Star Trek Timelines is one of those mobile games that can be sped up with real currency, but that can also be played at a competitive level without spending a dime. In other words, if you want to have fun with Star Trek characters and themes, but aren’t willing to crack open your piggy bank for it, you most definitely can. How awesome is that?

Although most ships, characters, and items can be accessed by F2P players, doing so naturally requires more time and patience than in the case of those who pay for progress. It is possible though and we’re about to teach you the ropes.

Dilithium Premium Currency: Can You Get Any for Free?

There are a few types of currency you can use in Star Trek Timelines, but the most valuable of them is, by far, Dilithium. Unfortunately, Dilithium is not free… for the most part, at least. Like in other F2P games, you can get some premium currency without paying for it in cash, but, in Star Trek Timelines, this is especially difficult and does not happen often.

The only way to get Dilithium in this mobile strategy game is to complete an achievement that asks you to “immortalize” characters. To immortalize a character, you have to rank them up to their maximum number of stars (such as 2/2 for Uncommon characters), level them to 100, and equip them with a full set of gear.

Needless to say that the task is no easy feat. You get 100 Dilithium for the first time you do this and it only gets more difficult from there. The next iteration for the achievement is at 10 immortalized crew members, followed by 25, 50, 75, 100, and so on, all the way up to 600 crew.

Fortunately, you don’t really need Dilithium to excel at this game. Just a lot of patience. Furthermore, immortalizing a character brings additional benefits, too. For one, you can always “freeze” them instead of dismissing them, which allows you to summon them back when needed.

Dilithium Spending Guide for F2P Players

When you do get your hands on some Dilithium as an F2P player, you might have a difficult time spending it. You’ve worked so hard to get it that you don’t really want to part with it for anything in the world. Alas, however, currency is made for spending and Dilithium is no different.

We recommend that, as soon as you’ve raised 750 Dilithium, you use it to unlock a third shuttle. This is one of the few things you can’t obtain without premium currency and will significantly increase your ability to farm items, XP, and Faction events.

We also recommend that you don’t spend Dilithium on credits, speeding your shuttles, buying ships, unlocking premium pulls, or refreshing gauntlet heroes. And whatever you do, stay way way (way!) away from packs that claim to give you “best chance at X hero/ship/item”. They are simply a waste of money (99.9% of the time).

Get into the Right Mindset

To be a successful F2P player in Star Trek Timelines, you have to be two things – active and patient. You have to be patient because it will always take you longer to achieve something than it would if you spent money on it and you have to be active because this is how you make up for not being able to use any Dilithium.

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Going from Captain Nobody to Captain Picard in this game is a marathon, rather than a sprint. You can expect to play it for months before you truly feel satisfied with your fleet and crew, so you should settle in and only commit to it if you think the game and theme are fun enough to make it worth the wait.

The good news is that, as long as you’re dedicated to this game, it will reward you with plenty of fun things to do, from dailies, expeditions, PvP arena battles, guild interaction, and more. In addition, you can always shorten the wait with these ingenious tips and tricks. At the end of the day, your effort will be worthwhile because you’ll be able to compete even against those players who dump real currency into their fleets on a regular basis.

Resources You Can and Should Use

Aside from Dilithium, there are 4 types of resources you can obtain and use in Star Trek Timelines. These are:

Credits

The basic currency of the game, Credits can be used to buy things from the Time Portal, as well as upgrade your crew and their gear. Your first two crew quarters upgrades – which you’ll want to purchase right away – also cost Credits. You can get this currency from pretty much any task – campaigns, missions, voyages, scans, you name it.

Chronitons

This resource is a kind of “Energy” for the time-jumbled universe of Star Trek Timelines. You need it to do pretty much anything in the game, so it is extremely valuable. Chronitons are recovered at a rate of 10 per hour, but can also be obtained from various achievements and events.

Merits

This resource can be earned from completing daily missions and taking part in events. You can use it to “unfreeze” immortalized heroes, buy items from specific factions, refresh the gauntlet, and more.

Honor

Used primarily to buy Honorary Citations (to rank up heroes), crew, and boosters from the Time Portal, Honor can be obtained from daily missions, various achievements, and, most reliably, from dismissing unnecessary crew members.

To find out more about how you should spend these resources from the very beginning, check out our guide to a fantastic early game in Star Trek Timelines.

Daily Tasks and the Command Deck

As an F2P player, your goal is to log in every day in order to complete all missions made available to you through the Command Desk, as well as your daily tasks. These will reward you with resources, as well as with new items, crew members, and even ships. Since you can’t use Dilithium to fast-track your progress to any of these, dailies are your best bet.

To make sure that you can complete these daily tasks and missions, you will have to carefully use the number of available crew slots. You’ll be stuck with a maximum of 55 slots for a long time and, even though this might seem like a lot when you start out, you’ll quickly realize that it’s not enough to allow you to keep every hero you might come across. We focus on the ideal crew for F2P players in a different article, so stay tuned if you don’t yet know who to keep and who to dismiss.

Otherwise, you are ready to take on the galaxy in Star Trek Timelines and boldly go where no “VIP 0” player has gone before. At the end of it all, if you follow these tips, you’ll be able to boast to everyone else that you did it without spending a dime.

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