Overview

Crystals don't have farms, mines etc like other races. Whilst everyone else is out looking for temperate planets with lots of minerals, the Crystals are looking for unstable planets on the verge of exploding (high "HyperDimensional Stress") or with rising HD Stress. They have a special building called a Hyper Lathe which turns HD Stress into minerals, fuel, food, Ordnance, supplies and money. The Hyper Lathe uses up the stress at one stress point per Hyper Lathe per turn. This keeps the planet from exploding by using up all the stress.

The biggest prize that the Crystals covet is a ship with a Scaler Wave Amp, which increases a planet's HD Stress. These are mounted on some races' ships, such as the Lizards' T-Rex, for use as a planet-busting superweapon.

Face to face combat is to be dodged at all cost, but with a high dark force they are not in as bad shape for Ground Assault as it seems at first glance. The high tempatures makes any other race think twice about sharing a world, because with the low tech inferno devices the entire empire will be glowing.

Crystals are really complicated to play. This race is not suitable for beginners. Tim figures they are a very strong race, and I agree.

Crystal players should also read the page on Mines and minefields.

Crystal Highlights:

• Can not build: Farms, scanners, repair plant, ord plant, or terraformer. However most of these functions are replicated by special racial structures. Except:
• With no Repair plant, the only way they can obtain repair units is by stealing them with the X Field
• High growth rate (can only grow on climate 98/99/100 planets)
• Cheap ground assault craft
• Cheap fighters
• Can lay all 4 types of minefields
• Take 3 times normal shield drain from ord weapons (Any ship owned by a Crystal player)
• Take half shield drain from non-ord weapons (Any ship owned by a Crystal player)
• Can absorb half the energy from enemy non-ord weapons and use it to charge weapons
• Hyper Lathe (Building): Converts HD stress into megacredits, ord, food and metals. (They can build mines and smelters too if they want - and they will want to once they've used up all their HD Stress and the hyperlathes are producing no more minerals..)
• Infernerator (Building): Heats planet to climate 100 using HD stress. It uses one stress point to increase the climate by 20 points, if the climate is above 90 it uses no stress points to keep the climate at 100.
• Ground Sweeper: (Building) Sweeps all minefields in the area and converts them to ord.
• X Field: Can steal repair units from nearby enemy ships and bases (50 LY range)
• X Field: Erases ship plans on enemy bases, ships, and pods (150 LY range)
• Crystal Light Ship has a super laser and can hyper jump 400 LY
• Crystals can capture ships from other races, but they cannot own alien ship plans (ie they cannot clone captured ships). Conversely, non-Crystals can capture Crystal ships, but not copy them by Spying Ship Plans, trading, or using Hacker Droids. Other Spy missions act as normal both for and against the Crystals.
• Any Crystal ship plan that another race ends up with will vanish: the crystal ships are special in that they are unable to be captured. (If captured, the plans disappear from both sides.)
• Any ship built by a Crystal player can travel through a web minefield without any danger of hitting a web mine even if owned by a non-crystal race.
• Crystals can not be assimilated by the Cyborg
• Crystal ships are not damaged by boarding lasers. Crystals are not killed by boarding lasers, but they can be used to get onto Crystal ships.

Using special racial abilities

Web Mines

• Web mines are a ship device ability - other races can lay them if they capture Crystal ships with this device.
• Traveling through a web minefield causes a ship to become more and more visible to enemy scanners.
• They can overlap.
• Unlike Version 3, there is no fuel drain from hitting a Web Mine. Hitting a web mine causes a full stop and 20% to 40% engine damage. If a Crystal blows a web minefield all ships in the field drop to speed 0 and get 10% engine damage.
• You can overlap Web fields to do lots of engine damage at once.
• The Crystals have a device on some ships (the X Field device) that robs the enemy of all repair units. This is used in conjunction with Webs to capture ships.
• Chances of hitting Webs:
• (movement_vector + 1) ^ 2 * (hull_stealth / 100) * (160 / 10000)
• Per phase moved in minefield If minefields stacked, roll once per field
• movement_vector = distance traveled per phase. A speed 100 ship has a movement_vector of 0.5
• But anyone can move safely through Webs if their speed is 7 or less.
• How do Crystals capture trapped ships?
• Crystals auto capture ships with 100% engine damage.
• Q: "I don't fully understand how the Crystals are going to capture an enemy ship. The docs state that web mines drain fuel. But the Crystal X Field captures enemy ships with more than 99% engine damage. Does the web mine field only stop enemy ships so the Crystals may come in with a special equipped fleet that has engine-killing weapons only?"
• A: The web mines do not drain fuel:
• A ship hitting a web mine takes at least 20 of engine damage. A 100 kt mass hull can take between 20 and 40 points of engine damage. Any ship that is in a web minefield that explodes takes 10 points of engine damage and stops the ship.
• Use web mines to stop your enemy then fly in ships with X Fields to within 50 LY of the victim to steal all the victim's repair units so that they can not repair their ship. You can drop and blow up web mines to take the victim's engine damage over 99% and the X Field will capture the victim ship.
• Remember exploding web mines DO NOT destroy other minefields, so you can layer the web mines. Ten blowing web minefields will do 100% engine damage to all ships in the field.
• Crystals are immune to damage from detonating web minefields
• Barbitic etc minefield radius in light years = Ord ^ (0.40), i.e. (the amount of ord used) to the power 0.40. Web Minefield radius = Ord ^ (0.45)

