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Ever wanted to control your own starship? Yup, almost all of us probably have. That’s the thinking behind Star Trek Trexels II, except with a scattering of F2P elements that means it’s a little long winded.

Fortunately, it is quite fun, as long as you don’t mind only playing it in short doses. Dip in, complete a mission, and head out for a while. It’s kind of like how Fallout Shelter plays out, but suitably different to capture your interest all over again. The cutesy 8-bit pixel art graphics are super charming too.

To help you dodge spending real cash on the game, we’ve taken a look at some of the key parts to Star Trek Trexels II so you know exactly what to do to succeed, and how to avoid spending too much money along the way.

So what do I need to know about Star Trek Trexels II?

Star Trek Trexels II is all about developing your ship and, eventually, your fleet of ships. You’re exploring space and space is understandably pretty vast. There’s a lot to take in. For the most part, you build new rooms and facilities on your ship then participate in missions on a nearby planet. These missions involve wandering around with your team, solving simple puzzles or shooting down Borg enemies.

It’s a fairly varied mixture of things to do, but you need to keep on top of stuff. There’s a lot of waiting around so you need to know what to expect.

The art of patience

It’s important to be patient when playing Star Trek Trexels II. Pretty much everything is based around a timer – whether that’s training a new officer up in combat or simply waiting for a facility to finish being built.

It’s good to use your time wisely, so you don’t waste any through mismanagement. You can’t use a room while it’s being built, so it’s smart to plan ahead. Choose to build a room just before you log off, for minimal disruption. It’ll carry on building while you’re AFK.

A lot of the time, progress is limited by the game itself. There’s only ever so much you can do without buying a ton of resources. Just make sure you check in frequently to keep on top of things.

Upgrade, upgrade, upgrade

Upgrading everything is important if time consuming. You want to level up your captain, the rest of your team, and the rooms on your ship. Always keep busy. Stick someone in training, build a new room if you can. There’s no point having resources spare and hardly anything built. Invest!

Upgrading the rooms improves their functionality, such as provides you with more resources in the long term. Speculate to accumulate is key here, but don’t be surprised if it takes you a while to get enough resources to upgrade in the first place.

Training is pretty useful

Training your team members is important but frustratingly, you need a different training room for different skills. Combat, engineering, diplomacy, and so forth all need a different room. When you’re low on resources, you need to pick and choose carefully what you want to focus on.

I went with combat initially, as I figured my team is no use dead. It worked out pretty well with Sulu turning into a badass.

Having said that, plan who you train carefully. Each team member has different base stats. It’s pointless to train a weak team member in combat if it just brings them up to the puny standards of another officer. Play to their strengths and upgrade accordingly. Work on forming a kind of specialism program, with each officer having their own strengths for you to focus on.

Also, look at their action points. These points tell you how much they can move around in a mission. Long AP is pretty useless so don’t bother with them. You want officers with 4-5 AP rather than a pitiful 3.

Feel free to pick out some favorites though. This is a Star Trek game so you’ll see some familiar names like Wesley Crusher, Captain Pike, Uhuru, Sulu, and many others along the way. It’s all part of the cute charm going on amongst the long winded surface.

Missions

Star Trek Trexels II offers a few different mission types that also overlap a little. Typically, you can send between 2 and 4 members of your team down to the planet or base involved. Read the description of the mission. Does it mention the need for combat troops or engineering experts? That’s not a vague suggestion. That’s the game’s way of telling you to do exactly that. Ignore it at your peril.

For combat missions, pick out your strongest fighters. Often, you’ll be up against quite a few different Borg enemies, and they tend to be a little stronger than you.

Combat is turn based so you move to approach the enemy then choose to attack. There’s a certain amount of luck here, with occasional moments to inflict extra blows. Don’t rush into anything, especially if your team member is quite weak. Use your strongest fighters to go in first, and hope for the best.

If you’re lucky, your combat mission might also have allies such as Vulcans who help you out by shooting at the Borg too. It all adds up pretty fast.

Engineering missions are more sedentary. You end up approaching masts to activate them either diplomacy or engineering. Sometimes, you need to do this in the right order, but doing something incorrectly isn’t a big deal. It just slows things down. Don’t fret, and just keep at it. Again, high engineering scores are important though.

Whatever the mission type, there are various resources to collect on the ground. Just walk over them and gain a few extra bits and pieces. It’s nothing major but it adds up. Very slowly.

Inevitably, when on a mission, one of your teammates will eventually succumb and need reviving. You have two options. Either spend your premium currency to revive them or watch a video. Always watch the video. It’s a waste of premium currency otherwise. If it happens too often on the same mission though, you will be stuck with only the premium currency option. Yup, it sucks.

Check the objective box to the left of the screen to see what your goals are for the mission. It’s a simple tick list of requirements. Completed them? The game suggests you beam out immediately. Ignore it! Keep exploring the area for precious resources. There’s no time limit and you never know what you might find.

At the end of a mission, you’re also rewarded with experience. Watch a video and that experience doubles. There’s no good reason why you wouldn’t watch the video. Double experience, right? It makes a massive difference, especially early on when you’re trying to level up fast and unlock new stuff.

Check out the extras

Star Trek Trexels II‘s tutorial does a pretty pitiful job of telling you what to do. It doesn’t even tell you about combat training (so it’s lucky we did). When you’re looking around your ship, keep an eye out to the left of the screen. See an officer face logo? Tap on that and you can typically solve a very simple mission in exchange for a bunch of resources. It’s worth doing every time it shows up.

Additionally, on the left hand side is all the missions and achievements you can complete. If a number is next to them, that means there are bonuses to claim. Get to it. There’s no fanfare here so Star Trek Trexels II will never inform you of it.

Check out Quark’s on a regular basis too. About every 8 hours, you can spin the wheel and gain some freebies. Again, it adds up. And you’re constantly low on resources, so you need all the help you can get.

Expect to only take 5-10 minutes with Star Trek Trexels II every session. It’s good to take part in as many missions as you can but if your team member is injured, they need time to heal up. It’s a suicide mission to tackle the Borg at half health so never do it. Instead, be patient.

Keep at it

Star Trek Trexels II is a real slow burner. Almost frustratingly so early on. Unlocking PvP is a good start but it’s typically really quiet. It’s the addition of premium currency rewards, new planets, and extra ships that make things more interesting. You do get to a point where things come a little more readily, and you’ve got a solid routine figured out. Honest. Nothing is handed to you on a plate so expect to chip away at the game for the first few days, before new and interesting content is unlocked.