Category Archives: The Crystal Confederation

First Turns: The Crystal Confederation

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Most wars are won or lost long before the fighting starts. This series concentrates only on those critical few turns leading up to the Ship Limit as a key to achieving long-term goals necessary for victory.

Overview:

The Crystals have one of the worst ship lists in the Echo Cluster. They share the record for weakest battleship (the Diamond Flame) with the Fascists, but they do supplement that with an inexpensive third-rate fleet carrier. A wide variety of minelayers, tenders, scoopers, sweepers, and tow ships all contribute to the primary Crystalline mission of covering the Cluster in a continuous field of vibrant Web.

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Threat Assessment: The Crystal Confederation

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This is the fourth in a series of anonymous reports that, redacted, were approved by the Senate for immediate publication, so they can be read by commanders of each respective race in order that they can review their own vulnerabilities in the face of the unknown external threat that commissioned the studies. In this dispatch we focus on that faction known as the Crystal Confederation: its strengths, its weaknesses, and how best to defeat it in battle.

Overview

Ease Of Command: Expert
Difficulty To Defeat: High
Style: Defensive

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Crystals Young and Old

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The Spirit of a New Confederation

The spirit of a thing is that which survives changes in circumstance. The spirit of the Crystal is that of The Snare. The Crystals have a unique technology around which their entire fleet and all strategies must be constructed. Web mines drain fuel, paralyze enemy operations, force them to waste valuable time sweeping, and allow the Crystal to harvest the survivors for their own fleet. However, the opponents of the Crystal are not likely to just march their ships into Crystal space. They must rather be goaded into it, smothered, or caught unawares. Crystal success hinges on the effective implementation of ensnarement tactics.

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Improved Desert Habitation

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(written by Bondservant)

Improved Desert Habitation – Make It Your First Nu Campaign Advantage Purchase

Improved Desert Habitation: “Crystalline colonists grow even faster on hot worlds (2.5X faster on 100 degree planets), but slower on cool worlds.”

So you have decided to take command of the Crystal Confederation in a Nu Planets Campaign game. And you can enter the galaxy using a total of 500 points. Should you Continue reading →

An Old Scroll – Crystals 101

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The Old Scrolls Series from Donovan’s Super Site:

Please note that some data may refer to earlier game versions or different host settings. Although game and strategies have advanced since the writing of this guide, the provided information is more than useful for an inspired gameplay and a good base to start from. Enjoy!
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Written by: Bondservant

Crystals 101

Crystalline — A Winning Race For the Patient Commander

So what is the big deal? The Crystals do not have the big ships. They can’t build fighters. They can’t ground assault. And they can’t clone. In fact, they can’t do a lot of Continue reading →

The Amazing Small Deep Space Freighter

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(written by ECV – Classic Queue)

Tom Graves started a great thread about the many uses of the Small Deep Space Freighter (SDSF) on the news feed at Planets Nu. He has now given us permission to edit and publish his post on Planets Mag for all to see!

NOTE: Certain aspects of this article reference the Priority Build Points system.

In Tom’s words: Small Deep Space Freighters are likely to represent 10-15% of your fleet at the time the Ship Continue reading →