Using special ship devices

Crystal X Field: ( planets4.exe sees it as: Device 8 ) Steals repair units from all ships, bases and pods within 50 LY. Can steal a maxium of what the ship's repair hold size is. [Now 500 units per X field - see yellow box.] If the repair hold is full it will still take a full measure of enemy repair units and destroy them. It will take from all other empires, including ones that you are not at war with. The device will capture any enemy ship within 50 LY that has more than 99% engine damage. Device will erase all ship plans in ships, pods, and bases within 150 LY. Do not use near allies...

• Crystal X Field causes ord plants and ships' mobile repair plants to explode, if they are turned on while within 50 LY. Ships will take heavy damage.
• Crystal X device does not damage mobile repair plants of races it is not at war with
• Crystal X device does not damage mobile ord plants of races it is not at war with
• The Crystal X device does not take repair units from races the ship is not at war with
• Crystal X field will try to take repair units from ships before bases.
• Crystals immune to enemy crystal X field device
• Crystals get a ship long message when they steal from and enemy ship with the X field device
• A Crystal Light Ship with its X Field on causes all Colonies Of Man fighters to loose 75% accuracy during combat

Web Mines: see racial abilities

Recommended colonisation strategy

Obviously: attempt to grab planets with high HD Stress. Fortunately no-one else in their right minds will want them. Natives are also valuable, but here you will clash with rivals.

Grab planets with siliconoids ASAP - for the Ordnance they produce. You depend on mnefields, and these depend on a continuous supply of Ord.

Despite having no farms, you need food like other races. Food (and ordnance, and minerals, cash and supplies) are produced by the Hyperlathe.

• 250 Ord
• 10 Food (not 3 as some documents state - checked and confirmed by AzureMonster)
• 3 Megacredits
• 1 Supply
• 8 Duranium
• 2 Tritanium
• 5 Molybdenum
• 3 Neutronium

(Try to talk your Lizard buddy into Scaler Wave Amp'ing your homeworld)

I imagine that most of your cash, though, will come from Cities and taxing natives / colonists.

Very restrictive usable temperature range (90 to 100, 100 prefered) : This temp range only overlaps the Lizards (so far).

If a Crystal homeworld's HD Stress is less than 5, it should pop up to +5 if the latest host is used. For the first 7 turns Host watches your homeworld stress and if it is low it will set it to 5. I've not seen this, I asked on the mailing list and received this response: "The delta stress on the crystal HW seems to go to the positive 5 after the planetary stress is used up sometimes. It appears rather randomnly, and i have yet to see a pattern to it." - Azuremonster

Strategy suggestions

Lay mines, mines and more mines! Especially Web mines! Some cloaked.

As race, the crystals do not look very strong at a first glance. Further review will show that they are much stronger than they appear but still should avoid face to face combat. With a very high growth rate they will still have a substantial income and mining rates compared to other races. In addition the high Dark Force rating will allow them better combat results than their status would indicate. In addition to their high PSI rating, they look to be very effective at sabotage though they can not steal enemy ship plans. They don't have a high spy rating, it's only 6.

The Crystal Mechanized force is very weak, but very inexpensive. On a per cost basis they actually are comparable to other races or stronger allowing them some ground combat options. Despite the Lizard's fearsome reputation the Crystals will not fear them as other races do, as the bulk of the Crystalin ground combat force should be combat vehicles anyways.

The Crystalin Spaceforce, or perhaps they should be called the AirForce, is another matter. With 0 armor they may have proublems and take very high casaulties. They are however inexpensive so can be an assist in space combat as well as ground assult.

Over all, Crystalin ships seem to be fairly well armed and protected but once their defenses are down they are quickly despatched or captured.

Bring repair supplies along to replenish life support on the captured ship.

• Use Laser Mines against fighters. Use Gravitonic Mines to break up Hyp Ships. Use Web Mines to break up conventional ships.
• Throw some Barbitic in to blow up smaller ships.
• Remember to overlay fields for optimum netting.
• Play a bunch of web tricks. (Sudden explosions, guide them into a gap between webs and lay several fields behind them, etc.) Use your imagination.

