Ancient shrine
Ancient shrines, commonly referred to as ancient dangers due to the event card, are large structures that spawn on the map upon generation. They take the form of a massive, unexplored room. though they may be damaged somehow after map generation. If they spawn damaged, they are most likely ruins.
Having a colonist walk by the walls of the structure will trigger an Ancient danger event prompting:
"As (Colonist Name) draws near the ancient wall a sense of foreboding overcomes him. (S)He isn't sure why, but (s)he feels this dusty structure may contain great dangers"
Description[edit]
Ancient shrines are large rooms of stone or steel walls. In contrast to ruins, the walls of the shrine always begin undamaged and in perfect condition. Ancient shrines generate either partially or completely under natural rock formations. Ancient shrines are not guaranteed to spawn on small or medium maps, but will always spawn on larger map sizes. Two or more may spawn on the largest map sizes. On non-starting maps, ancient shrines only have a 25% chance to appear.
There are two components to the shrine's "danger":
- A non-human threat immediately revealed when opening the shrine. This can be either mechanoids, insectoids with their requisite bug hives, or even a few fleshbeasts
if the Anomaly DLC is installed. Beware - even centipedes can appear in an ancient shrine. - The beings inside the ancient cryptosleep caskets. They are not always hostile. This can contain a human, a human and a megascarab, a group of megascarabs, or nothing. Humans will belong to one of two Ancients factions; one faction is hostile, the other faction starts off neutral. Megascarabs are always non-hostile. Opening 1 ancient cryptosleep casket will open all the caskets. Humans may spawn downed or as corpses.
Due to being fully enclosed, one cannot see within the shrine, and hovering over the grayed out area as seen in the picture will only say 'Undiscovered' in the bottom left corner. The only way to find out what is inside is to deconstruct or destroy a wall section.
There are many rewards within the ancient shrine. It can contain artifacts such as psychic animal pulsers or psychic insanity lances, and valuable items like luciferium are common. Ancients often carry plasteel, gold, and advanced components; even their corpses carry loot. Ancients can spawn with synthread and hyperweave clothing, power armor, high quality weaponry, or may be naked.
In addition to the loot, ancient shrines will contain ancient sarcophagus, tables of different sizes, steles, columns, urns and/or ancient barrels
. Their floors are generally made out of flagstone, steel tile, or stone tile. These can all be deconstructed.
Analysis[edit]
Dealing with the danger[edit]
Build the traps first, then the walls.
When opening the ancient shrine, it is recommended to not deconstruct the wall, but to destroy it with ranged weaponry. This gives you some distance to deal with scythers and other threats. Make sure to keep colonists drafted, or toggle their hostility response from Attack to Flee.
The spike trap tunnel on the right is likely to take out scythers, lancers, and megaspiders that inhabit the shrine. For centipedes, it is recommended to have a bolt-action rifle or sniper rifle on hand and kite the centipedes.
Fleshbeasts are a bit more resistant to trap tunnels due to trispikes, and bulbfreaks splitting upon death, leading to fingerspikes setting off the majority of traps.
If a trade caravan happens to spawn near the ancient danger, you can open it. Caravans likely have enough firepower to clear the entire danger, or at least, severely weaken it. In a similar fashion, shooting an ancient cryptosleep casket will unleash its ancients - mechs, insects, and ancients should all fight each other.
Dealing with ancients[edit]
The shrine itself contains a lot of loot, but so does its ancients. Even if the ancients are neutral, it is worthwhile to capture or kill them for assault weaponry, armor, and materials. If a stray bullet doesn't hit the cryptosleep caskets, they should remain closed, even after removing the rest of the danger.
If captured, ancient soldiers have incredibly low resistance, making them very quick recruits.
- Using fire
By using fire, you can attack ancients without a gunfight.
First, enclose the shrine with a door, so that it is "Inside" for temperature purposes. Place some fuel and raise the temperature up high. Continuously throw molotov cocktails or other flame weapons until the room hits at least 200 °C (392 °F). Then shoot the cryptosleep caskets. Both hostile and friendly ancients will be downed through heatstroke. Death on down chance applies, so this method does not guarantee live capture.
The ancient cryptosleep caskets will be at risk of destruction, which can kill ancients and damage gear. But they have quite a bit of health, so you can extinguish important items and capture important pawns before that happens.
Fire being used to handle an ancient shrine's cryptosleep caskets, once the initial threats are cleared.
Place some fuel, toss molotovs from outside until the room is hot enough, then shoot the caskets to open them.
Even with enemy firefoam pop packs: it isn't the fire that kills, its the heatstroke (usually).
Getting the ancients to deal with the danger[edit]
If you encounter unexpectedly powerful danger in the shrine and they refuse to leave the shrine to fall to your traps. You can shoot the cryptosleep casket to wake the ancients up. They will be targeted by the existing threat in the shrine; hostile ancients will fight back, eliminating themselves in the process.
If you want to recruit any neutral ancient, get a well-armored pawn to arrest them as soon as the threat is engaged with other ancients. Don't wait for them to go unconcious, as they might be targeted and killed by the threat.
Loot table[edit]
The following loot can be found scattered on the floor of an ancient shrine. Each type of item spawns independently from the others, with its own probability. If there are several options for it, one is randomly picked.
This kind of loot is highly variable and can range from no item at all to a stack of each possible type of item - plus an extra one if you get 2 artifacts, since they don't stack.
| Item | Randomly picked among | Amount | Chance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Artifact |  Psychic animal pulser,  Psychic insanity lance,  Psychic shock lance,  Psychic soothe pulser,  Biomutation lance ,  Biomutation pulser ,  Shard animal pulser ,  Shard insanity lance |
1 - 2 | 70% |
| Misc. item |  Antigrain warhead,  Archotech arm, Archotech eye, Archotech leg,  Assault rifle,  Bionic arm, Bionic eye, Bionic heart, Bionic leg, Bionic spine,  Charge lance,  Charge rifle,  Doomsday rocket launcher,  Flatscreen television,  Grand sculpture,  Healer mech serum,  Joywire,  Marine armor,  Marine helmet,  Megascreen television,  Orbital bombardment targeter,  Orbital power beam targeter, Painstopper, Power claw,  Resurrector mech serum,  Skilltrainer (any),  Techprof subpersona core,  Tornado generator,  Triple rocket launcher,  Orbital mech cluster targeter  |
1 | 50% |
 Techprint
|
any | 1 | 50% |
 Luciferium
|
5 - 20 | 35% | |
 Advanced component
|
1 - 4 | 35% | |
 Glitterworld medicine
|
2 - 8 | 35% |
If the Ideology DLC is installed, the most valuable stack of floor loot will be found inside a hermetic crate instead.
Royalty additional loot[edit]
If the Royalty DLC is present, the game might generate additional loot surrounding the cryptosleep caskets, which will be generated per casket as per these probabilities:
| Item | Chance per cryptosleep casket |
|---|---|
| Techprint (any)
|
3.3% |
| Persona weapon (any)
|
2% |