Unable to activate Ancient Data Terminal by dropping Ancient Relic

AECFXI

A
I am at a Guardian Structure site attempting to activate the Ancient Data Terminal by dropping an Ancient Relic.

So far I have:
- Blown up whatever guardian flying robots have attacked me
- Shot down the Ancient Relic off one of the pillars and scooped it to SRV cargohold
- Raised all 6 pylons
- Activated all 6 pylons by shooting them, the game registers each activation with a message and an indicator of 3/6 remaining, until every last one is activated like, all well within the allocated time
- Seen the Ancient Data Terminal with all panels raised, with a full glowing concave oval surface facing out with no missing sections. It is not targetable.
- Received the message, something along the lines of the ancient data terminal is activated and ready, forget what exactly it said
- Sat on the metal pad and jettisoned the Ancient Relic from my cargo hold
- Sat forward of the metal pad and jettisoned an Ancient Relic so it is literally standing upright on the little nub at the center of the metal pad
- Gone and collected other Ancient Relics from the site and jettisoned them while on the pad
- Logged off and logged on and done it all again
- Completely quit the whole game, started it again, did the whole sequence again
- Did the whole sequence in both a Scorpion and a Scarab
- Took the ancient relics that were in my ship cargo hold from other planets and jettisoned them on the pad too
- Observed quite a lot of Guardian skimmers or w/e to spawn and attack me after jettisoning the Ancient Relic

What has not happened:
- The little raised nub on the metal pad in front of the Ancient Data Terminal has not glowed blue like I believe it appeared to in others' videos of the sequence
- The Ancient Data Terminal deployed the blue orb/globe thingy
- The Ancient Data Terminal has become targetable
- I have received Guardian Weapon Blueprint Fragments, the purpose of my doing this
- Gone to another system and done the Guardian Structure there

I am at my wits end here. I have done seemingly everything right. I have dealt with super frustrating and difficult bugs + esoteric knowledge barriers throughout this, from the Ancient Relics that don't get shot off the pillar when you shoot them unless you restart the game, to everyone saying "ruins" and being confounded as to why the ruins have no Ancient Data Terminal and after several weeks realizing Guardian Structures have the puzzle, to the camera doing this really fast slight jittering/shaking that is almost nauseating to have to experience, to the pylons you shoot to activate not all registering as having 'activated' even when you shoot them and they shine light into the sky after the puzzle times out with a failure and you attempt it again without relogging. I really just want to be able to pursue space-based combat content beyond the incredibly lifeless 'combat zones', which means AX combat, which means a Gauss Cannon. But I can't do that without getting this Ancient Data Terminal to work T_T
 
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cmdr milesred

cmdr milesred
are you at the right type of sight for weapon blueprint?
do you happen to also have a guardian key to test the effect of that instead of the relic at the site you are at?
 

StuBaDub

StuBaDub
It's worth trying again at a site in a different system. Some are broken and won't yield a blueprint, most notably the one in Synuefe EN-H d11-96.
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
They should really have made the two incompatible sites more obvious - maybe use back-to-back triangles for the Key and also the hole in the ground?

1653648806371.png


Having two things look the same was always going to be very confusing - and the visual design of Guardians always using blue + triangles does narrow their options somewhat.
 
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AECFXI

A
Let the record show I am having these issues at the Guardian Structure in IC 2391 Sector FL-X B1-7

I will take a look around for a Guardian Beacon to scan for an Ancient Key.

The community has generally done a good job of making available and accessible the highly esoteric knowledge this game is predicated on and does not communicate, however in this instance there is not a well-coordinated approach by the community (content creators, wikis, various 3rd party websites like cannon research) that clearly outlines aspects such Ancient Ruins vs Guardian Structure, when an Ancient Relic or Ancient Key is needed at which sites, etc. Much of the content people like me encounter, namely youtube content, cannot even be revised. And yet it seems like there hasn't been a good understanding that different Guardian Structures seem to have different solutions, as this thread is suggesting.

