Pray they don't take this away.

It doesn't mention anything about the planetary bonuses, unfortunately.

I demand that bug be added!

Though I think this bug is nice, I also think it takes away from the game. Part of finding artifacts is not knowing where they are. It makes you decide weather you want to spend resources on that planet, or on research, your fleet, ETC.
Part of this game is making choices, and I think if they leave this bug in, it defeats that purpose and makes Sins less of a game. Things arent supposed to be easy, and you arent supposed to have 'everything', and not knowing where artifacts are adds to the unpredictability of each game.

I think it was joke when people were saying "Don't take it away".

Nope you shouldn't be able to knowbefore hand if their si one or not. This needs to be fixed.

And i would even suggest a change to the way artifacts are distributed. Instead of having them predetermind at game start i would ahve then be generated by exploration. And have it work that the fewer explorations total on all planets by all planets the more likely to discover one. Meaning exploring planets would become a race to see who can get artifacts. But at teh same time a balance act between exploration and defending your self from people who would want your newly found artifact.

Planet bonuses should work the same as well.

I don't think it's a joke. In multiplayer games it's just not worth the risk to spend resources on stuff like this if there is no way of knowing how much the payout will be.

It's not a lot different than the research tree when you think about it. Imagine if you never knew what you'd get from spending resources on research and just got things with luck of the draw and sometimes got nothing.

It makes the game more interesting seeing the artifacts, more options for how I want to expand my empire. (hopefully the artifacts are balanced and don't offer huge bonus's that will throw the game out of whack) My resources are still being spent somewhere but looking for artifacts was basically gambling. Now they are at least in line with the research tree which tells you precisely what you'll get after you research.

The exploration already costs too much and removing this bug/feature just makes exploration never used in real game.

Even in late game, the cost of exploration is wayy too expensive.

Think about this, with exploring one planet, I can make about two heavy cruisers. If I have more than 8 planets, that's for 16 heavy cruisers.

That's really a lot, really.... more than a possible bonus you can get from exploration.

This bug seems to effect enemies aswell. As soon as an enmey or ally colonizes a planet with artifact, you get the announcment "Other race has discovered an artifact".

It is supposed to be giving the notice once the artifact is explored, yeah. But since that's what's bugged and you don't need to explore to find the artifact, the player gets the messages as soon as the AI colonizes these planets, too.

So yep, it's a side effect of the bug, not an addition to.

Let me just say, that if it takes say 4 planets to get you 1 artifact, your gambling will mean your doom if you are playing against me; all those resources will have bought me more ships and more upgrades (or more econ, if you played me you know what I mean). I have yet to see a good player explore for artifacts in a game. And if they do, it's because they are on my team, winning, and have way too much money to know what do to with.

I personally love this bug/extremely wonderful feature. Typically you'd have to search 6/7 planets which is the price of a small fleet to get something that does 15% more of something, totally not worth the small fleet.