We have the no-sell lock on minerals, I say we have something similar on artifacts. This lock will keep us from doing anything with an artifact until we unlock it. The whole point of this lock is to help people collect certain artifacts for certain CTL artifacts. Someone may forget for a moment one of the artifacts they need to build something, and it may be one that you rarely get and can take a while to find when you collect them.

So it is just a helpful tool in reminding people they are setting aside an artifact to build something in the CTL.

EDIT: Ok, let me rephrase. You can't sell all of your artifacts in one click, so having a lock is pointless. Even if a mineral is locked, I can still sell it by clicking "Sell". Only if there was a "Scrap All Artifacts" button, would this be of any use, at all.
-1.

It's not suppose to be a game changer, just a nice little reminder.

I don't understand, the reason we have a mineral lock is because when you wanna sell all your minerals except say some kur. you can, I guess if you wanna sell all but some artifacts sure but most people try to keep as much artifacts as possibly due to the ct lab and mission requirements.