Techs:

• Hulls: Needs Ruby ASAP (tech 2), needs Emerald quickly as well (tech 6).
• Engines: Second only to getting hull techs to 6. After Emerald built, get engine tech to max ASAP to take full advantage of the Tech 7 Onyz.
• Large Weapons: Very important, so you can upgrade Emeralds with TURBO LASERS! And latter build Diamonds with LARGE TURBO LASERS
• Small Weapons: Get to tech 2 ASAP.
• Hyp Drives: Ingore until you get to Hull Tech 10. (Crystal Light ship is the only thing that builds this.)
• Super Weapons: Only research to tech 1, and don't bother until you have a Crystal Light Ship to put the Super Laser on.
• (Weapons priorites may shift depending upon what you catch in your webs though.)

Miscellaneous notes

This page has been the most difficult page to write so far. Learning to play Crystals is like learning how to play a whole new game.

Crystals tend to Gather contraband, etc off planets incredibly quickly. This gives them a very fast income boost in the first few turns, but eventually it plateaus off... meanwhile everyone else is still gathering contraband, which by then might be rising in price... so be sure to play the contraband market. Ie: invest the initial capital from gathering contraband in cheaper types of contraband. Contraband prices tend to cycle in price over a period of about 10 turns. Buy low (stockpile it) and sell high. However due to the Crystals' enormous growth rate, don't expect the price of your favourite (Kierra Crystals) to stop climbing. Once your population reaches 13 million or so, it just keeps going up! The contraband market will be changing shortly (Tim said maybe this week), so you may want to rewrite this a little. Sorry, but I am not sure what to put here in it's place as I do not yet have any idea of a strategy for the new market (maybe the above already will be pertinent advice and won't need any real changing). You may just want to note the pending change.

Tim apparently gave them high dark power instead of high light power : Lawfulness is 100, so Enslavement is the best tax policy which due to your 55% normal income rates is lower than Stormers. Crystals are terrible at extracting minerals from the ground. (You have NO mining from orbit capibilty unless you capture a ship with such a device.) Worse yet, none of their ships have alchemy devices...

No standard freighters. The Ruby can serve for most of the early freight missions, and the Jade is a much better freighter than anything else in the game.

Income: 55% normal. Dark Power is 120 & Law in 100 so Enslavement brings the most taxeson average, though often Complex can bring much more.

Very high col growth rate, medium conversion rates to crew/troops/highguard but doesn't matter: Their highguard would be whopped by Federation colonists if colonists were allowed to fight! They are the worst Pilots (even the highguard) in the galaxy!

PSI is 60; they gather up items quickly.

André Grundmann mentions:

Their ideal allies are the Lizards. They have the devices required to give a planet the HD stress the Crystals need, particularly the Scalar Wave Amp. The Crystals might pay for such services with web mine laying ships (they don't have to worry about the Lizards using the mines against them, because their ships can't be hurt by webs). I imagine a scenario like this: The Lizards put a T-Rex into a Crystal-controlled system for a few turns and create a positive Delta Stress. The Crystals then use the stress to produce ord for the T-Rex and their own ships. The Lizards might even trade a T-Rex without weapons, because the Crystals can never copy the hull plans. And a quick build template without guns won't help them much.

They might also make great trading partners for all other races. Everybody would like web mines and as mentioned above, the Crystals are immune to them. In this way they might aquire some nice special ships (e.g. global warmers that don't need HD stress).

Mark Cowper asked: How do the Crystals swap ships with allies, as all crystal ship plans are deleted at bases? Do the gsN codes still work?

Answer: No, gsN does not work. You need to empty a ship of its crew, then your ally transfers crew to it.

Azuremonster mentions: Hyperlathes now produce 250 ord rather than 200. The Planets4.exe client will still state that each hyperlathe will give you 200 but 250 always shows up next turn.

Assault vehicles and fighters

Ground Units: (All are very fragile; enemey can throw stones to shatter your crystals.)

• Type 1 : Worthless. (Except vs Lizard Boulder Attack)
• Type 2: Anti troops & colonists. Cheap but very low attack values.
• Type 3: Anti Ground Unit. Also cheap but very low attack values.

Fighters (General) : NOT DESIGNED FOR AIR COMBAT. Even worse, all enemy colonists have an easy time shooting all your fighters down. Very cheap! NO ARMOR! Can't use until hull tech 9 (Crystal Thunder) unless they capture a carrier!

• Type 1: Very short range, inaccuracute, lightly armed, but very fast in combat.
• Type 2: Short range, beams very inaccurate, missiles fairly good, both beams & missiles lightly armed, fast in combat.
• Type 3: Medium Range, Heavy missile, fast, less evasive (only 10% combared to 30%), ignore the beam. Probably best fighter you have.

