Gravillex Crystals Mechanics?

[100thMonkey]

In most of my games, I don’t bother with Gravillex Crystals. And, if I remember correctly, I never had Gravillex Crystal in my empire, even when I killed many Gravillex in the game.

So in my current new game (v1.2.1.2 Beta), I decided to try to collect them. After 1st Fleet destroyed a Gravillex, I’ve ordered many of its ships to recuperate the crystals from the carcass. Hoping to be able to unload them at the capital. The loading worked, but now that the fleet is at the capital, I don’t see any way to unload the crystals at the colony or at the spaceport, whether from a ship or from the fleet (no right-click option or selection panel button for it).

Couldn’t find anything useful about it in the Galactopedia or in the manual (which, if any dev read this, I find pretty amazing almost 2 years to the day after launch! ).

I found a thread (https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... l#p4987938) saying that when a ship with some crystals on-board is near a colony, the crystals are automatically unloaded. But that’s not what happens in my game. The crystals stay on the ships, and I don’t see any way to unload them.

Since the crystals have a big colony development bonus, I’d like to be able to get them and use them. So, I'd appreciate any light on the topic...

[fruitgnome]

Maybe refuel at colony? Please upload a save, I would test myself.

[100thMonkey]

Thanks for the offer fruitgnome, but it won't be necessary. I've continued the game, and after destroying another Gravillex, the fleet needed to refuel. Once they were at the colony, I took another look at the fleet, and at that point, there was only 1 ship left with some crystal on-board. And it still had the refuel order (the order were already refueled). It went into the spaceport, and once in, the crystal got unloaded while it was refueling. I then looked at the spaceport resources, and it did have Gravillex Crystal on-board.

So you were right: refueling unloads the crystals.

But the whole Gravillex Crystal mechanic seems weird to me:

- The crystals are loaded in military ship that have no cargo bays.
- You unload by refueling.
- The crystal appear in the Control Center "Resources" tab, as if they were a mined resource, which would mean that the source is permanent. But as we know, that's not the case.
- They also appear in the "New Mining Locations", but, as far as I know, even right after having destroyed a Gravillex, if you use the "Gravillex Crystal" filter in "New Mining Locations", there will never be a source for it.

Seems to me that the whole affair might need some more work. At the very least, I would say that it's not immersion-inducing.

[Ax]

Gravillex crystal is another luxury resource, given that the harvested number is quite finite it's not much to worry about. Automated ships hovering over the debris field will eventually start picking them up, but it's also possible to order this as a kind super micro management. In addition to refueling, the crystals are also dropped off during repairs and upgrades

That said, combat ships picking up g-crystals always seemed like a bit of an improvised solution to me. I would much prefer a combat engineer role for constructors where they are part of a battle fleet and exclusively engage in fleet repairs and debris collecting.

[OrnluWolfjarl]

It takes a while but in my games automated explorer, freighter and mining ships go and pick them up, as long as you keep having vision in the system.

If you want your military ships to pick them up, an easy solution is to park them around the crystals, then automate them (the individual ships, not the whole fleet). The ones that are not low on fuel or need repairs according to their automation settings will go and pick up all the crystals in the area. If all ships try to go back for refuel/repairs, you can still "fire and forget" if you automate any ships besides the fleet lead ship. Just keep the lead ship parked in the debris field, and after refueling, any automated ships will come back to the location and will pick up the crystals. You can then come back to the fleet and click them to go into a colony or colony spaceport for refuel/repair, which will cause them to unload as well.

Ardillus Tentacles and Gravilex Crystals are really great resources. They provide significant bonuses and their price is half of that of Rare Luxuries, which places them as the 4th and 5th most valuable resources for sale (1st, 2nd and 3rd being Korrabian Spice, Zentabian Fluid and Loros Fruit in no particular order off the top of my head). Early on, they can really boost your economy.

But their collection is indeed a pain and mostly tedious.

And yes, they don't appear as a source, because I'm guessing that location list is exclusively for building mining stations.