Precursor

Precursor is an advanced civilization that went extinct very long ago (when the humans were still primitive).

Their leftover tech still remains on some planets, and the player can accidentally stumble upon it when exploring.

	Spoiler Warning!
	This page contains spoilers, proceed at your own risk!

There are two Precursor biomes: surface Precursor biome and Precursor Underground. Both have autonomous Precursor robots as enemies, chests with Precursor loot, common cybernetic devices like Jump Booster, etc.

Underground biome is more lucrative, because it also has:

• Glowing rooms with machines like Erchius Converter, Precursor Data Box and Precursor Reactor.
• Teleporter to the Precursor Ruins mission (one use, disappears if used or mined).
• Cosmic Crucible (can't be moved, but you can place a Flag or a Teleporter nearby).
• Mysterious Pillar (yields loot when scanned).

Underground biome is better when hunting for chests, because it has more Precursor chests (which have the most interesting loot). Surface biome has many regular chests (with non-Precursor loot) in addition to Precursor chests.

Precursor biomes are most frequently found on Cyber Spheres, but many other planets can have them too. Unusual moons (Frozen Moon, Desert Moon, Toxic Moon, etc.) have them often, but these moons are almost always Small, so the Precursor biome will also be small (resulting in less loot). Bigger planet = bigger biome = more loot.

If you use More Planet Info mod (with the required patch), it will show the presence of the surface Precursor biome. It will also say "anomalies detected" if there is an underground Precursor biome, and will cryptically tell you in which layer it is ("beneath surface", "deep" or "very deep", where "very deep" is directly above the planet's core). Limitation: if it is a primary biome (spans the entire width of the planet, like on Desert Moons), then More Planet Info won't detect it.

GPS in your Tricorder will say "anomalies detected" if there is a Precursor or Elder biome somewhere. GPS won't tell which layer has it. You can still guess the layer, because it will have 1 less biome listed than other layers.

There is a large collection of Precursor codexes in chests (especially in the Precursor Ruins mission). Some great things are there.

Serious entries explain why exactly did the Precursor go extinct. Fun entries cover their scientific discoveries, such as what were their scientists doing to Florans and Protocite.

Precursor are renowned for their functional machinery: reactors, computers, processing devices like Duplicator, etc. The chance to find any one device is low, but there are so many of them that at least something cool will certainly be found.

Precursor weapons are tier 5 and usually deal Radioactive damage, with a notable exception of Omega Hammer. There are exploration weapons like Precursor X-Ray Gun and Precursor Spear (a better version of Flightfire).

Humanoid enemies that you encounter in the Precursor Ruins mission are not Precursor themselves (they are all extinct), those are androids that perform maintenance tasks and guard the ship.

Some of these robots apparently escaped (maybe the door has rusted, and they simply walked away) and/or were stolen by looters. These rogue units can be encountered in tenant quests: a tenant can ask you to deal with "mysterious and deadly aliens" who are causing trouble. They drop Precursor loot.

Precursor Drone Control Chip (rare loot) allows to get one of their robots as a crew member.