Properties Of An Energy Crystal

[Amauros]

This is just my perspective on EC's based on various sources that include but are not limited to LRR. It's also fanfic, so this is all pretty much speculation/imagination/preference.

• EC's are made of a mineral (composition unspecified)
• An EC's color, energy capacity, and energy output, are all dependent on the crystal's lattice structure

Crystals are formed and charged as described here.

As such, crystals can be categorized by their color. The color wavelength does not necessarily determine energy levels of a crystal, it simply corresponds to it's lattice structure and through that correlation we can estimate a given crystal's energy level by its color.

Known colors of EC's are: Purple, Black, Red, and Green. Other potential colors include blue and gold.

Black crystals are simply crystals with little or no power left. It's quite possible that they will maintain their hue despite losing power.

Purple, Gold, and Red crystals are among the most powerful, while green is the least and most common. Silver and Blue are unknown in relation to the other crystals.

=========

Fanfic table:

[table='Crystal Electrical Properties by Color']

ColorChargeCapacityPurple3MV1,600kW·h/cm^3Gold160kV8kW·h/cm^3Red2.5kV400kW·h/cm^3Blue1kV600kW·h/cm^3Green500V100kW·h/cm^3[/table]

=========

All of those are made up, but it does show that Red is 5x more powerful than green and also has a greater capacitance. However, Blue would be far more efficient due to its higher capacitance than Red. Purple is as powerful as it is since it's supposedly found underneath Atlantis (source).

Also, please don't confuse the capacity with Farad units of capacitance. I'm talking Capacity in terms of how much work a crystal can do in proportion to the volume of the crystal.

I'm also inclined to say that recharge crystals are the crystals with the highest storage capacity, which in this case would be purple.

------------------

Debate is welcome. If any agreements/conclusions can be made, then I will update this post accordingly. I'm placing this here so that ORR can have something to define EC's in ORR. What the relationships between each crystal should be, etc.

[TheDoctor]

But... Purple means they're drained. If Atlantis and RR crystal colors clash, then Lego has screwed something up and there can be no fact.

[Amauros]

Just because DDI made the drained crystals ingame purple doesn't mean that's what they're really supposed to look like. I think a drained crystal should mean it's lost its glow, not its color. Soooo a red crystal would still be red after it's drained, green would still be green, and purple would still be purple. Green crystals would turn a dark green, while other classes of crystal may become transparent when it loses its glow.

[Tracker]

Simplifies my hypothesis (Okay, I screwed up the spelling).

Edit: Fixed spelling.

Edited December 20, 2010 by Tracked Mbl Lsr Cttr

[Lair]

First, please remove silver/chrome from this list. It's something completaly different from Energy Crystals. I can prove it if you don't believe me.

I dislike the BRIGHT purple drained crystals somewhat. However, I think it's ok to be purple, just maybe a really dark purple, to merge it with the cutscene color (black) and the game color. I also think it's all the same kind. How some get more storage than others may be their structure and such. But they'd PROBABLY all be dark purple when drained. Not sure on that.

Recharge Crystals, first of all, are not purple, as we can see. THey're white and green and such. They're not a crystal really, as they're unminable and never loose energy, just give it off.

Blue is probably fairly common as well, as it seemed to be in beta stuff. Somewhere between Green and Red?

And for the umpteenth time, where has there EVER been evidence of a gold energy crystal?

[Cirevam]

I am backing up Lair on the topic of chrome/silver crystals. Those are oxygen crystals from the Aquazone sets.

As for gold crystals, I vaguely remember a PS1 beta screenshot that had green, red, and gold crystals on the HUD. I have no idea where to find it, if it exists.

[Amauros]

Removed silver from the list.

1. I dislike the BRIGHT purple drained crystals somewhat. However, I think it's ok to be purple, just maybe a really dark purple, to merge it with the cutscene color (black) and the game color. I also think it's all the same kind. How some get more storage than others may be their structure and such. But they'd PROBABLY all be dark purple when drained. Not sure on that.

