Unknown Artefact (or artifact) Community Thread - The Canonn

[rizal72]

As far as I can tell, what is being broadcast is this:

...-..-../---..

How you want to break up the first part, it is up to you.

I am very very displeased, though. Because what I think the code should have been is this:

... .- .--./---..

Rizal, are you absolutely sure the sequence you made in Garage Band is correct? Isn't there any possibility at all it is this other sequence being broadcast by the UA?

[EDIT] I observed very carefully the spacing between the sounds in the first part. I am almost 100% sure that the code Rizal has put up in Garage band spells "...- .. -../---.." which means VID 8.

No, I'm not sure at all, as I'm not a morse expert.
What I played in GarageBand is just what I can ear from that sequence. I've posted that just to make the real sound, in the real recording, more audible to people who could not hear it. You should listen to the "isolated" version, and try to decode it yourself. Would be nice if you could disprove me instead

 

[Saool]

Ratking, I'm certain you will have tried this, but just in case... have you looked to see if anything is different on your ship fitting screen with the UA in you hold. IE no options to plug it into your ship somewhere?

 

[mrtree]

I know, this is crazy. Everyone else has spent thousands of hours trying to get one of these, and he just casually picks up another one. There must be something he is doing differently...

Last night, I was able to get on earlier & spent about 3 hours rage-trading (getting finances back up after dumping money into the Orca I now had no use for). I then headed back, picked up my Courier & went back to Timocani. Total play session was almost 8 hours in-game, though I was periodically away for chores & stuff.

When I hunted in Timocani, I did the following:

* Be at least 100Ls from the star (start of Deep Space)
* Throttle to idle
* Enter every WSS & SSS I see
* If WSS & there's no UA, leave
* If SSS, scan for wanted targets. Unless it's the 3 Anaconda or gold-trap swarm, destroy them. (I did mention I was upset about the lost UA, right?)
* Periodically return to a station to cash in, reload & check missions

I took a couple smuggling/salvage missions (despite not being much of a pirate, these are some of my favorite parts of ED), which I completed successfully. I'm Allied at Seega Port.

I'm Allied w/ the Federation (Ensign), Friendly w/ the Empire (Baron) & Alliance. I was triple-allied before finding the first UA & my rep has decayed. This seems to have made getting allied with any given station much simpler. I'm not pledged to any power in PowerPlay.

My combat rank is Master, trading rank is Entreprenuer, my expo rank is Ranger.

Also, please remember I sank a ton of time into hunting previously. Either you all just bumped the lucky SSS counter far enough, my local PRNG was at the right spot thanks to time in-game or I was just plain lucky. (Or some early-morning-riser at FDev took pity on me...)

We've had three confirmed sightings this week & almost two acquisitions. My bet is that it's just a matter of us grinding away at it enough for us to statistically hit it (since we're a small minority of the overall player base). Personally, I'd love to see a third UA crop up, but who knows what FDev is doing behind the scenes.

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FD is a secret military organisation who wants to prepare us for future combat!
and HE is secretly a Thargoid working for FD to prepare us for the first contact in reallife!

SSSSTOP TELLING MY SSSSECRETSSSS... uh, *ahem*, I mean: I am obviously a fleshy human, the same as you. Let us do human things, like drinking mildly poisonous beverages & being genetically inferior.

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Yes, it's possible it was luck. It's possible to flip a coin 15 times and get 15 heads, it's just a 1 in 32,000 chance!

But when someone does it once, and then does it again after 20 tries, it's time to take a closer look at the coin, the table, the way he flips it...

Because dozens of commanders have put in thousands of hours searching, and then someone who found one before finds another one in 5 hours. Sure, luck is possible, but it's FAR more likely that there's something to do with the way he's searching that's different to everyone else. Like, maybe the escort only travels inside the planetary plane, but everyone else is going above/below the plane, for example.

When I go to flip a table, I try to be like Alan Rickman about it...

 

[mrtree]

Any number of things. The ship he's using. His pilot ranking (we DO know from a recent dev post that SS encounters are affected by rank), his navy ranking, the location within the system...

Or maybe it'll turn out the RNG uses some part of player data as the random seed when 'rolling' the SSS, and as a result some players are just more likely to get it...

Interestingly, both times have been just out of the station (not even to deep space yet). Once outside Seega, once outside Pennington. Both are outpost-style (one Fed, one pirate), so the T-9/Anacondas couldn't be landing there).

I'm using the same Courier I used to nab the first UA, in the same system, same combat rank.

In going through my screenshots, there was also a new-to-me Sap-8 mission at Pennington, right before I got the UA:



As well as a few (new/rare-to-me) SS: a five pirate convoy on smuggling something through the system (T-6/2 Eagles/2 Sideys), a four clean player wing (FDL/3 Cobras), etc.

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One assumes you don't have any unusual fitting options when on the fitting screen with a UA in your hold do you?

