ABOUT SHUTTLE EVENTS

One of the most annoying events I can think about are the Shuttle Faction events, as soon as you hit the 3 hour clockcounter it can take ages to get the next prize.
Well I brought you today a mini guide to this shuttle events with tricky tips.

For starters:

Faction events will show up on purple inside the faction shuttle menu

There are at least two kinds of faction events:
-feeding one faction with missions
-feeding three factions fighting against each other (better ones)

When you complete a mission the clockcounter to complete mission will start rising
It will start from 30 secs to 1 min > 2 min > 5 min > 10 min and so on until you hit 3 hours which make things extremely slowpaced.


Tips:
As soon as the event starts use your shuttles to send your weakest lower level characters to complete the missions, that will be more than enough even with level 1 crewmates, help using your skillbuffs to hit the 98-99% of success rate if needed.

Send your 2 free shuttles and wait for the to come back after 30 secs, BUT DO NOT complete or retrieve the prizes (this is very important):
By doing this you will not be able to get the crew you sent but you will be able to RECYCLE the shuttle and keep the clockcounter on 30 secs (Nice).

Now you can recycle your two shuttles, you wnt be able to retrieve your crew but the shuttles will be active.

You can do this until two things happens:
-You have sent all your crew available. (keep in mind missions may require from 1 to 5 crewmates)
-You hit a maximum of 15 mission PER FACTION.
This means that you can recycle shuttle for a maximum of 45 active missions.

when you don’t have anymore crew to send or you hit the top 15 mission now is time to retrieve your teamcrew. The shuttle menu will show all completed missions from left to right in order of start. This means if you followed this guide your most competent crew will be in the far right next to the common missions. Start retrieving only one team, by doing this the clock counter will start rising like shown before, (30 secs >1 min >2 min > 5 min etc)

Because of the top 15 mission mechanics and the retrieving rising clock mechanic you can only start this phase ONE shuttle at a time, if you clear your 30 secs mission hastly you will soon find yourself with the 3 hours clockcounter (pretty bad :\ )

During this phase try to spend your weaker clockbuffs (5 mins-10 mins-1hour) over and over, use your best suited crew, recycle the shuttle till you hit the 3 hours barrier.

when this happens now is time to retrieve all of your crewmates it wont make rise the clockcounter anymore beyond 3 hours, and now is the time, if you have spare shuttle tokens to spend them here.

Now you can play normally but I suggest you:
If you have few crew try to send one shuttle at a time with your best crew and a skill buff so you can be around or over 93-95% success rate per trip

If you have a lot of powerful crew then try to spend your best clockbuffs ASAP but keep an eye on success rate higher than 93-95%

During worktime or sleeptime you can take advantage of boxbuffs that double your rewards, but keep in mind they will rise the counter to complete a mission to 6-9 hours and wont rise your success rate too much so keep an eye on this.

I hope this tricks serve you well, enjoy.


Play long and prosper.

 ABOUT GUIDES AND LINKS (Guideliness)]

As I stated before there are few guides out there for beginners and freeplayers, nevertheless some sources excels, here I give you some links to one guide that I think it stands out as a beginnners guide.

I´ll try not to do a redundant guide with the same info as they have, but I´ll keep throwing tips and counseling about a consistent and good game play.

1. https://www.bluestacks.com/blog/game-guides/star-trek-timelines/play-free-en.html#:~:text=As%20an%20F2P%20player%2C%20your,crew%20members%2C%20and%20even%20ships.

2. https://www.bluestacks.com/blog/game-guides/star-trek-timelines/stt-early-game-guide-en.html

3. https://www.bluestacks.com/blog/game-guides/star-trek-timelines/stt-crew-guide-en.html

Enjoy,

Play long and prosper

 ABOUT MERITS AND PRIZES (Merits)

Merits are those “red star” currency you can expend inside the Timeportal (store).
Merits are gained through several ways:

-Dismissing crew
-Daily reward
-Calendar reward
-Fleet reward
-Missions

Early in the game your main source of merits will be calendar and daily rewards and mission, thought this is a very slow process. I’ll give you two big tips.

1. Join a Fleet: I wasn’t aware of this before and I tend to play alone, but joining a big fleet with players that routinely do daily missions will be an important daily source of Merits.

2. As soon as you reach mid game and (you have completed let’s say… Episode 7) you should have a big crew and you should have completed the common and uncommon crew members and raised them to full 2 stars because you will get copies of them.
From this point by dismissing this copies your Merit income (along with the fleet rewards) will skyrocket.

And you will be asking yourself… why are those merits so important?
Well because of the Honor Hall (store) inside the time portal. Push the Merit Icon to get inside.

The first thing you will notice is that there are several characters here:
Dr phlox 5 stars
Khaless 5 Stars
Crusher 5 Stars
EMH Doctor 2 Stars
Stargazer Picard 1 stars

All of this are great for your team, crusher 2 stars is pretty common along Kess, you won’t need EMH, and SG Picard is not an outstanding choice either, pick them when you are going to level up to 100 so you can complete collections.
Crusher 5 stars is the obvious choice since High level medics are the least common crew you will find.
if you happen by luck to have a good medic, pick Khaless if you need security and command, or pick phlox if you need engineering, science and some medical.

