Getting Started #9 - Gaining a Faction (Federation, Romulan, Klingon)

One of the most important things a low level player can do is gain officer shards as quickly as possible. One of the ways to do that is to gain faction reputation so credits can be redeemed for recruit chests.

Players must be at least lvl16 with a 20k strength ship to start this process. By hitting faction mining ships, a player can start gaining faction reputation. Once enough reputation is gained, the Faction Store is activated which will also enable new daily goals. This will give more options for completing the daily goals. Be careful not to gain too much faction reputation, as that will make the daily goals so hard that you will not be able to complete them.

Again, the goal of this is to gain officer shards quickly.

As a player gains reputation with factions, the daily goals will get harder, but rewards get better. Be careful not to got harder daily goals than what ships will allow you to accomplish.

Getting Started #7 - Changing Servers

Players that are below Ops Level 12 can change servers in STFC so they can play with their friends. The process is simple, and free.

Upon successful transfer:
- Your game will restart and your Station will be relocated to a random system in the new Universe.

- You will receive a free Relocation Token to move your base to a new location in the new Universe.

- You will be automatically removed from your current Alliance. As a result you may be unable to claim any rewards associated with Alliance events in your old Universe.

- All chat messages and battle reports will be cleared.

All ships must be in dock and repaired before this can be done.

Getting Started #6 - Game Economy

STFC has many resources that players need to improve their ships, or upgrade their base. Below is the most basic materials in the game.

Parasteel	Used mostly for building/upgrading the base
Tritanium	Used mostly for ship upgrades
Dilithium	Used mostly for Research

These materials when supplies are low, is produced by Generators inside the base, and must be collected from the generators for them to continue to produce the material. Upgrading the generators improves the speed and storage of materials.

The basic resources can also be mined or collected from hostiles when destroying them. Some events reward resource tokens, that make for an excellent stockpile. Once a player reaches Level 15, bases can be hit for this basic material.

Other materials (Crystal, Gas, Ore) can be mined and refined throughout the galaxy. Crystal, Gas and Ore are used mostly for upgrading ships or research. While mining these materials, each ship has an amount of "Protected Cargo" that the player will keep when shier ship gets destroyed, but anything over that Protected Cargo amount, is stolen by the player that hits you. This material is safe from base raids by other players, but not while mining or in transit back to base.

Remember, leveling up a mining ship will improve the mining rates, as well as using the correct officers for the material being mined.

Below is the mining rates once a player reaches level 20 for 3*/4* materials. There are chances of getting the Uncommon and Rare materials while refining.

Eventually, players will discover that Latinum can be mined and refined, which greatly speeds up advancement as Latinum can be used to purchase materials needed as well as speed up builds/repairs.

Once a D'Vor is at a top tier, the Latinum refinery changes to have the Latinum and the D'Vor Parts separate.

Latinum is used for a variety of things, like common ship parts, ship XP and speed-ups. Below is a chart of the Latinum to Ship XP conversion rates:

Getting Started #5 - Research

Research is just as important as the officers on the ships, as research enhances the capability of the players in many ways.

It is important to complete as much research as possible before upgrading your Operations Center, otherwise you will be too weak to complete tasks or play against other players at the new higher level.

Combat: Ship Capability and ship Blueprints
Station: Base components and abilities
Galaxy: General enhancements of ships and mining
Outlaw: Research for the Stella ship, and things related to the Outlaws
Territory: General enhancements for ships and mining Isogen

Getting Started #4 - Moving Base for Better Mining

Base Relocation Tokens can be collected, and used to relocate your base to another system that has the resources you want to mine. Look for a HUB planet as indicated by the icon, tap on the planet and hit Relocate Base. You need to have your ships either in the system you are relocating to, or docked at your base (fully repaired).

