The Archonexus (ending)

The Archonexus is an ending available as part of the Ideology DLC. Your colony must achieve multiple wealth goals, discover the location of the grand archotech structure.

Briefing

Requirements:

• The Archonexus quest appears once you have reached $150,000 wealth. To accept the quest, you must have a colony of at least $350,000 wealth and be allied with a specific faction.
  • The factions owning the three map pieces will always be the civil outlander union, the rough outlander union, and the fierce tribe faction, in that order.
  • If the faction normally owning the map piece is unavailable to ally, then "a group of wild people" will offer the quest for no extra requirement.
  • The rough pig union and the fierce neanderthal tribe will never have the map piece, even when their baseliner counterparts are not enabled.

• Sell your colony for an archotech map piece. If you had multiple colonies, all of them will be sold. You will start a new colony anywhere on the map, and are able to create a new ideoligion. Research is reset to Crashlanded.
  • Analysis of signal chip, powerfocus chip, and nano structuring chips is not undone by the research reset.

• You will get all the items from your original scenario, and can bring the following:
  • 5 colonists, with all their apparel, including any armor (but not their weapons or utility slot)
  • 5 animals. Does not include mechanoids
  • 1 relic.
  • 7 stacks of items.
• Get a total of 3 colonies to $350,000 wealth. Study the major archotech structure and then the grand archotech structure. These give a mood debuff for nearby pawns who are not psychically deaf, increasing as you get closer. They cannot be destroyed by any means.
• Once the third map piece is obtained, you don't need to restart again. You can travel with all of your current colonists to the archonexus core. It is guarded by a small amount of mechanoids, but they start dormant and do not actually need to be fought. Regardless, the mechs are likely to be little challenge for a colony who has reached the archonexus.

Failure conditions:

• None, besides losing all colonists.

Overall, the archonexus is the most relaxed of the three endings, but easily the longest. You could do multiple ship launches by the time it takes to reach the archonexus. This quest line should be treated as a "New Game Plus" with your favorite colonists, rather than some form of ultimate ending. Note that increasing wealth still increases the power of standard raids, so you'll have to contend with those for the entire time.

Gaining wealth/allies

Wealth can be gained by simply progressing through the game. Perform vast deep drill or long-range mineral scanner operations. Outfit all your colonists with bionics and full sets of marine armor / cataphract armor. Build a luxurious base, and wonderously impressive rooms. The mechanitor is a natural way to increase wealth - a mechanoid army is powerful and wealthy. Basically, you don't need to rush it. The more prepared you are for the new colony, the better.

The Production specialist role is valuable for increasing quality of items, which increases both wealth and functionality. A set of masterwork charge rifles is bound to boost your wealth by the tens of thousands, and it serves a function. Combine with masterwork/legendary sculptures, armor, royal beds, and 350k should be hit in no time.

If you still need to make some cash, check out the money making guide. Important note: colony wealth does not care about actual silver, just Market Value. As you always sell at a market loss, selling items for silver will actually reduce wealth.

Theoretical wealth transport

With the right combination of DLCs active, it is theoretically possible to bring over $350,000 wealth with you to the next colony, in the right set-up. A legendary gold plate armor and crown, thrumbofur formal shirt and pants, and hyperweave face mask are worth 37,890. A full set of bionics are worth 40,607, along with a base of 1,750 for humans. Note that psylinks and mechanitor implants do not add wealth. With 5 pawns, you'll reach well over 392,000 wealth. This is in addition to the relic, brought items, and animals.

However, you'll need to study the major archotech structure / grand archotech structure to completion, ally any requisite factions, and deal with the raids boosted by the incredible wealth.

Allies

You can easily ally any faction by using transport pods, passenger shuttles, or other forms of fast travel to gift valuable goodies like flake and human resources. By the time the wealth threshold is met, the cost to ally a faction should be trivial.

If no faction base is within transport pod trange and the Odyssey DLC isn't enabled, there are two ways to ally the faction. The first is to use a standard caravan, ideally with a horse to speed up movement. The second is to destroy faction bases of factions that are enemies to the desired faction, which will improve goodwill by +20 per base destroyed.

Founding a new colony

You have the freedom to pick any location, and have the ability to reform or make an entirely new ideoligion. Otherwise...

Things to bring

• 5 Colonists

With colonists, treat the new colony like... a new colony. You'll want, at the very least, Plants, Construction, Cooking, Medical, and Intellectual roles to be fulfilled. You may want to bring virtually any other skill, too. Of course, you can just bring your 5 favorite colonists and hope things turn out for the best.

It's best not to bring a luciferium addict to a new colony, or at least, severely limit the number selected.

• 5 Animals

Bring animals that you can feed. Grazers are preferred. Note that dryads will vanish after about a quadrum of time.

• 1 Relic

If you have a charge rifle, or any other relic that is a weapon, then bring that. Otherwise, there's no point not bringing whatever relic you already have.

• 7 Items

If your scenario has food and medicine, then you shouldn't need to worry about those. Materials like steel and plasteel can be obtained at any time. Instead, focus on weapons and things that can help rebuild, possibly components and advanced components. If you started with Naked Brutality, then you'll need to bring some essentials with you.

See #List of items for how much you can bring at a time.

Studying the archotech structures

Considering how long it takes to get to $350,000 wealth again, the actual study of the archonexus should be a non-issue. At the very worst, you can hook a sacrifical pawn up with constant doses of yayo until it finishes the research.

Do not build your colony near the Archotech Structure! A wide area near the structure gives your pawns a major mood debuff and also kills your crops before they can mature. You may want to forbid this area in your assigned Zones.

List of items

Item	Max Allowed	Value of Max
Beer	50	600
Ambrosia	20	300
Luciferium	50	3500
Flake	25	350
Go-juice	25	1325
Wake-up	25	875
Yayo	200	4200
Smokeleaf joint	50	550
Installable body parts (organic or artificial)	1	2,800 Any archotech prosthetic
Most raw food Pemmican Kibble	200	-
Meals Inc. Packaged survival meals	40	-
Chocolate	80	240
Milk	80	152
Insect jelly	150	1200
Eggs (any)	10	70
Herbal medicine	20	200
Medicine	10	180
Glitterworld medicine	5	250
Component	10	320
Advanced component	5	1000
Chemfuel	100	230
Neutroamine	25	150
Hay	400	240
Silver	1000	1000
Gold	100	1000
Steel	80	152
Plasteel	80	720
Wood	150	180
Uranium	80	480
Jade	80	400
Stone blocks (any)	100	90
All textiles (Inc. thrumbofur and hyperweave)	80	1120 Thrumbofur
All weapons	1	18,060 Leg. Golden Warhammer 13,060 Leg. Golden Longsword
All utility items	1	1,200 Various
Inert relics	0	-
Mini-turret Mortar	0	-

Conclusion

You've invoked the archonexus core. The world fills with a blinding light and time seems to slow...
The machine god has noticed you. Nobody can predict what happens next. It may destroy you, or communicate with you directly, or transport your consciousness to another plane of reality. You sense a vast, inhuman structure of infinite fractal complexity flowing into your mind. Time and scale begin to dissolve. It's terrifying. It's beautiful...

— Endgame text after invoking the Archonexus core.

Once activated, the game ends permanently. Unlike with the other endings, you cannot continue with colonists left behind. You can restart from a previous save, if so desired.