Star Trek Fleet Command | Review

Item: Star Trek Fleet Command
Rating: 4
Author: Uros Stojakovic

Is it worth playing?

Website | Facebook | Reddit | Google | iOS

Star Trek Fleet Command is a strategy, space exploration, base building game developed by Scopely. If you’re interested in a game that has a very long campaign, with slow progression, that can take months to complete, and if you’re also the Star Trek fan, then this is the game for you.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Development

Scopely, seize the play…

As I already said, the game was developed by Scopely, a company that was founded in 2011, which delves into many more areas besides game development, and their main catchphrase for mobile games is “seize the play”.

On Google Play, STFC has an average user rating of 4.1 stars out of 161k votes at the time of writing this review, which is an average rating. To be honest, it probably got most of its lower scores during the first few months after launch, since there were several bugs and glitches that plagued the game during this period, but most of them are now removed. The other reason why some users gave it a low score, is high money investment (like in most other mobile games in this genre) if you want to be competitive. On the iTunes App Store, STFC iOS has an average user rating of 4.4, out of 43k votes and is currently ranked at #119 in a strategy game genre.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Atmosphere

All of the space ships are almost identical to their Star Trek franchise counterparts, which is a big plus…

Star Trek Fleet Command has a very interesting introduction, composed of several missions, through which it familiarizes new players with basic game mechanics and controls. It is also a nice way to get the player inside the boots of Cadet Kirk and start off the storyline with the battle against the first hostile ship. Later on, you will learn how to build some basic structures in your starbase, repair damaged ships, etc. The storyline is quite engaging, and you will often travel across the galaxy in order to find a specific resource to mine or to challenge and vanquish a powerful opponent. However, the story will almost grind to a halt once you get to level 15 to 20, as the progression slows down considerably at this point.

Another positive thing about this game is that it features almost all Star Trek characters, and you can recruit them as the officers for your ships. Actually, my favorite part of the journey through this game was assembling specialized officer crews for different tasks and purposes.

As far as visuals go, the space stations are highly detailed, and all of the space ships are almost identical to their Star Trek franchise counterparts, which is a big plus, at least in my book. However, combat itself is quite simplistic, and it is basically just two ships circling around and shooting at each other.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

GAMEplay

Gameplay can be divided into several segments of PvE and PvP…

Gameplay can be divided into several segments and we will go through all of them:

Base building and Research
Unlocking, building and upgrading new ships
Space exploration, mining, and PvE
Raiding (PvP)

In base building and research part of the game, you will focus on powering up your space station by improving existing buildings and creating new ones. Now, we will quickly go through the most important buildings.

Operations: Determines player level, after upgrading the Operations to level 15 PvP starts. The main requirement for upgrading all other buildings.
Academy: Improves combat effectiveness of your Officers.
Resource production and Warehouse buildings
R&D Department: Research station improvements (like higher resource storage capacity), improve station defenses, unlock new ships and power up the ships by researching a more advanced version of lasers, stronger armor, etc.
Shipyard: Used to create new ships, once you unlock them and have the blueprints

Most of the space exploration will be done by completing missions because while following the storyline you’ll get to many new locations, but free-roaming is also a valid option. The only limitation to where you can go is the maximum warp range of your ship – more advanced ships have higher warp range, and it can be also upgraded as one of the modules on your space ships.

PvE part of the game consists of destroying a certain number of AI enemies (also a part of daily quests) or defeating one powerful enemy (missions).

Raiding is a PvP part of the game, that becomes available once you reach level 15. It’s fun to go and raid other players while also defending your base from opponent’s retaliation, at lower levels. However, once you reach level 20+, much more powerful players can hit and loot your station, and this is actually the main downside of the game.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Graphics

The space station and ship models are very similar, if not identical, to what we have seen in the TV show…

STFC stayed true to the legendary franchise, on which it is based upon, in this regard. The space station and ship models are very similar, if not identical, to what we have seen in the TV show. The bad news is that the combat itself was done in a very minimalistic way, and is presented by two ships circling and firing at each other. I intentionally said two, because it is not possible to have more than two ships in one battle at the same time – it’s always one vs one.

On the plus side, this representation of combat is much better than what we had at the game release. Back then, there weren’t any battle animations, instead, the ships would enter combat once they get close to each other and the result would be displayed in the battle log.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tech Compatibility

This isn’t an overly demanding game, although it has pretty good graphics…

STFC isn’t an overly demanding game, although it has pretty good graphics. However, if you plan on playing it on via Bluestacks (or some other emulator), you’ll most likely encounter graphical and other glitches, as well as some stability issues.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Free-to-play Friendly

We’ve played this game for some time and I have to say that it’s very heavy on the wallet…

