Antimatter
Antimatter within TE3000 was announced on 29th March 2023 in this group notice
"I have been hearing reports of people encountering something new upon purchasing ships. My own science advisors have been hearing whispers about this for some time, and I'm excited (if a bit ambivalent) about what it can mean for the future of our sector of the galaxy. At any rate, I wish you all the best of luck in exploring this new development."
Antimatter may be discovered on ship purchases. The amount discovered is related to the number of completed expeditions and any artefact multipliers in effect.
The first requirement is to purchase an antimatter-capable engine. This offer shows up soon after starting to collect antimatter.
Antimatter status is shown as extra pages in the Accts tab of the HUD.
Periodically an offer to undertake an antimatter mission will appear. The expedition will have a fixed cost (possibly related to the SPF multiplier) as a percentage of the credit balance. Missions may either be attempted at the next level to the current artefact or lower levels if there is not enough antimatter collected.
The duration of the mission will be three months plus (2 * expedition level) months. A notification message will appear on the hud on the turn before the expedition returns.
When the expedition returns the properties of the artefact can be reviewed (some will be positive, some negative) and a decision taken whether to install the artefact or not. If it is declined 50% of the antimatter spent is returned.
While an artefact is installed an opportunity to remove it early will be offered at every multiple of 100 months remaining.
The lifetime of an artefact appears to be 350 months plus (level * 150) months.
It is not clear yet whether artefacts are predetermined or their properties are dynamically assigned following some algorithm intended to balance the positives and negatives. The latter seems likely.
| 1 | 100 |
| 2 | 200 |
| 3 | ? |
| 4 | ? |
| 5 | 10000 |
| 6 | 50000 |
| 7 | 200000 |