The Crystal Cruiser is one of the best ships in FTL, and it’s no surprise that new players want to unlock them as quickly as possible. Unlocking the Crystal Cruisers requires specific steps to complete and is not feasible for all runs. Here’s one of the best and easiest methods to unlock the Crystal Cruiser ship in FTL.
Setting Up for the Crystal Cruiser
While it’s certainly possible to get the Crystal Cruiser with any ship to your liking, the best choice will be Rock Cruisers type A or B. However, Stealth Ships are also good contenders since part of the questline involving escaping from enemies and searching for distress signals, two areas in which these ships excel.
Additionally, you should consider lowering the difficulty level to Easy. While it doesn’t affect the odds of finding the ship, it makes the entire process go much smoother and allows you to get further without too many potential setbacks to ruin your run.
Getting the Crystal Cruiser in FTL
Once you’ve chosen the ship and set your difficulty, it’s time to plan your route. This is the most important aspect of unlocking the Crystal Cruiser since the questline involved only allows for a few sectors to align perfectly.
The first sector you need to look for is Engi, Pirate, or Rock.
In these sectors, you can scout for distress signals which give you the necessary questline. Your main problem in these sectors is getting enough area coverage to find distress beacons. As mentioned, Stealth Ships will make it easier to find the beacon.
You need to open distress beacons until you find one with the following event:
“A ship without life forms within a nearby dense asteroid field is giving off the distress call. Shall we investigate? It could be dangerous.”
This message is the first part of the questline.
If you have the Rock Cruiser ship with a Rock Plating, you’ll get a blue option to salvage the ship’s pod immediately. If not, you only have a 1-3 chance of getting the pod, and you’ll need to repeat the process with other beacons until you run out of beacons or time.
Once you have the pod, you need to go to an Elgi or Zoltan sector. Scour the sector for a normal beacon with the following event:
“You arrive at a Zoltan research facility. They say they are researching genetic distortion due to stasis sleep and prolonged FTL travel. They ask if your crew has the time to undergo a few scans.”
When prompted, pick the option that opens the closed pod. This will get you a Crystal Man and pretty much guarantee success at this point. The crewmember will point a quest marker at Rock Homeworld for the final step.
With a Crystal crewmember on board, all you have to do is reach and survive through the Rock Homeworld sector. Once you get to the quest marker, you’ll be teleported to the Crystal Zone, and the crewmember will leave. Another quest marker will point towards the Crystal Cruiser’s location. Reach that sector, and the ship will be unlocked.
Crystal Cruiser B
Once you’ve unlocked the first blueprint for the Crystal Cruiser, getting two achievements with that ship will net you the B layout. This version is a less-weaponized module with significant improvements in freighting capability.
Go Crystal in FTL
Crystal Cruisers are among the best ships in the game, and unlocking it might take some time and repeating runs. However, it should be pretty straightforward to spot a losing run and reset for the next chance.
How long did it take for you to unlock the Crystal Cruiser? Let us know in the comment section below.