We’ve played this game for some time and I have to say that it’s very heavy on the wallet, if you want to remain competitive with other players. As with many other mobile games, it is theoretically possible to get to end game content without spending any money, by being an active player and investing several hours into a daily grind on a regular basis. However, STFC has a very unbalanced engagement system once your space station reaches level 20 or higher since at that point you can be attacked by much more powerful players, able to destroy to easily destroy all of your base defenses and get away with stockpiled resources. In that regard, this game is very free to play unfriendly, but you won’t realize it during the first few weeks. So, the final conclusion would be that STFC initially doesn’t require any money investment but quickly becomes very heavy on the wallet.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Verdict

It has a similar feel to the original franchise, with battleships models being almost identical to what we saw on the TV…

Star Trek Fleet Command is definitely worth trying out, especially if you’re drawn to space exploration, base building and battles against various types of opponents, all the while uncovering new parts of a very well thought out storyline. The only negative is the pay to win aspect which becomes apparent at later stages of the game. Still, even as F2P, you can have tons of fun for at least several weeks, or even more, if your goal is to just play explore, uncover the storyline, and just play casually, ignoring the PvP part. As already mentioned, STFC has a similar feel to the original franchise, with battleships models being almost identical to what we saw on the TV. Besides that, we also have multiple factions and a very appealing faction system, and all of this is implemented in such a way that it doesn’t contradict the original franchise, earning the Scopely some bonus points from our end.

Star Trek Fleet Command guides and TIPS

How to improve your gaming experience and gameplay…

Star Trek Fleet Command is the most popular mobile game for this very well-known and established franchise. Here, you as a player will be put in charge of a single space station, and one trusty low tier, explorer type ship, the Realta, which will be used for many starting missions. This might seem like a somewhat bland start, but the game quickly picks up speed and will guide you through the content by introducing you to new ship types, with their own strengths and weaknesses, that can be most easily explained by the battle triangle.

Here is a quick guide on ship types for STFC . Battleships are strong against explorers but weak against interceptors. On the other, explorers can easily beat the interceptors, so we have a rock-paper-scissor situation, and the best tip that I can provide would be to always try and engage the opponent with the correct ship type while avoiding the battles that would put you at a disadvantage. Survey ships are the fourth, non-combat type, and are mostly used for mining or transporting resources.

If I managed to tickle your interest in this game, the following topics should be very interesting, because we’re going to provide the extensive guide, as well as multiple tips on how to complete some of the most important parts of the game.

Use links below to jump to the guide sections.

FAST LINKS:

How to sell ships?
How to get ship XP?
How to move a station?
How to get Officer XP?
How to Mine?
How to get Botany Bay?
How to get Plutonium?
How to get USS Franklin?
How to earn alliance credits?

How to sell ships?

The short answer is, you can’t. This can be a huge problem as you can fill up your entire hangar with low tier vessels, provided you have the blueprints, and can’t get rid of them in order to make space for the brand new vehicle which you just researched. The only tip that I can provide here would be to try to level up and upgrade your hangar since it grants higher ship storage. The quick guide on how to avoid this situation in the first place would be to make only one ship of any given type and only doubling on miners. Having two versions of the same ship isn’t beneficial in any way in this game, except for surveys because that way you will be able to farm multiple nodes at the same time.

How to get ship XP?

The easiest, and the most common way to get ship XP is to simply kill hostiles, and with each victory, your ship will gain a certain amount of experience (completing missions can also award this resource). Besides that, defeating the AI enemies has a chance to drop a loot box which can, in turn, contain some ship xp, that can be used on any vessel in your space station. However, there is a catch. Survey ships are not really good in combat, but can not increase their experience by mining, so might tip would be to save up all of your ship xp for upgrading the miners – it most likely won’t be enough, but this short guide should at least ease up the grind a little bit. The third way for acquiring xp is to attack other player’s ships and/or bases, but there’s always the risk of retaliation, even more so if the person in question is the part of a larger alliance, and these are all tips that we have on this subject.

How to move a station?

Moving a station a fairly straightforward process once a few requirements have been required, as you can see in the following guide. To start off, all of your ships have to be stationed in the base before attempting to move the base. The second requirement is having at least one relocation token that is used up when moving a base. These tokens can be acquired in several ways, so here are a few tips on how to get them. The first token will be awarded by completing campaign missions, while additional tokens can be gained from random loot boxes (from defeating) hostiles, or by purchasing them for alliance credits in the appropriate store. There is also a third, very logical requirement, and that is the existence of at least one empty spot on the planet that you’re trying to move to – very popular Systems will usually have all planets and all spots occupied, so the only way to get here would be to wait for someone to move out first and quickly seizing the opportunity to grab the open space, that’s one of the bests tips that I can get regarding this topic.

