InSynduality: Echo of Ada, humanity remains only in small pockets after a rainfall that killed the majority of civilization. To that end, the Cradlecoffin mechs were created to explore the surface and, most critically, mine AO Crystals. These crystals, which only appeared after the rainfall, were a highly capable power source, and people will pay a high price for them.

As a Drifter, the majority of your time will be spent excavating AO crystals to build up your personal bank account. While the act of digging up these crystals is quite easy, there’s a bit more mechanical depth going on here than it seems at first glance. Here’s everything you need to know about excavating AO crystals and how to get rich quick.

How Excavation Works

In the tutorial,excavating AO crystals is one of the first things you’ll end up doing, and it will likely be the last thing you’ll ever do in the game, too. It is the one constant that you can always guarantee. There will always be more AO crystals to mine, and they are the safest form of income the game offers you.

The act of excavating is simple. Youuse the AO Search abilitywith your Magus which sends out a pulse across the map. Any AO crystals they find will be marked on the map temporarily. Once you reach them, you simplyhold the excavation button until the crystal shatters, at which point you pick up the shards that drop from it. Easy-peasy.

That’s all there is to it. The depth of the system comes in the variety of the AO crystals you can find, and the Excavators you can use. You start with a common rarity one, and thatdoesn’t let you mine anything other than low and regular-purity crystals. Better Excavators let you mine better crystals. So your goal should always be to get the best Excavator you can.

Any Excavator can mine any size of crystal if it’s a low enough purity, butbetter Excavators mine large crystals faster.

Tiers Of AO Crystals

There are two main factors to consider when it comes to excavating AO crystals -their size, and their purity. Size is a pretty simple factor to consider as it is immediately apparent visually. Bigger crystals drop both more shards, and larger ones. The bigger the shard, the more it weighs, but the more money you’ll get from it.

When you use AO Search,the approximate size of an AO crystal will be marked, with smaller ones showing a single crystal on the map, and larger ones having multiple smaller crystals bunched together, or one larger crystal. Prioritise these over smaller ones.

When you begin mining an AO crystal,it will attract any nearby Endersto your location, so keep an eye on your surroundings.

Purity is a harder aspect to see for yourself. At a distance, you can’t know what purity a crystal will be, and most Magus can only inform you of the purity when it comes into your line-of-sight. Typically,you can tell the purity by the vibrancy of the AO crystal. If it’s dull, then it will be lower quality, where if it has a bright orange glow inside, it will be higher purity.

The highest-purity AO crystals will alsohave a purple aura around them. You need at least a blue-rarity Excavator to mine these ones.

A final method to test the purity of an AO crystal is by the colour of the excavation icon. The colour it fills with varies, being white, green, or blue.These colours indicate the average rarity of the crystal. So if it’s white, you’re more than likely only going to get low-purity crystals, whereas if it’s blue, you’re getting at least one high-purity crystal.

Tips For Getting High-Purity Crystals

You can go through the game slow-and-steady, mining every crystal you come across, though this method leaves a lot up to chance, and can end up being a very slow process. Mine smart, not hard. Here are a few tips on how to make your excavating that much faster, and get rich quick.

Weather Gazer Magus can alsotrack where there will be rainfall, letting you plan which crystals to excavate and where to maximise gains. Even better is the fact that crystals that have had their purity boosted by rainfall can still be mined by Excavators that match non-boosted crystal.

Following these tips, youshould be able to rack up plentiful rare AO crystalsin no time. Just make sure another player doesn’t destroy you before you reach the escape elevator.