Guide to the Carnelian

Overview

A guide describing how to win with Crystal B, and the drawbacks and advantages the ship has.

Introduction

Crystal B is an unlockable ship in FTL. It is widely regarded as the most powerful ship in the game.

This guide is intended to help you win with this ship. It also helps you to understand the ad- and disadvantages you might face with it.

• CAPS LOCK: Me trying to be funny.
• Bold text: Important stuff.

Unlocking Crystal B

Unlocking Crystal B is a difficult task. You will need to preform two steps:

• Obtain the Bravais (Crystal A).
• Get two achievements for the Crystal B.

By far the most difficult of the two steps, unlocking Crystal A is a difficult task. These are the steps:

• (optional) Go to either a Pirate Sector, an Engi Sector or Rock Sector.
• (optional) Look for a distress beacon about asteroid fields.
• (optional) Opt to search the Asteroid fields. If you have Rock Plating, choose the blue option.
• (optional) Choose to rescue the Damaged Stasis Pod.
• (optional) Go to an Engi Sector or Zoltan Sector. (Can be either, the Engi Sector event can occur in the same sector as the one before.
• (optional) Look for a Zoltan Research Facility. You can skip distress beacons.
• (optional) Ask the Zoltans to fix the Damaged Stasis Pod (Blue option). You will receive a Crystal crewmember
• Go to Rock Homeworlds.
• Find the portal to the Crystal Homeworlds. (Ancient Device) It is on a quest beacon. The quest mark will only appear if you have a Crystal crewmember named Ruwen.
• Use your Crystal crewmember to activate the gate.
• Head to the Quest beacon in this secret sector.
• Profit.

Note that the steps marked optional are not needed if you get Rock C, as it starts with a Crystal crewmember already. I’m not explaining how to unlock the Rock Cruiser and unlocking type C (the Tektite). Just make sure to name your Crystal Ruwen.

AS YOU CAN SEE, UNLOCKING THE BRAVAIS IS VERY RNG DEPENDANT. YOU MIGHT AS WELL ENTER A LOTTERY AND WIN. THE CHANCES FOR THAT ARE PROBABLY BIGGER THAN YOU OBTAINING THIS SHIP.

There are three achievements in total. Try to get these ones:

• Sweet Revenge: Get an auto-cruiser to a single hull. Then stop firing. If needed lower your Shields and Engines. You will want to have some hull for this on your own ship.
• Clash of the Titans: Head to Rock sectors. Pirate sectors can also be chosen as the achievements looks for the ship class and not the actual crew.

Advantages

• Starts with three Crystal crew – They are the rarest in the entire game and their lockdown power is useful when boarding, something that is important with this ship.
• Aside from the Mantis type B, it is the only ship that has a four person teleporter.
• It is the only ship aside from the Stealth A and B to start with a cloaking system.

Disatvantages

• Slightly understaffed, you will want to get at least one more crewmember to board with three Crystals AND SEND CRYSTAL HELL ON YOUR FOES.
• No way of defeating Zoltans or Auto-ships. At least not without additional weaponry.
• Unlike other boarding ships, this ship starts out with Cloaking rather than level 2 engines or defense drones, meaning that you will need to perfect your timing when cloaking.

Strategy

Crystal B is a powerful ship right of the bat. It starts out with three crystals and a normally expensive cloaking system.

The first thing you will want to do is invest in level 4 shields so you can get around most enemy attacks. Afterwards try upgrade Engines at least to level 3 so attacks can be reliably dodged. As for the final system slot, try to get Hacking. If you are playing without AE, you can only get Drone Control. After this try to level your cloak to level 3. Finally invest in Doors and Sensors. From here on keep upgrading Engines and when you are around Sector 6, get Level 3 Shields.

Try to go to Engi or Civilian sectors initially if you are looking for crew. These two sectors can give you an Engi, which is what you need. If you are a bit more daring go to Pirate sectors to buy/get free slave crewmembers.

For the carnelian the following crew is required for a chance of winning.

