How to get thunder crystals?

[Stupendous Man]

How are thunder crystals obtained? I tried using lightning rods, but even when they get hit by lightning, no crystals show up.

[The Donald]

Look around on islands after, or during, a thunder storm, I just found 5 on a medium sized island, there may have been more that I missed.

Another way to harvest them requires that you find a temperature crystal, they are new items that occasionally show up in the cursed sunken chests, and then craft a lightning trap from a lighnting rod, any of the rough gemstones, and two of the thunder crystals. Place the temperature crystal someplace high on one of the larger ships - the crowsnests that we can now climb up to work well - then place the lightning trap on top of the temperature crystal. Stand back and wait, when a bolt of lightning hits the lightning trap it captures a thunder crystal that you can retrieve. I have three of these rigs on my White Narwhal, in one big storm they yeilded 5 thunder crystals. There's a bit of a glitch in the display, there's a dark band running around the bottom of the lightning trap that's supposed to light up if a thunder crystal has been captured, but this doesn't seem to always happen. Just be careful not to hang around the traps during a storm, you will take damage if the lighning hits in your vicinity.

[Stupendous Man]

Thanks, will keep my eye out for them then.

[Slow Old Man]

You can also set the lightning traps out on an island during the storm while you are exploring lightning will hit them and get a thunder Crystal

[kentonm]

Do thunder crystals lay on the ground like timber? I've looked for them and never found one.

[Slow Old Man]

Originally posted by kentonm:

Do thunder crystals lay on the ground like timber? I've looked for them and never found one.

Flashing white V on the ground

[Kazak]

Originally posted by The Donald:

Look around on islands after, or during, a thunder storm, I just found 5 on a medium sized island, there may have been more that I missed.

Another way to harvest them requires that you find a temperature crystal, they are new items that occasionally show up in the cursed sunken chests, and then craft a lightning trap from a lighnting rod, any of the rough gemstones, and two of the thunder crystals. Place the temperature crystal someplace high on one of the larger ships - the crowsnests that we can now climb up to work well - then place the lightning trap on top of the temperature crystal. Stand back and wait, when a bolt of lightning hits the lightning trap it captures a thunder crystal that you can retrieve. I have three of these rigs on my White Narwhal, in one big storm they yeilded 5 thunder crystals. There's a bit of a glitch in the display, there's a dark band running around the bottom of the lightning trap that's supposed to light up if a thunder crystal has been captured, but this doesn't seem to always happen. Just be careful not to hang around the traps during a storm, you will take damage if the lighning hits in your vicinity.

Donald, thanks for the info! Could you update the wiki page http://projectsalt.wikia.com/wiki/Cursed_Sea_Treasure_Cache I haven't gotten one of those yet, otherwise I would.

I guess back to looking for sunken treasures!

[Slow Old Man]

Originally posted by Kazak:

Originally posted by The Donald:

Look around on islands after, or during, a thunder storm, I just found 5 on a medium sized island, there may have been more that I missed.

Another way to harvest them requires that you find a temperature crystal, they are new items that occasionally show up in the cursed sunken chests, and then craft a lightning trap from a lighnting rod, any of the rough gemstones, and two of the thunder crystals. Place the temperature crystal someplace high on one of the larger ships - the crowsnests that we can now climb up to work well - then place the lightning trap on top of the temperature crystal. Stand back and wait, when a bolt of lightning hits the lightning trap it captures a thunder crystal that you can retrieve. I have three of these rigs on my White Narwhal, in one big storm they yeilded 5 thunder crystals. There's a bit of a glitch in the display, there's a dark band running around the bottom of the lightning trap that's supposed to light up if a thunder crystal has been captured, but this doesn't seem to always happen. Just be careful not to hang around the traps during a storm, you will take damage if the lighning hits in your vicinity.

Donald, thanks for the info! Could you update the wiki page http://projectsalt.wikia.com/wiki/Cursed_Sea_Treasure_Cache I haven't gotten one of those yet, otherwise I would.

