One of the new mechanics coming in Phase III is loot and Artifacts.
Loot in the form of Treasures can be found in various places in space or even on planets themselves.
Clicking a Treasure will make it spill out its contents such as Artifacts or resources.
Collect Artifacts into your Vault by clicking them.
Unlike Artifacts, resources are transferred to your Capital planet's stockpile and not your Vault.
Artifacts have two forms of "quality": The tier of the Artifact, and the Rarity of the Artifact.
The rarity determines which- and how many- modifiers the Artifact can have. While the Tier determine how good those modifiers can be.
Some Artifacts also come with negative effects and modifiers.
Some Artifacts have special effects attached to them.
All Artifacts have a specific slot that determines where they can be used. For example a Building Artifact can only be used in Building slots.
So what are Building slots? In Phase III the production and building systems are getting a complete overhaul.
Cities are still a thing, and you construct buildings just as before. However many buildings have been removed, along with most building upgrades.
Instead building production and specialization is determined by which Artifacts are slotted into that building type.
Building and production management is also no longer split per City, but for the entire planet.
Unlocking slots cost a Milestone point. These are gained by reaching Population milestones. This means that yes, population now matters, a lot!
New buildings are being added, such as Housing districts, that will allow you to reach much higher Population counts than before.
There is no limit to how many slots you can unlock.
In addition to the Artifacts you can find in Treasures you'll also be able to craft Modules. These Modules when put into a Building slot change what is produced.
For example a Forgecraft Module may allow additional goods types to be produced in your Smelteries.
Modules can be of high Rarity or Tier if you're lucky.
Modules and Artifacts are similar in many ways with the exception that Artifacts can never be crafted, only found, while Modules can be either crafted or found.
Artifacts tend to have more generic effects, while Modules tend to focus on specific things such as unlocking new goods for production.
In addition to permanent Artifacts and Modules, some may be time limited. Once the timer expires the Artifact or Module is destroyed.
Timed Artifacts and Modules can not be removed once put into a socket, they remain locked until their timer expires. Non-timed Artifacts and Modules can be switched at any time.
If you have any questions feel free to post them below and I'll be sure to answer them in the next dev. diary.
The focus of that dev. diary will be the new production and building system and the new mechanic for upgrades and crafting.