• 3 Crystal crewmembers – Local repairing and boarding. They can also man systems if needed.
• 1 Other crewmember – Preferably a Slug to defend against mind control, this one serves as your pilot.

Try to aim for this setup however:

• 3 Crystal crewmembers – Local repairing and boarding..
• 5 Other crewmembers – A Slug at the helm to avoid Mind Control, anything at Shields, Engines and Weapons. (Preferably an Engi, but Zoltans and Humans are fine too. Lanius and Rock have disadvantages. (Lanius block multi-repairing whilst Rockmen are slow.)) and finally a single Mantis to help your boarding Crystals.

Any weapon that is not Ion will do fine for this ship. It really doesn’t need much more with weaponry as boarding is able to do everything it needs to do for ships.

For normal ships, just send two Crystals until you fix your understaffment. The third Crystal will be sitting at the Piloting to prevent your ship from destroying. Whilst on board the ships, use the Lockdown power to give yourself an advantage, as enemies can’t get in whilst you use your Lockdown power and the enemy can’t run for the Medbay. The Lockdown power of your Crystals is shown by the blue bar left of them. A single charged Lockdown power is able to give yourself enough time to kill an enemy crewmember. Note that you can also trap your own crew in the room, so be careful with the Lockdown power.

To overcome the Medbay, the following strategy is appropriate:

• Board in a four-space room.
• Wait for n crew to arrive, where n is the amount of crew you have boarded.
• Use Lockdown power.
• When the enemy gets low health, they will run for the Medbay, essentially killing themselves as they will stop fighting you, giving you free shots.
• Repeat until enemy crew is dead. Leave if your crew is looking weak.

Auto-ships are tricky. You will at least want a single non-Ion weapon and Level 2 teleporter. After that use this strategy:

• Board using only two crewmembers that are not Zoltans in the Shields room. Mantis are preffered for their higher damage output.
• Once they are inside let them damage the system until they are at low health/the system gets destroyed, then pull them out immediately. This will only work if you have at least a Level 2 teleporter.
• Heal your crewmembers and repeat.
• If the Shields system is destroyed, make your weapon target the Shields to ensure it stays down.

There are obviously other ways to get around Auto-ships. Other ways to get around them are:

• Get a clonebay and DO NOT CARE ABOUT LITTERING A SHIP WITH BODIES send your crewmembers over to die and wait until they get cloned. No need for a weapon or teleporter either.
• Use Lanius and let your crew stay in until one hull point remains, pull them out and target the ship. Use a clonebay if you don’t have a weapon.

Geting around Zoltan Shields is easy: Just get a weapon. Doesn’t matter if it’s ion or not, a weapon is all you need. Alternatively there is an Augment that does the same thing.

Beating the Rebel Flagship

• At least another crewmember. – To man piloting.
• A weapon or the augment to bypass Zoltan Shields. – For phase 3
• Level 6 Shields. – To defend against attacks.

Useful additions:

• More crew. – To assist with boarding and manning systems.
• Level 3 Hacking. – Makes things a ton easier.
• Level 8 Shields – Makes you invulnerable against attacks.
• Better weaponry.

On Easy/Normal:

• Send over two boarding crew in the Missile Launcher to kill the guy there and disable the Launcher. Afterwards pull them out.
• Do the same with the Ion Artillery and the Beam Artillery, but leave the laser guy alive.
• Now that your are invulnerable to their attacks do the following.

1. Board the Cloaking system and use Lockdown power in succesion until you destroyed the cloak. Pull your guys out afterwards.
2. Once your guys have recharged their Lockdown power, board the Medbay and immediately activate Lockdown power.
3. Afterwards wait for n crewmembers to come in, where n is the amount of your boarding crew.
4. Use Lockdown power and kill them.
5. Pull your guys out to heal and restore Lockdown power.
6. Go to step 1, unless all enemy crew on the main deck is dead. If all enemy crew are dead board the Shields and take down the system and pull your guys out afterwards.
7. Finally use your weapon to take down the first stage

On Hard:

• Actually this time it’s somewhat easier, but you will need Hacking. Use the following strategy:
• Send two Crystals in the Missile Launcher and immediately use Lockdown power.
• Use it in succesion for the first round to destroy the system.
• Leave, heal and board the system again, but this time also put a hacking drone in the system, locking it’s doors.
• Once two enemy crew get in, use your Lockdown to defeat them.
• Repeat until all crew are dead, then destroy Shields.