I guess back to looking for sunken treasures!

What does the temperature Crystal do I do not have one and I have over 150 Thunder crystal's. I just put the traps on the beach while I'm running around they fill up

[The Donald]

Originally posted by Edward Teach:

What does the temperature Crystal do I do not have one and I have over 150 Thunder crystal's. I just put the traps on the beach while I'm running around they fill up

I placed a temperature crystal in the cabin of my White Narwhal and activated it by placing a thunder crystal in it. The temperature crystal looks like a large dark brown/black jug with a red and a blue minature version of the thunder crystal sticking out either side like ears or antenna. Once the thunder crystal is applied, you can cycle the jug through three settings, off, hot or cold.

I'm not sure why we'd want this, but if you stand near the thing with the new thermometer, the reading will go up or down according to the setting. The visual is nice, on the cold setting blue glowing veins appear, they turn red on the hot setting and go away when the temperature crystal gets turned off.

I like the lightning rod arrows that can be crafted from the thunder crystals, with a 30 pierce and 100% recovery they rank up with the best (except for the ancient shard arrows), plus they have a random chance of attracting a lightning bolt to strike whoever you shoot with them.

[Kazak]

With 100% recovery, I got a message that the arrow was damaged too much and lost one :( Bug?

[The Donald]

Originally posted by Kazak:

With 100% recovery, I got a message that the arrow was damaged too much and lost one :( Bug?

I've only had one of the lightning rod arrows actually attract lightning, it was an elder cultist that I shot and then let chase me around until I saw a flash. I still had to finish him off, the lightning did damage but not enough. When I checked the body, I got the same message, the arrow was too damaged to recover. The arrow description does say that they have a chance to attract "up to" one lightning strike, and one way of ensuring that is to have the lightning destroy the arrow.

Did you notice if your target got hit by lightning?

[kentonm]

You need 2 thunder crystals to build a trap. Took me a long time to find the first 2 but the traps find a crystal several times in each thunder storm.

[The Donald]

Originally posted by kentonm:

You need 2 thunder crystals to build a trap. Took me a long time to find the first 2 but the traps find a crystal several times in each thunder storm.

I installed 6 lightning traps on my main ride, the White Narwhal, and after about 6 in-game days have around 80 thunder crystals.

It would be cool if we could mount a bunch of lightning rods on a raft, leave it off-shore in the shallows near an island during a big storm, then find a bunch of floating electrocuted fish around it after the storm passed. Or maybe this would be another way to get cooked deer meat, fresh from a deer?

[Slow Old Man]

Originally posted by The Donald:

Originally posted by kentonm:

You need 2 thunder crystals to build a trap. Took me a long time to find the first 2 but the traps find a crystal several times in each thunder storm.

I installed 6 lightning traps on my main ride, the White Narwhal, and after about 6 in-game days have around 80 thunder crystals.

It would be cool if we could mount a bunch of lightning rods on a raft, leave it off-shore in the shallows near an island during a big storm, then find a bunch of floating electrocuted fish around it after the storm passed. Or maybe this would be another way to get cooked deer meat, fresh from a deer?

I got a fried spider one night

[The Donald]

Originally posted by Edward Teach:

Originally posted by The Donald:

I installed 6 lightning traps on my main ride, the White Narwhal, and after about 6 in-game days have around 80 thunder crystals.

It would be cool if we could mount a bunch of lightning rods on a raft, leave it off-shore in the shallows near an island during a big storm, then find a bunch of floating electrocuted fish around it after the storm passed. Or maybe this would be another way to get cooked deer meat, fresh from a deer?

I got a fried spider one night

Is it true that they taste like chicken?

[Slow Old Man]

Originally posted by The Donald:

Originally posted by Edward Teach:

I got a fried spider one night

Is it true that they taste like chicken?

Yes but it cuts your health in half