Nope, sorry. I've been through outfitting many times, no dice - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLomc-hLtq4

 

[mrtree]

My opinion is that the server is maintaining 2 Unknown Artefacts in the game. We're having great trouble finding a third at any time.
Yet I get blown away with one, and another one spawns within a few hours? That strikes me as server maintaining a working level of 2.

This makes the assumption that we know about & possess all the UAs in the game. There's probably been ~75-90 unique commenters on this thread, which is ~0.015% of the total ED population: (90 commenters / 600000 total sold) * 100 = 0.015. Sure, most people in-game are probably trading or blowing each other up, but we have such a low sample of the overall populace I don't think we can answer this with any certainty.

 

[Cmdr Clade]

Congratulations to Mr Tree on finding a new UA - Well done!

Along with others, tho, I find the timing suspicious......I don't think MR Tree had anything to do with it, but just maybe we need AT LEAST 2 of them to solve the puzzle - and someone at ED injected the extra one into the instance Mr Tree was in......accidentally or deliberately - I don't know - we don't know what tools the Devs have to monitor/influence gameplay.

However - if we do need 2 of them, maybe we should be putting them together more - maybe with a selection of SAP8s. Just another thing to think about I guess.

 

[mrtree]

How do you do this?
Great news. Way to go with the new shiny ship?

Unfortunately, it was with the same Courier as the first UA. I'm back to being stuck in the Courier instead of the shiny Orca I built to cart the UA around. :/

 

[Derthek]

This makes the assumption that we know about & possess all the UAs in the game. There's probably been ~75-90 unique commenters on this thread, which is ~0.015% of the total ED population: (90 commenters / 600000 total sold) * 100 = 0.015. Sure, most people in-game are probably trading or blowing each other up, but we have such a low sample of the overall populace I don't think we can answer this with any certainty.

I know for certanty that there are CMDRs who have had UA in the past and have not come forward.

I met with the person who uploaded this video several days before RedWiz found his publicly. Many of us called it a hoax, though.

We can only assume that there are more among secret groups.

 

[mrtree]

Zeal.....that's the key to getting a UA? It detects how much zeal you have in your movements?.......Quick! Everyone up your zealness!!

Now joking aside are you going to sell the UA in a weeks time?

If we find a third UA or run out of tests (for a week), then yes. If for no other reason than to disprove/prove the sale theory. We'll never know if we don't try. That said, I'm open to other ideas & will continue helping you with tests.

 

[mrtree]

Apart from the zeal do you have any suggestions on anything that might be influencing the chances a UA appearing?

Pilot ranks, navy ranks, are you winged, you're in a courier I think, did you take out any missions, proximity to system bodies, were you in deep space, were you carrying any goods ie trinkets, time of day, were you in solo/private group/open, were there other CMDRs in the area etc..

Did you get a *lot* of SSS spawns therefore it might just have been a cases of many SSS = more chance, or perhaps you didnt get that many?

I clocked up another 12 hours today. =(

SS were spawning relatively frequently (a USS/WSS/SSS every minute or so). I didn't notice a non-normal distribution, primarily USS (say 60% USS, 30% SSS, 10% WSS). I dropped into everything that wasn't a USS, so that reset the SS spawns each time. Periodically, if nothing showed up for longer than that, I'd move forward a couple Ls then put the throttle back to idle.

* No wing (I wish)
* Found both the old UA & the new close to the stations (as opposed to the star)
* Nothing in my hold
* I was in Mobius when I found this one, IIRC Solo when I found the previous (maybe?)
* Late at night, 2-3am CDT (-0500 GMT) both times
* No other CMDRs I saw, but the Mac port doesn't show hollow icons for commanders, so without going up to the local comms tab in the chat panel, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Whoah, wait just a minute, you search in WSSs for UAs?

In the original thread, "I and I Redeye" claimed he found them in Timocani (or surrounding systems) in WSS. He didn't have any proof (happened before the main hunt) but we did find UA in Timocani. And other rare-ish goods spawn in WSS (ancient artefacts, black boxes, experimental chemicals, etc), so I considered it at least plausible. I check them anyway, maybe salvage things that are worth it but usually not.

 

[mrtree]

may I ask where you find these damn things? haha

I rememeber seeing you in a python in Peregrina... but that was a while ago.

Timocani.

 

[Flermpick]

So the only common thread being that you were in a courier again?
I'm still +1 for the sale at Nimoy station.

btw is anyone else going insane over the 2 blades missing from every 3rd fan in the galaxy?
It just wrecks it for me.
I mean someone should have a talk to the graphics guys about some of the things not to do in a proceedural(I think I spelt it right) drawn game.

 

[Derthek]

btw is anyone else going insane over the 2 blades missing from every 3rd fan in the galaxy?
It just wrecks it for me.
I mean someone should have a talk to the graphics guys about some of the things not to do in a proceedural(I think I spelt it right) drawn game.

Two blades missing are for service and maintainance crews. If you need to fix something on the far side of the fan you can walk through the gap. (When it's off)


Jk. Idk.

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Timocani.

Ah. Classic.

