The game 'automatically' expands the size of the Galaxy based on the number of active players.

There needs to be enough planets for everyone to have a bit of breathing room, but also allow a bit of conflict and worry that someone may have scanned your planet...

By the way, there is a common artifact called "Flux Probe" - its a useful little device that will tell you if someone else has scanned your planet... Or any planet for that matter.

Having more points gives you the "chance" of getting a rarer artifact. If you get one, your points are debited accordingly. However, if you get a common artifact, you will spend a lower amount of points. There is no worry about building up lots of points

So, the thread says 1000 is a "rare" artifact. I've gotten artifacts that cost about 5000 points.. I currently hold off until I have 10,000 artifact points, then receive shipments until I have under 6,000. Are there higher level artifacts that I could be saving for?

Kurens mentioned one that around 24K so yes, this is from back at the beginning of the game when you were lucky to have over 50 artifact production so 1000 was "how you say? 'le #&$#?'"

Le #&$#.... I like it.

I don't like waiting to get to 13K artifact though...

The wiki page listing all of the known artifacts can be found at http://galaxylegion.com/wiki/index.php?title=Artifacts. It includes point values for most of them, both for purchasing with Galaxy Points, and for obtaining through Research Points. Currently the highest RP value listed is 5,000, for the Planet Flux. The Radiant Weapons Locker doesn't have an RP value listed yet, but it costs the same GP as the Planet Flux, so my guess would be that it'll also cost 5,000, meaning that there's not really much point in saving up past that point since nothing costs that much.

again, Kuren found one that costed 24Kish

Sorry, missed that the first time.

So, any idea what it was? We can always add it to the list. Barring details, I guess we could always put in a placeholder of "Ginormous ultra-rare thingy" "24,000".

it was 20,000 points and it adds +60 to cargo. i've gotten 2 so far. Unfortunately forget the name. Think it was Mass Driver or something along those lines

Mass Storage Pod: increases cargo capacity by 60

It's the Tier 11 reward (38 missions completed). You're saying you can also get it for 20,000 RP? Sweet.

yes it is also an artifact ;P