I feel like I am wasting my time

[5thHorseman]

Yeah, there is *0* reason for not buying a 2nd shield layer when you can afford it. I personally like to spend my first 50 scrap on it. Usually I have it about halfway across the first sector. Even if you can't power it, you can sometimes take down your engines, power up that 2nd shield, and be IMMUNE TO EVERYTHING in the battle. Then you can slowly take your time dissecting the other ship with whatever means you have.

Or at the very least power down a weapon to get your engines on line so you can get away.

[The Dwarf]

I feel like I am wasting my time.
As with almost any game, but now I have finished FTL a dozen times, and with every ship (except maybe the B-Stealth Cruiser), I am stuck : I can't unlock the last cruiser. I multiplying runs with easy ships (such as red tail or B-rock), always exit at early sector 6 when I havent found found stasis pod.
And I'm losing hope...

[Euxcine]

I feel like I am wasting my time.
As with almost any game, but now I have finished FTL a dozen times, and with every ship (except maybe the B-Stealth Cruiser), I am stuck : I can't unlock the last cruiser. I multiplying runs with easy ships (such as red tail or B-rock), always exit at early sector 6 when I havent found found stasis pod.
And I'm losing hope...

Play with modded ships/weapons/enemies/events/whole game to pass the time until you feel motivated again to continue your quest for that last ship

[aaaaaa50]

I feel like I am wasting my time.
As with almost any game, but now I have finished FTL a dozen times, and with every ship (except maybe the B-Stealth Cruiser), I am stuck : I can't unlock the last cruiser. I multiplying runs with easy ships (such as red tail or B-rock), always exit at early sector 6 when I havent found found stasis pod.
And I'm losing hope...

The Crystal Cruiser is entirely luck based, and the chances are really quite terrible. You can use the FTL Editor if you really want to play with that ship though.

[Iranon]

Also, the Crystal cruisers and their crewmen are very badly designed compared to the others.
Layout B takes the cake - enemies are untouchable or trivial, neither makes for fun gameplay.

[Twinge]

No shame in using a tool to unlock the Crystal Cruiser; unlocking it is a pain. It's not *entirely* luck-based, though - Long-Range Scanners help a lot (or map scans from events), as you can prioritize the correct beacon types for the events you're looking for.

[spacecadet13]

Also, the Crystal cruisers and their crewmen are very badly designed compared to the others.
Layout B takes the cake - enemies are untouchable or trivial, neither makes for fun gameplay.

I wouldn't say they're badly designed at all; they just present different challenges and advantages to the other 16 ships. But the huge advantages Crystal crewmen have - lockdown, reduced suffocation rate, no 'weaknesses' - do, overall, make them easier to win with. Which is probably an intentional design choice, given that there are plenty of ships that are tougher than average to win with.

[The Captain]

...You can use the FTL Editor if you really want to play with that ship though.

I spent dozens? of missions trying to unlock the Crystal cruiser. What's more, I was using the Rock A, because I had rotten luck with "Is it warm in here?" - never could set enough fires, so enemy crew always managed to run away before my Rocks could kill them - so I needed "Ancestry" to unlock the B version.

Finally, I used the Crystal Quest - Start Boost to help me. You can still get unlucky by not having the Rock Homeworlds on your path, though. I persevered and finally did get to the Crystal sector and unlock the Rock B, then the Crystal A.

As far as design, I suppose you could say the more Crystal dudes you have, the more overpowered they are. With 3 in the B, you can beam into weapons - if you're fast enough, possibly before the enemy crew arrives - lock down the room multiple times and destroy the weapons before they get in. Even if there's a weapons officer, you can kill him and destroy the weapons with 2 or 3 lockdowns (until near the end, when enemies have lots of levels in there - and still you've destroyed most of it). Not that there's anything wrong with that.

[5thHorseman]

2 crystal dudes is OP. 4 is game-breakingly OP.

2 crystals in the A ship teleport into a 2x2 room, lock it down. When the lockdown's almost done the telporter is ready again (unless it's at power 1 or 2, but if you've got a 2-man teleporter and 4 boarders getting your teleporter to level 3 is a priority) so you send in the mantises into the same room. Their guys come in to a bloodbath waiting to happen. As soon as the first guy tries to leave for the medbay, lock down the room again. Or let him out and fire your otherwise useless weapons at the medbay, with an almost guaranteed hit because as soon as that guy left the fight, you KNOW the pilot's gonna leave his post thinking he has a shot at taking your guys down.

[Twinge]

Actually, even just one Crystal dude is OP (and boarding is OP). It's possible to beat the game by only using boarding and by only boarding with one crewman at a time: http://www.twitch.tv/darktwinge/c/3211744. The only weapon used was a single Heavy Laser to take out the Flagship's Super Shield.