Crystal A

Typically rush shields, then look for offence. You have a lot to sell, however, and a 2-point weapons buffer for the Heavy Crystal gives some safety. Consider delaying shield upgrades if you see an early store. Sell Crystal Vengeance at the first store you visit.

A teleporter is excellent on this ship, as two Crystals can break 3 weapons bars in ~19 seconds. You can improve this with hacking or mind control, or just upgrading the teleporter; with hacking and teleporter-2, you can expect to break 6 bars in a large room. Two Crystals can just break 6 bars on automated ships before needing to come home.

Lockdown protects the health of hacked doors, so enemies will still need to break them after lockdown expires. This means you can use hacked doors as a “buffer” between lockdowns, to maximise your lockdown time.

Crystal weapons are powerful early, but they are slow and don’t play nicely with beams. Defence drones shoot them down! Depending on setup, both weapons can be kept until the end of the game. Heavy Crystal is the better one.

Bear in mind that Engi and Rebel sectors have a higher chance of defence drones. Be particularly careful with the Virus event Engi blue option — if you can’t kill the ship, you lose the Engi!

You have three empty system slots to fill, so try to buy your first system a little earlier than usual. Defence drones cover this ship poorly, as weapons are vulnerable.

Crew positions are hard to decide. I like Crystals in piloting and weapons, with humans in engines and doors. Piloting and weapons are good rooms for lockdown, and spreading humans around the ship means more flexibility for repairs and fighting fires. This isn’t ideal for boarding, but if you cross-train it doesn’t matter.

You have no blue options for distress beacons in sector 1, so prefer unmarked beacons.