Artefacts & Blueprints
The vanished Ancients left their technology scattered across Taurion. Reverse-engineer an artefact to unlock blueprint originals — the only way to build the bigger hulls and rarer modules.
What are artefacts & blueprints?
Artefacts are relics of the vanished civilisation that raised Taurion's ancient towers. You recover them by chance while prospecting and mining — and the rarer the ore you work, the rarer the artefact it may give up.
Take an artefact to a Research Facility and reverse-engineer it: the artefact is destroyed, but you have a chance to recover a Blueprint Original. Blueprints are what let you build vehicles and fitments at a construction facility (with the right materials), and an original can be copied into limited-use Blueprint Copies to sell or share. Higher artefact tiers unlock blueprints for larger, heavier gear.
Ancient Artefact (common)
art c · reverse-engineer cost 1 vCHI
- Light general hull — each House's S-class (rv / bv / gv s)
- Scout — each House's recon hull (rv / bv / gv sc)
- Light assault — each House's S-class gunship (rv / bv / gv sa)
- Every Light-grade fitment — all 17 families, including the pick and scanner (which are Light-only)
The smallest, lightest tier. Reverse-engineering it yields blueprint originals for each House's light hulls plus every Light-grade fitment. Costs 1 vCHI per attempt, and turns up while mining at roughly 1 in 20 on any ore.
Ancient Artefact (uncommon)
art uc · reverse-engineer cost 1 vCHI
- Medium general hull — each House's M-class (rv / bv / gv m)
- Medium transport — each House's M-class hauler (rv / bv / gv mt)
- Medium assault — each House's M-class gunship (rv / bv / gv ma)
- Every Medium-grade fitment — all 15 families
Medium tier. Yields each House's medium hulls plus every Medium-grade fitment (no pick or scanner — those are Light-only). Costs 1 vCHI per attempt, and turns up at roughly 1 in 50 from common ore and rarer.
Ancient Artefact (rare)
art r · reverse-engineer cost 1 vCHI
- Heavy general hull — each House's L-class (rv / bv / gv l)
- Heavy transport — each House's L-class hauler (rv / bv / gv lt)
- Heavy assault — each House's L-class gunship (rv / bv / gv la)
- Every Heavy-grade fitment — all 15 families
Heavy tier. Yields each House's heavy hulls plus every Heavy-grade fitment. Costs 1 vCHI per attempt, and turns up at roughly 1 in 100 from higher-grade ore.
Ancient Artefact (ultra-rare)
art ur · reverse-engineer cost 1 vCHI
- Very-heavy transport — each House's titan hauler (rv / bv / gv vlt)
- Very-heavy assault — each House's titan gunship (rv / bv / gv vla)
- Every Very-Heavy-grade fitment — all 15 families
The rarest tier. Yields only each House's very-heavy transport and assault hulls — no light or medium vehicles — plus every Very-Heavy-grade fitment. Costs 1 vCHI per attempt, and is the rarest drop at roughly 1 in 200, from only the two top-grade ores.
How Blueprints Work
Blueprint Originals (BPO)
A reusable master plan. Building from an original locks it for the job, then returns it to your inventory when the work finishes — so an original is effectively never used up and can be built from forever. Originals are the prize for reverse-engineering an artefact, and an original can itself be copied.
Blueprint Copies (BPC)
A single-use plan, made by copying an original. Building a batch of n items consumes n copies, and a copy can never be copied again — only originals can. Copies are what you sell or share when you want others to build a design without handing over the original.
Copy & build costs
Copying an original and constructing the finished item both cost vCHI and time that scale with the item’s complexity. On the live chain a complexity-C item costs C vCHI to copy and C vCHI per unit to build, each taking C blocks. Every vCHI spent this way is burned — permanently removed from the supply.
Why blueprints stay rare
Each reverse-engineering attempt is a 1-in-N gamble. The first copy of a design comes at about 1 in 10, and every copy already in the world makes the next one roughly a third harder to find, all the way down to a worst case of 1 in a billion. The more of a design that exists, the rarer the next becomes — so designs only grow scarcer over time.
Reverse-engineering: diminishing returns
Reverse-engineering is deflationary by design. Each attempt picks one eligible blueprint at random, then checks how many of that exact blueprint already exist across the entire game — and the more there are, the lower your odds. On the live chain the first-ever copy succeeds at about 1 in 10, and the chance shrinks by roughly a third for every copy already out there (≈1 in 13 once one exists, ≈1 in 176 once ten do).
Win or lose, the artefact and its vCHI fee are spent — so blueprints only grow rarer and more valuable as the world fills up, pushing players toward the gear nobody has yet. There is no global "tech" upgrade today: item stats are fixed, and the only power ladder is size (Light → Very-Heavy), climbed by reverse-engineering rarer artefacts — not by hoarding them. A higher "Tech 2" tier may arrive in a future update, but it isn't part of the current on-chain rules.
Full formula and source citations are in the Technical Archive: Items & Materials ›