For anyone getting started, I can see Crew Retrieval really helping nightmare node. When you're stuck waiting on the last couple crew at a rarity level before moving on to the next one, having a way to filter on that rarity and traits to get the crew will be much easier than waiting for RNG to cooperate in packs/voyages.
Nightmare Mode Update and Expanded Fun!!
So I know Jenos has now completed Nightmare and is now running a full time alt, I myself am still ploughing throught the Blues (after a few brief breaks). As I'm running the harder version, I've had to airlock a lot of golds and purples but cest-la-vie!
I gave some thought to how I wanted to play after Blues were completed and I've worked out a way of extended the challenge, and also how to use those lower tiered crew in the portal.
Once blues are complete, first begold I get I MUST take the subjectively worst crew in those choices. So if it's Braxton, Gary Seven, Nyota Uhura...then I've just got a fancy new comm officer. Additional, crew must be levelled AND cited in worst-best ratio. So even if I do luck into a Braxton or likewise, they must sit idle until I have no other choice.
This sounds like madness, it really is! Options could be done for Purples too, I've not decided yet (obviously I'm not going to collect all purples before golds...that is...a step too far even for me). However, I am somewhat looking forward to having Mugato, Lenara Khan or Inglatu as my main voyagers...otherwise, what else would they do. Will check in again soon
Edit: I should also point out the same it true for Retrieval, I can only retrieve the worst option in my roster, same with cites. And if no options available, go hunting for terrible crew!
Actual Madness would be reducing the game to 1.3.2 when you had the vault but no replicator. No replication for you Maquis Chakotay.
Oh you are nasty! I like that! No replications! No faction items! Only hope for shuttle rewards!
It’s worth mentioning that 1*s can be noticeably harder than 2*s to level.
2* Wesley is an outlier here. If I recall correctly he had an equipment that can’t be constructed and you had to luck into it from Dabo or 90k pulls. I think that’s been changed though. Makes the game less nightmarish. There’s only four lights.
Actual Madness would be reducing the game to 1.3.2 when you had the vault but no replicator. No replication for you Maquis Chakotay.
While you're at it go all the way. No vault. Reduce to an earlier number of crew slots. Don't use any campaign/reward DIL either, so you can't buy extra shuttles.
Having sworn off this when Idol mentioned it on Discord a little while back, the idea wormed its way into my brain and I have been playing a nightmare alt for a while now. I've come up with the following extra rules for additional nightmare-ish-ness:
I stick to the current max star rating for ships as well as crew. (My trusty Constellation has got me all the way through the first 7 episodes, although it's safe to say I don't have many warpable ship battles.)
I'm running a one-person fleet and building the starbase from scratch (slowly, because without fleet rewards to collect I keep forgetting to go in and donate).
Fusion crew (once I get that far) must be fused at Level 1 and then levelled at their higher rarity.
I don't just have to buy and cite the honor hall crew before progressing onto the next star rating, once I reach a certain star rating I'm not allowed to spend honor on anything else until I've got that crew. (This started out semi-accidentally; I started nightmare-ing not long before the Skirmish where EV Suit Picard was big bonus, so immediately went all-out for Stargazer Picard so I could get little bonus, but I've decided to stick with it.)
The last two will keep me in something of a Nightmare Mode once I've finished the blues, especially my first 3m honor (more if WRG add more gold honor hall crew) having to go on Kahless and co. once I'm otherwise finished. (On the other hand, I am letting myself keep higher rarity crew than I'm currently working on, rather than airlocking them all. Spock and I-Chaya is waiting for some day a long time from now.)
In all honesty, this is probably the most fun I'm having in the game at the moment. The other day, on my main account I reached the 40-popsicle tier of the Veteran collection by retrieving Desert Georgiou, and felt pretty happy with the fact that I'd been able to do so with polestars obtained from scanning rather than having to go to the Celestial Market. Then I switched accounts and finished off CMO Bashir, which got me the first notches on two collections and let me crit the last node I hadn't cleared on the Mon/Weds/Fri cadet missions at Elite, which all felt much more satisfying.
Having sworn off this when Idol mentioned it on Discord a little while back, the idea wormed its way into my brain and I have been playing a nightmare alt for a while now. I've come up with the following extra rules for additional nightmare-ish-ness:
I stick to the current max star rating for ships as well as crew. (My trusty Constellation has got me all the way through the first 7 episodes, although it's safe to say I don't have many warpable ship battles.)
