Crystal ship - alt unlock? **potential spoiler**

[Riversub]

After many, many enjoyable hours of FTL I've managed to unlock every ship except the Crystal cruiser. Despite obtaining the crystal man twice I never encountered the rock home worlds to get to the lost sector :-(.

I'm now thinking I should just try to beat the boss with all type a and b ships to unlock the crystal ship. I have a fair amount of grinding to do to get all a and b variants but I think this may be better/easier/more fun than leaving it up to random luck.

What do you think? For those that have the Crystal cruiser, did anyone obtain it by beating the boss with all a and b ships? Curious on your thoughts....

[Excommunicatus]

That's how I wound up unlocking it, by beating the Flagship with all the A and B ships.

I tried to do the quest directly as often as I had the chance to, but the stars never aligned properly to get it done, and I just didn't want to go through the frustration of endlessly restarting games to try to get those stars to align.

In the end, I did wind up getting credit for the quest, but only because I was doing a run with Rock C with the Crystal crewmember, happened to get the Rock Homeworlds, and happened to find the right beacon.

As I keep playing, I'd like to one day get the quest done "right", so I'll keep an eye out for the opportunities to, but I'm not willing to pull my hair out to try to force it.

[Psykechan]

I unlocked it before AE so it was with the old way. I set out to do it by making sure that my path included as many chances to get the required ingredients for the quest. I actually learned much from doing it too.

If you want to unlock it the new way, then go ahead. If you're a completionist, then you'll still need to do the quest so it shows up on the ship list screen. :P

[Cadam]

Use the Rock C ship. That way you don't have to find the stasis pod and all you need is the Rock Homeworlds which appear at sector 5 and onwards.

[Combat Wombat]

Originally posted by PtD404 - Name Not Found:

Use the Rock C ship. That way you don't have to find the stasis pod and all you need is the Rock Homeworlds which appear at sector 5 and onwards.

I tried this for 20+ runs and had zero success. I found the Rock Homeworlds a few times but never found the crystal beacon despite clearing every single empty beacon on about 5 runs, 4 of those i got the pod....in Rock Homeworlds.....

Im convinced it's either buggy or the spawn beacon for the crystal without following the quest chain is incredibly rare.

The only time i have ever found Rock Homeworlds AND had the quest marker from the pod, i died on the way.

Something is screwy with the Rock C approach, so same as the OP, im doing it the grindy way, beat the game with A and B.

[Biohazard063]

The ring is definitley still there even if you don't have the crystal crewmember in the normal way. And indeed it doesn't give a quest marker if you didn't follow the quest line. But it still is possible to open it as long as you have a crystal.
Maybe it's no longer a guarantee that it shows up if you do it with Rock C or a crystal ship.
That, or you had some real bad luck on your hands...

[David]

going to unlock it with as + bs then try for quest afterwards

[The Infamous Cloaker]

You can unlock it by completing the game with every other ship's A and B layouts

[Riversub]

Originally posted by The Bold Undertone Of Cloaker:

You can unlock it by completing the game with every other ship's A and B layouts

What do you mean by "every other ship"? Do you mean that you only need a and b of Kestral, then skip engi, then fed cruiser, then skip zoltan and so on (when reading from left to right)?

[Drain]

Use Rock C then just hunt for Rock Homeworlds. So long as the crystal crew doesn't die, you can go straight for the goal. It'll also unlock the achievement that wants you to visit the secret sector on a Rock Cruiser.

[Psykechan]

Originally posted by Riversub:

Originally posted by The Bold Undertone Of Cloaker:

You can unlock it by completing the game with every other ship's A and B layouts

What do you mean by "every other ship"? Do you mean that you only need a and b of Kestral, then skip engi, then fed cruiser, then skip zoltan and so on (when reading from left to right)?

I think they mean that you need every non-Crystal ship's A and B types... which is actually incorrect. You do not need the A and B versions of the Lanius cruiser.

[NucularRobit]

I say go for the long way, but try for the quest while doing so. Might as well hedge your bets.

[Riversub]

Actually, that is exactly what happened. I was trying for the Rock C to avoid the RNG and on that run I managed to unlock the Crystal cruiser. It was touch and go though - I received the crystal man on the last possibile sector, was almost destroyed by an ion field/flak 1 with combat drone enemy later and then had only one red market left before the last stand. Incredibly it was a rock homeworld. Only a few jumps from there for the unlock. I couldn't believe everything fell into place.

So satisfying - all ships unlocked! Now, on to hard mode with crystal B. Always the next challenge with this game :-). Thanks all for the advice.