 Again EMH and Stargazer is not needed and only pick it when you are going to rise them for level 100 immortal, that way you will have free space in your barracks.


 Now what about the other prizes?

-Replicator rations: These are a waste of merits, you can use your excess of items as fuel for the replicator, avoid this choice like plague.

-Hologram training: These are common to come by doing anything literally and are not worth your merits, again, avoid this like plague.

-Honorable citations: Now thing are turning interesting, avoid buying the 2-3 stars citations. Is best to get a copy of the crew you are trying to get and fuse them. Nevertheless there are some “rare” crewmen among them (for example getting a kazon is pretty rare among green, but getting a picard or crusher or seven level 2  is pretty common, also getting a Chakotay is pretty common but getting an Owaga 2 is kind of scarce, getting a copy of “stargazer picard” by random is impossible, handle with care)
Bout I would say, don´t buy 2-3 stars citations.

Now, citations level 4 and 5 are worth it, since is kind of unlikely you will get several copies of an specific crewmate at this level.

 

SuperRare-Legendary Behold: This items are interesting because, theoretically you could get a cheap copy of a level 4-5 crewmate or a totally new crewmate, but...
but, because of its huge random nature you could end up with a horrible monster abomination or ridicule dressed alien, (I like Spacetheme stuff just a personal choice)

Or you could end up with a redundant crewmate, (let´s say you have two level 5 high command char, one high science and one high security, you need medical, engineering or diplomacy and you get a random high command char, again).

One great use of the random 45.000 merit 5 star crew is that, in case of you haven´t got not even one or just one 5 star chars, well: here is your chance to reinforce your crew.

Don’t overlook merits, remember, early is not very usefull but midgame will help you reinforce your 4stars crew and get some 5 stars crew

 

Enjoy,

Play long and prosper

ABOUT POWER LEVEL UP VS EVEN LEVELING UP (level up) Ver. 1.1

 

I have read on chats that the best strategy is to have a single char and rise it ASAP to level 100 and keep like this.

While this might seem pretty straight forward Since it is simpler, I don’t think that’s the best option of managing your crew and we will see why.

Let’s say you are on an Elite mission which requires 200 Diplomacy trait, your highest character on this trait is 130 Diplomacy and is guaranteed to fail, and next you have a 100 Diplomacy char, even weaker… but wait you see the mission traits which show empath and Starfleet and that char of yours is a Deanna Troi, which happens to have those skills and you throw her and BAM!!!

100 Base diplomacy Skill + 50 Empath + 50 starfleet + (15-30) for Bonus skill and PWNED mission Overkill.

As you can see is really important to check on your characters traits so high level is not everything on this game.

 

Based on this I don’t think power level a few chars are a good idea, you will be stuck at one point or another. 

Nevertheless is not advisable to rise all of your current chars, since it will make the whole process of level up extremely slow.

I suggest you to gather as much chars as possible, when close to the limit, buy ASAP the credit barracks to increase your crew capacity, dismiss what you don’t like (be careful on this, I´ll make a dismiss guide later).

And keep the chars you like marked with a heart (is not joke, on the lower right corner of a profile char you can see a heart, this will make it a preferred crewmate). 

Among those crewmates you like, try to rise them evenly and check often their skills and traits.

By leveling up evenly a bunch of 20-30 crewmates you like, with good skills distributed evenly you will quickly unlock all kinds of missions and cadet challenges.

The only downside to this is that you will get very late the bonus for “Immortalized level 100 full stars crewmate, (we will discuss that later) but given the choice, is much faster and profitable (Ferengi smile) to unlock all kind of mission and even elite and epic ASAP.

Enjoy.

Play long and prosper.

 

ABOUT BOOST AND KITS (Brief explanation and Tips) Ver. 1.1


Inside the “Time Portal” you will find a store called Boost and kits, it sells booster supplies for shuttle missions and Kits. As a free player I advise you:

-NEVER expend credits on this boost, NEVER EVER expend dilithium on boosts or kits.

-The boosts you get from Credit option are rather weak, (rise only 2-3-5% at most) use those credits on standard items and crewmates

-To be fair, there are plenty ways to get this boost as free prizes, the most common is through cadet missions, and once you advance further in the game you will find yourself with a huge stockpile of this boosts, you will start gathering them really fast. I even end up using some of the simpler booster packs as rations

-Though, free simple boosts are helpful early in the game and situational on late game.
For example let’s say you have a 3 crewmates which combined give you 93% of success but you want make sure to not fail, then you throw a simple boost for extra 95-96% success.
This doesn’t mean, by all means you should expend a single credit nor dilithium on this items.