2. Recharge Crystals, first of all, are not purple, as we can see. They're white and green and such. They're not a crystal really, as they're unminable and never loose energy, just give it off.

1.

• EC's are made of a mineral (composition unspecified)
• An EC's color, energy capacity, and energy output, are all dependent on the crystal's lattice structure

You basically said what I said, only I said that color (as well as everything else about the crystals) is dependent on the lattice structure. The other thing is that the light intensity determines how much power a crystal has, so if it has no power left it has no light left (meaning it's either black, or it's a transparent color).

2. I never said recharge crystals are purple. I said the most powerful crystals were purple... this is based on the Atlantis purple crystals. I think recharge crystals can be any color. The reason they can't be mined is because they're too much of a hassle or too dangerous (I mean it could be an energy bomb if mining it destabilized it).

[Anonymouse]

Color / Charge / Capacity

Purple . 3MV .... 1,600kW·h/cm^3

Gold ... 160kV .. 8kW·h/cm^3

Red ..... 2.5kV .. 400kW·h/cm^3

Blue .... 1kV ..... 600kW·h/cm^3

Green .. 500V ... 100kW·h/cm^3

This is ugly. Please, use a table to make it look better.

Additionally, I disagree with the "Charge" column - firstly, charge is not in volts, voltage is - and secondly, why should they provide different voltages? I mean, the voltage is more likely to depend on what you're using to extract the energy. Remember that in LRR, they have to be put in the Power Station before they're any use (except for construction). Now we obviously only have one kind of crystal in the PC version, but it would make sense to have the Power Station generate the same voltage for the buildings at all time, to prevent frying/underpowering them?

Other than that, nice ideas.

[Amauros]

Color / Charge / Capacity

Purple . 3MV .... 1,600kW·h/cm^3

Gold ... 160kV .. 8kW·h/cm^3

Red ..... 2.5kV .. 400kW·h/cm^3

Blue .... 1kV ..... 600kW·h/cm^3

Green .. 500V ... 100kW·h/cm^3

1, This is ugly. Please, use a table to make it look better.

2, Additionally, I disagree with the "Charge" column - firstly, charge is not in volts, voltage is - and secondly, why should they provide different voltages? I mean, the voltage is more likely to depend on what you're using to extract the energy. Remember that in LRR, they have to be put in the Power Station before they're any use (except for construction). Now we obviously only have one kind of crystal in the PC version, but it would make sense to have the Power Station generate the same voltage for the buildings at all time, to prevent frying/underpowering them?

3. Other than that, nice ideas.

1. I wasn't aware that there was a table function for ip.boards. I'll fix that in a second.

Edit: Hows that?

2. No matter what you do, you can't control a source voltage at the source. You can increase/decrease AC voltage via transformers and you can decrease AC/DC voltage via resistors or any other electrical component. If you want to increase DC voltage, you must first convert it to AC via an alternator (or some other method) and then run the AC through a step-down transformer, then convert it back to DC. No matter what you do to a circuit, it will always have the same net-voltage and same net-power (the primary and secondary sides of a transformer are considered two separate circuits). What does change voltage at a source is running extra power to it from another source, or draining power from it (that's not always the case, it depends on what kind of source you're using).

Although you're right, charge isn't the correct term to use. Voltage is electric potential energy per unit charge (joules per coulomb). So I'll do a little research and see if I can find a more appropriate term (because I really don't want to use Voltage as the term). As for the PS extracting the energy and what not to make it usable, yes that's what would happen. For the most part, it would do that the same way we handle electricity between the power plant and a home.

The voltage directly out of the power plant is in the thousands, from there it goes to a transformer station and ups the voltage to the tens or even hundreds of thousands (depending on how far it has to travel). Then at another transformer station, the voltage is dropped to the thousands again, then at a local transformer in the powerlines to your house, it drops the voltage to a usable voltage. (I'm not placing specific numbers here because it varies by location)

The Power Station would process the crystal presumably into a fluid (like in the video on board the LMS), where then the power would be tapped into. Various control circuits would then send the appropriate voltage to all the buildings and building equipment. Here in the U.S, normal power is 120VAC at 60hz, whereas heavy machinery use 220VAC or 440VAC. So I assume that the Power Station would do similar job at whatever voltage specs the RR equipment run at.

