Crystal sonar why?

[Ex Mudder]

Crystal Sonar allows you to spend energy to survey systems with crystals in them.

Why would you want to do that? You lose out on 30 energy, influence, the chance of an anomaly, and 1/3 your monthly research per planet.

 

[Tatterhood]

Because the crystals will kill your science ship if you try to survey it the normal way.

On the other hand, if the system is in/near your empire you're going to send your fleet to clear it out eventually, and if it's too far for that you probably don't care how many minerals it has, so...it's still not incredibly useful.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

back in 1.3 or so this was actually quite useful since there the critters spawned randomly everywhere.
then there was a change that put them close to eachother, so they inhabit certain areas of the galaxy.
since then it isnt that useful anymore since the amount of critters seems to be way lower now. actually i havnt seen the crystals at all in my last like 10 games. so far i found mostly the drones and pirates

 

[Vasious]

Conservation?
I try to have an example of all the Space Monsters in my boarders to preserve them for future generations

 

[Hugh Mann Bean]

"We've balanced (or introduced) X, Y, and Z" tends to unfortunately come with an nigh-unavoidable side of "...but about U and V..."

 

[Jean-Luc]

Yeah, it's one of those derpy mostly useless things.