Which combinations of Artifacts unlock which bonuses?

In the Rising Tide expansion, I can acquire Artifacts by performing Expeditions, pillaging Alien Nests, and finding them in resource pods. If I research three artifacts at once, they provide a bonus effect in addition to the normal production/science/culture yield. This bonus effect is either a civilization-wide effect, or a new building.

However, when I swap different types of artifacts to research, the bonus I unlock doesn't seem to change. How is it affected by the types or quality of the artifacts I research?

Solution 1:

Each artifact has a preferred reward. Presumably the preferred reward will be awarded if multiple artifacts have the same preference, and that preference has not yet been awarded. The rewards are listed below, followed by those artifacts which prefer it. When three artifacts of the same type are consumed, they yield a specific type of reward:

Old Earth Artifacts unlock buildings
Progenitor Artifacts unlock Artifact Wonders
Alien Artifacts unlock unit abilities

Player perks, which are passive civilization-wide effects, are unlocked by combining different types of artifacts, and are not listed here.

Old Earth

Frontier Stadium

Hull Repair Suit
Jowler Ball Field Set
Lineage Two Interactive Family Tree
Thoughtful Chess Set

Pan-Spectral Observatory

Volumetric Component Printer
Plasma Turbine Engine
Silver-Pont Navigational Gyroscope
Impossible Drive

Xenomass Bath House

Collapsing Family Library
Speech Compression Computer
Population Estimation Computer
Telemed Remote Operating Theatre

Old Voice Archives

Personal Meditation Helmet
Toymark Media Cube
Messiah Stradivarius
Isotopic Decay Three

Warp Spire

Suspended Animation Chamber
Near-Lightspeed Accelerator
Polypeptor Organic Antifreeze
High-Mass Friction Welder

Drone Command

Señor Caffeine
Drone Hive Mind
Clean Air Generator
Butuiller Family Drone

Progenitor

Machine-Assisted Free Will

Void Spectre
M-Theory Capsule
Sporadic Listener
Confounding Object

Dimension-Folding Complex

Jelly Space
Planes of Dimensional Influence
Dimension Oven
The Folder

Quantum Politics

Superposition Containment Device
Superposition
Decoherence Chamber
Fundamental Object

Temporal Calculus

Auratic Magnet
Models of Entropy
Causal Looking Glass
Deviation Fork

Tesselation Foundry

Geon Spores
Single-Pass Geometry
Tesselation Vault
Atomic Tesselator

Relativistic Data Bank

Temporal Injector
String Weaver
Fixed Position Locator
Bright Matter

Alien

Zygotic Engineering

Ross Weed
Noose Vertebrae
Giant Pheromone Sack

Projected Chasis Construction

Cocoon Flies
Crystal Shrimp Pupa
Floating Canopy Worms
Electric Brain Moss

Counter-Battery Fire

Seismic Sounding Fork
Zero-Point Soil
Pressurized Magma Sample
Mobius Horn

Sky Chitin

Lattus Ore
Cloud Coral
Macroelectrons
Breeze Weed
Carbon Hail

Vapor Shield

Jelly-Stalk Ring
Soap Seed
Acidic Crystals
Flexible Keratin Tusk

Tidal Navigation

Crystal Shrimp Adult
Carnivorous Hive Eels
Heterophobic Solution
Tungsten Bubbles

Solution 2:

The Rising Tide Artifact System entry on the wiki has a detailed writeup of this new, complex system.

A summary of conclusions from there:

Artifact slot positioning matters.

All artifacts have a hidden preferred reward.

Mixing artifacts allows one to tap into special rewards.

With enough Explorers scouring the map, it is possible to receive every reward in a single game sitting.

I believe the "quality" modifier only effects the bonus energy/culture/research, not the final award. The wiki also claims that artifact positioning in slot DOES affect the produced bonus effect, i.e. ABC may yield a different outcome than BCA. I have not noticed this in my own handful for anecdotal games.

I like this new system, but seems to be quite a challenge to "catch them all"