Dailies & Weeklies Introduction
Page Contents
Dailies are a gamemode in which all players compete against others on a set seed with one attempt. Functionally these are the same as a normal run, with a few restrictions for a level playing field.
Weeklies similarly are a competition on a set seed, but can be replayed any amount of times within the time limit. These run anywhere from 4 days to 6.5 days, and have custom loadouts.
Achievements and unlocks are available on both modes, the only restriction is that golden weapons will not unlock on weeklies. These game modes are only available on Steam, Switch and PlayStation versions of the game. While Xbox has an achievement tied to the daily challenge, it is currently not obtainable.
Rollover occurs at midnight UTC when the current daily ends and a new one begins. This gives a 24 hour period for any specific daily and is not affected by daylight savings. Weeklies have inconsistent start times (can start as early as Monday, but always by Wednesday), and will always run through Sunday night. The following 24-hour clock can be used to track how many hours are left on a daily:
Thronebutt is an online leaderboard mainly for the Steam version of the game. The site is currently being fixed (more info here), but it was a place to view the specifics of a run such as mutations taken, what ended the run and what weapons were ran. The winner of the daily is determined whoever gets the most kills, distance is not a factor. Consoles must view leaderboards in-game to see who is winning, with no way to view previous days.
Daily Mechanics
Dailies will show a red calendar on the top left to signify that the daily is active. If a daily is played through rollover, the calendar may disappear and will just function as a normal run from then on. If it successfully submits, then the score will then be applied to the previous daily properly.
Daily runs always have a vanilla start, which means that no golden weapon unlock or crown can be used at the start of a run. Any character is allowed but they must use their default weapon. On the character select screen the mouse wheel (for KBM layout) can be used to swap between a characters A-Skin or B-Skin if it us unlocked.
The only other difference in gameplay is that the Proto Chest will not bring in weapons from other runs, it will always default to the Rusty Revolver when first opened. Swapping this out with another weapon will overwrite the save, meaning that weapons found in dailies can be brought to normal runs - not vise versa.
While there are no golden weapon starts, Frog can be played on dailies if unlocked. In order to do this, select normal mode first and set Golden Frog Pistol to the starting weapon on a character. Exit out of that mode and start a daily, initiating a run as that character will instead start it as Frog.
Skeleton cannot be started as just like any other mode, but can be transformed into as Melting at any point of the run. Playable Big Dog is disabled for dailies.
Weekly Mechanics
Weeklies will show a blue calendar on the top left to signify the weekly is active. If a weekly is played through rollover, the calendar may disappear and not submit. If the run successfully submits then it will be applied to next weeks leaderboard. Runs on the wrong leaderboard have been stricken if they hold a considerable lead.
Weeklies are challenge runs in which every player shares the same starting loadout. Character, B-Skin, crown and starting weapons are all pre-determined. These used to be suggested on the Nuclear Throne subreddit (until mid-2017) and then through the NT Discord (until early 2024). With Thronebutt issues there is no status on when weekly suggestions will return.
Starting loadouts can include weapons not normally in the drop pool. Information on Party Gun, Sentry Gun, Ion Cannon and Eggplant can be found here. As of mid-2024 starting loadouts can also include cursed weapons as well as secondary weapons.
The only difference in actual gameplay is that Vaults will automatically be destroyed upon entering a level to prevent players from switching crowns or use the Proto Chest. This means the entire run must be played with the starting crown, no matter how bad it is.
As mentioned above golden weapons cannot be unlocked on this mode, likely to prevent a golden weapon being unlocked that's in the starting loadout. Any other unlocks work. If the starting loadout includes a loop crown, that means it can be unlocked in preloop by sitting on/looping past The Throne.
Starting loadouts have multiple restrictions that are mainly tied to secrets/achievements.
- Frog Pistol is banned from starting loadouts.
- Gun Gun is banned, though has been seen twice in mid-2024.
- All golden weapons are normally banned, although some sparsely appear.
- Random crown/character are banned, each new run would select a starter at random.
- Frog, Skeleton and playable Big Dog are banned from weekly starts.
- Big Dog was enabled as a joke in Dec 2022, but was later swapped out with any high scoring runs being removed.
- Eggplant and No Crown were formerly disallowed on weeklies, but appear in loadouts regularly starting in mid-2024.
- (Melting, Crown of Blood and Crown of Death have had temporary bans in the past due to being overly suggested.)
Seeded mechanics
While seeded mechanics exist in all runs, they are essentially random in most cases. This changes for weekly challenges which can be replayed, and daily challenges if information is shared with others. This section will brief over all relevant seed mechanics.
