Energy Crystal, a new random monster

[Nanako]

Spiders and carp are awesome, i like the damage they do, and the casualties they bring in. However they do get a bit repetitive, and a lot of people know how to deal with them.

This thread is a proposal for another type of random monster that could be generated instead of those sometimes, to throw a new challenge at things.

The energy crystal would come aboard in random spots, similar to the spiders. And much like the spiders, it would start in a weak, not-very-dangerous state, but gradually grow up, get stronger, and pose a significant threat. A crystal will have an internal Lifecycle counter, which builds up as they absorb power from wires (at a rate of 1 point per Kw per second), or in large chunks if they're fired at with energy weapons. They will also absorb a lot of power if they run into shocked doors

Stage 1: The energy crystals would appear as small, floating blue crystals, and during this time they would emit radiation, irradiating any crewmembers nearby. The closer you are, the worse it is. But radiation is not a huge threat, and this allows you to just bash it to death with whatever is at hand, and then go to medbay afterwards.

During this stage, the crystals would seek out the nearest wire, and start drawing power from it. They need power to become stronger. Each crystal could draw up to 50Kw from the network, and would increase the load on the nearest upstream SMES appropriately, allowing a smart engineer to locate them.

During all stages, the energy crystals will be immune to any energy weapons. Firing laser guns or tasers at them will not hurt them, they'll absorb the power instead, and reach maturity faster. They can only be killed with physical trauma, from ballistic guns or simply whacking them with things.

Stage 2: After gathering enough power, the crystal will reach stage 2, and burst into flames. This will cause them to raise the temperature of the room, and inflict burns on anyone that comes near them. In this stage they'll seek out people to attack and burn them, much like spiders bite people. The heating of the air will probably trigger atmospheric alerts, enabling them to be located more easily.

Stage 3: If left too long to gather even more power, they will reach stage 3, and start burning with a much larger, hotter fire. Atmospheric alerts at this point will be inevitable and near-instant, as they superheat any room they're in. During this stage, EVA suits or firesuits are recommended for taking them on, personnel not suitably equipped will suffer badly from the heat.

In stage 3, the crystals will roam looking for victims, and will be able to melt through airlocks in their way by standing near them for about 30 seconds

In both stage 2 and stage 3, the crystals can be weakened by using methods to extinguish fire. When deprived of oxygen or sprayed with water, their lifecycle bar will decrease, and de-evolve them until they drop back to the flameless stage 1.

What's the purpose of this?

I want to see a slightly different random-monster experience. This kind of creature would engage all departments in it's dispatching.

Security will need to arm up with ballistic weapons and hunt them down,

Medical will need to prepare for radiation and burns, which are two of the least-common injury types, giving us a bit more variety in doctoring work

Engineering can monitor the power system to locate them, and a smart atmospherics tech can vent rooms to help deal with them.

and science can build Ripley mechs, and freeze rays, to provide high tech means of combatting them. A firefighter ripley with a drill would make short work of stage-3 crystals, providing some reason to build this rather under-utilised mech.