WHAT IS THIS!?!? An invasion! A rival colony come to do battle, crab against crab! So be it! We shall test each others crab training skills! It's a crab toouuurrrrnameeeennntttt!!!
— Crab Raider
Overview
The Crab Tournaments are a series of events involving the Crab Raiders faction. They trigger when a Crab Raider spots a player character inside a base owned by the player, and the faction reputation with them is less than 50. The Crab Queen must also still be in power.
Over the course of the events, several raids will attack your base, including a number of unique crabs. It is impossible to truly lose the tournament, as it just loops on itself if you repeatedly lose the rounds of the tournament. Achieving victory in the final round of the tournament will result in gaining an alliance with the Crab Raiders faction.
Despite being implied to be a battle between crabs, you don't actually need any crabs or even animals to participate. The raiders will simply refer to your crab as the "Mystery Crab" throughout the tournament regardless of if you have one or not.
Variants
Once spotted by a Crab Raider patrol, the first event Crab Tournament will be triggered in 12-32 hours.
Crab Tournament
The first round of the tournament, consisting of 8-12 Crab Raiders, 10 Crabs, and Titus. If the raiders are defeated, the Crab Quarter Finals event will be triggered in 72-120 hours. If the raiders are victorious, the first round will trigger again in 72-120 hours.
Crab Quarter Finals
The second round of the tournament, consisting of 12-15 Crab Raiders, 10 Crabs, and Barnabus. If the raiders are defeated, the Crab Semi Finals event will be triggered in 72-100 hours. If the raiders are victorious, the Crab Remedial Round event will be triggered in 72-100 hours.
Crab Semi Finals
The third round of the tournament, consisting of 14-21 Crab Raiders, 15 Crabs, and Mr Gigantus. If the raiders are defeated, the Crab Tournament Final event will be triggered in 70-140 hours. If the raiders are victorious, the Crab Remedial Round event will be triggered in 72-120 hours.
Crab Tournament Final
The fourth and final round of the tournament, consisting of 20-25 Crab Raiders, 15 Crabs, and The Crabinator. If the raiders are defeated, the Crab Champion event will be triggered in 1 hour. If the raiders are victorious, the Crab Remedial Round event will be triggered in 72-120 hours.
Crab Remedial Round
A special round of the tournament, which only triggers if the player is defeated in one of the rounds of the tournament. It consists of 8-10 Crab Raiders and 10 Crabs. If the raiders are defeated, the Crab Quarter Finals event will be triggered again in 72-100 hours. If the raiders are victorious, the Crab Remedial Round event will be triggered again in 72-100 hours.
Crab Champion
The final event in the tournament, which consists of 8-10 Crab Raiders and 10 Crabs, but is non-hostile. Once it arrives, they will give a short speech announcing the player's "Mystery Crab" as the grand champion of the tournament, instantly allying the player to the Crab Raiders faction. Shortly afterwards the raiders will take their leave and return home.
Tips and bugs
- It is possible to lower your standing with the Crab Raiders in a controlled way to below 50 by repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempting a sneak knockout on the Crab Queen. This is useful if you have more then 50 reputation already but still want the Crab Tournament to happen. Dropping the reputation to 49 in this way will anger the whole throne room.
- The terrain in Crab Raider territory is rocky and uneven. This causes the bigger crabs to get stuck easily. It may be necessary to leave the base to intercept the stuck crabs in order to complete a tournament round successfully.
- A war party will typically spawn in at the closest Crab Village. Building close to it may reduce the AI path finding troubles.
- It is possible for the Crab Tournament to trigger on NPC factions, if they happen to have a squad in the player's town and a Crab Raider patrol spots them. As the dialog only checks if they are in a player owned town, not if the character they see is a player.