EASY Crystal Ship Unlock Guide / Ancestry Achievement (Advanced Edition) [SPOILERS]

Overview

This guide details the easiest, most consistent way offered to unlock the Crystal Cruiser in FTL: Advanced Edition. Are you ready to get your very own Crystal Cruiser?Many people grew frustrated at this game because of the random events required to unlock the ship in Vanilla FTL. Thankfully, the Advanced Edition offers us tools to reduce the amount of luck required to get the ship. We will be taking advantage of the fact that the Advanced Edition allows us to start with a Crystal crew member. This is what makes the unlock much easier – we skip 2 random events this way.Note: This guide assumes that you have access to Rock Cruiser C. See appendix for guides on how to unlock this ship/layout.The steps we will take: Find Rock Homeworld using Rock C Find the Ancient Device Survive the Hidden Crystal World sector Enjoy your new ship!So, let’s get to it!Note: This guide will NOT detail the old way of unlocking the ship. There are other guides for that, even in Steam guides. This guide simply shows an easier way to get your hands on this coveted ship.

Unlocking the Ship

Choose Rock Cruiser layout C (only available in Advanced Edition – make sure Advanced Edition content is turned ON). Read the BIG NOTE below and make a decision with regard to the name of your Crystal crew member. Play on Easy as there is no benefit to playing on higher difficulties in this case. You’re ready to go.

This is a random event, which:
• Occurs in Rock Homeworlds
  • Appears as a hostile (red) sector
  • Can appear at sector 5 or higher once per game
• Non-Distress (Normal) Beacon

This is a not very well known secret: If you name your Crystal crew member Ruwen at the start of the game, the event will have a Quest Beacon, making it much easier once in the Rock Homeworld. As of 2019 this is no longer guaranteed. It’s possible that you don’t get a beacon every run. It is also possible that this was entirely patched out by the developers.

This is what happens if you name your Crystal crew member Ruwen.

This is the hardest part of unlocking the ship. After you clear sector 1, make sure you’re taking the route with the most red sectors after sector 4 to maximize your chances of getting a Rock Homeworld.

On this picture, Sector 5 is the part where you have the choice of going hostile or nebula. In this case it’s more beneficial to go hostile because sector 5, 6 and 7 are all hostile, thus increasing the chances of finding Rock Homeworlds.

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

1. Scrap it.
2. Leave it alone.
3. (Crystal Crew) Reactivate it.

You will get teleported to another sector with a quest marker. At this point, your main concern is getting to the quest marker. At the marker, you will unlock the ship, get an augment, get moderate fuel and scrap, and get 10 hull damage repaired. You will also get the third and final achievement for the Rock Cruiser: Ancestry.

Appendix

Rock Cruiser:

• Follow this guide[ftl.wikia.com].
  OR
• Beat the game with the Slug Cruiser.

Rock Cruiser layout B:

• Complete 2/3 achievements for Rock Cruiser A
  These are:
• Is it warm in here? – Have your crew kill a burning enemy on their ship while using the Rock Cruiser.
  AND
• 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.
• Ancestry – Find the secret sector with the Rock Cruiser. This is the achievement we’re after in this guide.

Rock Cruiser layout C:

• Get to Sector 8 (The Last Stand) with Rock Cruiser layout B.