The Nightmare Mode!
Captain Idol
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Good morning/afternoon/evening!
Are you tired of grinding away crew levels to complete collections? Feeling sick of levelling useless Super Rare crew only to immediatly put them in cold storage for eternity. Looking to spice up your Timelines experience with a revolutionary new challenge. Then let me introduce NIGHTMARE MODE!
The concept of this was created about 3 months ago by Jenos Idanian and we've been discussing the rules, playing this mode and testing it for a while now. The main concept is to start an alt where you can only use or level up a crew if the prequisite rarity has been totally completed. Simply put, no using Uncommon crew until you have immortalised all Common crew. No using Rare crew until all the Uncommon crew have been completed. And yes, this includes the Honor Hall crew.
So you started the game, oh brilliant Mirror Phlox just dropped. However, no using or levelling him up until the Common, Uncommon and Rare crew have all been completed! He will have to sit there at level 1 until the time comes! This has been a really interesting challenge and has given me a whole new apprieciation for the Grey crew. So far it's taken me about 2 months to complete all of them, and Jenos and I have been noting down a few variants and differences in our gameplay as we go.
To Summarise:
Jenos and I have been playing slightly different variants. Jenos' version has been the vanilla nightmare ruleset, but I decided to add an extra layer of challenge onto my game.
In Nightmare-On-Elm-St Mode you cannot physically keep any card unless the previous rarity has been competed. Yes, this means straight out the airlock! That gold Laborer Kirk I got in the giveaway, bam, 550 honor. No exceptions. This is not for the feint of heart!
Also, no Legendary Gold starships. Lucky people usually get them straight away from Dabo and I felt like I wanted to utilize the Rare/Super Rare starships more.
Shuttlebays can be purchased with Dilithium as usual, but after that any Dilithium has to go on regular Portal pulls, either Single or 10x, your choice. This can be saved until Rares are unlocked. Once rare has been completed, Dilithium spendage can resume on players choice.
Once the Rare tier has been completed, you are....mostly free to resume a normal account. Except every time you get a BeGold, you must consult BigBook.app and take the lowest Tier/Rated crew on that list. Then any crew you work on must be levelled and cited in worst-best order. For example, got a Braxton on your first Merit pull? Great! Got Joseph Sisko on the next Begold...guess who you are citing first....oh yess
Roughly this has taken both of us about 2 months to complete the Common Crew, we're both now onto the Uncommon Crews and it has been a really interesting experience! I recommend it to anyone wanting to start an alt and add a little extra spice to the progression!
Are you tired of grinding away crew levels to complete collections? Feeling sick of levelling useless Super Rare crew only to immediatly put them in cold storage for eternity. Looking to spice up your Timelines experience with a revolutionary new challenge. Then let me introduce NIGHTMARE MODE!
The concept of this was created about 3 months ago by Jenos Idanian and we've been discussing the rules, playing this mode and testing it for a while now. The main concept is to start an alt where you can only use or level up a crew if the prequisite rarity has been totally completed. Simply put, no using Uncommon crew until you have immortalised all Common crew. No using Rare crew until all the Uncommon crew have been completed. And yes, this includes the Honor Hall crew.
So you started the game, oh brilliant Mirror Phlox just dropped. However, no using or levelling him up until the Common, Uncommon and Rare crew have all been completed! He will have to sit there at level 1 until the time comes! This has been a really interesting challenge and has given me a whole new apprieciation for the Grey crew. So far it's taken me about 2 months to complete all of them, and Jenos and I have been noting down a few variants and differences in our gameplay as we go.
To Summarise:
- * To start the game, you can only use Common crew, this must include Stargazer Picard.
- * You cannot use or level up Uncommon Crew until ALL Common Crew have been immortalised, this must include EMH Mk 2.
- * You cannot use or level up Rare crew until all Uncommon Crew have been immortalised, this must include Commanding Officer Sisko.
- * You cannot use or level up Super Rare/Legendary crew until all Rare crew have been completed. You don't need to complete all Super Rare crew, that is borderline impossible.
- * Using means sending crew on Shuttles, Voyages, Missions, Tanking, Cadets, Arena or Gauntlet.
- * Using any crew before you have completed ALL crew in the previous rarity invalidates the challenge.
- * And by all crew we mean not just the collection, the entire lot. Exception of course is crew not in the Portal at that time.
- * All levels of Starships can be used.
- * Must be VIP0
- * Portal/Giveaways/Dabo/Campaign wins can be claimed (i.e. The Kirk/Bones/Uhura one) but the crew cannot be used or levelled.
- * Using Squad Share crew in event is allowed, as this benefits your squad mate more than it does you.
- * Retrieval is allowed too, however you must retrieve the rarity you are currently in, no retrieving Mirror Phlox whilst you still have an unfinished Racquetball Bashir on your roster
- * Objective Events that require fuses cannot be achieved until Uncommon crew are unlocked. So no pulling two green crew, fusing them, then airlocking them.
Jenos and I have been playing slightly different variants. Jenos' version has been the vanilla nightmare ruleset, but I decided to add an extra layer of challenge onto my game.
