Crystals

# Crystal Shards

Crystal shards are needed to complete the first quest in the red zone. There are several ways to acquire crystal shards. You can mine shards with your mining laser from full grown crystals on mining stations, or you can grow them yourself by farming and mine afterwards.

Pirating random cargo ships should be the quickest way to acquire enough for the quest. You should be able to find several cargo ships loaded with crystal shards near the asteroid dungeons.

# Farming Crystals

Farming starts out with that grid square in your inventory screen, you need to find "crystal genes" in the world. (usually pirates or abandoned stations, especially those in the rock mazes)

Crystal spores are needed to start out your first crystal, they will also adopt the genes you have in your grid at the time of planting. To plant a spore, equip it in a weapon slot and use on the spot where you want it to grow.

Crystal genes will affect how the crystal grows, the size it will grow to, the value and the speed of growth and reproduction.

Each crystal starts with 100 energy (spending 4 immediately on being planted). Without enough energy input growth stops and the crystal is dead.

The placement of genes in the crystal gene grid will also determine which traits will grow first. (Be careful, don’t end up with a crystal that dies before it grows its ability to collect energy)

Crystals may have the ability to spread and grow a new crystal next to it if they have enough energy and contain the flower gene. (they will have the same genes as the "parent" crystal)

If you want to grow a new set of crystals with new genes, you will have to find a new crystal spore to start the new batch with new genes growing.

Mining a crystal does not give anything when mined with a value less than 1, which appears to be a size of around 18-20 total tiles, depending on what genes you use.
Crystals grow even when the player is not inside the ship/station with them

## Crystal Genes

One tick = 1/5 seconds

1. “Spark” is created after 1 tick. Instantly, one time gives 64 energy (+0 value).

2. “ Collector” produces 1 energy per 1 tick (32 energy cost, gives + 0.05 value).

3. “Lense” produces +1 energy per tick for each of the 8 adjacent "collectors" (256 energy cost, gives + 0.05 value).

4. “Resonator Core” with a probability of 20% for each tick (in exchange for 10 energy) creates another 1 tick, operates within 1 branch (costs 256 energy, gives + 0.05 value).

5. “Bulk” does nothing aside of slightly increasing the harvest value (costs 32 energy, gives + 0.1 value). Bulk genes can be found rarely through mining asteroids.

6. The “Facet” originally should work in tandem with the “bulk” but even on its own it produces + 0.37 value after some time (costs 8 energy, gives + 0.036 value). Like bulk, they can be found through mining asteroids, but Facets are an even rarer find.

7. “Root” increases the output of all “Growth” nodes (sprouts) +1 / tick and for “Flower” nodes + 1 / tick to the seeds. Also increases the amount of energy consumed by + 1 / tick for all those nodes. Operates regardless of the location in the grid, but within 1 branch (16 energy cost, gives + 0.05 value).

8. “Flower” creates a seed, 2 seeds per tick = 2 energy (32 energy cost, gives + 0.05 value).

9. “Growth” (sprout) uses the energy to process other genes into crystals. In 1 tick it transfers 4 energy. In the beginning it processes the genes in adjacent 8 cells until it has completely created each gene, in the remaining 16 cells it randomly chooses a cell for each tick.
It is not limited by one branch, into the next branch it transfers half the value of "processing" (costs 16 energy, gives + 0.05 value).

10. “Branch” allows creating branches. Opening / closing with the right mouse button, draging the genes with the left. Initially, the branch itself is processed, then any genes on the grid, and at the end processing begins on the inside branches (costs 64 energy, gives + 0.02 value).

## Crystal Gene Grid

Processing order of genes without a sprout or if the sprout is at position 1. Number of the current branch is marked red, 0 = main branch.

## Crystal Growth Display

Mining laser gives you a tool-tip showing details of crystals on mouse over when equipped.

* **Value**, defines how many shards can be collected from the crystal. In the figure above, you can collect 2 shards (rounded up).

* **Size**, the amount of tiles filled with genes.

* **Energy**, max Value 10,000. Showing the energy of crystals from all branches.

* **Seed**, max value 600. By creating a new crystal, it resets to 0 energy (without energy consumption). Possibly related to the number of crystals obtained during collection.