Tips & Tricks for enjoying ST:Timelines as a Free-to-Play or nearly FTP player

Posted: 26 January 2016 11:15 PM Hi everyone, I’m enjoying STT immensely, but the game comes with quite a number of hard-to-follow mechanics and gameplay options, and I thought it might be useful to compile the results of a few days scouring Reddit, these forums, and my own experiences, to reduce the learning curve for future players, and give some useful ideas for current players. I’ve organized this post roughly by topic, and welcome any feedback on my advice or additional tips for fellow players.



About me: I’m playing STT with the $4 monthly card but otherwise FTP. Based on my work schedule, I’ve been logging in during the morning, lunch break, and once in the evening, which is enough to complete all the dailies except for buying 3 items. I’m assuming for this guide a roughly similar play-style. Part 0: Additional resources (links)

* Official gameplay guide (for the very new): https://www.disruptorbeam.com/games/star-trek-timelines-game-guide

* Helpful FAQ thread (highly recommended): https://www.disruptorbeam.com/forums/stt/viewthread/47976/

* List of many of the possible character cards in-game: https://www.disruptorbeam.com/forums/stt/viewthread/47341/

* The official forums: https://www.disruptorbeam.com/forums/stt

* The Wiki: http://startrektimelineswiki.com/wiki/Main_Page

* Sub-reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/StarTrekTimelines/

* Mini-guide to farmable item locations: https://www.disruptorbeam.com/forums/stt/viewthread/48489/ (Thanks Axer!) Common Terms:

F2P/FTP: Free To Play

P2W/PTW, Whale: ‘Pay to Win’, large spending customers

Dev: Designer

UChat: Universal chat Part 1: Mindset and Currencies Mind-set: “All things that are difficult become easy with patience”

*For a FTP player, STT is very much a game where results happen more as the result of a slow accumulation of multiple sources of benefits than from a rapid race to the end. The chronitron mechanic encourages short bursts of 15-30 minute games and then 2-4 hours of doing something else.

* STT is very much a game of strategic resource management and number-fiddling. Finding and upgrading character equipment is the main activity of the game, and the missions scale in difficulty in ways that ensure that all players will eventually hit ceilings until they grind up character equipment and levels. It’s much closer to an older RPG model (Pokemon or FF7 for example) than most newer games.

* Somebody spending significant real money for dilithium (a ‘whale’) will have characters with better stats out-of-the-gate than a FTP player, but will run into their own roadblocks soon enough through the shuttle equipment system, which serves as an equalizer between having very strong-potential crew that are hard to advance (dilithium 4-5 star crew), and low end-potential crew that are easier to advance (1-3 star crew). Dilithium

* Dilithium is only available by purchase; there is no in-game way to acquire it

* Dilithium-quality items and characters can also be gotten in game through playing Dabo on free spins, or from some of the daily login bonuses, which can award blue/purple characters and items as well as dilithium time portal uses

* The “monthly card” awards 100 dilithium per day, resetting at midnight EST. It’s equivalent to $40 in buying dilithium directly.

* For a monthly card user, I suggest saving up for the 650 Dilithium time portal packs. You might also consider saving up to purchase a 3rd shuttle once you have a sizeable crew (perhaps after 3-4 pack purchases). Your first credit purchase each day is only 10 dilithium; useful if you need to reach a specific level for a faction item purchase. Credits

* Credits are useful to (1) upgrade gear; (2) buy time portal packs; and (3) buy individual items from faction stores.

* You can get credits from scanning, completing away missions, shuttle missions, or space battles, as level up awards (50K each time), and from completing daily quests Chronitrons – “Time is money, friend”

* This barely counts as a tip, but the “chronitron boosts” during the day can help extend gameplay by another 20 chronitrons. Do at least 20 chronitrons worth of missions before claiming the boost if possible so that they will continue to accrue as you do missions

* The VIP levels describe “up to 3 chronitron recharges” per day. Basically, VIPs can pay 150 dil for 40 chronitrons up to 3 times per day. The wording is pretty poor on the ability

* Captain levels contribute to max chronitrons. Level 28, for example, has around 80 chronitrons max, allowing captains of this level to do Warp 10 with 8-chronitron missions. Captains get a BIG experience boost when completing a mission for the very first time on each difficulty Merit:

* These accrue from gameplay and reset each day at midnight EST. Merits are spent at faction centers to purchase shuttle missions (faction missions) and to purchase items from factions.