Aside from this, send also two crew into the Ion Artillery, but make sure to leave the Beam Artillery alone.

Some notes:

• Level 3 Hacking permits you to kill enemy crew more quickly by just letting the room fill up and then using Lockdown and Hacking the Medbay.
• Level 8 Shields allows you to leave the Beam Artillery alone.
• With AE enabled, there will also be a hacking drone stuck on your ship. Hope that it either targets Engines, Piloting or Cloaking. Leave and retry if it gets stuck on your Medbay or Teleporter. If it gets on Weapons or Oxygen, you will want to destroy their Hacking system first.

On Easy/Normal:

• First send in all four crew in the Missile Launcher, two guys will get kicked out, send them to the Drone Control.
• After your other two crew destroy the Missile Launcher, pull them out and send them on the main deck as well to destroy the Drone Control.
• Around this time, you will start having issues with the Power Surge, destroy the Drone Control to get around this. Also the boarding drone they send over will be shut down.
• After you shut down the Drone Control, disable the Shields system.
• Use your weapon to destroy the ship.

On Hard:

• Do the same as before, but this time you don’t have to pull your guys out, just send them over to the Drone Control.
• This time it will also be wise to destroy the Laser Artillery.
• Leave the Beam Operator alone, you will want to avoid activating the AI until phase 3.

Notes:

• Hacking is less useful in this stage, but if needed try to hack the Drone Control during the Power Surge.
• Level 8 Shields are able to withstand the power surge and make you invulnerable on Easy/Normal.
• Having a Drone Control, or hacking the enemy Drone Control permits you to force the Flagship out of Drone Parts making the phase a joke.
• By disabling your Hacking drone, you can avoid the Defense drone it launches.
• You are bending over for the RNG on this phase for the Power Surges.

On Easy/Normal:

• Use your weapon to take down the Zoltan Shield. Skip this if you have the augment to bypass Zoltan Shields.
• Board your crew into the Missile Launcher to destroy it and pull two of them out afterwards to help wreak havoc in the shields.
• Once the Shields are down, you only have to worry about the Power Surge and Mind Control. Destroy the Mind Control to fix one of the issues.
• The Power Surge is unique in this phase: It either sends out a lot of lasers (cloak it out), or it regenerates it’s Zoltan Shield.

On Hard:

• The AI is active in this stage so disable the Zoltan Shield quickly and board the Missile Launcher to destroy it.
• Leave one crewmember in the Missile Launcher to make sure it stays down and send the rest to destroy the shields. Teleport more crew over if you need.
• After destroying Shields, get at least one crewmember out and blast at the flagship with all you have. The sacrifice of the other crewmembers is needed to keep the AI at bay.
• The Power Surge is unique in this phase: It either sends out a lot of lasers (cloak it out), or it regenerates it’s Zoltan Shield.

Notes:

• Hacking is useful to disable the Mind Control. Do this.
• Level 8 Shields isn’t needed, Level 6 will do for this stage. Try to divert the power to something else.

Conclusion

Is the Crystal B amazing? Yes.

Is it the best ship in the game? No.

Crystal B is indeed one of the best ships in FTL, but it isn’t perfect. It’s primary strength, Crystal Boarding is not correctly offset by it’s weaknesses, such as understaffing.

The primary issue with Crystal B is the fact that it relies on Cloaking whilst boarding an enemy ship rather than dodging or drones. Cloaking is situational and requires perfect timing and someone on the helm to be effective, crippling it’s power until you get over the low engines and crew.

A good ship overall but not the best in the game.