Yesterday I did my first run on the crystalline entity. What struck me in the encounter was that even though we were about 10-15 ships blasting away at it, it still just slowly regenerated HPs. The shards were of course a nuisance, but I'm sure if all of us were working together with a joint tactic, (not just flying in and shooting mindlessly like we did) they would have been handled nicely.

The entity was at 66 % HPs when suddenly for no apparent reason, it exploded and we won. Can anyone enlighten me as to why that happened?

(On a side note I found out that with focus on speed, instead of weapons or shields, I was slighty faster than the shards. So I tried to take aggro from as many as them as possible and just fly around the entity, and that worked pretty well. Kept them off everyone else's back. I even had time to damage the entity itself )

Maybe someone was emitting a high frequency graviton pulse?

Sounds like something that would happen in a Star Trek setting. Was that what happened in the series, or is that actually how its supposed to die?

Well that mission was changed drastically at the last minute so it really isn't well thought out yet.

The problem it had before is that it was super easy to kill, so it was farmed 24/7 by folks dumping billions of mines around it and blasting with cannons. Since highest DPS wins the loot, that was where you went as an escort to gather blue gear.

Can't do that now but it still isn't a well designed mission yet.

The entity was likely destroyed by someone using the "Ramming Speed" ability.

Next time you do this encounter, if the Entity suddenly is destroyed, look at the dps scores. ONE person will have wildly high DPS score, and it is likely because they used this ability (and took the loot as a result).

Actually someone DID have insanely high scores. One guy scored 10 times as much as I did, and I think I did ok.

Is ramming speed a symptom of a high level player joining in to kill the entity and take the loot?

I know it has been said before in other posts, but basing loot on how much dps you make is just blatantly unfair. Power gamers will always win the loot, and become even more powerful, while the casual players never win. Why don't they base it on active contribution time and make it a random drop for all that qualify?

I couldn't get into the fleet action after completing it once (to try out ramming speed), I was disappointed... :p

Almost everytime I saw someone use ramming speed to kill the entity, it wasn't to steal the loot. In fact, they give the loot to the next player on the list.

I see them come in and try to help out lower level players because the CE fight is so badly tuned it is almost impossible to win without ramming speed.

I still think its impressive that one attack can suck 66% of the entity's life. Perhaps two or more did it at the same time, but still...

In any case...warp 10...engage.