Seeded mechanics will differ between versions and platforms. These include:
- Steam versions which are the most popular and thus have the most extensive documentation;
- Non-Beta (u99r1) is the default Steam version.
- openbeta 2021 is the last branch from 2021, and shares some mutation seeding with Non-Beta.
- openbeta 2023 is the currently active branch, it has separate seed mechanics from earlier versions.
- 2021 & 2023 betas have 30 FPS and 60 FPS options, which will effect some seed mechanics.
- (u98 still works for those that have it, it has different seed mechanics as well)
- Nintendo Switch shares mutation logic with openbeta 2021, though will see different generation.
- PSVita/PS4 work differently being older versions and are not documented here.
Mutation Seeding
Mutation seeding is covered in-depth on the daily sheet page, which explains how the community scouting sheet works.
A brief summary is the scouting sheet has players contributing mutation set data for any particular daily/weekly, however this needs an entirely separate guide due to the complexity of some mechanics.
Layout Seeding
Level layouts are the most unpredictable in consistency compared to other mechanics. All versions will experience different layouts from each other. Some variables that will usually be the same on the same version includes enemy spawns, what weapons they may drop and the location/type of chests.
30 and 60 FPS will have different layouts even while on the same version. While playing 60 FPS some levels may also randomly generate with a 'B layout', which will have a different level generation and enemy spawns which effects weapon drops. This is most noticeable when replaying weeklies.
One big factor in different generations is difficulty. This is based on the number of portals entered and will effect how many enemies can spawn. Entering additional portals will increase difficulty sooner, meaning that visiting Vaults, Pizza Sewers, IDPD HQ and situationally YV's Crib will advance difficulty. Other secret areas are 'replacement' areas and keep difficulty consistent, with the exception of Oasis which reduces difficulty.
Very infrequently layouts can be different based on mutation level, which can sometimes be observed through running the weekly multiple times.
The only unpredictable enemy spawn are IDPD units, which are unseeded and cannot be predicted. IDPD HQ will have some noticeable spawn patterns across every run (but differing across versions), though can still be inconsistent.
Weapon Seeding
This section builds off of the weapon chests section from the Pickups page.
Be aware that running Open Mind, Heavy Heart, Confiscate, Ambidextrous or Robot as a whole will have different seeded drops than normal runs without them.
| Weapon Drops | While enemies just have a chance to drop weapons this is actually a seeded variable, though it will vary a lot even on the same version due to different generations as outlined above. Assume weapon drops will always be dependent on version, difficulty, FPS, alternative layouts, and running Crown of Blood. Some weapon drops are ones that drop from enemies that spawn midway through the level and can actually be considered random. This normally just includes Laser Crystals spawned from Hyper Crystal, but can include any spawned/revived enemy while running Crown of Guns. Another oddity is Big Dog who gives a guaranteed weapon drop. On Non-Beta this is always random, while on the Betas it is a seeded drop per version. Be aware that holding a weapon will remove it from the drop pool which applies to ALL weapon drop/chests. If a weapon were to drop but the player is holding it, another weapon will drop in its place. The alternative drop is also seeded. (Steroids' held weapons are not removed from the drop pool, as the exception.) |
Weapon Chest |
Weapon chests are seeded and will give the same weapon for both Non-Beta and openbeta 2021, regardless of fps or alternative layouts. The 2023 openbeta will have different weapons from other versions, but is also seeded. Difficulty can effect chest drops (including other chest variants below) until the full weapon pool is filled out. This is typically 2-1 L1 without any extra areas visited, after which weapon chests will always give the same result. Example: The 3-2 chest on a weekly run has a Shovel when opened normally. However if the player has +1 difficulty from visiting Pizza Sewers, it gives the chance for 3-3 weapons to appear in 3-2, and the player now finds a Hyper Rifle instead. (Side Note: Crown of Hatred will change weapon drops, the normal weapon will appear if the weapon chest is opened by a portal instead.) |
Big Weapon Chest |
Big chests work the same as normal weapon chests with seeded drops that are effected by difficulty until the weapon pool is filled out. Any weapon chest skipped gives +25% chance to spawn a big chest, however this is a seeded variable and is dependent on version/FPS. This means one version may only need to skip one chest to get a big chest to spawn, while another version may need to skip four (which gives a guaranteed 100% chance). |
Cursed Chest |
Cursed chests gives a 1/7 chance of spawning while running any crown or a 2/3 chance while running Crown of Curses, which are both seeded variables effected by version/FPS. The weapon seen in cursed chests would typically be the same as the normal chest, however there are three variables that can effect this.
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| Secret Area Chests | While most secret area chests just have normal weapons, they have unique seeding:
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