use a cannister. Speaking of canisters.

Gaseous Plasma

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TriggerPlasma

To do these two you’ll either have to get get a canister from atmos or cargo. Don’t waste it.  Especially the plasma now that the stations don’t have a plasma miner any more. That shits expensive.

My method of doing this is to first depressurise the chamber, anchor the canister, set the pump to no more than 500kpa, then turn it on for one game tick. That’s all you need. If you did vent the chamber first then you should be able to suck it back up without much air getting mixed into it.

As a side note, sometimes pumps have trouble pumping into a room thats been completely depressurised. If that happens let a bit of air in first.

Life Essence

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TriggerDeath

This one has the widest trigger range of 15 tiles, which means if you just leave it, its bound to go off by someone dying in maints nearby.  But if you need it now theres a few options. 

Mice are easy to find, when you’re not looking. They spawn frequently during the influx of lifeform events.  You can lure them by placing down food. Whenever you find one grab it, but it in a cardboard box, and store it outside of any explosion radius.  To kill them I’ve found the easiest method is to place down a mouse trap and just chuck it at it.

You may also have monkies, either from monkey cubes or another artifact that makes them.  I’ve seen a few methods to kill these.  Putting them in the chamber and spacing it takes a while but its probably the safest. You could put them on a chair and attack them from just out of their range. Or you could make it hold a plushie and it won’t do any damage to you, it’ll still move around.  My favourite is to give it the syringe you have, you can’t attack with a syringe so it just kind of stands there. 

Radiation

artifact-trigger-hint-radiation
TriggerRadiation

Up to 50 damage.

If you have gotten a shard of uranium glass from somewhere then you can craft it into a uranium spear, a few attacks with this will trigger it.  If you haven’t got any uranium then some bananium could work. If you have an artifact that is spitting out radiation then just move it next to that. The handheld arifacts can just be put in a microwave to trigger it.

Or if your department has set up the advance anomaly containers then you can leave it next to that for a few minutes.

Effects

Now the fun stuff. Most effects activate when you trigger the node. Some are active while its currently sitting on that node and will turn off when you trigger it. And some are permanently alter the artifact.  If I say an effect is a utility effect, that means it will have that property forever once activated.

Also any mention of depth comes with a +/-2 attached to it, so effects that say they occur at depth 2 can still occur at dept 0.

No Hint

EffectPointLight depth 0

This one has no hint. And it usually appears at node 0.  Makes the artifact shine. This one is on while its on the node and turns off when you trigger it to swap to a different node.

Cerebral Influence

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EffectBadFeeling depth 0
EffectGoodFeeling depth 0

This is my least favourite effect. It makes you… feel things.

EffectRandomInstrument depth 2

This one is a utility effect, It turns the artifact into a random instrument. Neat.

Environmental Disruption

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EffectThrow depth 0

This one throws nearby items and tiles around.

EffectShatterWindows depth 2
EffectGas depth 2

Could be CO2, plasma, tritium, ammonia, NO2, Frezon.  Most of these are harmful. And unfortunately it doesn’t create enough to be worth harvesting.

EffectExplosionScary depth 2

A radioactive explosion. Will kill you.

EffectBoom depth 3

This one usually has the best comedic timing.

EffectHealAll depth 3

The God Node: Heals 100 brute and 100 burn damage in a radius of 8 tiles. If you can get this one set up in a loop then you will put the entire medic department out of business.

Electrical Interference

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EffectLightFlicker depth 0

Flickers nearby lights as if there was a ghost nearby.

EffectKnock depth 1

Knocking noise?

EffectEmp depth 2

This ones annoying because it will break the lightbulbs nearby.

Magnetic Waves

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EffectMagnet depth 1

This ones just annoying, especially if you like a nice neat work environment. While its on the node it will rotate items around it like gravity. Varies in strength and direction. I don’t know of any way to prevent the effect other than figuring out what the trigger is and moving off of that node. Also you can’t use this one to activate the magnetic trigger.

Metaphysical Displacement

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EffectBlink depth 2

Teleports the artifact up to 15 tiles away.  If you listen closely you can hear which direction it went.

EffectShuffle depth 3

Shuffles the location of all the people in the vicinity

EffectPortal depth 3

This one opens a portal for half a second, giving enough time for one very confused crew member to walk through.  Hopefully not into a chamber full of burning plasma.  If you are a sentient artifact, you can still teleport away if you are moving when it opens.

EffectWandering depth 2

Utility effect. This one makes the artifact move randomly. The way to deal with this is to build railings around the pad, though It can be annoying getting it back onto the pad to build around. One way to deal with this is to put it in a container and build around that, when you open it again the scanner will still work with the box there.

EffectSpeedUp depth 2

Utility Effect. This ones cool, while holding it it will speed you up. As far as I know this stacks with other artifacts with the same node.

Matter Creation

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For this one the MaxSpawns are just how many times it can create on that node.