Crystal ships

Amusing side note: these descriptions are a pastiche of comments from Jon Nunn and David Ouimet. You can see how this document is put together from mails from people with different viewpoints by the way some of these descriptions are enthusiastically positive, and yet negative, about certain ships (e.g. Ruby, Onyx, Crystal Thunder). Jon and David independently sent me analyses and they don't see eye-to-eye on everything - Ed.

Warning for Version 3 Vets, several of your ships have different uses in V4 than V3.

Tech 1: Opal Torpedo Boat. Fragile (150 to 200 modifers), large soft spot, Very well armed for a early warship, with two large (size 150!) mounts and two small weapon mounts it provides some early firepower. Care should be used though as the ship only has a crew of 20 so a single Merc Rocket or Mass Drive Round could easly capture the ship. Over all a cheap way to add some firepower but not to be used alone. A strong attack bonus and a resonable evasion bonsus assures that the ship should do some damage before its destroyed. Tack on a negligable scan range and this ship should be used with care, preferable in a large fleet with other ships or over a planet to boost its defense against Borg probes. Low ordnance. NO SHIP DEVICES.

Tech 2: Ruby Cruiser. At first glance a well armed warship, and with a crew of 540 this ship will prove much harder to capture than the Opal. It lacks the attack and and evasion bonsus but is much more versatile. But when hit, the ship falls apart (240 / 250 modifiers), basically it's an armored freighter that fights by dropping any of the four types of mines. But with minesweepers and an Inferno Device tacked on, this ship is sure to prove one of the dominant ships of the Crystalin Fleet. While still lacking on scanner range it is a great improvment over the Opal in most respects. NO Tractor Beam.

Tech 3: Topez Gun Ship. Fragile (150 modifiers). There is little to no reason to use this warship.. With a trivial crew of 30 and a 110 mass its almost assured to be captured by the enemy. As far as firepower goes it only mounts 6 more small weapons and has slightly worse attack and defense modifiers compaired to the Opal. Designed for Enenergy intensive weapons (3 Generators, but limited ordance, no Pods). Large attack bonus so arm with long ranged weapons that get thru point defenses. NO Tractor beam.

Jade Class Support Ship A faster and less fragile version of the Ruby with 10,000 ordnance.. This ship will serve well anywhere the Crystals wish to maintain large minefields. Not well armed but its ship devices and a good sized 1,000 point tractor beam ensure it will have a role in fleet support.

Tech 5: Sky Garnet (Light) Destroyer. 15 small weapons and 10 point defenses but NO large weapons. Very nice scanning device and a very good Tractor Beam. Not exceptionally well armed but the ship does have a 1,000 point shield backed up by 10 point defense systems so it should be able to hold its own against lighter warships. Lacking the attack and defense mods found in many crystalin ships its likely a few of these will be found in the Crystalin fleets but not in any great numbers.

Tech 6: Emerald Class Battlecruiser The first of the heavy hitting Crystalin ships, the Emerald packs a whopping 8 large mounts each capable of carrying a 800kt mount! Let's talk Trubo Lasers! The ship is backed up with a 1,500 point shield and 10 point defense systems allowing it to stay in the fight for a while. It is also the first of the Crystalin ships with an X-field and looks to be a mainstay of the Crystalin combat fleets. Nice cargo capicity, very good Tractor Beam, all the same goody ship devices as the Ruby & Jade.

Tech 7: Onyx Class Fast Frigate. Fragile (140 to 170 modifers). Can fly at 190, the fastest thing in the Crystalin fleet. 4 size 60 Large weapons, 20 small, 4 point defenses; designed to support any attacking fleet. With a long range mine detecection system and a mine field destabalation system the ship is a must for any crystalin offensive. Also: a towing capcity large enough to tow a Death Star a short distance! (8000 tow power), but only 400 fuel and NO pods. Same Devices as the Emerald.

Tech 8: Diamond Flame Battleship. Large weapon size: up to 2000kT --> designed for 15 LARGE TURBO ARRAYS! Also 20 small weapons and 10 point defenses. A true ship to be feared, especialy for its low tech level. 1800 fuel and 6 pods for transferring fuel to the Onyx towing the Death Star. Same devices as the Ruby. Kind of slow, (90) so tow this with a faster ship. Backed up with strong shields and a maxed out point defence screeen this is a very nice warship. The Diamond Flame has been boosted in recent Host releases to give the Crystals a decent fighting ship. It has special "Plasma Armour" (Takes half shield drain from all enemy weapons. Ord hits on shields are converted to armor), which more than compensates for the Crystals' double damage from Ord based weapons. This ship should be your core fighting vessel. It uses vast amounts of moly to build, but so do other races' top fighting ships. Try simulations of a few fights with this ship and you will see just how fearsome it is!