3. Thanks.

---

Edit: Ohhh, now I know why I set the table like that. I wanted to imply that w/e type of energy the crystal had, once it was converted to usable (implied electrical) energy, they typically gave those ratings. The table is made by the geologists, for the geologists, and of the geologists to use as a general reference when scouting and scanning the caverns for preferable resources. (Rationally, we wouldn't mine every wall we could until we mined every last ounce of EC's, we would just take what's easiest/best/preferable and move on to the next cave)

[Anonymouse]

Aaaaaaaah, ok. I see what you mean, I guess, but one problem with the power station: It distributes the power via power paths (which have neat, sparkly and waste-of-electricity lights built into them ) to all the buildings, so the voltage can't really be changed for the separate buildings - each other building would have to have its own transformer to convert it to the correct voltage for that building. Those power paths are actually a pretty neat technology -- roads and power cables in one, and you can walk over them without frying yourself.

It seems you forgot to remove the newlines from the table though, it screws up on IP.Board if you have newlines in them because it isn't a standard feature but an add-on. Looks much better now though ;)

[Amauros]

1. ...one problem with the power station: It distributes the power via power paths (which have neat, sparkly and waste-of-electricity lights built into them ) to all the buildings, so the voltage can't really be changed for the separate buildings - each other building would have to have its own transformer to convert it to the correct voltage for that building.

2. Those power paths are actually a pretty neat technology -- roads and power cables in one, and you can walk over them without frying yourself.

3. It seems you forgot to remove the newlines from the table though, it screws up on IP.Board if you have newlines in them because it isn't a standard feature but an add-on. Looks much better now though

1. true, each building would indeed have to have it's own transformer using the logic presented. However, from an electrical engineering standpoint, having the source of power so close to the buildings would simplify things quite a bit. I mean those buildings are only a few feet away, not miles and miles away... but I don't want to complicate this further lol.

2. There are eco-green road concepts that feature such a design, but there are also concepts that feature roads as solar-panels (not your typical ones since roads have to withstand a lot of stress). I think they plan on building one of the first of the ladder design in a desert.

3. Yeah I'll see what I can do... I also forgot to make another table, which I'll work on soon.

[Tauka Usanake]

I think it was the first Mars Lego set that had a chrome-green color crystal. Any chance that would be put to anything? Also, and not to make anyone smite me, where do the Power Miner crystals stand? They were set as types of real life minerals, right? They have monsters that match them too.

[Amauros]

I have no comment on the PM crystals. Mainly because I don't know much about PM's and can't make an educated opinion.

[Lair]

I think it was the first Mars LEGO set that had a chrome-green color crystal. Any chance that would be put to anything? Also, and not to make anyone smite me, where do the Power Miner crystals stand? They were set as types of real life minerals, right? They have monsters that match them too.

No. Life on Mars had Biodium, something that gave fuel, oxygen and food to Martians. Mars Mission later had Green Crystals... essentially the Rock Raiders crystals (Brickonium).

Power Miner crystals have kinetic energy inside them, not green plasma stuff. And before you say it makes no sense... it's Power Miners. The whole concept of it is stupid.

Also, to Amauros, I'd like to say that Gold Crystals are probably more powerful than Purple. Gold's a fancy color, you know, and... well you get my point. You're correct on the approx. location of blue crystals, since they were in abundance in the PS1 shots (unlike the red ones replacing them). Gold ones, however, were only seen in one shot. It was a gold crystal, and it wasn't even an interface item, meaning it must be pretty special. But gold is probably higher. Also, Purple is only x10 Power...or am I not understanding that table? At any rate, that's what I think.