Anyway, back to my point; the point is that the number of alien artifacts seems to never exceed (and rarely approach) 16 artifacts per creeper spawner, which makes obtaining massive quantities of alien artifacts difficult. The solution lies in the fact that, as you move further in any direction from your starting point, the size of the bases increases (tested on infinite map, but it seems to hold true on finite map types as well. Simply gear up, head out, and take a long trek in one direction in the wilderness, and eventually you will be finding larger bases, which will cut down the need to search far and wide for enough little ones. The picture is taken from an infinite map, with the distance from the center being extremely large (I set out some 3.5k spaces, and the largest base complex I found was 9 bases).
![Image](https://forums.factorio.com/images/ext/71ba2651bc8b3fa9eb6470bf7e34a048.png)