Ultimately this is not on the community, though. This is on Frontier, where they have profoundly underserved their own players by allowing this kind of situation to occur. Let me make it absolutely clear, figuring out how to correctly interact with the game like this is not gameplay, it's not content, it's not puzzle. I didn't dive into this without watching videos, doing reading, doing research. I did all of that, and I still ran into incredible headaches that have only worked to antagonize me. I get the desire to just populate a universe with your puzzles and let the player community handle the rest, but you can't just f*ck off from your own game when you do something like that. Doing something like means holding the end of a tightrope each player walks along, and if you don't actively make sure you hold that tightrope well, it's your own players that fall off when the tightrope swings out from under them and then you get left with less than 4,000 avg Steam players for your now PC-only game despite over 8 years of development. Because the game is so horrifically riddled with major bugs that should have been caught and fixed in a QA process before ever going live, it meant that when the puzzle didn't work, I didn't have the confidence in Fdev's product to think, "this isn't working because I'm not doing the puzzle right". I thought, "this isn't working because I'm experiencing yet another bug," and I started exploring workarounds like restarting the game, using a different vehicle, using different ancient relics, placing them differently, etc, because this is what a bunch of other bugs have required in order to continue to play. And I didn't interact with the puzzle correctly because of that. If Fdev has facilitated some of the confusion over what exactly ancient ruins and guardian structures are and which even have the puzzle, that also swung the tightrope out from under me while I was already dealing with other challenges like needing to learn from the community where they were. Not having puzzles present differently when a different solution is required for them (as in the Ancient Relic/Key differences), or not making these different appearances/names more prominent, swung the tightrope out from under me.

Actually perform QA and fix the issues that come up in QA before shipping a product by having ample competent staff for this so that players can trust the game is acted in the intended fashion in situations like this. Fix any inconsistencies in nomenclature that are facilitating confusion. Make the different Ancient Data Terminals distinct based on the puzzle solution. And at this point just create a directly explaining Codex entry for this stuff to cut your losses on a badly implemented game feature. The guardian stuff has been well enough known about for a while, a codex entry can make sense within the game lore with that in mind. Your players will still experience playing the game, they'll just be less miserable and in less agony while they do it. And for the absolute love of god, make the dune-buggies less miserable to drive and fix the camera vibrating while in turret mode...

Just a little pent up frustration from the many fruitless not-fun hours I spent on this so far...
 
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Ned Flandalorian

N
This isn't on Frontier. It's on you, watching videos and copying others without fully understanding what's happening. It is a puzzle, you tried to shortcut to the answer and became frustrated when it didn't work.
If you're going to rely on other people's information you should also be willing to accept that information may be flawed and/or incomplete.
 

Northpin

Northpin
AECFXI said:
Let the record show I am having these issues at the Guardian Structure in IC 2391 Sector FL-X B1-7
Click to expand...

Check the Canonn site and pick the type of Guardian Structure you need.
The list on this page is not complete, but it is enough and there are links to other more complete lists

canonn.science

Guardian Structure | Canonn Research Group

The Guardian Structure is a surface structure created by the Guardians. It was found after the less interactive Ancient Ruins (also created by The Guardians), and is often found in the same systems. While several Ancient Ruins are often found in the same system we have only found a maximum of...
canonn.science canonn.science
 

AECFXI

A
Factabulous said:
As predicted - that is a 'squid' layout, so uses Ancient Keys and gives Vessel Blueprints.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the clarifying information. Do you have any reference pages that you particularly like or are particularly detailed about the different types of Guardian Structures? I like how you described it as a squid layout, curious what the name of the other layouts are. I would like to try to make some changes on Wikia to how Guardian ruins & structures are described, that better organizes the information on them in a way that better resolves confusion that can emerge about these given the youtube content that's been created about them.
 

AECFXI

A
GroG79 said:
Did you relog on-site? Did you try a second run without relogging?
Click to expand...

The issue was that it's a 'squid' or 'large' type Guardian Structure that doesn't use Ancient Relics to activate, not any bug or glitch.