I'm running a one-person fleet and building the starbase from scratch (slowly, because without fleet rewards to collect I keep forgetting to go in and donate).
Fusion crew (once I get that far) must be fused at Level 1 and then levelled at their higher rarity.
I don't just have to buy and cite the honor hall crew before progressing onto the next star rating, once I reach a certain star rating I'm not allowed to spend honor on anything else until I've got that crew. (This started out semi-accidentally; I started nightmare-ing not long before the Skirmish where EV Suit Picard was big bonus, so immediately went all-out for Stargazer Picard so I could get little bonus, but I've decided to stick with it.)
The last two will keep me in something of a Nightmare Mode once I've finished the blues, especially my first 3m honor (more if WRG add more gold honor hall crew) having to go on Kahless and co. once I'm otherwise finished. (On the other hand, I am letting myself keep higher rarity crew than I'm currently working on, rather than airlocking them all. Spock and I-Chaya is waiting for some day a long time from now.)
In all honesty, this is probably the most fun I'm having in the game at the moment. The other day, on my main account I reached the 40-popsicle tier of the Veteran collection by retrieving Desert Georgiou, and felt pretty happy with the fact that I'd been able to do so with polestars obtained from scanning rather than having to go to the Celestial Market. Then I switched accounts and finished off CMO Bashir, which got me the first notches on two collections and let me crit the last node I hadn't cleared on the Mon/Weds/Fri cadet missions at Elite, which all felt much more satisfying.
Yay that's awesome. I think making your own goalposts is half the fun. Take the concept and run your own variant as long as it's keeping to the Rarity limits. Glad you came around!
Also yes, early game collectioneers like CMO Bashir, Chief Engineer Torres does feel very satisfying. And then going onto Green crew and having every new star being a complete powerhouse by comparison!
Nightmare Mode
* 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.
Nightmare-On-Elm-St mode
* 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
I'm currently at 53 blues immortalised and recently reached the milestone of having at least one star on all of them (including Badgey ), though I'd have managed that sooner if I hadn't repeatedly purged human males early on for their unsuitability for weekend cadet missions. I also recently got my first gauntlet exclusive (a Red Angel), first voyage exclusive (Jannar - my voyages are still ~2 hrs but I do let myself extend if I've messed up the recall), [ETA] first fusion (a Tuvix who is sitting at level 1), and just yesterday I even achieved something I never have on my other accounts of getting top row in Dabo on the first spin (for a 4th star on Reunion Raffi). All in all, I'm really glad I'm not playing the "airlock people if they're too high rarity" version!
I've invented a couple of extra rules for myself:
with my shuttle missions, I have to reach honored status with the factions in left-right order across the faction display. (This is another thing that started by accident and then I decided to continue the pattern.) I'm allowed to work on a faction as much or as little as I like, as long as they don't get their little star out of sequence. (Section 31, for example, I cannot run shuttles for at all at the moment for fear of finishing them off prematurely. Conversely, I'm going to be running Ferengi Traditionalist shuttles for weeks when I reach them.)
when I do reach the end of the blues, I'm going to continue the "work through the rarity levels" idea in a slightly different way. I'm not going to require myself to obtain and immortalise all purples, because that would be effectively impossible, but I am going to say that I can't work on any gold if there are any purples at less than FE on my roster at that time. (And I'm not allowed to airlock, or deliberately skip events, to get back to the golds.) So it's still going to be slow going ...
Bring on the skirmish and finishing off lots more crew!
Interesting! This second time around, when I "win" I am going to make it purples only. I think I'll enjoy figuring out what purples are best, thanks to bigbook.app!
@Travis S McClain I'm enough of a newbie that I only ever got to play the somewhat ill-fated Game's Afoot 3, but I seem to remember rather enjoying it. I can imagine it being deeply frustrating for people competing hard for the top slot, though, having to repeat a very precise sequence over and over with no margin for error. But the figuring out the sequence in the first place part was a nice challenge.
@Jenos Idanian Purples-only does sound genuinely nightmare-ish. When I finally reach them, I'm definitely planning to focus on the good gauntleteers first (I have a Marshal of France Q waiting in the wings, and the new Mariner looks like she should be a heavy hitter too) but I'm not sure whether that's a viable strategy if the occasional drops of golds are essentially never going to get used.
