Allow me to clarify a detail before I give you a list:
Minor artifact ship modules are decent and roughly T3 in strength. With the Archhaeo-Engineers perk, they are actually very good and usually on par with T5, just a side grade in some form.
So why does everyone agree artifact weapons suck?
Well a lot of people look at the modules WITHOUT the perk, or they look at the "relative scaling" factor. For example, "+60% Shields" may sound good but if you already have +100% shields from other sources then the "Relative" bonus isn't as strong when compared to other modules since these effects don't change the base. Basically, 100 shields modified by +160% is 260 but 150 shields modified by +100% is 300. I think this is a slightly foolish way to look at it since not every build is going to spend every single opportunity cost on +damage% and +firerate%. Most importantly, you are able to get Minor Artifacts and AE perk very early in the game, before most people have collected all their buffs, or reached T5 technology.
But more importantly: Minor Artifacts suck.
Minor artifacts suck to get, you have a tiny max stockpile, there is zero trading involved, and no policies or resolutions or anything you can really do to improve this issue. Oh, and you probably are better off using the minor artifacts on something like the refinery. Your best bet to utilize them large-scale in your fleets is to make sure every single councilor has "Expertise: Archaeostudies" because each leader with that trait maxed out sitting on your council gives -10% Minor Artifact cost for ships. If min/maxed this can be up to -60% minor artifact cost for ships, but realistically is more like -40% and even lower if you are monarchy or dictatorial.
For the effects:
In addition to the obvious "+33% Artifact Weapon Damage", you also have these:
- +60% Shields from Ancient Suspension Field components
- +100% Shields from Ancient Pulse Armor components
- +5% Armor from Ancient Rampart starbase modules
- +10% Armor Hardening from Ancient Rampart starbase modules
+33% Effects from starbase buildings unlocked by Archaeostudies
Specific things of note:
+60% Shields from ASF is actually very good. This means that they are basically T5 shields with slightly fewer shield HP (200 instead of 220 for small) in exchange for +15% shield hardening per ASF (shield hardness is much harder to get than shield HP increase).
+100% Shields from APA is interesting. This means that they are T3 armor modules AND T4 shield modules that have the power need of T3 shield modules. Mathmatically this is probably the most HP per slot you can put into a module when you combine both the armor and shield values, at least until late game. The downside is that since it is split between armor and shields, you cannot do the arguably stronger tactic of focusing on shields or armor and getting +100% hardening in just that one, though if you somehow have high hardness in both armor and shields this is a very good option until repeatables come into play.
For the +33% damage for artifact weapons, they make most of the weapons about T5 in strength. They usually sacrafice a little damage in exchange for a benefit that DOES scale into the late game. Unlike defensive modules, which can fall off later in the game with lots of stacking modifiers and especially repeatables.
For example, the T5 energy weapon (Gamma Lasers) deals on average 31.5 DPS (Damage per Second)
The artifact energy weapon (Ancient Cavitation Collapser) deals on average 21.25. With the +33% damage, it's dealing an extra 7 DPS, or about 28.33 DPS.
However, the ancient artifact weapon has a different bonus spread (higher armor damage instead of bonus hull damage) but most importantly ignores 50% armor, and for anyone who doesn't know ships attack slower the more hull damage they have taken. This has the potential to also ruin late-game armor-heavy ships since there are no hull repeatables but there are two energy weapon repeatables.
Another weapon I will shout out is Ancient Miner Drones, which are a strike craft weapon with a bizarre and fascinating 100% armor penetration instead of 100% shield penetration of all other strike craft. You can do nasty things to shields with a variety of things, but armor nullifcation I don't think exists normally so this can be very strong. Most people get shield hardening and ignore armor hardening as well, since many weapons have shield penetration.
Now for the buildings (to actually awnser your question):
Facility of Archaeo-Studies gets +2 more scientists (5 in total) and +2000 minor artifact capacity (+3000 total, but I think nothing else in the game increases this limit and this is a empire unique so the total is 5000).
Ancient Reinferies get +15% (+40% total) to their output.
First League Filing Offices get double edict fund (so from +50 to +100).
Vultuam Reality Computer gets double effects, so +2 Physics on scientists instead of +1.
Baol gets double CG production per farmer (so 1 instead of 0.5) and double energy if you don't use CG (2 instead of 1).
In addition, did you know there's a bunch of starbase stuff gets bonuses? I'll include them since they are related:
Ancient Ramparts (module): +5% Armor (+20% total), +10% armor hardening (hypothetical +60% from 6 of these)
Ancient Shield Overcharger: +17% Shields (+50% total), +17% Shield Hardening (+50% total)
Cybrex Mining Hub: +50% Mining Station Output (+150% total)
Irassian Yards: +10% Ship Build Speed (+30% total)
Yuht Astronomical Interferometer: +3 Sensor Range (+10 total), +6 Hyperlane detection range (+20 total)
Zroni Storm Caster: "-10% Daily Hull on enemy ships"
Hyperlane Detailer +5% ship speed in system (+15% total)
My final complaint is that Remnants utterly sucks as an origin, with zero long-term potential and locks you out of many interesting playstyles like Cybernetic Creed or Necrophages. Only slightly related since remnants is technically "the minor artifact" origin.
What would I do to fix minor artifacts?
Two changes:
1. I would make Facility of Archhaeo-Studies no longer unique (neither empire nor planetary) and reduce the research speed bonus.
2. I would make the bonuses granted by the Archaeo-Engineering perk increase the base stats of the weapons/modules/buildings, so that they are multiplied by all other modifiers.
Alright thank you for reading, have a nice day.