Guide to Xenoarchaeology
What is Xenoarcheology?
Xenoarch, is, in short, the discovery and proper excavation of artifacts and fossils from a bygone era.
What tools are required for Xenoarcheolgoy
-Immense patience
-Space suit
-Depth Analyzer/Scanner
-Toolpick set
-Hand pickaxe
-Pickaxe/Jackhammer/Plasma cutter/drill
-Optical Mesons
-Field Generator
-Wrench
Strongly recommended:
-Mining satchel
-Ore Box
-Tape Measure
First thing you want to do is suit up and grab all the required supplies in the list---consider taking the others with you for your own convenience; they'll make life easier for---the Tape Measure in particular will prevent you from making mistakes if you don't have the greatest memory or have a temporary lapse in concentration. After you've gathered your supplies, you want to head on out to the asteroid itself; be sure to double or even triple check that you have all your goods; no other job class requires such a ridiculous plethora of items to accomplish so little--it's easy to forget just one tool and have to go back inside the station to get it.
Finding a Digsite
The actual process of finding a potential digsite is easy; just use your depth analyzer to scan any rock tiles; if it hums, then move on; if it pings, you're in business. Keep your eyes peeled for those brown rocks with white cracks in them; those tiles will always have something inside of them.
Excavation
This is the process that will rot away the minds of most Xenoarcheologists, as its tedious, math based, and requires exact precision.
Once you find a tile that pings, you'll want to take note on your depth analyzer just the very tile you're looking at (the most recent scan will be at the bottom). Here it will list the Anomaly depth, clearance depth, along with the type of find it is (potassium, iron, mercury, etc). The formulate for getting out the potential artifact is this: Substract the clearance depth from the anomaly depth; this number is the exact amount you want to mine out of the rock. How do you mine out that much, you say? Why with your handpick and pick set of course.
Hand Picks
-Brush: 1 cm
-1/6 Red: 2m
-1/3 Orange: 4cm
-1/2 Yellow: 6m
-2/3 Green: 8cm
-5/6 Blue: 10cm
-1/1 Purple: 12cm
-Hand Pickaxe: 30cm
First off, chuck the brush; all increments are always measured in 2, so 1 is being overly sensitive. So, you take out the proper picks or combination and being picking away...for example, if the anomaly depth was 60 and the clearance was 20, then you'd need to dig a total of 40: you could dig with 1/1 3 times, then once with 1/3...4 times with 5/6...the choice doesn't really matter; just pick precisely down to 40cm. If you forget how much you've excavated, this is where your tape measure comes in handy; it will tell you how much you've cleared so far.
Once you're down to this level, place the generator right up against the rock wall (with the circular disks facing it). Next, bolt it to the ground with the wrench. Swipe your ID to authenticate yourself, then open the menu up. What field do you want to select? It depends, upon what the field generator says---use this as reference:
Suspension Field Generator Settings
-Carbon - Trace organic cells
-Potassium - Long exposure particles
-Hydrogen - Trace water particles.
-Nitrogen - Crystalline structures.
-Mercury - Metallic derivatives
-Iron - Metallic composites
-Chlorine - Metamorphic/igneous rock composite.
-Phosphorus - Metamorphic/sedimentary rock composite.
-Plasma - Anomalous materials
Once you have the right field selected; turn it on, then get out your 1/6 (2cm) pick and excavate once more. Tada! A strange rock or potential artifact is now yours. If you follow this methodology, you will never destroy a strange rock. Now, turn off the generator.
From here, there may be 1 or 2 more potential artifacts in that tile (or there may only be 1). Just rescan it to see the new depth and repeat the process (just keep in mind what you've excavated already for your calculations).
Cracking Open Your Finds
Now that you've got a stash of strange rocks, it's time to see what's in them. Fortunately, as time consuming as excavating the rocks is, cracking them open is rather easy. Simple pull out a welder, turn it on, and use it on the Strange Rock. Tada, you got your item. On the rare case that sparks fly off the rock when this happens, try some acid on it instead.
Congratulations, you've now learned how to become a proficient Xenoarcheologist.
The Loot
Just what can you find at digsites? Is it exciting? Is it great? It has to be awesome to be so boring and painstakingly slow, right? RIGHT? Well....here's another reason why even veteran Xenoarchs are hardly ever seen; the stuff discover is literally worthless junk 9/10 times.
