i uderstand it is a resource but what are they accumilated for? what is its purpose? what can u spend them on and where can i view if i have any, if i can at all. HAPPY NEW YR!!

have you read the guide?
Have you looked into the wiki?
how new are you?
Maybe I can send you some minerals to convert to credits. I always would like to see new players. Your question leads me to believe your a newbie.

http://galaxylegion.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

That's the wiki, there's a page on artifacts, and pages on everything else. Basically, those points build up and when you spend them you get a random artifact (one that you have enough points to acquire) and lose however many points the artifact costs.

Artifacts do all kinds of things. They can buff your ship, debuff enemy ships, they can offer permanent improvements to your ship, they can improve your planets in different ways, from gathering special artifact structures you can build on them to adding permanent improvements-although these do not come from the artifact shipment any more and only drop from certian NPCs

thanks alot guys, nice to know theres some poeple looking out for the new guys my legion i joined...well there very quiet and i cant really get much info/help off them is there any chance you know a good bunch i can join. thanks again

You could move to Warp Fleet. We have a decent spread of experience and are happy to help new players.

http://apps.facebook.com/galaxylegion/loader.php?q=bGVnaW9uaW5mby5waHA/YWN0aW9uPXJlcXVlc3QmbGVnaW9uaWQ9MjU1Nw==

There are plenty of legions out there. If your legion aren't helping you, or don't suit your play style, definitely consider moving. I've helped a lot of new people over the last few months via these forums, PM's, and emails, and i've made quite a few contributions to the wiki too. We're all pretty friendly people here. That's one of the main reasons why I keep playing actually, the community around the game is extremely active and the developers are real people that care about their own game. New players really shouldn't be afraid of asking for help because there is a lot of help available out there.

when i click recieve artifact it says:

Not enough artifact points yet to acquire a significant find

i have 166 pts. how many are req. for random artifact find?

The link I posted to the wiki will tell you the cost of all the artifacts, but spy probes are the minimum at 250.

?is planetary limit adjusted by rank or by arrays?

If you mean your storage capacity, it is 1000 times the amount of planets you have.

you can have 1 planet for every 4 ranks (not including rank 0 there is a free planet slot there) and there is an artifact that let you take a planet not adding to your 1 every for ranks total