"When receiving an artifact shipment, you will get a single artifact.

The more points you have accumulated, the higher the chance of
receiving a rarer and more powerful artifact."

This would suggest that the most rare and powerful artifact that we can get via an artifact pull is a Mass Storage Pod. However, the frequency that Mass Storage Pods are gained makes them frequent, not rare (nor are they "powerful" IMO.) I usually pull 8-12 a week (average across the last 4 weeks). They are simply not worth the 20k artifact points that they cost.

-If you equate them to the GP cost of artifacts, they are 4 times as powerful as a planetary flux. (Planetary flux = 40 GP, same as a Continuum Beacon. Continuum Beacons are 5k artifact points. Since a Mass Storage Pod is 20k then it should be looked at as 4x more special than a planetary flux. This is not the case by a long shot.

-Another way to look is that Tesseract Containers are 14 GP for 10 space to cargo, Mass Storage Pods are 60 space, so with that scale, they would be 84 GP if you could buy them, making them on par with a Quai-Spatial Expander prior to their cost drop.

I would like to request that either the frequency that MSPs come in artifact pulls is scaled back or the artifact point cost be scaled back to something more equitable with what they are. I just don't feel that they justify their frequency or cost.

I agree totally. +1

Yes. 20k points for a MSP is totally too high

Exactly, they mostly ruin my artifact shipments, not that I'm unhappy to get them
They should be around 12000

This has been suggested over and over again. The higher your artifact per hour the more you get thse and its not getting funny.

well, i'm finally at the point where my cargo is growing faster than my artifact shipments can fill it. and i'm just fine with that. in other words, i'm still in the stage where i not only appreciate msps, i am happy when i get them. The obvious option is if you dont want them, use them in the ct lab. but, since so many players dislike getting them, i would once again like to propose that we lower the msp drop rate by half, and add in 3 new 20k artifacts into the drop. not only that, but add one that is 40k, so that it will decrease the msp drop rate further. in other threads ive suggested a good 10 or 15 artifacts that would fall into these requirements, but right now i would really like to see a 25k NPC 'summon' drop. But since that would require new 'mechanics' i would just like to see an upgrade of rescued prisoners for 20k (Indigenous Slaves? for 10 rank points), an upgrade of the androids similar to the experimental crates (but obvously without android engineers or tac officers) and something similar to the laz parts vault, but maybe with 50 to hull and shield for 20k.

+1 to all your ideas

LMFAO. +1 to all your ideas too

Scaling the AP cost back, totally agree. Making them harder to get I don't agree. While you may not like/need them at high ranks, the lower rank players that have a hard time being able to keep any cargo still need them very much.

Totally Agree! +1

Another idea would be a "lock out artifact" after a certain number of pulls in 24 hours. I've been awake for 5 hours and I pulled 6 MSP's today. It's ridiculous. Even two in 65k AP, with different flavour artifact between them.

If that's random, Dan, get another randomizer. The one you're using is totally broken.

Edited P.S.

Alternatively, make the tesseract cost 3500 AP and remove them all together. What's the point of having two artifacts doing the same thing.

had 3 MSP's back to back the other day... if i wasn't seeing the AP bar go down, i'd be thinking i hadn't even clicked the button

Put mass ice melters back in AP shipments for 20k.

Put Terraformers in for 40k AP cost.

Put QSE's in for 80k - 100k AP cost.

All 3 artifacts were in the AP shipments before Dan removed them. Plus if we had the high cost of Terraformers and QSE's, that prevents mass spamming of these, and even the highest level players can only get 1 or 2 of these per day. They already get that many terraformers, if not more, from NPC hunting and killing 1000's of NPC's daily.

The high cost also counter-balances the amount of permanent AP buffs you get in shipments, such as bots, droids, cells, etc. Basically you can enhance your planets at the cost of ship-based upgrade artifacts (fewer claims in a full bar), or get more ship-based upgrades at the cost of planet upgrades (more ship AP items claimed in a full bar).

There definitely suck. Their cargo/AP ratio isn't as good as tesseract containers.

At the moment I would guess the artifact drops are done using an RNG which gives an equal chance for all artifacts which can be pulled for the amount of AP availalbe. If clicking for artifacts at 21k there's an equal chance of getting nanodrones or an MSP on one click.

It could be set so there's a variable chance. This would be a way to bring back those artifacts like mass surface melters and quasis. These could be 20k artifact points but a tenth as likely to drop as MSPs (or whatever).

All 60 artifacts are equal chance and it doesn't seem to have changed, if you have AP above their cost. If you draw under 20k, you get about 30% more artifacts. With MSP, each 4k AP/hr = 1 of each item per day, on average. Without MSP, 3200 AP/hr = 1 of each remaining item. Note the most common item by chance can be 40% higher than the lowest quantity item, even at a sample size of 20m AP, which means "how many prisoners I got this week" is HIGHLY variable, or any other specific drop for that matter. MSPs are one of the least desirable drops because they are less efficient than tess containers, but also because people reach a point of cargo where these are meaningless (but still expensive). However, they can be used to make the storage buildings... I guess...