* I find it worthwhile to check each faction center that might have an item your character needs, once per day, to see if they are offering it directly for merits, credits, or dilithium. The faction center list can be opened from the center of your main screen from the right-most button under your current planet. Faction stores reset at noon EST, and sometimes have a soft reset at midnight EST

* If you’re online near the daily reset and have already completed your daily goals, hold off on doing actions that might reward merit soon so you can do them and then claim the next day’s rewards right at the reset

* Wait to purchase credit/dilithium packs on a day when the daily reward gives a time portal use or when you have 180,000 Credits, so you can get the 3/3 Purchases daily reward (25 merit) (Next page to continue) Signature Aren’t you glad you brought me along? Tips & Tricks for enjoying ST:Timelines as a Free-to-play or nearly FTP player: https://www.disruptorbeam.com/forums/stt/viewthread/48081/ Profile

Posted: 26 January 2016 11:17 PM VIP Levels (quick notes for monthly card users)

* If you’re a brand new player and decide to spend $4 on a monthly card, do so before claiming your first 2 daily bonuses and you’ll get 2 of each of those rewards for a nice mini-boost at the start.

* A single monthly card gets VIP level 1. You get minor boosts to buying credits with Dilithium, and “Warp 4,” which allows you to pay 4 chronitrons to skip re-playing missions where you have already gotten 3 stars to get the same item rewards, though you don’t get experience for characters. Warp is good if you only have, say, 5 minutes to play and want to quickly burn up your chronitrons for items, or if you need several rewards from a mission that would be monotonous to grind for low exp. Warp 10 (at VIP level 3) does the same but for 10 missions in a row - very convenient!

* VIP level 2 (250 VIP, or 2 months of dilithium cards, or a monthly card and a $5 purchase) grants +10 crew members bringing the total to 35. The crew number increase at 4, 6, 8, etc. is the most useful part of VIP levels that I can see for frugal players. Part 2: Characters: Equipment, levels, training, advancing, and fusing Equipment

* It’s not obvious from looking at the game at first, but upgrading character equipment is the most important part of the game for continuing to advance the storyline. Upgrading all the items on a character lets you boost the character’s max level from 10 > 20 > 30 > onwards, and the items give boosts to skills as well.

* If an item shines yellow in the character’s inventory, then you own the item already. If the item shines green, then you have the components for that item and can build it for the character when they reach the necessary level.

* Faction stores will display a yellow or green icon on an item if the item is usable by a character

* If a character needs an item (blue color behind it), you can click the item to see where you get the components. I always try to get items from away team missions or space battles rather than faction missions wherever possible

* NOTE: Sometimes the game has bugs with guiding players on item rarity and missions. Items also come in levels of 1 star, 2 star, etc., and sometimes the item logo doesn’t display the correct rarity. Clicking directly on the item can show the actual rarity. See this thread for details: https://www.disruptorbeam.com/forums/stt/viewthread/47737

* For players with Promoted Sisko, an Uncommon Raktajino is awarded as a Rare Reward from “Behind Closed Doors” on Elite difficulty. You will also get an Astrometric Chart that you can use for Captain Janeway (a daily reward). (hat-tip: Centurion Matt on the forums) Characters:

* Compatible traits can often give 7-15 or more points, so a so-so crew who matches 2 or 3 traits can sometimes outperform someone with higher skill levels.

* In general, it’s safe to delete 1-star (white) characters as your crew fills up. HOWEVER, check the character traits first. Some 1-star characters have rare traits that unlock special mission paths and are hard to find except on that character. Some examples of characters to consider keeping include: Deanna Troi (empath), Sulu (Tactician), Chief Engineer Torres (a laundry list of traits), Commander Spock (Exobiology and Astrophysicist).

* 2-star (green) and 3-star (blue) characters offer a great mix of stats and usually only require 0-1 faction items per 10 levels. I suggest keeping green characters with only a single stat (such as Yar for Security), since the sole focus will keep them fairly competitive with blue-quality characters through episode 4.

* 4-star (purple) and 5-star (yellow) characters require a high number of faction items, which often limits them to level 10 or 20 for much longer. It’s also much less likely that you’ll find more copies to fuse, unlike green/blue characters. However, their raw stats are very high, and they have the highest potential in the end game.

* FTP players can gain blue-quality characters from: (1) daily rewards (like Tuvok or Wesley, or dilithium portal pack daily rewards); (2) episode rewards for episodes 2 onwards; (3) very rare drops from the credit packages. A purple Janeway is also a daily reward.

* Wesley has good science & decent engineering skills. Captain Janeway has good Command and moderate diplomacy & science skills. So if you keep this in mind, the priority areas for getting other crew members are security, medicine, diplomacy, and engineering.