As you explore other systems, you will notice that some systems have bigger mining nodes than others. By using the bigger mining nodes, you can collect more material before the node needs to be reset (moving off node, and back onto it). Players can reduce their travel time to systems and improve mining efficiency by moving to systems with the material that is needed. For those in lower levels (below 18), here are good systems that contain 2* material and their node sizes:

System	LVL	Material	Max Node Size	Hub Planet
Azha	20	Crystal	35000	Yes
Astrida	14	Crystal	25000	Yes
Lycia	14	Crystal	25000	Yes
Amadore	19	Crystal	25000	No
Bellas	12	Crystal	5500	Yes
Nelve	12	Crystal	5500	Yes
Fastoff	21	Crystal/Ore	45000	No
Opla	20	Gas	35000	Yes
Vindemiatrix	15	Gas	25000	Yes
Midnight	19	Gas	25000	No
City Laga	15	Gas	15000	Yes
Elona	13	Gas	5500	Yes
Zaurak	13	Gas	5500	Yes
Sorenle	21	Gas/Ore	45000	No
Labac	17	Ore	25000	Yes
Kepler	20	Ore	25000	Yes
Deneva	15	Ore	25000	Yes
Obilent	17	Ore	25000	Yes
Dhi’ban	14	Ore	5500	Yes

When moving to a new location, there is a certain order to where stations will be placed around a planet.

Be mindful if an enemy is nearby.

Getting Started #3 - Missions

STFC has another component to get resources, and that is Missions. Missions are accepted by visiting systems and tapping on the planet while having a ship nearby. Missions have objectives inside them, and always a story line.

Mission objectives:
Travel to a location
Destroy a target
Donate material
Complete a build/research
Recall ship to Base

When new content is released into STFC, it typically starts with a mission of some kind which starts the story. Players will not be able to access new content without collecting the rewards from the missions, making missions in STFC that much more important.

Getting Started #2 - Beginner Milestones

The player level is advanced by research and building the correct buildings to allow the Operations Center to be upgraded. Leveling up also gives access to different ships and research abilities. Here are the notable milestones for various ships.

Level 1:
Realta (1* Common Explorer)

Level 5: Orion Corvette (1* Common Battleship)
Level 7:
Fortunate (1* Comon Mining Ship)

Level 9:
Astronautics (Research Efficiency)

Level 10:
Refinery
Player vs Player (Ships only)

Level 12:
Turas (2* Comon Explorer)
Envoy (2* Common Mining Ship)
Jellyfish (2* Rare Explorer)

Level 14:
Talla (2* Common Battleship)

Level 15:
Player vs Player (Base Hits)

Level 17:
Franklin (3* Common Explorer - Swarm)

Level 18:
North Star (3* Rare Mining Ship) Ship Hanger (Ship count, Hull Health)
Level 20:
Kehra (2* Common Interceptor) Scrapyard

Level 22:
Vahklas (3* Common Explorer)

Level 23:
D'Vor (Latinum Mining Ship)
Armada Control Center (Launch Armadas)
Engine Technology Lab (Dodge, Interceptor Shield)
Foundry (Armor, Battleship Shield)
Science Lab (Shield Deflection, Explorer Shield)

Level 24:
Kumari (3* Common Battleship)

Below is a chart from LCARS showing the various building requirements by level:

Getting Started #1 - Basic Game Mechanics

This game operates similar to Dungeons and Dragons, in that the ships you use have abilities based on ship type, and how it has been upgraded. Ships can be improved by putting on better officers.

Each ship has bonuses that are affected by the officer stats on the ship. Those stats get added together, and can improve key parts of the ship stats (Attack, Defense, Health). In addition to this, there are three main types of ships (Explorer, Interceptor, Battleship). Each one has certain abilities that gives them an advantage/disadvantage over other ship types.

Each officer has a Captains Ability, that only activates when they are in the middle position on the bridge (captains chair). The Officer Ability is active only while on the bridge. As officers are promoted, the Officer Abilities are improved as well as the officer stats, both of which make ships more powerful.

Research is also a component of the ship power. Lower level research pads the ship stats directly, while higher level research will add percentages to the ship stats. Officers can also add to ship stats to make it powerful in different ways.

Leveling up ships improves the ability of the ship as well. So look at the ship ability and understand that as the ship levels up, that ability gets better. Ship ability will help quite a bit on mining ships.

Once you understand this game mechanic, you can make better choices as to how you play to maximize your results (picking the right ship, and use the proper crews).

When picking a ship to destroy (Hostile or Player), look at the battle triangle types to get an advantage as well as looking at the ship strength.