Tech 9: Crystal Thunder Carrier. Made out of Crystal (170 modifers: fragile). Designed to lauch 1200 fighters and stay well clear of enemy ships in battle. (Or, alternative viewpoint, "Even if the defending fighters are destroyed this ship should prove able to defend itself vs medium warships and is almost impossible to capture."). Mount with long ranged weapons. This ship is very visible but in turn has a nice scanner. This has the same devices as the Emerald and a minefield destablizer.

Tech 10: Crystal Light Ship. Reduced hull damge but other components more fragile. Lights up large areas of the cluster with the 870 scan range. 6000 tow power and a Hyp Drive (range 400)! Some light conventional weapons and 200 fighters, but its main fame in combat is the SUPER LASER! Has the same devices as the Onyx and a Mind Crusher (makes colonists unhappy when on), Scaler Wave Dampener, and a Soil Sterializer (make planents less farmable). This ship is also very visible. Remember to turn off the Mind Crusher before returning home. (Especially to your home world.) Not very well armed for conventional combat but its range of ship devices are suitable for unconventional warfare. Care should be taken with the ship however as an enemy fleet willing to take the time can capture this ship. This is the secound of the Crystalin ships to carry some fighters, but the complement is negligable.

Notes on Super Lasers:

• Always set the Crystal Light to attack on Wave 2, so the superlaser is more or less charged up. CL's are very weak ships (for tech 10), they can't last 310 seconds (ie wave 1) against many medium tech ships.
• The superlaser will fire in combat versus enemy ships but will not fire versus enemy bases / planets until tick 4000, ie until the ship-to-ship combat is done.
• If you want to destroy an enemy base with the superlaser, set the base as the Crystal Light's Kill target (NAV screen)
• If you want to destroy a planet, set the planet as the Kill target. This is often preferable to killing a base - unless you want to capture the planet for some reason. It stops the enemy rebuilding on that planet. So it's good for raids into their heartland.
• Superweapons destroy planets after all movement and combat are finished.
• Some people report that the Superlaser does not seem to fire in simulations. My experience is that it does fire, but only around tick 800 or so - by which time the combat is usually over. I guess it takes a long time to charge.
• The Crystal Light can only carry 1000 Ord, and the standard SL uses 1000 ord to fire; so Crystal Superlasers are special: they use no ord. This means you can mount a normal variety of other weapons on the ship - even some PD weapons use a bit of ord.