EffectJunkSpawn depth 0

If it spawns junk, that node will only ever spawn junk. Like all the others its subtype won’t change. Maxspawn of 10.

EffectBananaSpawn depth 0

Fun fact, the code for this one has #bornana next to it, I just thought that was cute. Spawns banana’s and up to 100u of potassium.  This node is why you should never let a janitor or a cleanbot into the artifact lab. MaxSpawns of 20 banana,s and 100u of potassium

EffectFloraSpawn depth 1

This one will spawn a random tree.  They’re easy to clear away, just hit it 4 times with a lit welding torch.  The wood you get from it can be used as a good weapon for hitting other artifacts. MaxSpawns of 3.

EffectInstrumentSpawn depth 1

Random Instrument. Maxspawns of 5.

EffectMonkeySpawn depth 1

Monkies. Or a 5% chance for a gorilla. This one has no maxspawn, meaning you can create infinite monkies. If it’s a small artifact with easy triggers then keep it. You can use it for the Life essence trigger.

EffectRareMaterialSpawn depth 2

Spawns either gold silver plasma or uranium ore. Each one has a maxspawn of 3. So unfortunately not enough to create a plasma shard to use.

EffectAngryCarpSpawn depth 2

Stay calm. Do not open the door to the chamber. Calmly go grab one of the APE’s, set it up pointing at the chamber, and turn it on. This will kill the fish much faster than it will take security to waddle their ass down to science. 

Makes either a holocarp or a magiccarp.  Can only activate 5 times, after that it won’t make any more.

EffectFaunaSpawn depth 2

Don’t be fooled by this one, It could make corgi puppies. But it could also make slimes and xenomorphs. MaxSpawn of 5.

EffectCashSpawn depth 2

Random stack size, Maxspawns of 10.

EffectMaterialSpawn depth 3

Spawns a stack of steel, glass, or plastic. Maxspawn of 5. I once had an artifact with two of these nodes next to each other with easy triggers.  That was good shift.

EffectMitosis depth 3

Spawns another artifact. Neat.  Max spawns of 1.

EffectAnomaly depth 3

Spawns a random anomaly on top of the artifact. This could be great for sci because its got a new anomaly in a safe, contained environment. Though its terrible for you because you’ve either got to move to a different test chamber or just wait until its been removed.  MaxSpawns of 1.

Energy Consumption

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EffectCold depth 1

This one drains the surrounding temperature down to 50 kalvin.

Energy Release

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EffectHeat depth 1

This one raises the surrounding temperature to 500 kalvin.

EffectChargeBatteries depth 1

Charges all the batteries nearby.

EffectRadiate depth 1

Kills you.

EffectRadiateStrong depth 3

Kills you harder. These ones are on while its sitting on the node. And will only turn off when you activate the trigger. Meaning if you can control this you can use it as the radiation trigger for another artifact.

EffectIgnite depth 3

This one I think is one of the most deadly non explosion effect.  It gives everyone within 7 tiles between 3 and 6 fire stacks. This is why I recommend standing back at least 8 tiles if possible.  If its one that requires you be close then preferably send a droid in.  They can be repaired easier.

EffectPowerGen20K depth 3

Utility effect. This one will output up to 20k units of power when wrenched down on top of an HV cable. Neat.  

Biochemical Disruption

artifact-effect-hint-biochemical
EffectChemicalPuddle depth 0
EffectChemicalPuddleRare depth 2

This one spawns base chemicles like iron, sugar, water… potassium. Maxvol of 500u.

I’ve seen this make things like cognizine and omnizine before.  If you can scoop it up in a bucket, the chemist is gunna love you.

EffectFoamMild depth 1
EffectFoamGood depth 2
EffectFoamDangerous depth 3

Fills the room with foam that contains a reagent.  Can do anything from outright round remove you with poison damage, to make you go weh for a bit.  So if it says bio then stay out of the chamber, use a bio suit, or just leave your internals on

Transmogrificational Activity

artifact-effect-hint-polymorph
EffectPolyMonkey depth 2
EffectPolyLizard depth 2
EffectPolyLuminous depth 3

This is a fun one, it’ll transform people around it into either a monkey, a lizard or umm….. this thing 

If you turn into a monkey you’ll drop most your things, including your id card, so stay still.  If you’ve managed to walk out of the chamber before it closes you’ll have to ask someone to come open the door for you.

Visual Distortions

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EffectInvisibility depth 2

Small Entity Accelerator

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EffectBigIron depth 3

A Utility effect that turns the artifact into a gun. Comes pre-loaded and has a Semi and FullAuto setting.  Fun fact: the code on full auto here says # no alien revolver in the building.

Utility Conglomerate

artifact-effect-hint-multitool
EffectMultitool depth 3

A very cool utility effect. This one turns the artifact into a swiss army tool.  Just hold it and press use to swap its behaviour between: Screwdriver, crowbar, wrench, wire cutters, and a multitool.

