Wait- what exactly is the downside of the Crystal Ship?

[ExtraCheesyPie]

It has a great crew-base, and great weapons that use little power. Other than the awkward layout between the Teleport-Med-Weapons and the rest of the ship, it seems like a straight upgrade to the Kestrel.

[More Dakka]

Bravais --

Crystal projectiles can be shot down by defense drones; very long ship layout + crystals being slow = difficult to quickly bring them to counter boarders; your Crystal Vengeance aug makes boarding a heavily damaged-but-still-armed ship dangerous.


Carnelian --

No starting weapons at all, and unlike the Basilisk, no drones either -- so you have /no/ early way of destroying automated ships without sacrificing crew, and no way of even hurting Zoltan-shielded ship, until you get more toys. It's a high potential-ship (starting with cloak and a four-man teleporter), but it's pretty heavily luck-dependent early on.

[ExtraCheesyPie]

Bravais --

Crystal projectiles can be shot down by defense drones; very long ship layout + crystals being slow = difficult to quickly bring them to counter boarders; your Crystal Vengeance aug makes boarding a heavily damaged-but-still-armed ship dangerous.


Carnelian --

No starting weapons at all, and unlike the Basilisk, no drones either -- so you have /no/ early way of destroying automated ships without sacrificing crew, and no way of even hurting Zoltan-shielded ship, until you get more toys. It's a high potential-ship (starting with cloak and a four-man teleporter), but it's pretty heavily luck-dependent early on.

Crystals are pretty fast though...

[breadsmith]

Crystals only seem fast because you probably spent far too many runs with a rock ship to unlock the ship. Rocks may as well not move at all compared to the regular races.

[ExtraCheesyPie]

Crystals only seem fast because you probably spent far too many runs with a rock ship to unlock the ship. Rocks may as well not move at all compared to the regular races.

Oh, I misread what you said.

But other than the Speed decrease (which works bad with the long layout) i find it (with shield piercing weps and a decent augment) better than the rest.

[FDru]

Crystals only seem fast because you probably spent far too many runs with a rock ship to unlock the ship. Rocks may as well not move at all compared to the regular races.

Oh, I misread what you said.

But other than the Speed decrease (which works bad with the long layout) i find it (with shield piercing weps and a decent augment) better than the rest.

The augment isn't that great. It has a very small chance to trigger, and it's especially bad with boarding since you can get your boarders killed with it (and there's no way to temporarily disable it). It's only 1 damage, anyway (I think). I usually just sell it for the decent scrap amount it gives.

The weapons on the Crystal A are nice, and can usually be kept throughout the game, but they're nothing compared to the loadout of the Zoltan B or Engi A, both of which can strip any amount of shields right from the start.