Anti-Crystal tactics

• Crystals are adept at using HD Stress. DON'T use Mining Lasers, Particle Fountains, or Scaler Wave Amps on their worlds unless you're darn sure there's no built up Crystal base there. (If it doesn't explode right away, the HD Stress you added is immediately converted into all kinds of goodies for the Crystals thanks to their special buildings.)
• Keep ships with such all devices away from your Crystal Border.
• Boarding Actions! Crystals are horrible in personal combat. Note however that though their ships are easy for Stormers or Feds to capture, [because Stormers / Feds can transfer to undamaged ships], their shiny ships are immune to Boarding Lasers. I think this means that they take no crew losses from BL's, but BL's can still be used to transfer troops to an otherwise undamaged ship, even if you're not Stormer or Fed. Yes. Crystals are not killed by boarding lasers, but they can be used to get onto Crystal ships
• Travel slowly (less chance of mine hit) but not so slowly as to be surrounded.
• Their ships take 3 times normal shield drain from ord weapons, so the following Large Weapons are especially useful against Crystals: Merculite Rockets, 500mm gun, Sandcasters, Blaster Cannon, Photon Torps, Plasma Bolt Cannon, Particle Cannon. Their shield drain, already good, is amplified.
• They take half shield drain from non-ord weapons (Any ship owned by a Crystal player). So the following weapons are less useful than normal: Heavy Lasers, (Fusion Cannon, Force Beam, Disruptor Cannon, Ion Cannon,) Pulsed Phasor Cannon, (Ionic Gun Array, Turbo Laser Array,) Large Turbo Laser Array, (Gatling Phasor). (However, the ones in brackets are not normally chosen on the basis of their ability to knock down shields.) Also, all small weapons except Streak Missiles use no ord.
• More importantly, they absorb half the energy from enemy non-ord weapons and use it to charge weapons. That means that all the red weapons I just mentioned as bad - even the ones in brackets - should be avoided.
• This Ord thing is bad for Stormers, because many Stormer ships have low Ord capacities and most Stormer players try to choose weapons which use none at all if possible!
• The Crystal Light has an 870LY scanning range, the best in the game.
• David Ouimet: Crystal hunting is an interesting sport.. You have to take things slow and when playing the Stormers I prefer to have 8+ Thorns moving in sweeping with several larger warships 50 or so LY back with full sensors on.. Gives the crystals lots of time to move against the main fleet but then there is little worry of webmines.. The world crusher I found to be great as you do not have to go all the way in to start doing damage. :)
• You cannot build their ships even if you steal the plans.
• If you cannot capture them, attack and kill planets with Siliconoid natives. Crystals are always short of Ord for their minefields (the hyperlathes use up all the HD stress after a while), so deny them the free ord generated by Siliconoids.
• I strongly suspect that engine damage from web mines is affected by the engine's hardness rating. Using Tylium Thrusters can, therefore, give you more time to survive / escape when caught in webs.
• When entering a Crystal area, you might run into cloaked minefields, which seem just as effective as regular minefields!
• When entering a Crystal area, make sure you don't have Intercept Enemy Ships or Intercept [specific object] switched on. Otherwise your ships might see a Crystal base... approach it... hit a web mine, taking 10% engine damage and stopping... set off again and take more damage. (I noticed this when one "stationary" ship hit 6 web mines in one turn, losing about 500 Repair units.) I have also seen ships which are meant to be creeping around at a safe speed of 7, suddenly barge off to intercept some target, and of course they get stuck in Webs.
• One of the key problems in fighting Crystals is their immense growth rate. For example, by turn 65 in one game they had 120 million colonists whilst most races had significantly less than half that (after using Tank O Tronic cloning to boost their population!). I eventually managed to kill 50,000,000 of them by nuking their homeworld and some other major worlds but they replaced the losses in about 5 turns! Fortunately Host has been changed so they no longer hog all the Resource points. Even so, it is a good idea to try to take out their high population worlds as soon as possible, even if it costs a ship or three. Remember that you can move safely through Webs at speed 7 or less, so a cloaker can eventually get to their key worlds if you are prepared to dedicate enough time to it, though I'm not sure that cloaking works well in Webs.
• If you capture Crystal ships, and are mulling over what type of mines to lay with them, remember they are immune to Webs. But cover your important planets with Gravitonic minefields, so they can't HYP a Crystal Light onto the planet.
• If you capture Crystal ships, make sure you switch off the following devices when you drive them home: Mind Crusher; Soil Steriliser; Inferno Device; X Field!
• Assault Pods (shot from pod launchers on neighbouring worlds) are useless versus Crystal worlds. Webs stop all pods, and their planets invariably have Webs round them.
• Although all docs say "don't use energy weapons against them", experiment with this technique anyway. In my simulations, it doesn't seem to give them much of an advantage. I think that although your energy weapons help their power bank charge faster, in practice their rate of fire is limited by the weapons' max fire rate - and it doesn't matter if you charge their power banks faster or not. And if they are a half decent player, they will have designed their ships with sufficient generator / engine power to feed their weapons at max rate anyway. So giving them extra energy makes no difference! If you're not restricted to ord based weapons, you have many more options. A single sandcaster will get rid of their shields in short order!
  

Anti-web-mine tactics:

• The key thing about fighting Crystals is: you are only in trouble if both the following are true: your engines are 99+% damaged and the X field is covering your ship. These effects result from two different things: Web Mines do one thing, X field the other. Crystals need an immense number of ships to saturate their territory with X fields, so just because you've hit a Web mine there is no need to panic for a couple of turns. You can, for example, drop a barbitic minefield round a trapped scout, detonate it to remove the Webs, repair your ship (because likely there was no X field near enough to drain your Repair units after hitting the Webs) and escape before Crystal ships with X fields approach.
• A normal mine sweeper array (a Ship Device) can sweep Web minefields, one at a time.
• Jelmer Renema suggested: send cheap ships to tow engineless sweeper ships into the minefields.When asked about this, Tim commented: It is true, ships with no engines can not be captured by an X field.
• You can destroy them by overlapping a Barbitic field with their centre, and detonating it. This, incidentally, will blow ALL minefields that have their center in the field.
• If you capture one of their ships with a Minefield Destabiliser, use it against them. Capturing Crystal ships is pretty easy, because they have to move out of their Web fields eventually...
• On the offense, take along a Minefield Destablizer or else several LARGE ships with Minefield sweepers with plenty of repair pods. (There's no doubt a good Crystal player will try to explode several fields at once on you to wipe out cheap minesweepers.) A minefield destabiliser will destroy 40% of all minefields within 150LY. Correction: this is changing to 80% chance of blowing one minefield in Host Beta 51. Note: Minefield Destabilisers do not work against Webmines or cloaked Barbitics.
• Remember that minefields, though active when laid, can be cloaked. So you could lay some precautionary minefields on your crystal border, keep them cloaked to avoid detection / sweeping, and detonate them later when needed.
• However the Crystals' Minefield Destabiliser (on the Onyx ship) might prevent you using barbitic minefields. Note: Minefield Destabilisers are also found on the Thunder Carrier and the Light Ship, and they do not work against cloaked Barbitics.
• Tim mentioned to the List: "Web mines now do 10% engine damage to stationary ships." Is that if the Web field is exploded, or simply every turn the ship sits there?" "Only when the minefield explodes. Sitting in a web field does no damage to your ship." But Tim also stated: What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.057: Fixed: Web mines not doing 10% engine damage to ships parked in a minefield. A bit contradictory,. so I asked for clarification. He stated: "The only time a non moving ship takes engine damage from a web minefield is when the web minefield explodes on command from the owner."
• Question: If the ship in a Web field is, say, a starbase and the web mines are detonated, does the starbase get damaged engine wise even if it has 0 engines? Answer: "At first, 0 engine ships could take engine damage and be captured by the Crystal X device. Following Host 56 this was patched, 0 engine ships should now be 100% immune to X device capture."
• Hyperdrive ships can jump through webs and take no damage. But Crystals can also lay Gravitonic mines, which are very effective at knocking ships out of hyperspace.
• The following advice is from "mcyn" to a player who complained that Crystals were unstoppable, even against Borg. "The following tactic is being used successfully by Borg against Crystals. It is slow but effective. Borg cube(s) come with 100K repair pod and begin laying a 5000 ord unit cloaked (cloaked so it cant be undone with minefield destabilizers)  barbitic minefield each turn.  Each turn they detonate a minefield clearing all the web mines around.  Repeat and creep forward.  There is no need to clump up many cubes together versus the crystals, 2 in one place is plenty for the exploding mine strategy."
  

I suspect there is some cunning way to use Wings or Assault Pods against Crystals, as only ships are affected by Webs. However, I can't quite see how to take advantage of this. And Jon Nunn points out that as Crystals have Laser Mines, which zap Wings, I'm probably wrong. Pods get caught in webs.

Afterword: Comments to Tim by one Crystal player following an extensive game / playtest, August 2001:

"Basically, nice idea for a race but still flawed and no way near the force they were in VGAP3. I still advocate that they need serious help to be a potent force. On the other side, the growth rate and cash and contraband gathering is too good - you easily become saturated with cash and nothing worth spending it on. I'm currently maintaining 64,000 MC of Exotic Tech per turn and still gaining money, though this might change after Kugo and New Irelands' populations were vapourised. I bet [the Peeps player] is the only other who can sustain this level. I have over 10,000 fighters. They are the ideal supply race to others who need help with resources (eg Lizards or Empire), but not a force in their own right. In which case, they are not a race I like to play."

Tim replied:

The aforementioned Crystal player took Tim's advice, and stopped worrying about losing Crystal Lights etc. He began extensive raids against his enemies' periphery with cheap Crystal Lights and fast medium ships - a saturation attack - and began overrunning his opponent (me). Whether he'll completely crush me remains to be seen, but he's having a lot more fun taking the fight to me instead of trying to trap my fleets in Webs on his own ground. He certainly has the advantage of resource points: his high growth means he always has resource points and cash for new ships, whilst my Stormers cannot build any more ships, having plateaued at about 120 vessels. Thus the wave of Crystal ships, no matter how weak, is very effective as I can't cover all my planets all the time.

Some comments from an IRC interview with Tim (cocomax)

• <Privman> Tim was my major tormenter in Griffins Talon
• <cocomax> I do play on Drews site Hehehe I am an EVIL crystal player
• <Privman> and don't I know it <G>
• <cocomax> Whole fleets vanished before my wave after wave of Jade class minelayers :) The little Jade is the key to winning as a crystal
• <Drewhead> I lost a fleet of 10 TRex's to Crystal player once
• <Drewhead> Hello Scalar Wave Amp
• <cocomax> you just have to lay more than the enemy can ever handle. . .

And on the subject of fighting Crystals:

• <cocomax> You should see what a bunch of Glory ships can do to a fleet of Crystal Thunder Carriers with full fighters. . . NOT NICE!!!! I think I saw a few million credits just go POOF!!

Some comments from Eric (AzureMonste)r...

I chatted with Bryan Nagle a little about crystal strategy at Drewhead's IRC and he offered these strategies/tips for players, in case you want to include them:

<<snip>>

<Bryan> Well, something I always do when I play the Crystals... since they start with a pod launcher, on turn 1 I always fire off 3 outfit pods and replace the starting Jade's engines with FTL5's (the ones you start with) - helps you expand early on.

