Artifact Optimizer Guide

The Artifact Optimizer searches artifact combinations for one container and ranks them by the goal you choose. This guide explains what you set up, how the search works, how results are ranked and what the optimizer does not model. The methodology section on the tool page covers the same model in more detail.

Setting up a search

The five setup steps define the problem the optimizer solves:

• •1. Equipment & Container Setup: the armor (assumed +15), the container's slots, effectiveness and inner protection, and the plate.
• •2. Target Combat Simulation: the incoming weapon, its ammunition, the distance, the hit distribution and bleeding. Survival is measured against this one weapon.
• •3. Healing, Buffs & Explosives: stats from consumables and grenades.
• •4. Artifact Selection & Pool: which artifacts may be used, and at what rarity.
• •5. Optimization Criteria & Requirements: the goal and your requirements.

How the search works

Small searches check every combination

When the artifact pool and the number of slots allow only a few thousand combinations, every combination is evaluated. The first result is then the best build under the site's model and your settings.

Large searches use a heuristic

Larger searches use a genetic search with local improvement: a population of candidate builds is combined and mutated over many generations, and promising builds are improved by swapping single artifacts. Several searches run in parallel and their results are merged. The random choices are seeded, so the same settings give the same results.

A heuristic search checks only part of all combinations. Its results are strong candidates, not a proof that no better build exists. If a result matters, run the search again with a narrower pool or different requirements, and compare the builds in the Build Calculator.

Goals and how builds are ranked

Survival

Ranks builds by Time To Kill: how long the weapon from step 2 needs to kill you, with your healing applied throughout. Effective HP, healing and speed only break ties between builds that survive equally long. A build whose healing outpaces the incoming damage is shown as ∞ and ranks first. In High Precision Mode builds are ranked first by the number of shots needed to kill you, then by the averaged Time To Kill.

Speed

Ranks builds by Combined Speed (movement speed + sprint speed). Time To Kill and Effective HP do not disappear: they break ties between equally fast builds. Stamina is not scored.

Requirements are constraints

Infection limits always apply. Stat Requirements set a minimum or maximum for a stat, including derived values such as Time To Kill, Effective HP and Combined Speed. Artifact Requirements set a minimum and maximum count for an artifact. While searching, the optimizer may pass through builds that miss a requirement, but only builds that meet every requirement are shown.

Calculation Speed & Accuracy

• •Fast Mode (Averaged) (default) models incoming damage as an average rate. It is quick and suits weapons with a high rate of fire. Bleeding is applied as an average per shot.
• •High Precision Mode steps through the fight shot by shot, and the plate wears down and bleeding builds up step by step. Hit locations are not drawn at random: each shot deals its average damage across the hit distribution. It is slower per build and does not search more combinations.

When the incoming weapon fires 240 rounds per minute or slower, the page suggests High Precision Mode, because whether you survive one more shot matters more than an averaged rate.

Infection limits and inner protection

Radiation, thermal, biological and psy accumulation must each stay at or below 10, and frost at or below 0. Accumulation added by the grenades you select is allowed on top of these limits. Values are in the game's units. The frost total includes the natural removal of -20, so the items can add up to 20, the frost threshold the game shows on containers.

The container's inner protection reduces the combined positive accumulation of your artifacts:

• •accumulation after inner protection = artifacts' accumulation × (1 − inner protection ÷ 100)
• •Example: with 50% inner protection, artifacts that together add +4 radiation contribute +2.
• •More inner protection means less accumulation. 0% removes nothing.
• •Frost accumulation is not reduced by inner protection.

How artifact stats are scaled

• •Beneficial stats = maximum value × rarity ÷ 100 × (1 + 0.3 × level ÷ 15) × container effectiveness. Rarity and level both scale linearly; +15 adds 30%.
• •Downsides do not grow with rarity like upsides. Within each rarity tier (starting at 101, 116, 131, 146, 161%) a downside rises from its smallest value at the first roll of the tier to its largest at the top of the tier, then starts low again in the next tier. A high roll inside a tier therefore carries a larger downside than a low roll of the same tier.
• •Container effectiveness does not change downsides or reductions of infection.

Pool, inventory and variety

• •Global Pool uses every enabled artifact that can affect your goal, a requirement or an infection, at the Global Artifact Rarity Roll (%) (175% by default) unless you set a rarity for one artifact. Disable artifacts you do not want to use.
• •My Inventory uses only the artifacts you add, each with its own rarity and the number of copies you own.
• •Build Variety: Balanced keeps a build only if its artifact set differs from every better build by more than 40%. Focused only removes exact duplicates.

Reading and checking the results

• •The first build is the best one the search found for your goal. Lower-ranked builds can be almost as good and easier to assemble.
• •Open a build in the Build Calculator to see every stat and its sources.
• •If you keep seeing artifacts you do not want, disable them in the pool or add a requirement, such as a minimum movement speed.
• •If no builds are found, loosen a requirement, widen the pool or choose a container with more inner protection.

What the optimizer does not model

• •Survival is measured against one weapon, distance and hit distribution. Against another weapon the ranking can change.
• •Artifacts, armor and the incoming weapon are assumed at +15.
• •Reloads, recoil, aim, movement and healing items used during a fight are not modelled.
• •Results depend on the site's current game data and its model of the game, which can lag behind a game update.