Impossible Achievements

It took me ten years of playing Sins1 to get the "Get all the artifacts in the game in one match" achievement because it required luck and a huge map, and my computer wasnt nice enough to run huge maps until recently.   That particular achievement in the vanilla Sins2 probably requires several matches on huge maps, just like my experience with the old Sins did, AND you should play the biggest maps you can run without winning the match before researching all 200 planets.  

In regards to the artifact achievements, I'm wondering if my issue was in playing vasari. I wonder if their research item to increase the chances of exotics also decreases the chances of artifacts...

I think the Raider achievement is broken. The game shows the resources gathered while the raiders are attacking, and I recorded at least 30,000 before before I killed the last AI in a game. I created a fleet of them just to do that at the end. No achievement popped up while I was playing or after the game ended.

Regarding the 4 artifact achievements - the best way I found to do it is on an 8 player map with only 1 easy AI. You quickly kill the AI, then capture all the planets and explore them until you have all the artifacts, then put them on one ship/planet. When I did this, the AI had actually gotten the data archive before I killed them, but they put it on their home planet. So I captured their home planet, then found the other 3 and placed them there as well to get the achievement.

artifact on ships is actually quite possible, just do random ffa with 9 relatively stronger AI on a big map. You can restart if you don't see you + enemies having enough artifacts to install on one ship.

The planet one is probably harder, finding an enemy planet with 1 installed, 4 slots, and 3 more from survey is probably the likeliest way to get it but i'm not even getting more than 2 total in my last few games.

Pirate one worked for me, I mind controlled pirates from their planet using the pirate item.

the military research only one seems to mean all research. had the same issue you had. So what are we supposed to do here, farm up exotics from titan and capital kills? Maybe?

Currently I cannot speak to if an achievement is impossible, as I do not know. However the team is aware that some achievements are showing issues and need to be addressed, this is unlikely to be looked at in detail until the team is back from holiday in January though for clarity. I am collecting a list of achievements people believe have issues, if you have others youd like noted

For Achievements: Military Intelligence:
I think it's completely impossible. Resources aren't an issue—you can play on a 3-player map with an ally and trade exotics for resources, so that's not a problem. The real problem is that in every skill tree, there is at least one technology that requires the civilian branch:

• For TEC: The "Space Commerce" research for bases requires Civilian Level 3.
• For the Advent: The "Evangelism Node" research for bases requires Civilian Level 1.
• For the Vasari: The "Mobile Phase Detection" research for Serevun Inspectors requires Civilian Level 1.

For the pirates:
I had no issues with them by using the TEC Primacy ability.

For ship and planet artifacts:
I think it's random. I got 4 ship artifacts on a 4-IA-difficulty map. I haven't gotten them for planets yet. Three, yes, but not four.

For Achievements: Space Ponies?!

Do you know how to get it? Some people say it's purely random... Is that true?

As an update on this - I was able to make it work by doing it in a new game. Makes me think it is something about saving the game that messes it up. I noted that on the discord achievement bug thread.

Regarding Military Intellegence - you are allowed to research the civilian ones that are needed. I researched all military topics, then researched "Evangelism Node" to unlock the last military researches. Then I did no further research and won the game - the achievement popped with the win screen.

Space Ponies is just a random planet bonus - max surveying on all planets over the course of your games and you'll randomly get it eventually.

As it is, I have all achievements, so they are all possible - but I did run into bugs as noted above. Things like Military Intelligence definitely suffer from not being well explained.

As an update from the original post I have been able to complete all but 2 achievements:

- Go Big or Go home (capital ship only victory): Quickstart disable doesn't seem to be available anymore? Am I missing something here?

- Military Intelligence: How are we to know what civilian topics are acceptable given the achievement clearly states none? Are we able to research exotics?

Thank you guys for the updates, ive seen similar reports from others that im sharing with the team

It seems to me only researches that are pre-requesites of combat research are allowed.

You can get the needed exotics through surveying, killing enemy cap/titans, and trade with allies.

Thanks Vecctor, was able to achieve it following your advice.

Privateer appears to still be glitchy. Yes I see some people have managed it but it doesn't seem to be working for me. The text says Control 500 supply of Pirate ships, but is that 500+, or 500 exactly?

I've played both Triad and Slim Pickings (Mid Size\3P Maps) as TEC Primacy and used the Pirate Mercenary Base.  I seem to get about 96 Supply in units each time - it's not a full 100, so it takes either 6 times, 6 PMB's or a combination thereof to reach\exceed the 500 supply in pirate ships.

On Triad I recruited 51 Corsairs, 77 Rogues, and had a total Pirate Supply of 1,367 yet it would not unlock Privateer. In the off chance it was a save game issue I played Slim Pickings without saving, though I did alt-tab for something or other, but that didn't work either. Given 2 failures I'm skeptical a 3rd time would result in a different outcome.

Does it require exactly 500 in supply? Does it require specific kinds of pirate ships? Or am I just extremely unlucky and having something uniquely queer happening my end?

FYI: If someone does respond and I appear to be ignoring you I'm probably having account issues. For some reason I couldn't login via my normal browser so have instead had to use a Tor window. I did try deleting cookies pertaining to the forum but for whatever reason https://forums.sinsofasolarempire2.com/signin-oidc is not doing anything in my regular browser. Not sure if I broke something when editing my new account details here or what. 

Update to the above post - I did try editing but it didn't seem to take.

I played Lithor Cluster (1v1) as TEC Primacy to test Privateer again and Military Intelligence. Neither worked. No saving or reloading in case this messed with things, though I did alt-tab again for something or other. 

I recruited exactly 500 supply in Pirate ships - in the off chance a perfect match rather than over 500 is required, but the achievement failed to unlock.

Likewise for Military Intelligence I researched all tech I could but had to research Quarnium Forging (Civilian III), its requirement of Exotic Refinery (Civilian II), and Huge Cargo Hull tech for Deep Space Trade (Tier 4 Starbase tech). I'm not sure if it's any civilian tech, or the Quarnium Forging\Exotic Refinery that glitched it but barring Titan farming, or a huge map that gives Quarnium for Surveying, this seems another impossibility. According to https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire_II/Resources Quarnium may be found via surveying gas giants - which require civilian tech to colonise, and desert planets - which require civilian tech to colonise if not Advent.

Obviously some people are managing to unlock these achievements - 0.4% of Global have Privateer, 0.1% have Military Intelligence - for comparison purposes only 13.3% have Ensign (play 10 hours), but given my own experiences I'm not sure how they manage. 

Quarnium researches are not allowed. As mentioned in a couple other posts, you can get Quarnium from killing enemy titans or trading with allies (AI or Player).

Thanks for the advice Vecctor. I trialled another match - Easy AI defensive ally v 2 Easy AI defensive enemies on Shuriken (4p). It was quite painful and slow waiting for my ally to acquire exotics, indeed I thought the game would end before I managed to get the last few, but it did work out. I never officially did any Empire research, I just built 4 Empire Labs then queued the Serevun Overseer military techs that required Empire I or whatever it was.

I'll probably suggest to friends that if they want the achievement that 1 goes for the achievement while everyone else funnels them the necessary materials - IRL allies will be far more responsive!!!

Putting an update on this. Privateer still seems to possibly be buggy. I have now attempted it 3 times, all obtaining at least 500 supply of pirate ships each time, yet still not getting the achievement. A little surprised it is still having issues.

Not buggy, just a bad description. You need to have a map with a Pirate faction active.