@Travis S McClain I'm enough of a newbie that I only ever got to play the somewhat ill-fated Game's Afoot 3, but I seem to remember rather enjoying it. I can imagine it being deeply frustrating for people competing hard for the top slot, though, having to repeat a very precise sequence over and over with no margin for error. But the figuring out the sequence in the first place part was a nice challenge.
@Jenos Idanian Purples-only does sound genuinely nightmare-ish. When I finally reach them, I'm definitely planning to focus on the good gauntleteers first (I have a Marshal of France Q waiting in the wings, and the new Mariner looks like she should be a heavy hitter too) but I'm not sure whether that's a viable strategy if the occasional drops of golds are essentially never going to get used.
Yeah I think one of the reasons I did this in the first place was to appreciate the cadets again in regular daily gameplay. For almost all players purples don’t get any regular gameplay, so that’s what I want to experience next.
I've thought it over. If you wanted an even more brutal Nightmare Mode, consider playing under the conditions of Version 1. We'll generously allow any of its builds, but nothing from when version 2 was released on 27 April 2017 or later.
YES
Event: Faction ("They Came from the Holodeck!" 31 March 2016)
Shuttle Boosts (1.1.1, 17 May 2016) *
Event: Galaxy ("Contingency Plan", 16 June 2016)
Arena (1.3.0, 29 June 2016)
Event: Expedition ("The Game's Afoot", 15 July 2016)
Cryostasis Vault (1.3.2, 9 August 2016)
Replicator (1.4.0, 30 August 2016)
Squadrons (1.4.0, 30 August 2016)
Advanced "The United Federation" (1.6.0, 20 December 2016)
Supply Kits (1.6.0, 20 December 2016)
Gauntlet (1.7.0 [iOS] and 1.7.1 [Android], 31 January 2017)
NO
Achievements (2.1.0, 13 June 2017)
Advanced "A Certain Formality" (2.1.0, 13 June 2017)
Campaigns (12 April 2019)
Collections (4.0.0, 20 February 2018)
Event: Hybrid ("The Captain's Oath", 9 February 2017)
Event: Skirmishes ("Catching Fire", 30 June 2018)
Fleet Starbases (2.2.0, 21 August 2017)
Honor (2.0, 27 April 2017)
Legendary Multiplier Boost (6.1.0, 13 November 2018) *
Quick Build (2.1.0, 13 June 2017)
Retrieval (10 February 2022)
Shuttle Requisition Tokens (6.1.0, 13 November 2018)
Voyages (3.0.0, 20 September 2017)
This forum (switched over 4 October 2017)
Also, the switch to this forum was 4 October 2017. How's that for Nightmare Mode!
Comments
I would answer you but I am not convinced you are not a hallucination yourself.
Yes. I think I remembered the wrong episode. I was conflating the no-sleep nebula one with the time loop one with the ship crashing into theirs.
Proud member of Patterns of Force
Captain Level 99
Played since January 2017
TP: Do better!!!
I think this is the one exception as it benefits your squad leader.
Whew.... I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get anywhere in this Mega with 2 shuttles failing repeatedly...
So I know Jenos has now completed Nightmare and is now running a full time alt, I myself am still ploughing throught the Blues (after a few brief breaks). As I'm running the harder version, I've had to airlock a lot of golds and purples but cest-la-vie!
I gave some thought to how I wanted to play after Blues were completed and I've worked out a way of extended the challenge, and also how to use those lower tiered crew in the portal.
Once blues are complete, first begold I get I MUST take the subjectively worst crew in those choices. So if it's Braxton, Gary Seven, Nyota Uhura...then I've just got a fancy new comm officer. Additional, crew must be levelled AND cited in worst-best ratio. So even if I do luck into a Braxton or likewise, they must sit idle until I have no other choice.
This sounds like madness, it really is! Options could be done for Purples too, I've not decided yet (obviously I'm not going to collect all purples before golds...that is...a step too far even for me). However, I am somewhat looking forward to having Mugato, Lenara Khan or Inglatu as my main voyagers...otherwise, what else would they do. Will check in again soon
Edit: I should also point out the same it true for Retrieval, I can only retrieve the worst option in my roster, same with cites. And if no options available, go hunting for terrible crew!