* If you go over the crew cap, you won’t be able to use the new crew members, and you have 7 days to expand your crew cap (VIP level 4 or higher) or delete existing crew to make room for the new members. The timer will count down for you. Levels:

* Levels give stat boosts like items. Level advancement slows drastically at levels 24+. The max level is 99. Advancing

* You can advance a character when they have all of their item slots filled. This expands their max level by 10 and grants stats increases, and a new list of items to acquire. Training:

* Training grants a character some minor experience so you don’t have to drag that character through missions

* Try to Train a character at least 10 times each day for a daily merit reward Fusing:

* Fusing lets you combine 2 characters of equal stars to raise that character’s star level by 1, up to its max. This gives a big boost to stats.

* White/gray (1 star) characters cannot be fused

* Fusing only checks the highest level character fused. So you can fuse a 10 and a 4 or a 10 and a 1, and the result is the same Signature Aren’t you glad you brought me along? Tips & Tricks for enjoying ST:Timelines as a Free-to-play or nearly FTP player: https://www.disruptorbeam.com/forums/stt/viewthread/48081/ Profile

Posted: 26 January 2016 11:19 PM Part 3: Away team missions and shuttle missions Away team missions:

* Locked missions will become yellow if you select a character for the mission who can complete them. You can also see what that mission requirement is when you re-play a completed mission. Some common requirements are racial (Klingon, etc.) or skills (exobiologist). In my experience, Lt. Torres is very good at Season 1 and 2 requirements (as a Maquis and a Klingon), while Sisko is very good at Season 2 requirements (as a ‘Bajoran’, a Cultural Figure, and a Federation).

* More advanced mission difficulties become available once all the stars for a mission are completed (this is done by getting a critical on the mission objectives with stars)

* Sometimes the items you need might be on the more advanced settings for a mission – it’s useful to check before starting Shuttle missions:

* These start with 30 second missions before growing to 10 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, and finally 3 hours (you have 12 hours to respond to the 3-hour missions)

* Since these lock crew away from away missions, it’s best to do these last in a play session. However, they don’t lock crew from space combat

* New missions can be bought from faction centers for 75 merits

* These scale upwards in difficulty per faction as you do more missions for that faction. If you do too many for a single faction before your crew has leveled sufficiently, you will see your success rate chance drop significantly Part 4: Space combat, building new ships Space combat:

* In the current version, there are 3 types of boosts: evasion (the Constellation ship comes with an innate brief boost to this), attack, and accuracy. Since you get 3 stars on a mission from finishing within 20 seconds (typically 160 seconds on timer), it’s best to use attack+ and accuracy+ crew, or to chain +attack characters after each other.

* Boosts of the same type overlap, they don’t stack additively. So if you have a +2 attack and a +3 attack, it’s best to wait for one to finish (goes from gold to blue building up again) before starting the next.

* Each ship crew slot has a best-crew-type option, like Command or Diplomacy. Equipping the right crew will enable stronger boosts. If you unequip your crew from the ship you can see what each slot needs.

* Crew also have passive bonuses to stats based on their level, items, and personal characteristics. You can see these in the Manage Crew area when you click on ‘Information’

* As soon as you manage to get enough schematics for a better ship, start grinding the ship battles for stars. With decent crew you shouldn’t have any problem getting 3-star on Elite and Epic for at least the first couple of episodes, and the experience from those will allow you to level exceptionally fast. Additionally, when doing this, you should only need one or two “optimal” crew who may be max-leveled (usually one for attack, one for accuracy). Be sure to fill any additional spots with crew who just need free Elite/Epic experience. (hat-tip to onlysane1 on reddit for this one) Building new ships:

* This will be a long, long process for FTP, and slightly less painful for monthly card users. You need ~600 schematics to build most ships. Huge amounts drop in the dilithium time portal (150 schematics at a time), but otherwise they only drop 1-15 from missions, scanning, the credits portal, or shuttle missions. So FTP players will only upgrade when lucky from daily rewards, while Monthly players and whales will have more opportunities to upgrade ships

* Do NOT buy schematics from faction stores. They are very over-priced at this time

* Episode 5 gives a reward at the end of 50 schematics for either the defiant or nova-class ships. However, it may take FTP players 3-4 months to complete EP5. Well, that’s everything for now. I apologize if I got anything wrong, and please feel free to give suggestions for additional info or to improve the information above. I hope everything I’ve collected is helpful for some people, and thank you to DB for a fun game! Changelog:

