Unstable Crystal

[jjalison]

Been flying around for over an hour. I rarely see any blinking lights. When I do I get other kinds of crystal, but not a single unstable crystal. Have these massive fleets, yet I have to manually look for this unstable crystal. Any advice?

[Wraith]

You can either buy them off Pirate Haven stations traders.

Crystal Farming

Or go to a mining heavy zone and just wait for the AI to destroy the asteroid for you for crystal/spacefly egg/ etc...

Personally Pirate Haven are my go to

[jjalison]

Thank you. Heading to a SCA Pirate Base to check it out.

[jjalison]

Sadly no Unstable Crystals

[Wraith]

Originally posted by jjalison:

Sadly no Unstable Crystals

just park a ship at multiple Pirate Haven.
You will find them pretty easily.
Just because one doesn't have it doesn't mean the other doesn't

[kananesgi]

You can also simply dock two ships at two stations in the same system, one at the pirate base and another elsewhere, then just teleport back and forth between them (assuming you have researched teleportation). Each time, the traders seem to randomize their goods. You'll usually pretty quickly get loads of crystals then. This is how I typically acquire some of the harder to source things like Argnu Steak or Mixed Fruit (for those pesky Fine Meals delivery missions).

If you are up for using mods, there is a wonderful one out there called something like Crystal Rarities (GLOW ONLY) that doesn't alter how crystals are formed in any way, but makes them produce a brilliant glow around themselves to make them far easier to spot. Personally, I use both that one and one that slightly alters the crystal behavior to eliminate the cooldown timer that prevents you from getting more valuable than bandannite for some time after you've harvested one of the better ones.

[AlPhi]

Heh, it just shows how the RNG likes to tease us. I pretty much always get unstable crystals along with the other crystals from outcrops while I'm trying to keep my inventory legal for the local authorities.

Hoovering them up around heavy mineral mining areas is often the best way to get them though. They don't time out in the way that floating ware drops will.

[kananesgi]

Originally posted by AlPhi:

Hoovering them up around heavy mineral mining areas is often the best way to get them though. They don't time out in the way that floating ware drops will.

Ah, I didn't know that. Thanks!

[noviastar]

Crystal mining used to make bank. But it is still a way to pass the time and make some cash. Unstable Crystal is needed a lot to get Black Market access. OH and get load stones. Space suit EMPs on stations save Millions.

[76561198825735344]

I am color blind therefore for me the easey way is to buy it from the pirate home base:
1. scan lleak, enter station, go to bar.
2. ask teh SCA guy there directions to represenntative, you must buy 1st something from him to make him more friendly.
3. folo direction and the representative is in the pirate home base.
4. tehre you will find 2 traders that sells unstable crystals and loadstones.

for detailed steps on how to get easy blackmarket and loadstones:
https://youtu.be/CRp4UWS7AY0

[db48x]

There is an easier way than crystal mining. It’s called mining.

Get a nimble ship; you don’t need a freighter for this. Find an asteroid field. Go to the scanner mode (bound to shift–2 by default, but I recommend rebinding that to F2 for easier access). Find an asteroid with resources. Ore is orange and Silicon is blue. Smaller asteroids are a better choice in this case. When you get close to it, you will find that there are resource nodes on the surface that have a contrasting color (orange nodes on blue silicon asteroids, for example). Shoot the nodes. Usually ore or silicon will be released, but occasionally you will get a lodestone, unstable crystal, or spacefly eggs. There will be multiple nodes per asteroid, and smaller asteroids have just as many as larger ones. Use your tractor beam to scoop up the goodies. Blowing up a whole asteroid also has the same chance of dropping something interesting, but if you do that then the resource nodes are gone.

Why do I recommend doing it this way instead of crystal mining? Because each node you shoot has the same chance of dropping something you want as a crystal does, but the resource nodes are far more common. By all means grab any crystal you happen to find, but the resource nodes are what you really want.

Another tip: there are quite a few sectors in the game where NPC miners go to mine. If you hang out there you can collect all you need without ever shooting a rock yourself. The NPCs won’t pick up the goodies, so you can just fly around doing that while they shoot at rocks for you. Family Nhuut has a particularly nice spot to the north–east with a really dense resource field, for example.