Gems

A large gem

Crystals or gems are the currency in Starblast.io, which can be gathered by mining asteroids, and can be used for upgrading ship stats or proceeding to a higher tier, in addition, they can be exchanged for credits, which have been added due to the new system of secondary weapons and allow for the purchase of various assistant pods or missiles, spacemines and other weapons.

Larger crystals are worth more, typically found in large asteroids, and have a low pitch sound effect when picked up, while small crystals have a higher pitched sound when picked up. Crystals can also be used to buy lives when your crystal cargo is full but you only can buy one life at a time. They also function as a second layer of defense for ships once the shields have been overcome.

In Team Mode gems can be contributed to stations or to the weapons store, the gems get turned into credits which allow you to purchase the secondary weapon of your choice. In Survival Mode the player has to press w to access the weapons store.

When out of shields, the player will use the crystal cargo he has as shields so when he gets hit, rammed or shot he will automatically loose some of his cargo. this is useful in Deathmatch because to win a fight you have to keep collecting crystals so you have a full cargo, so every crystal matters!