In Nightmare-On-Elm-St Mode you cannot physically keep any card unless the previous rarity has been competed. Yes, this means straight out the airlock! That gold Laborer Kirk I got in the giveaway, bam, 550 honor. No exceptions. This is not for the feint of heart!
Also, no Legendary Gold starships. Lucky people usually get them straight away from Dabo and I felt like I wanted to utilize the Rare/Super Rare starships more.
Shuttlebays can be purchased with Dilithium as usual, but after that any Dilithium has to go on regular Portal pulls, either Single or 10x, your choice. This can be saved until Rares are unlocked. Once rare has been completed, Dilithium spendage can resume on players choice.
Once the Rare tier has been completed, you are....mostly free to resume a normal account. Except every time you get a BeGold, you must consult BigBook.app and take the lowest Tier/Rated crew on that list. Then any crew you work on must be levelled and cited in worst-best order. For example, got a Braxton on your first Merit pull? Great! Got Joseph Sisko on the next Begold...guess who you are citing first....oh yess
Roughly this has taken both of us about 2 months to complete the Common Crew, we're both now onto the Uncommon Crews and it has been a really interesting experience! I recommend it to anyone wanting to start an alt and add a little extra spice to the progression!
Author Of Captain Idol's Datacore Analysis Sheet, Timelines Backend Stats Super Hyper Edition,Captain Idol's Voyage Analysis SheetCome join the Trek Time Wednesday Stream on YouTube at https://www.twitch.tv/TrekTime and catch up with old episodes at https://www.youtube.com/@TrekTime Join our Discord at https://discord.gg/HmNrwakbN9
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Comments
But i get that it might be suited for some folks seeking an extra challenge, and finding the regular game too boring.
After over two years of playing, I also forget what it was like to be a new player, which has its own set of challenges. This would prolong that experience, somewhat.
I have no intention of doing this, since I already spend far too much time on this game, but I applaud the idea.
🙌🙌🙌
Do you have a special nightmare starbase setup for this quest?
No but I am using the 10F Training Fleet which has some bonuses, but doesn't forfill dailies, adding to the difficulty
Fleet...Starbase... same thing
The 10FH retirement fleet is also available. It's almost level 13. Most days there's nothing from dailies. I got 60 honor the other day though, when I had to run some missions to complete Dixon Hill.
When I started my alt, I thought, "ok, what's the fastest way to make this account useful." I never considered taking the opposite approach. So odd that Nightmare Mode never crossed my mind. 🤔
yay keep us updated! It's a struggle, but a fun one!
I think they can keep all crew, they're just not allowed to level them up or use them. But that will probably lead to a scarcity of crew slots too.
Personally, I doubt I'll have enough honor to matter. For Idol, I would guess he'll just skip the sale and save the honor. There will likely be a second honor sale before he reaches the ability to use 5* crew.
Also, the challenge is working through the early levels. Once you reach the ability to use 5* crew it's just a f2p account. So I don't know if you keep it active.
I started three weeks ago and just getting to mission 7. I only have one immortalized character, 2* Enterprise D Picard, and still only running two shuttles.
Let me know what you think of this version!
In addition to the crew outlined, (only being able to up level once all crew of that sort were immortalised), the same would be true in Arena, - you can't start 3* ships until all 2* ships are finished, etc.
In Episodes, Distress calls and Cadets, all have to be done in order and you can't start the next mission until all 3*s are complete from the previous mission, and you can't start Elite util all missions on Normal are finished, and so on, which you really may not be able to start until you get to 2* crew anyway.
Correct me if I'm wrong Idol, but that seems logical in keeping with your nightmare theme.
I think the underlying theme is to stagger the rarities of crew, getting the most out of the 1* crew was the initial idea but I like people are coming up with variants!
For ships we stated that any will do, but you can add that layer of challenge. On my version I set myself all ships except Gold could be used. That way those Dabo spins turn into easy replication fuel and I get to see what a lot of the under-used 3-4* ships are like.
You can feeeeel the challenge calling to you!
Lol. I've basically ignored most events on my nightmare account. Getting crew that I won't be able to use for a while doesn't have much appeal. Staffing ships with 1* crew and trying to complete a skirmish on any level is a recipe for frustration. I just play a couple rounds to collect some of the easy threshold rewards and then focus on my main account.
Once I got three crew things began to move. I just reached episode 9 last night. I have all the 1* crew on my roster and a little over half are FE. I'd forgotten how much trainers are a bottleneck initially. All my honor has gone to trainers so far. Replicator rations have limited my ability to replicate past annoying faction items too. I unlocked the third shuttle yesterday with Dil from the free campaign. Having that campaign really improves things for f2p accounts compared to when I started my main account.
Overall I'm enjoying the challenge. It's fun seeing how far into the game I can get with only 1* crew. I'm looking forward to moving onto 2* crew once I earn enough trainers to level all my crew.
You can get all the way up to Episode 10!
Now that I've got crew to cover all the cadet missions and have hit the first level of the possibile collections, I'll have to go and check who are the best at each skill to get to 10.
Fantastic work! I'm still working on mine, and I'm into blues now. Finally do not need to spend honor on trainers, and have 4 shuttles due to cheevos and campaign!
But what about your hallucinations from lack of REM sleep?
Just look for the number 3.
Eyes in the dark... One moon circles.