 

[mrtree]

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=50080&d=1436929686

Unfortunately, neither Ngaliba or BD-02 4304 seem to match that layout? An intriguing theory though...

 

[mrtree]

Ah. Classic.

This actually really bothers me. We only know of a couple systems (Timocani & 109 Virginis being the ones that come to mind) where we see these spawns. MB said "certain regions of the galaxy" - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=141038&p=2179500&viewfull=1#post2179500. I can't help but wonder what the commonality (if any) between them is, as well as what other systems they appear in & if that's part of the mystery/clue.

Other than both being Federation & being toward the outskirts of human space (check in the PowerPlay map), I don't see any commonalities. :/

 

[Seon]

Well they are both triple star system...

 

[Derthek]

This actually really bothers me. We only know of a couple systems (Timocani & 109 Virginis being the ones that come to mind) where we see these spawns. MB said "certain regions of the galaxy" - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=141038&p=2179500&viewfull=1#post2179500. I can't help but wonder what the commonality (if any) between them is, as well as what other systems they appear in & if that's part of the mystery/clue.

Good sir, I (to the dismay of my girl) and many other CMDRs have spent the better part of early May discussing this very subject. In fact, MB replied to my question about which region. Perhaps that's what filled me with zeal haha

As far as we could tell, there's nothing that matches up.

Planetary size, planetary surfaces, systems in proximity... we discussed the natural similarities as well as economic and other human related similarities. Nothing that would make sense for the presence of UA.

I spent several hours (not as much as most) searching for the UA when I decided that discovery is not my place in life, but rather amassing information and fulfilling a more "investigaive journalist" role. Having been given a UA to play with, talking with other CMDR with UA, and listening to theories and watching videos... I have no idea.

your mention of the PRNG are the most insightful & concrete thing I've heard since May. Bitstorm's turret theory actually gave me hope that we are making progress too.

The elephant in the room is that there is nothing to solve, and that the solution will be implemented in a future update. Which would break my heart quite frankly.

I think if selling it at Nimoy station brings nothing, then we're out of luck.

 

[GabrielG.A.B.Fonseca]

I wish I could go out there and help you guys find more UAs, but my computer does not run Elite.

I can however, give you this piece of advise: keep trying the SAP8s.

While I do not have any solid, convincing and proving argument to it, I can give you clues and hints given to us before:

- Saps and UAs interact. This by itself is already promissing. Why saps do it?
- Kerrrash said we were close to it when we were discusing the Saps.
- The Saps are, frankly, kind of an obvious choice.
- In Rizal's morse, the code is almost the correct spelling of SAP8. I'm trying to prove this, but no hard data on it yet.
- Mrtree took a SAP8 mission before finding his new UA.

So, what I put forwards is: we need to keep trying to test the Sap-UA relationship.

With a twist;

Has anybody put a UA, Sap8 and Hafnium 178 together?

Think about it; those were all items put into the game during the 1.2 Update. All three are extremely rare and hard to aquire.

And it makes sense from a In-Character perspective too. The UA is a receptacle, the SAP8 is a crystal instruction, and Hafnium 178 is the power source.

We need to try this. It may be wrong, but it sounds just stupid enough, too.

Please, hear to my pleas - try this.

 

[mrtree]

Well they are both triple star system...

Quite right. So the full commonalities:

* Both Federation
* Both toward the frontier of human space
* Both trinary systems
* Both relatively low populations (75k & 3.3m)
* Both have democracy stations
* Both are medium security
* Both are in a "None" state (no civil war, outbreak, etc)

Unfortunately, by those definitions, it feels like dozens or many more systems fit that description. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but trying to find commonalities here feels like a dead end.

 

[mrtree]

I wish I could go out there and help you guys find more UAs, but my computer does not run Elite.

I can however, give you this piece of advise: keep trying the SAP8s.

While I do not have any solid, convincing and proving argument to it, I can give you clues and hints given to us before:

- Saps and UAs interact. This by itself is already promissing. Why saps do it?
- Kerrrash said we were close to it when we were discusing the Saps.
- The Saps are, frankly, kind of an obvious choice.
- In Rizal's morse, the code is almost the correct spelling of SAP8. I'm trying to prove this, but no hard data on it yet.
- Mrtree took a SAP8 mission before finding his new UA.

So, what I put forwards is: we need to keep trying to test the Sap-UA relationship.

With a twist;

Has anybody put a UA, Sap8 and Hafnium 178 together?

Think about it; those were all items put into the game during the 1.2 Update. All three are extremely rare and hard to aquire.

And it makes sense from a In-Character perspective too. The UA is a receptacle, the SAP8 is a crystal instruction, and Hafnium 178 is the power source.

We need to try this. It may be wrong, but it sounds just stupid enough, too.

Please, hear to my pleas - try this.

This has been tried quite recently by RatKing (with the help of others) - http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Unknown_Artefact?diff=39131&oldid=39130.

And Sap-8 was introduced in 1.3. It was Painite (also tested) that came in 1.2.