2/26: Updated all sections with new info based on bug fixes, new forum resources, etc. Signature Aren’t you glad you brought me along? Tips & Tricks for enjoying ST:Timelines as a Free-to-play or nearly FTP player: https://www.disruptorbeam.com/forums/stt/viewthread/48081/ Profile

Posted: 26 January 2016 11:32 PM nice post very helpful information Profile

Posted: 26 January 2016 11:39 PM Awesome guide, thank you for writing all this up! Profile

Posted: 27 January 2016 02:27 AM Now this is actually useful collection of information. I do question the part about Warp however. From what I understood you get warp 1 from VIP 1 and then later get Warp 10 from VIP 3 I think it was? Anyways, those open two options for you: Warp 1 means you can run once per button press 3 starred mission quickly (your crew gets no experience, but captain still does) or in case of Warp 10 it acts as if you did it 10 times. Chroniton cost for that is based on mission used. Profile

Posted: 27 January 2016 02:35 AM Nice work!! Signature https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnaZQWmjuUY “You accomplish exactly as much as the people who serve you decide you’ll accomplish, and nothing more.” Funny joke about guides I have 3 threads sticked in 3 different forum sections. You saying you don’t know me? Profile

Posted: 27 January 2016 05:28 AM Excellent post, very useful information for beginners. I’m especially thankful for the tip about “Behind closed doors” on Elite as I just got the chart I needed to advance Janeway! Signature Fleet member - Quark’s Holosuite Profile

Posted: 27 January 2016 06:29 AM An excellent guide :-D I’m glad to see I could be of help Signature Minor contributor to the STT Wiki Profile

Posted: 27 January 2016 08:14 AM I start to see schematics packages (more than 1 schematic) in faction stores. Signature Samsung S6 Edge - Android 6.0.1 | Samsung Tab S - Android 5.0.2 | Samsung S4 Mini - Android 4.4.2 | AndyWin 4.2.2 Profile

Posted: 27 January 2016 08:22 AM Very nice write up! Signature “Seize the time - live now! Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.” ~ Jean Luc Picard / Kamin

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Posted: 27 January 2016 09:18 AM I am doing FTP - I’ve found that the most frustrating part is needing an item to equip and spending all of your chronitons on trying to get it when it’s really random. Question: What is the best way to get free shuttle missions? And another - for example, I have the opportunity to do a shuttle mission for the Augments, but I was doing my best to NOT work for them. Is this the sort of thing where you should just do it anyway to get the rewards? I guess faction doesn’t mean too much in this game? And Merits - you said they reset each day? Does that mean you lose your merits each day and should try to spend them every day? Signature http://www.divinemercy.com/ Profile

Posted: 27 January 2016 09:27 AM Fantastic guide, Riker! Explains a lot of the basics and you’ve included some great tips for players who actually don’t want to spend much. Profile

Posted: 27 January 2016 10:47 AM cardassianninja - 27 January 2016 09:18 AM I am doing FTP - I’ve found that the most frustrating part is needing an item to equip and spending all of your chronitons on trying to get it when it’s really random. Well people who pay have the same problem. Actually slightly worse, as they often have ultra-rare aliens who require ultra-rare alien stuff. cardassianninja - 27 January 2016 09:18 AM What is the best way to get free shuttle missions? Two only ways: starting a new episode (they give you some transmission for each of the disputed factions) or scans. One is very limited, the other unreliable. cardassianninja - 27 January 2016 09:18 AM I have the opportunity to do a shuttle mission for the Augments, but I was doing my best to NOT work for them. Is this the sort of thing where you should just do it anyway to get the rewards? I guess faction doesn’t mean too much in this game? Factions, as implemented at the moment, are not very coherent in the story. But getting Science Experiments (required for a bunch of characters, including Coffee Janeway and Ensign Crusher) is done the best via Augment missions. So… if you don’t do Augment missions, you have to buy their specific equipment from their store. cardassianninja - 27 January 2016 09:18 AM And Merits - you said they reset each day? Does that mean you lose your merits each day and should try to spend them every day? You don’t lose them. It just means you can farm the same goal for merits every day. Doing 5 missions per day will always give you 10 merits. Signature Minor contributor to the STT Wiki Profile

Posted: 27 January 2016 11:18 AM Thanks for the guide. Question on merits and shuttle missions: I was also wondering about buying that third shuttle bay. I seem to use most all of my merits daily so would I have enough missions to make use of a third shuttle? Signature Fleet for serious Trekkers: https://www.disruptorbeam.com/forums/stt/viewthread/48706/ Profile