<AzureMonster> I do that as well.

<Bryan> Anothing thing I did quite often - when I spotted a high stress world far off, I would build a Crystal light and dock an outfit pod with ship parts onboard, then hyp over, build a Military Space Port, and construct a couple of Jades. This might be another obvious tactic though.

<AzureMonster> the jades for defense, and local minelaying right?

<Bryan> right . If it's occuiped allready then it's a different story, unless its only lightly defended

<Bryan> Perhaps you should add a common sense part to the guide... You should see the Crystal player in the game me and Chris are in together. He's spent the last 5 turns trying to invade me with poorly armed Jades and he's yet to lay a single web mine - But it probably wouldn't help him too much :)

<AzureMonster> Would you agree that Jades are THE crystal ship? As in they are the backbone and largest part of your fleet?

<Bryan> For the most part, yes

<AzureMonster> only the diamond flame can lay more mines... but it cost far more than a jade

<Bryan> yep, and it's higher tech

<AzureMonster> and you'll probably be using it for battles more than mine laying

<Bryan> yes, the Diamond isn't too bad in combat under the right circumstances and you're better off with the Jade for minelaying and transport

<AzureMonster> ever do this? Attached pods with lots of ord to a Jade to keep it full of ord for long minelaying treks?

<Bryan> yeah I do that quite often :) not just with Crystals either. It works pretty well, as you can refill the ord bay from the pod and lay a minefield in the same turn even though the minelaying screen doesn't let you choose the field size when the ship has no ord loaded... as long as you had picked it previously it seems to work.

---

Question. Does the mine detonation happen before chunnel too? I was thinking of chunnelling my fleet under threat away before it was hit by overlapping webs. (It's completely out of repair units now, so it has to retreat or attack - and it can't go forward as there are Webs in the way.) >>

Yes, it is before chunnel.

>> And at what point does the X field capture a ship? after movement, I think, like most ship devices? >>

After movement

>> And at what point do X fields actually steal repair units - before or after ship transfers? Before or after X fields capture ships with no repair units?! >>

After transfers. X fields will only capture ships after the engines are over 100% damaged. Capture is before repair.

>> Also - if I have a fleet and one ship is set to be a "repair unit reservoir" (ie a Vickie with 40,000 capacity) should the small ships be able to survive an X field attack which drains them completely, provided the fleet is set to share repair units? That seems to have worked so far, and is the only reason I've been able to threaten Mark with any success, but is it what you intend? >>

That is how you do it, you keep sharing supplies with the little guys. A X Field ship can only steal a total of 500 units from all ships. If it gets your Vickie first all the small guys next in line are safe from the x field.

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Version 4 minefields serve as more then just minefields, they are also the area effect weapons of the game. The barbitic mine also serves as a sort of a bangalore used to clear a path through minefields. It acts sort of like a cluster bomb or depth charge damaging combat units in a large area.

I find them far more fun as a multi use weapon. It is like having a bunch of weapons all in one neat package.

If an enemy blows a barbitic minefield over your fleet the whole area will be 100% clear of mines and your ships can move your fleet at full speed with no fear of hitting a minefield.

The change makes minefield easier to clear and move through and a less powerful defense.

It is doing exactly the inverse of that think it is doing.

Before you had to move around at speed 13 turn after turn as the enemy layed more and more minefields and you could only sweep them after movement, but the enemy could lay more of them. You were hopelessly bogged down. Now you can blow a Barbitic field and attack or run.

Imagen what you can do now as a Crystal player. If you have an enemy sitting in a big group of web mines and they have not yet layed a Barbitic field to sweep the fields you can blow all the web fields at once and take all their engines all at once and start x-field capturing the enemy ships and there is nothing they can do about it. Your ships are IMMUNE to detonating web mines.

Barbitics are a very poor offensive weapon.

Traveling through a web minefield causes a ship to become more and more visible to enemy scanners.

How much sensor noise?

Hitting a web mine causes a full stop and 20% to 40% engine damage.

What's the right formule?

Chances of hitting Webs: (movement_vector + 1) ^ 2 * (hull_stealth / 100) * (160 / 10000)

The barb. formule was: (movement_vector + 1) ^ 3 * (hull_stealth / 100) * (MO / 10000)

Is this 2 a mistake? Because then web mines has not a 10,6666x Barb.Odds (using only MO).

But anyone can move safely through Webs if their speed is 7 or less.

7 or 6?

A 100 kt mass hull can take between 20 and 40 points of engine damage.

And ships with less or more than 100 kt?

"The road to wisdom is hard" (for me near of impossible).

Gandalf

New: Crystal ship combat armor bonus only works for the Crystal player if the Crystal player is in a Crystal hull design

See IMT players' guide re: anti-Crystal tips.