How to unlock the Crystal Cruiser the easiest way

Overview

This is, by far, the easiest way to unlock the Crystal Cruiser.

Step 1: The Rock Cruisers

To unlock this Cruiser the easiest way, you need to unlock the 3 Rock Cruisers, the Bulwark (Rock A), Shivan (Rock B), and the Tektite (Rock C, the ship you’re going to use).

Rock A

The Rock A is unlocked by going to the “Rock Homeworlds”, a hostile sector that can appear after Sector 4 and onward. Remember, this is the Rock Homeworlds, not the Rock Controlled Sectors. In the Rock Homeworlds, there is a beacon where a “Rock Assault” ship is stationed. The ship will have the following dialogue:

“You are immediately messaged by an imposing looking Rock war vessel, “You’re the ship off to ‘save the Federation,’ aren’t you? And you expect to survive with that hunk of junk?”

1. We’re going to save them or die trying.
2. We’re strong enough to destroy you!
3. Ignore them.”

Choose option 1 or 2, they’re both the same. The Rock ship will jump away and give you a quest marker. Going to that quest marker will result in a fight with the same ship, in the solar flare hazard beacon. They’ll immediately charge their FTL drive and jump away in ~15 seconds, so don’t bother attacking them, that’ll just delay their FTL and result in unnecessary damage.

Once the ship jumps away, you’ll get another quest marker. Going to this quest marker will give you a full hull repair and the “Rock Plating” augment, as well as the Rock Cruiser.

Once you unlock the Rock Cruiser, you need to complete 2 of its achievements. They are as follows:
1. “Is it warm in here?” – Have your crew kill a burning enemy on their ship while using the Rock Cruiser.
2. “Defense Drones Don’t Do D’anything!” – While using the Rock Cruiser, destroy an enemy ship which has a defense drone deployed using only missiles.
3. “Ancestry” – Find the secret sector with the Rock Cruiser.

You’re obviously going to have to do achievements #1 and #2, as the third one is too hard to do without Rock C.

For the first one, you need buy a Crew Teleporter from a store in order to send your Rockmen (who are immune to fire) to the enemy ship, and you need a fire weapon like the Fire Bomb or Fire Beam (though they’re not necessary, but they make starting fires much easier). Just kill an enemy crewmember in a burning room and you’ll get the achievement.

For the second one, you need to find a ship that has a defense drone. They aren’t too uncommon in sector 1, so if you don’t find them after jumping around, just restart. To get the achievement itself, you need to fire both of your missiles at once, as the drone can only target 1 missile at a time. You can take out the enemy’s drone control system and thus disable the defense drone, it just has to be deployed at least once in the fight.

After getting the 2 Rock Cruiser achievements, you’ll unlock the Shivan. You simply need to get to sector 8 with this ship in order to get the Tektite. It’s a pretty decent ship, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble.

Step 2: The Tektite & Ruwen

Once you get the Shivan to sector 8, you’ll get the Tektite (Rock C). The Rock C has a Crystal crewmember on it by default. Rename him to “Ruwen” (no quotation marks, see below) in the hangar or once you begin the game. This is very important, the quest marker won’t appear if his name isn’t Ruwen, meaning that you will have to blindly jump through beacons until you find the Crystal sector event (in which case, it will still work regardless if his name is Ruwen or not).

Step 3: The Crystal Sector

With the Rock C, you need to go to the Rock Homeworlds again (the red sector that appears from sector 4 and onward). If your Crystal crewmember is named “Ruwen”, a quest marker for the “Ancient Device” event will appear, which is where you’ll teleport to the Crystal sector. Once you get to the quest beacon, you’ll get three options to choose from:

“An ancient device is orbiting within the crystal rings of a nearby gas giant. You can’t disceren its nature of function, but it seems to have been deactivated for a very long time. Prehaps you can get some scrap from it.

1. Scrap it.

2. Leave it alone.

“

You should obviously choose the third option. A wormhole will appear and teleport you to the secret Crystal sector. In this sector, there’s another quest beacon that you need to reach so that you can actually unlock your cruiser. As soon as you reach it, your Crystal Cruiser will be unlocked and you’ll receive some fuel, scrap, etc. Congrats! Make sure to thoroughly explore the Crystal sector, this isn’t an everyday opportunity…

Lastly, do note that the Rock Homeworlds isn’t always guaranteed to appear and you may need to try multiple times in order to have it spawn on Sectors 4-7. Good luck!