-Finally the Booster kits, which reduce the amount of chronitons used on missions for about 20% and increase the credit and experience gain are useful but also situational. A free player cannot keep up with this and having one of this kits is a very rare sight, only through events and probably you won’t be able to get those until you have a powerful crew base.

 If you happen to get one of this kits, try to save it for Galaxy, Hybrid, skirmish events (pretty useful) and do not use it on normal play game or during Faction events (shuttles take too long it will be wasted) use them sparingly.

Play long and prosper.

 

ABOUT THE CORRECT USE OF FREE GIFTS (Free gift) Ver. 1.1


you will have noticed that sometimes when you finish a mission or you complete certain actions it will appear a flashing orange sign showing you an option of free gift after watching some publicity or marketing videos. While tedious you might want to take advantage on this, especially if you have advance on higher levels.

As far as I played you can get this “free” Gifts:

1. Chronitons
2. Scan (scan for transmissions)
3. Credit Mission
4. Dabo Wheel spin
5. Double mission reward
6. Cadet challenge ticket

(There are other free gifts but they don’t fall on this category)

What I want you to notice is that this gifts seem to be linked, in a way that if you use, for example, the double reward the other gifts will dissapear, (not always, keep reading), but most likely spending a free gift it will count for one use and you will have to wait for another chance.

Further research will be needed to determinate how those free gifts show up, it seems it works on an hourly schedule but it might also be of number of missions accomplished in a period of time.


Nevertheless let´s take a look on them:

1. Free Chronitons (10 free chronitons)
Inside the Daily mission menu you will see a chroniton boost timer, which is very usefull.
Sometimes it will offer you 10 free chronitons.
This option is useful at early stages but as soon as you unlock a free warp mission by completing 3 stars on that specific mission, this option will be the least profitable (Ferengi grin).

Lets say you completed full 3 stars of an Episode 3 Mission, and the mission is 14 chronitons to complete. In this case is better to check the availability of the other gifts since they seem to be linked.
If available it will always be a better option to have a free warp of a mission of 10 or more chronitons rather than taling this 10 free.
Remember, this gift is only usefull on very early stages of the game.

 

2. Scan (scan for transmissions)
ALWAYS, take the free scan if possible. Scans are the source of the very elusive transmissions, it will also help you to finish the 3 scan daily mission fast enough.
Don´t think it twice go for the scan to get a random transmission.

 

3. Credit Mission
This one is probably the most useful and versatile out of all. Whenever you are about to start a mission that you have completed under the 3 stars goal, you might see this free warp ticket.
Credit mission shines when you have completed a bunch of areas with level 3 stars goals and those mission are 12-14 or higher chronitons fee.
(We will discuss later the importance of completing 3 stars mission goal later)

 

4. Dabo Wheel spin
This is a tricky one, the free spin doesn’t seem to follow the other prices mechanics and it looks like it throws a free spin 12 hours after reset, so this one is rare.

For a better explanation check this link:
https://startrektlfreeplayershrine.blogspot.com/2020/12/about-thecorrect-use-of-dabo-wheel-dabo.html

 

5. Double mission reward
whenever you finish a mission you might happen to have the chance to double your rewards, this gift seems to be directly linked to the warp credit mission link.
This gift is EXTREMELY useful when you are attempting to get rare rewards from missions. Sometimes the rewards are rare ship schematics and even dilithium on higher levels, you might not have the time to do this but before attempting a rare reward with a powerful crewmate check what is it, and of you see is a level 3-4-5- ship schematics or dilithium or a very rare item I suggest you to be a little patient and expend your double reward on this missions.
(Later I will make a list of missions with ships schematics and free dilitihum)

 

6. Cadet challenge ticket
Hands down the best reward but the trickiest out of all.
I doesn’t seem to follow a set pattern but it looks like is linked to the warp credit gift too.
Cadet challenges are scarce (6 per day), and some of them are really hard because of the level restrictions. 

Probably it won’t be too important for you on early stages but as soon as you get a 3 stars goal on a cadet mission, it will work wonders. The cadet challenges have superior prizes including free chronitons, high amount of credits and Holoprogram trainings.
Taking a chance to get additional chance to tackle on this challenges is awesome.
(but is not worth your free dilithium)

Hope this will improve your playing experience. Enjoy
Play long and prosper

 

ABOUT BASIC REWARDS (Optimizing your resources) Ver. 1.1

Since STtl is kind of Pay-to-Win oriented the very first offers you will see are real money offers or dilithium shops, just ignore that, expending the free dilithium you get for accomplishing missions is generally not worth it because of its random nature.

The MOST important shops here are the merit rewards (which we will discuss later), basic rewards and Dabo wheel.

It is very important that you ALWAYS save 90.000 credits and make your purchase, so that you can get an uncommon prize, (which includes 2Stars Crew or ship) Never ever make a 10.000 credit purchase, is not worth it. By purchasing the full 10 pack you will soon have a decent crew to tackle on early missions.

have fun.


For more info about the Time Portal:
1. https://stt.wiki/wiki/Time_Portal