Before moving the base several factors should be taken into account (as you will see in our guide), like how close the planet is to the desired resources, the level, and type of hostile ships, etc. When you have everything ready and figured out, relocating the base is quite simple. Just browse through Galaxies and System (by tapping the Galaxy/System button in the lower right part of the screen), find the appropriate planet and tap on it. If the planet has the empty slot(s), relocate base option will pop up on the screen, and taping it will automatically transfer your base to a new position, consuming the relocation token in the process. Another limitation that I forgot to mention is the maximum warp range of your vessels. In order to relocate to a faraway Galaxy you first have to discover/visit it at least once, so you want to be able to move your space station to a Galaxy that is outside of the warp range of your best ship. I hope this guide was helpful and answered all the questions about relocating the base.

How to get Officer xp?

There are several ways to get officer experience, and in this short guide, we will go through all of them.

First of all, a certain amount of officer xp will be rewarded each time you open a recruit box, and this is the most common way of acquiring this resource.

The second way to get the officer experience would be by performing daily quests since some rewards will also grant you the much-needed experience.

Another one of our tips: You should try to complete as many daily missions as you can anyway because the rewards that you can get here can really speed up your progress, and these include Officer xp and recruit tokens, that are awarded after completing one or two of the most basic and easiest missions.

The third tip on getting the officer experience would be to farm the hostiles for loot boxes that may drop some experience. The best, but unconfirmed, the method to get the most xp and resource in general would be to gather thirty, fifty or more boxes and open them all at the same time. As you can expect, more powerful enemies will drop higher rewards, so going for separatists or faction enemies is a good idea, if your ships are powerful enough. As always, when farming hostiles remember to use correct officers (Starfleet Academy is specialized for fighting AI ships), keep in mind the battle triangle (use battleships against interceptor, etc.), and with these two small tips, you should be able to improve your farming efficiency.

How to Mine?

First of all, before you start mining, make sure to choose the right ship for the job, and that would be anything from the survey class. After that’s out of the way, we should browse through various systems in order to find the resources that we desire to mine – spending some time for space exploration is one of the best tips that I can give you in this guide. Once you find an unoccupied node, simply tap on it, the mine button will pop up, tap it and your miner will be on his way to a mining node. Survey class ships can gather resources much faster, and have considerably higher cargo capacity, and that’s the main reason why they should be used for mining operations. In the following guide, I will point out several useful tips that can improve the efficiency of your mining missions, so let’s get started!

At the beginning of the game, you can only farm basic resources, parsteel, tritanium, and dilithium. The first step in running successful mining missions would be to set up your base close to the most desired resource, so you can reduce the travel time as much as possible. The second step is choosing the right officers since the right captain can further improve resource gathering speed, while some officers can greatly improve your ship’s travel speed.

There are also a few general tips that should be followed when mining, like not filling up your cargo above the protected limit. This way the space pirates will leave you alone since they wouldn’t gain anything from destroying your ship. Another tip would be to avoid fighting for the farming nodes because, most of the time, you won’t gain anything from it if the opposing player doesn’t want to back down, so it’s a pretty pointless fight.

How to get Botany Bay?

Botany Bay is an Augment survey ship that is great for farming Corrupted Data and Decoded Data. The Augments are genetically enhanced humans, hence the name, created in the twentieth century (by Star Trek timeline) and were ruling the Earth, at one point. However, after the successful rebellion from the rest of the population, they were banished from Earth and were never heard of again until the young captain (yeah, that’s you), made contact with them. Here, the quest chain for the Augments starts, and while doing it, you’ll get to know the piece of space that the Augments carved out for themselves, outside of borders of the known universe – well, not really, they are actually in relatively close proximity to the other factions.

While completing a number of interesting and engaging missions, you will be faced with some tough moral choices, but the rewards will be worth it. Completing the mission chain will grant you some Botany Bay blueprints, and if you can’t get enough to actually create the ship, you can buy them from the store. I would suggest slowly going through the content of the missions as this storyline was one of the most interesting parts of the game.

How to get Plutonium?

Getting plutonium requires unlocking the ‘hidden’ Augment space by finishing the aforementioned missions. Once that’s done, gathering blueprints and creating the Botany Bay is a good idea, since this vessel has a huge bonus for gathering both types of data, necessary in order to get the plutonium. After collecting some amount of Data resources you can then exchange it for Augment credits in the augment faction store. And, here we come to the last part of this guide, in which you will use the credits to buy Plutonium parts in the previously mentioned store.

How to get USS Franklin?

The easiest way to get the Franklin would be to take part in PvE event, in which you can gain points by destroying the swarm ships. Completing this part of the event

shouldn’t be too hard, since it lasts for 7 days, but you’ll have to spend some time farming and actively playing the game. The most important reward for completing this event is 45 blueprints for USS Franklin, out of 90 needed to build the ship. Besides that, you’ll also gain some base resources and materials, and that’s another plus.

One of the best tips here would be to use your explorer against those pesky swarm interceptors.

How to earn alliance credits?

The easiest way to earn alliance credits is simply completing daily missions. Daily missions will provide you many important resources that also include recruit tokens and officer experience, as mentioned before.