How do crystallurgy weapons work? -> component descriptions

[capnq]

how do shard cannons skip armor?

I think the idea is that the shards are so dense and moving so fast that they just punch straight through the armor, leaving too small a hole in the armor to sigificantly reduce its protection against other weapons. The damage to internals could be more due to explosive decompression than anything else.

and crystalline armorworks?

Probably some kind of piezoelectric effect. (There are certain kinds of crystals known to produce electricity while under pressure.)

Why normal races cant reproduce the Energy Dampener, the Solar Panels or the Energy Transmitting Lense?

Some mods make the racial techs researchable at a much higher cost for races without the attribute, but I forget offhand which mods they are.

How does the energy dampener work anyway?

That could just be an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) temporarily knocking out the ship's systems, or it could be something more exotic using some kind of wave interference pattern.