Love the item system but artifacts are just not fun for me personally anymore.
In Sins 1 they were planet bound ( didn't take an item slot ) and once found benefitted whole empire and had a bit of lore/desrciption which made them cool!
For me personally, all my item slots on ships & starbases are accounted for and there are a number of items i'd like to equip but don't have space for. You throw artifacts in to the mix & then you have to give up something else you'd regularly use in order to untilise the artifact.
No doubt they'll be those playing the tradeoff line but artifacts just aren't fun compared with how they were in their Sins1 iteration.
Alternatively you could add a "Sins1 artifacts" to game options so they can appear as a planet bonus that doesn't cost you an item slot / block out the other 2 bonus slots in the v.rare event you ever get 2 bonuses on a planet.
or increase titan slots to 10 / cap ship item slots to 5
Many thanks for consideration anyway 