Doing a second run without relogging did however create a bug where the pylons would visually activate with a noise and light pillar when shot but wouldn't register as having activated by the puzzle quest.
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
AECFXI said:
Thanks for the clarifying information. Do you have any reference pages that you particularly like or are particularly detailed about the different types of Guardian Structures? I like how you described it as a squid layout, curious what the name of the other layouts are. I would like to try to make some changes on Wikia to how Guardian ruins & structures are described, that better organizes the information on them in a way that better resolves confusion that can emerge about these given the youtube content that's been created about them.
Click to expand...
Hmm, sadly I use an old spreadsheet that is friendly but not for sharing.

The newer, but less friendly list is https://canonn.fyi/guardiansheet - and the map from site type -> blueprint type is on the page Northpin linked earlier https://canonn.science/codex/guardian-structure/ , so you can mash those together. We never did proper maps for the medium sites like squid as the guy who enjoyed mapping had gone by then 🤷‍♀️ But unless you're doing the Ram Tah mission 2 that doesn't matter anyway as the site layouts are the same, just the data cores move IIRC.
 

cmdr milesred

cmdr milesred
things change

in the beginning of the guardian sites you could get all blueprints and data at 1 site.
There was no need to look around.
I had all the guardian toys in 2 accounts as soon as each was available due to being able to get it all in one place quickly.
took a long time for a couple things to get released and functional

Having been in the game from the beginning I never had the guardian key only ever the relic.
6 years later on a new account, I had to go find the key, finally.
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
cmdr milesred said:
in the beginning of the guardian sites you could get all blueprints ... at 1 site.
Click to expand...
That was never the case

Edit: Ah yes, as the poster reminded me it was possible a few years back - apologies!

(Though of no use to the person trying to get blueprints in 2022)
 
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AECFXI

A
Factabulous said:
Hmm, sadly I use an old spreadsheet that is friendly but not for sharing.

The newer, but less friendly list is https://canonn.fyi/guardiansheet - and the map from site type -> blueprint type is on the page Northpin linked earlier https://canonn.science/codex/guardian-structure/ , so you can mash those together. We never did proper maps for the medium sites like squid as the guy who enjoyed mapping had gone by then 🤷‍♀️ But unless you're doing the Ram Tah mission 2 that doesn't matter anyway as the site layouts are the same, just the data cores move IIRC.
Click to expand...

So the core facts as I can tell...

Ancient Ruins will always just be clusters of obelisks and no puzzle, no Ancient Data Terminal, no Guardian Sentinels.

Guardian Structures will always have the Ancient Data Terminal present, and come in three varieties:
  • Inactive (per the current Fandom Wiki) - Unclear the level of interactibility, but do not have any kind of Blueprint segments available from the Ancient Data Terminal
  • "Small" (per the current Fandom Wiki) - Solved with Ancient Relic from the tower that rises up at the site. Dispense Guardian Module Blueprint Segments and Guardian Weapon Blueprint Segments. Identifiable by their layout (non-squid)
  • "Large" (per the current Fandom Wiki) - Solved by possessing the Ancient Key obtained from scanning a Guardian Beacon. Dispenses Guardian Vessel Blueprint Segments only. Identifiable by their 'squid' layout.
What I would like to know before trying to make the Fandom Wiki page more clarifying,

- What are 'medium' sites relative to the above facts? This is in reference to the Journal Name, appears to be some kind of an API ID. There is only tiny, small and medium API ID size descriptions.

On the Canon page there is a list of layouts,
- Some have a "-" sign for the blueprint type. What does that mean? Are they inactive sites that do not provide blueprints?
- Can you give me one sample system for every "Site name" on the cannon page? A sample Fistbump, lacrosse, crossroads, squid, etc. So I can gather a picture of each of these configurations. This is in the above linked spreadsheet

I think those are all the facts that would be needed to fully and clearly clarify what the deal is with Guardian Structures...
 
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AECFXI

A
Alright, I will try to hop on with the cannon research group to get some of those questions answered then, prior to collecting pictures and doing re-writing.

If anyone can reply to some of those answers, it would help jump-start what I can go on to contribute on this front.
 
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