Internal Chamber

artifact-effect-hint-storage
EffectStorage depth 2

Changes the artifact into a bag with a massive amount of storage space. I once had one that also had phasing(I think), changed the function of the bag entirely.  You could place an image of an item in the bag, and still have it out in the world. Then when you picked it up from the bag it would teleport to you.  Hamlet was so confused.  I’ve yet to replicate this so if anyone can verify. 

EffectSolutionStorage depth 2

Turns it into a liquid container, with a maxiumum volume of 150u. This may or may not have other container like qualities like, being able to drink from it, being able to inject with it, being able to put it into dispensers or just telling you the exact components of the liquid inside.

Serrated Rotator

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EffectDrill depth 3

Effectively turns it into a drill, meaning you can use it to dig at rock or as a fairly powerful melee weapon.

Long-Distance Communication

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EffectIntercom depth 2

Utility effect. This effect has only one use. Turn it on, change the channel to Command, and shout in it that the singularity has gotten loose.

Structural Phasing

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EffectPhasing depth 2

This ones cool, it lets your artifact phase through walls. You won’t be able to sell or crush it any more though.  If you have this in combination with the wandering effect then kiss your arti goodbye.  If you get one in combination with the next effect then its soo good.

Neurological Activity

artifact-effect-hint-sentience
EffectSentience depth 3

The best node. This turns the artifact into a ghost role, meaning you’ve now got a new best friend who will kill you.

Note: sentience, not sapience.  Its roll says “Forcibly activate your nodes for good or for evil.” Meaning it may talk to you, but it doesn’t follow any rules. Either way, I’ve found the best thing to do with these artifacts is to inform it of its many deadly abilities, then set it free.  I mean it is now a living being after all.

Station-Wide Destruction

artifact-effect-hint-destruction
depth 10

Lastly, there is this one, special, node. See nodes are arranged randomly, most are like trees, sometimes you’ll get one that’s just a straight line. These can be quite useful for completing tree….. However I must warn you. If you ever find an artifact that gets to depth 9, just stop there.  You’ve worked hard, you deserve a break, sell the artifact immediately, then go hang out in the bar. Under no circumstances must you try to find out what lies at depth 10.

Useful Tips

The analyser platform is a little buggy. If you place an artifact on it before taking one off it’ll not work. If an arti teleports away, sometimes it still keeps reading that one despite putting a new one on.  Things I’ve found that can that can fix this are taking all artifacts off, and unwrenching/wrenching the platform.

Each new node you discover will grant you points. The UNEXTRACTED_VALUE number shows you how many points you’ve unlocked, but haven’t extracted yet. The number doesn’t update live, only when you reopen the console or rescan. But if the extract button is green, then you can extract points.  This also means you can tell whether you’ve landed on a new node by if the button is green or not.

Also the unextracted value doesn’t mean how much points the artifact has in it. Don’t stop just because it says 0.

Uncovering all the nodes on an artifact gets you a huge 25% bonus of the entire artifact.  An example I had was a small one that had netted me roughly 60k, once landing on the last node got me another 25k.

If you haven’t been keeping notes, you can use this as an indication of when you’ve completed the artifact when your points jump up a ton. 

The cooldown between one node activating and the next node activating is 5 seconds.  This is much faster than the 30 second scan time.  So if you’ve been keeping notes then you can quickly navigate the artifacts node tree without having to wait.

Since each artifact starts on node 0 it technically has one discovered already.  So at the beginning of each shift, before you’ve start research, you can place each available artifact on the plate and hit extract for a nice boost of research points.

Crushing an artifact will occasionally activate them. Fun.

Try your best to keep errant stimuli away from the artifact room.  Especially around artifacts you haven’t fully mapped.  This is specifically because the cooldown is only 5 seconds.  If you trigger a node you will not be able to scan and determine what the next one is before it it’s also triggered.   The amount of times I’ve seen research assistants go up in flames because they’ve left their magboots on is staggering.  Though this is a lot safer now the magboot range has been reduced.

Suits, use them.  Each station will give you a radiation locker, and frequently a bomb and bio locker.  

The first thing you should do every shift when you first go in to the artifacts room is grab a radiation suit, and the two Geiger counters, place one in the chamber and one near the artifacts you’re not using.  A couple of times now I’ve had an assistant just chilling next to me, glance over to their health and go “oh, I’m dead”.

Artifacts with only a few nodes are still useful. They can be used for the effects quite easily.  I once had one that only had 2 nodes, one which made radiation. Effectively making it a handheld radiation tool with an on off switch

Likewise, if you have an artifact that’s relatively safe with a useful node or two, abuse it.  Especially if it produces materials, or monkies, or useful chemicals.

Share the fruits of your labour.  If you get a bio node that spits out a random chemical, pick it up with a syringe and go tell the chemist you’ve got some floor juice for them.  Nine times out of ten they’re going to love you.  Get some Chemical analysis goggles too, sci starts the shift with the ability to print them off, no research required.