Conflicting suggestions slightly in favor of not surfacing more,alright.
Cycle 19-aThe blast, from what you can tell, seems to have done very little damage at all, despite its ominousity. Well, in your opinion; the razing of an entire structure at once is probably a significant loss to whatever is making that noise. Deciphering it is not a priority to you at the moment, so instead, you focus on the issue at hand: Invincitite resistance. Plans for scouting also had occurred to you, but any current crystal cheap enough to scout with is not durable enough to withstand the solving of the problem. You haven't checked if the outpost is either, but its based off a refined, so its likely to survive fine.
...And survive it did. Interestingly, the longer the energy was redirected back into the partially-assimilated invincitite, the worse the vibration got, until it hit a particular frequency, which then started it humming the familiar hum you know when things are properly aligned. Despite this however, about half of the material refuses to interact with energy pulses in any way, while the other half resonates with the pulse in an...odd way. Not exactly sight, and not any other way you remember the
Prime Crystal having. What is shows is that there is a significant mass of very precisely aligned wiring and electromagnetic components inside this wall, as efficient as the crystal you constructed the Outpost from, but not quite up to par with the core. Careful pulses to trigger more of the tech-echo reveal that this is probably the source of the energy resistance, but it is nearly impossible to break into via precision (or as you've seen, blunt) energy manipulation short of bruteforcing its integrity or short-circuiting the electromagnetic components. You can feel a consistent pulse of power within the material, but it is a wild sort of power restrained only by conduit, unfocused towards a purpose, the sort of power that leaks out of dead crystalline post-battle and celestial bodies alike.
Whoever built this material has had an
extremely long time to refine their defenses against their own favored kind of energy weaponry and a power generator likely to take
all its surroundings with it if unleashed without restraints or precision energy redirection. Not the best of signs. You do manage to find the inside however, so you repair the Low-Q and use some of the cycle to start deciphering the terrified nonsense.
Integrity: Intact
Stored Energy: 7190
Storage effect: No effect, due to your increased storage space!
Energy Generation:
Core: 100/cycle
Low-Q: 380 @ 20/cycle - 7,600/cycle
Refined: 35 @ 50/cycle - 1,750/cycle
Medium-As. [2]: 84 @ 70/cycle - 5,880/cycle
Medium-As. [3]: 59 @ 80/cycle - 4,720/cycle
Medium-As. [4]: 49 @ 90/cycle - 4,410/cycle
Total Energy production: 24,460/cycle
Location: Subsurface of an unknown planet.
Navy Blue - Crystal core
Teal - Low-Q crystals
Light Blue - Refined crystals
Orange w/ black S - Storage crystals
Teal w/brown diamond - Low-assimilation matter
Teal w/grey diamond - Medium-assimilation matter
Grey/Black Striped - Invincitite
Grey/Black/Navy Striped - Partially Assimilated Invincitite
Black/Navy Striped - Attuned Invincitite
Dark Brown - Empty underground space
Light Brown - Dirt or other non-solid material
Grey - Rock
Sky Blue - Empty non-underground space
Black - Unknown
Red cross-shaped overlay - Damaged
Red X overlay - Heavily damaged
Dark Cyan - Feeler Crystal
Turquoise with small diamond - Farseer Crystal
Brighter Orange w/ black S - High-Density Storage Crystal
Purple/Orchid - Focusing Crystal
Core Crystal
Your core. If this can be replicated, you don't remember how.
Energy production: 100/cycle
Low Quality Crystal
Created by converting materials not able to become better tiers, like dirt.
Energy production: 20/cycle.
Fabrication cost: 100 energy, nearby material.
Refined Crystal
Created by converting solid materials, like rock. Also made by refining the structure of Low quality crystals.
Energy production: 50/cycle
Fabrication cost: 200 energy, nearby solid material.
Refinement cost: 400 energy, LQ crystal connected to the core. (300 if adjacent to another refined crystal)
Level reference: Lv.1 energy production (Refined-level)
Storage Crystal
A hunk of additional crystal, giving you more room to store energy without side effects.
No energy production
Fabrication cost: 200 energy and 1 empty space per section. Connected storage sections give greater results than scattered ones. In emergencies, the empty space can be replaced with 100 energy and a low quality crystal.
Level reference: Lv.0 Storage bonus (for storage calculation, for point fabrication treat this as part of No energy production)
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Feeler Crystal
Little more than a hunk of crystal, but a sturdy scout nonetheless.
No energy production
Fabrication cost: 1,250 energy (2.5 points).
Level reference: Freebuild, Removed energy production
Farseer Crystal
An excellent companion to the feeler. Energy production alignments have been realigned for exceptional sensory range instead.
No energy production
Fabrication cost: 3,000 energy (6 points)
Level reference: Extended Vision 6 (9 total vision), Removed energy production
High-Density Storage Crystal
Store more, hold more, contain more, add more synonyms here.
No energy production
Fabrication cost: 750 energy (1.5 points), 1 empty space per section. (or 1 storage crystal)
Level reference: Storage bonus 3, Base: Storage
Focusing Crystal
Half conduit, half relay point, all-around pretty useful crystal.
No energy production
Fabrication cost: 3,250 energy (6.5 points), not adjacent to other outposts or core.
Level reference: Outpost minor, Energy transformation 5 (-25% to energy costs within 3 tiles), Removed energy production.
Attuned Invincitite
Created by looping energy into the invincitite until the vibration aligns itself with the crystals.
No energy production, but would be an excellent conduit if fully integrated.
Reflects energy pulse (cannot accumulate power from area blocked off with this)
Fabrication cost: 6000+ energy (more will take less time to align, but over 8k will destroy nearby Low-Q)
Special: Tech-echo (reveals empty space or technological parts in nearby material if pulsed, normal sight radius)
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Assimilated matter conversion cost: Remainder of the cost to crystal form +50 per cycle its been there.
Low-assimilation matter
Created by not fully converting low-tier matter.
Will crumble into dust in 5 cycles, leaving an empty space.
Energy production: 50/40/30/20/10 per cycle. Crumbles on the next energy pulse once it hits 10/cycle.
Fabrication cost: 50 energy, nearby material.
Medium-assimilation matter
Created by not fully converting matter eligible to become Refined Crystal.
Will degenerate into low-assimilated matter in 10 cycles.
Energy production: 150/140/130/120/110/100/90/80/70/60 per cycle. Degenerates on next pulse after reaching 60/cycle.
Fabrication cost: 100 energy, nearby solid material.
Partially Assimilated Invincitite
Created by dumping energy into Invincitite until it weakens enough for you to get in.
Does not degrade from energy pulse
Does not produce energy
Vibrates if overloaded with energy, heavily resistant to energy otherwise.
Fabrication cost: 1500+ energy (extra will produce vibrations, too much vibration will shatter nearby Low-Q), nearby Invincitite.
It took longer than I thought to make this turn and I'm kinda tired, so I'll add the mass assimilation on to whatever you guys suggest for tomorrow instead as 19-b using the remaining energy from the turn.