First off, each site is unique and can be one of several types--each digsite type has unique items. The types, in order from most common to least common are:
Forest/Garden
Plant, shell, fossil or beartrap
Fossil, shell, plant, beartrap
Home
Bowl, urn (fancy looking 50 unit beaker), knife, Statuette (decorative), instrument (decorative), pen (can be regular -or sleepy pen), lighter, box (can deconstruct for cardboard), coin, shards, rods, or metal
Technical/scientific
Metal, gas tank (can be filled with a random gas), teleporter beacon, random tool, shard, metal rods, handcuffs, beartraps
Temple/religious
Cult robes, urn (fancy looking 50 unit beaker), bowl, knife, crystal, Cult Blade, soul stone, handcuffs, bear traps, katana, claymore, shard, metal rods, metal
War/battlegrounds
Gun, knife, laser, katana, claymore, cult robes, cult blade, handcuffs, bear trap, tool
A note on excavated items
Ok, as you can see, the vast vast majority of this stuff is not that great. It's either decorative, or just an existing SS13 item with a unique description. There's a few standouts, however, that I'll explain:
Cult Blade--Fully functional and full damage (30); you'll shake if you wield it
Katanta/Claymore: Utter crap; despite claiming to be real, both are replica in nature and deal pitiful amounts of damage; might as well robust someone in the head with a toolbox--damage is only 10.
Soul Stone: Never found one, can only assume its fully functional
Sleepy Pen: You have no way of knowing if it's a regular pen or sleepy pen, as far as I know. Keep in mind this is NOT the paralysis pen that Syndicates use; this is just a pen with a lot of Chloral Hydrate in it.
Bear Traps: You arm them, someone steps on them and it greatly reduces their movement speed; cannot be removed without assistance.
Guns: Basically it's just a revolver with a unique reskin --usually doesn't have bullets; downside is there's only a 33% chance that it can be loaded with current tech bullets. There's also a 33% chance it could come with its own RANDOM number of bullets
Lasers: can be a practice laser gun, full laser gun, X-Ray laser gun (!), or Captain's laser gun (listed in order of most likely to least likely to find). Downside here is there's a 5% chance that laser gun will explode when used and a 10% chance it has an unchargeable cell. Additionally, a 15% chance of having a cell with a random amount of energy--elsewise, you'll have to charge it.
So...really, the only interesting finds are a cult blade, soul stone shard, and guns which have a high failure rate. Worst of all is its all down to luck where digsites are at and luck on what items will be contained within that digsite. This is why no one gives a damn about Xenoarch and why no one keeps at it for long.
A Special Word on Super Rare Artifacts
Once in a while you may mine a tile or improperly excavate it and be temporarily blinded, then hear a keening/thunder/etc type sound. What does this mean? It means you destroyed one of the most rare artifacts a Xenoarch could hope for. How can you go about mining these consistently? Well, you can't; Xenoarch is bugged and the machines used for them are broken.
None-the-less, when you excavate a tile, there's a chance you may find some "Rocky Debris". This is easy to miss as it looks like a bunch of regular rocks glued together. That said, if you find one, be sure to use your depth scanner on it; if hums, just destroy it....that said, if the depth scanner pings when you use it on rocky debris? Take a deep breath and calm yourself; you have something super rare. Some Xenoarchs recommend just using the 2cm pick to slowly crack it open; others will chance it with the analyzer. Personally? I've never Rocky Debris with something inside it yet.
Those Super Rare Items
Just what are these super rare items? Well...it's a surprise. Sometimes it's a rare object; other times it's an "Alien Artifact". I'll leave the rare artifacts a surprise, for now, but I will briefly discuss the "Alien Artifacts".
Alien Artifacts
These are weird relics that possess odd powers; it can take on any number of shapes, but they all do the same thing--when activated, they'll produce an effect. This is why there's all those odd tools in Xenoarch; to test how to activate them. Once you pin down what it does and how to activate it, you may want to extract its energy and put it in an anomaly battery and use it for your own purposes. Be very careful with these artifacts; very few of the effects they produce are beneficial.
And there you have it...a lengthy guide for a lengthy process. I can only hope that, one day, Xenoarch is fixed, and not some SSD-inducing job with almost zero results or benefits.