Star Trek Timelines: How to Shuttle Tank for Faction Events

To shuttle tank in Star Trek Timelines, deliberately fail faction missions for the upcoming event's featured factions 24 to 48 hours before the event begins. Sending disposable, untrained crew on these runs lowers the faction's dynamic difficulty rating back to its baseline. When the event launches, your top crew can hit the maximum 99% success rate cap on early shuttles without spending high-tier shuttle boost consumables.

How Shuttle Difficulty Scaling Works

Faction mission difficulty in Star Trek Timelines dynamically adjusts based on mission outcomes:

• Winning streaks increase difficulty: Completing missions raises that specific faction's internal rating. As the rating climbs, the stat thresholds required to achieve safe success odds (80% to 90% or higher) increase, eventually challenging fully fused Super Rare and Legendary crew unless you apply boost tokens.
• Failure streaks lower difficulty: Failing missions reduces the faction's rating. The game evaluates the final result rather than how close you were to succeeding. Repeated failures drag requirements back down to entry-level thresholds.

Tanking exploits this mechanic by stacking consecutive, guaranteed failures in the days leading up to a weekend Faction event.

Step-by-Step Tanking Execution

1. Check the featured factions: Open the in-game event preview roughly 48 to 72 hours before the event starts. Identify which factions are involved (such as the Federation, Klingon Empire, or Section 31). You only need to tank those specific factions.
2. Acquire throwaway crew: Keep several level 1 Common (1-star) or Uncommon (2-star) crew members with no equipment or training.
3. Open faction missions: Access the target faction terminals or use standard Faction Transmissions to generate active mission slots.
4. Seat crew for guaranteed failure: Assign your level 1 crew to all required seats. Ensure the displayed success chance sits at the minimum possible rate, typically around 17% to 19%.
5. Let the mission timer expire: Run the missions for their full 3-hour duration without using speed boosts. When the shuttles return failed, claim the results immediately.
6. Repeat until reset: Continue launching failure runs until the faction's required skill thresholds return to their introductory floor.

Tanking Schedule and Timing

Standard shuttle missions take three hours. Because resetting a high rating requires several cycles, plan your preparation according to the event kickoff, which typically takes place on Thursday at 12:00 PM ET.

Once difficulty drops to the baseline, leave newly generated missions sitting at the terminal unopened and ready. When the event goes live, those missions will retain the reduced difficulty rating.

Managing Roster Space During Preparation

Keeping throwaway crew can crowd out characters you are actively leveling or freezing in Cryo Collections. To avoid roster bottlenecks:

• Use credit pulls: Open basic 10x Standard Time Portal packs using credits shortly before starting your tanking runs rather than saving fodder days ahead.
• Dismiss after use: Airlock or dismiss the 1-star Common crew as soon as your final failure cycle ends to free up your slots.
• Preserve bonus crew: Keep featured variant crew (who receive 2x or 3x event bonuses) unassigned from regular faction runs and long Voyages during the prep window so they are immediately available at event kickoff.