The Crystal Confederation

The Crystal Confederation race icon from VGA Planets Nu

The Crystal People are a silicon based life forms about 3 foot tall, with no limbs and a metallic color. They have two large glowing eyes in the middle of their polyhedron form. Larger Crystalline ships are moderately powerful and tend to favor beam type weapons. They have several small ship types that are useful in exploring planets and capturing freighters. Their main weapon of choice is the dreaded web minefield. They use these fields to trap enemy vessels, drain them of fuel and then tow the victim home after it is out of fuel to force it to surrender using a tow capture.

Race Characteristics

• Can lay Web space mines that entrap enemy ships and drain fuel.
• Have a Terraforming ship that heat up planets to 100°C. The Onyx Class Frigate
• Likes desert worlds.
• Can Tow Capture fuelless ships.
• Can not clone ships.
• Population immune to Glory Device (structures will still be destroyed)

Racial Abilities

• Lay Web Mines

Will convert torps into Deep space Web mines that entrap enemy ships and drain fuel.

• Try to tow

Will board enemy fuelless ships (Tow Capture) with every Ship owned by the Crystals that have at least 1 beam weapon and 2 Engines.

Ship List

See The master ship list for a list of The Crystal Confederation ships.

Important Ships

• Opal Class Torpedo Boat: This ship has two main purposes that are often combined - as a scout, and as a web tender. Generally built with Mark 4 or 7 torps (depending on cash/mineral supply), it is practically never used for combat, save for capturing freighters via an x-ray laser and the "ntp" friendly code. One of the most useful functions of this ship occurs late in the game when it is often handy to "adjust" a large webfield a small amount to prevent invading ships from minesweeping it from the edge. This is best done by an Opal (with perhaps a few items in its hold) sweeping said minefiend with the "msc" friendly code, thus shrinking the field by a tiny but well controlled amount. This technique can bring even the largest fleets to a virtual standstill.

• Ruby Class Light Cruiser: This is your workhorse! With 370kt cargo it more useful then a MDSF. You can use it for tow capture and web mine support.

• Emerald Class Battlecruiser: This is your linebacker! You can use it for nearly everything, Cargo Transfer( 510kt Cargo), Web Mine laying and fighthing. With its 8 beam / 3 Torps you can take out all non Borg, non Starbase planets.

• Onyx Class Frigate: This ship is generally built in groups for the purpose of heating important planets, but also can be used in the same manner as the Opals, except with greater firepower and minesweeping capabilities. Even if sacrificed to destroy a small or medium carrier's fighter supply, it often will pay for itself (though if that is its only function, a Garnet might serve better).

• Diamond Flame Class Battleship: Expensive in Moly, but worth. Can kill all midsize torpers. Best used in Combo with a Crystal Thunder. Build some with Distruptors and Gamma bombs to capture enemy Cobolts and Fireclouds.

• Crystal Thunder Class Carrier: The Crystal Starbase and Carrier Killer, use it in a Diamon-Thunder Combo.

Strategy

Overall Strategy

Web Mines

Strategic Webmines to secure a front line

Tactical Webmines to trap and capture a Baseship

Web mines are the most feared weapon a Crystal player has. They are best for strategic defence as they are hard to sweep. There are various strategies for how to best deploy web mines. Strategic Webminefields or Tactical webminefields. Generally speaking, several small overlapping fields are most awkward for an enemy to navigate, but there are also times when a large one with a ship to "tend" it (see Opals above) proves even more effective. Also note that it is possible to lay concentric web fields by laying them in different race IDs via the "mi*" friendly code (though the web drain in such cases is not cumulative, only the chance of striking a mine), and that web drain affects ships orbiting planets and/or ships that have yet to actually strike a webmine (but are of course within a web field).

Early Game

Care and feeding the planets

As Crystal your clans grow best at 100°C but you are also able to maintain more clans on cold planets (1° to 14°) than all other races (beside the rebels). So how do you use this advantage?

Most players just drop 1 clan on non-native planets, they use a scout or a the initial MDSF to claim those rocks and plan to visit them some day later to build mines and factories. They usualy concentrate on the native planets and leave the rest aside. By turn 20 they are happy that they have +40planets in the scorelist, but in real, they have 20 productive native planets and 20 rocks with 1 clan. As your webs are expensive, you need a strong eco, so you can not leave these rocks aside. As Crystalline, you have your Rubys and Emeralds that serve as exelent freighters. Your aim is to have 101 clans on every non native planets, so you can build 101 factories and 101 mines. Why 101?? Because the ratio of clans and factories is 1:1. If you want more factories you need far more clans. You can go to 200clans then your mines ration will still be 1:1 (200mines) but you will only be able to build 110 factories (1:1,8) As a Crystal you can support 101 clans on every planet that has more then 0°

How to get 101 clans on your rock? During the first turns, you want to find your 10mio Bovinoid Unity planet, but you won´t. So make the best out of this 68°C rock with average minerals you just found. You have sent your initial MDSF with 160clans and 40 Supplies and drop 15 clans and 4 supplies. (calculate the needed clans to grow here: [www.vgaplanets.ca] Its a basic start for a rock, they have supplies, they can grow and you can concentrate on the good native planets at first. Later, if you have a ship available you can visit the rock again and "upgrade" it to 101clans and build 101 factories and mines. If you eco is running and you have free capacity on your freighters, you can even remove clans from a rock if they have grown to more then 101 clans. Remove the extra clans and bring to another rock that has less then 101 clans.

Alliances

Overall

Most races are excellent allies for the Tholians - their web mining ability compliments every other race (except perhaps the Cylons), and every other race has either an economic (cash, fighters) or strategic (cloaking) ability that the Crystals are also in need of.

The Solar Federation

An excellent ally - the Tholians need cash for webfields, the Feds often need protection.

The Lizard Alliance

Also an excellent ally for similar reasons as the Fed.

The Empire of Birds

A great ally, as the Birds are often vulnerable alone, and a cloaking web layer is a Crystalline wet (er, dry?) dream.

The Fascist Empire

A great ally as well - can plunder for cash, can provide cloakers.

The Privateer Bands

The best possible ally, assuming the Tholians do not wish to simply destroy them instead (being arguably the race most capable of doing so).

The Cyborg

On paper, not a particularly compelling ally, but in practice they often prove one of the best - the Borg need protection to grow, and the Tholians need Cube Ship muscle and cash from the many fast growing Cyborg colonies.

The Evil Empire

A moderately useful alliance. The Empire lacks minelayers, but can provide a certain amount of fighters and of course Dark Sense.

The Robotic Imperium

A great alliance for the Tholians, but the Robots are generally not in great need of web mines unless facing the Colonies. In that case, however, it is a match made in the Heavens.

The Rebel Confederation

A decent alliance: fighters/Falconing/GTA(both for enemies and friends) for web mines. The Emerald is also a major upgrade for the Rebel's minesweepers.

The Missing Colonies of Man

Perhaps the best "free fighter" alliance: the Crystals gain all the obvious things (figs, Cobols, even Lady Royales) and if the Colonies are being ganged up on (as often happens), web mines can make a huge difference.

Enemies

The Crystal Confederation

One of the strangest quirks caused by the logic of Planets 3/Nu is that crystal combatants will never strike each other's web mines!