And...
Actual Madness would be reducing the game to 1.3.2 when you had the vault but no replicator. No replication for you Maquis Chakotay.
Oh you are nasty! I like that! No replications! No faction items! Only hope for shuttle rewards!
It’s worth mentioning that 1*s can be noticeably harder than 2*s to level.
2* Wesley is an outlier here. If I recall correctly he had an equipment that can’t be constructed and you had to luck into it from Dabo or 90k pulls. I think that’s been changed though. Makes the game less nightmarish. There’s only four lights.
While you're at it go all the way. No vault. Reduce to an earlier number of crew slots. Don't use any campaign/reward DIL either, so you can't buy extra shuttles.
- I stick to the current max star rating for ships as well as crew. (My trusty Constellation has got me all the way through the first 7 episodes, although it's safe to say I don't have many warpable ship battles.)
- I'm running a one-person fleet and building the starbase from scratch (slowly, because without fleet rewards to collect I keep forgetting to go in and donate).
- Fusion crew (once I get that far) must be fused at Level 1 and then levelled at their higher rarity.
- I don't just have to buy and cite the honor hall crew before progressing onto the next star rating, once I reach a certain star rating I'm not allowed to spend honor on anything else until I've got that crew. (This started out semi-accidentally; I started nightmare-ing not long before the Skirmish where EV Suit Picard was big bonus, so immediately went all-out for Stargazer Picard so I could get little bonus, but I've decided to stick with it.)
The last two will keep me in something of a Nightmare Mode once I've finished the blues, especially my first 3m honor (more if WRG add more gold honor hall crew) having to go on Kahless and co. once I'm otherwise finished. (On the other hand, I am letting myself keep higher rarity crew than I'm currently working on, rather than airlocking them all. Spock and I-Chaya is waiting for some day a long time from now.)In all honesty, this is probably the most fun I'm having in the game at the moment. The other day, on my main account I reached the 40-popsicle tier of the Veteran collection by retrieving Desert Georgiou, and felt pretty happy with the fact that I'd been able to do so with polestars obtained from scanning rather than having to go to the Celestial Market. Then I switched accounts and finished off CMO Bashir, which got me the first notches on two collections and let me crit the last node I hadn't cleared on the Mon/Weds/Fri cadet missions at Elite, which all felt much more satisfying.
Yay that's awesome. I think making your own goalposts is half the fun. Take the concept and run your own variant as long as it's keeping to the Rarity limits. Glad you came around!
Also yes, early game collectioneers like CMO Bashir, Chief Engineer Torres does feel very satisfying. And then going onto Green crew and having every new star being a complete powerhouse by comparison!
Nightmare Mode
* 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.
Nightmare-On-Elm-St mode
* 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
So nearly there!
I've invented a couple of extra rules for myself:
Bring on the skirmish and finishing off lots more crew!
I like Expeditions too!
@Jenos Idanian Purples-only does sound genuinely nightmare-ish. When I finally reach them, I'm definitely planning to focus on the good gauntleteers first (I have a Marshal of France Q waiting in the wings, and the new Mariner looks like she should be a heavy hitter too) but I'm not sure whether that's a viable strategy if the occasional drops of golds are essentially never going to get used.
Yeah I think one of the reasons I did this in the first place was to appreciate the cadets again in regular daily gameplay. For almost all players purples don’t get any regular gameplay, so that’s what I want to experience next.
YES
- Event: Faction ("They Came from the Holodeck!" 31 March 2016)
- Shuttle Boosts (1.1.1, 17 May 2016) *
- Event: Galaxy ("Contingency Plan", 16 June 2016)
- Arena (1.3.0, 29 June 2016)
- Event: Expedition ("The Game's Afoot", 15 July 2016)
- Cryostasis Vault (1.3.2, 9 August 2016)
- Replicator (1.4.0, 30 August 2016)
- Squadrons (1.4.0, 30 August 2016)
- Advanced "The United Federation" (1.6.0, 20 December 2016)
- Supply Kits (1.6.0, 20 December 2016)
- Gauntlet (1.7.0 [iOS] and 1.7.1 [Android], 31 January 2017)
NOAlso, the switch to this forum was 4 October 2017. How's that for Nightmare Mode!