Welcome to the GM Update. This is the first installment in what will become a regular series, where we share about what’s happening in STFC. We said September would bring changes– consider this the start. Since the update video we’ve been listening, reviewing, and recalibrating. We’re just starting to see the impact of some of those recalibrations, with other changes starting to build momentum.
Also, noted on the T-shirt.
Our community is deeply important to us, and we are committed to improving our communications with you as the game comes up on its 7th anniversary.
Getting Content Right for Every Level
In efforts to serve the broader player base and incorporate community requests, we had expanded our target audience for updates. These changes did not create the experience we wanted. They made things feel thinner, slower, and more disconnected. Early rewards invalidated older content and high-level experiences felt watered down. Progression lost its rhythm. We actually see G3 and G4 players play more between arcs than during them.
We’re changing course.
New content moving forward will be focused on the higher levels, where the challenge needs to scale and the game needs to offer fresh experiences. The September update starts at Ops 45 as an introduction, but the experience takes off in the 50s. We will shift the focus of updates to Ops 51+ in the following months.
For G3 and G4 players, our goal is to surface the best of STFC’s existing content—ships, events, and systems that already work—with clearer rewards and more focused progression.
Starting in September:
- The Battle Pass for G3 is shifting away from Choice Rewards. We are looking to make building up of your materials and resources, and by extension, progression, more straightforward for newer players. We’ll review player feedback and data after the first cycle and continue to look for ways to improve the clarity in these Grades.
- We’ve added targeted events and rewards around the U.S.S Reliant or U.S.S Franklin depending on your level. These will replace the regular arc events with more relevant activities for Ops 20 – 44.
- Between September and October, we will have a special event series asking players to engage with grade relevant ships. These events will reward those with prior progress, but opening new opportunities for those that haven’t.
Quick Guide: What to expect in September
- Ops 20–44: Expect arc-adjacent events tuned to grade-specific progression.
- Ops 45–50: September introduces content starting at 45; with the experience ramping up in the 50s.
- Ops 51+: We’re targeting November to begin focusing our updates on these higher Ops.
At the same time, we’re making changes for G5+ by reducing event bloat and tightening event structures. This means:
- A more focused daily and weekly rhythm with a clear, challenging direction
- Optional deeper engagement through Heroics and Ticketed Events
We’re excited for these changes to land in September. We want Grade 3 and 4 players to have a more focused progression, with rewards, ships, and activities that match where you’re at in your Fleet Command journey. Higher Operations players should expect fresh challenges that continue to expand the Star Trek Fleet Command Universe. We are looking forward to your feedback, and will continue to improve the tailoring of the experiences for each and every one of you.
Stronger Together: Alliances Front and Center
You will also notice a bigger emphasis on your Alliance, and Alliance activities. We want Star Trek Fleet Command to continue to bring players together– and demand the collective might of many minds to overcome challenges. We are starting to ramp up these Alliance challenges in September. There will be more Alliance focused events that reward you for working together. We will be reading your feedback, and are looking forward to expanding on these throughout the year. We hope you love them as much as we do.
In that vein, we are also bringing some new updates to Alliances. To start, targeting mid-September, we are planning a rollout of Alliance Tagging to help make finding the right alliance easier. More updates will follow down the line.
We want playing with your Alliance to feel rewarding and full of opportunities. These are our first steps toward that goal.
U.S.S. Vengeance
There are a lot of factors that play into a Ship’s power. Crewing for Hostiles and PvP, Below Deck choices, as well as Buffs and Debuffs all play a crucial role in how a matchup will play out.
With that in mind, we are seeing Vengeances being destroyed in some matchups against player Borg Cubes. We are monitoring win rates, crew impacts, and the current stats meta. Rest assured, we are committed to ensuring the U.S.S Vengeance rightly holds its title of the first Legendary ship in STFC.
The Vengeance is still new to STFC, and we will look to continue to shape its role in the game as time goes on.
The future of Shipyard Management
We are committed to providing a G5 scrapping solution to players, and communicated earlier this year it would be released in 2025. We have missed this goal and will not achieve a release of G5 scrapping in 2025; we understand the disappointment.
Scrapping your Ships accomplishes 2 goals:
- Clearing space within your shipyard for better ships as you power up
- Allow you to recover some of the resources invested into the building and tiering of the Ship
The first goal of scrapping, freeing up shipyard space, is clear and easily achievable. The second goal, returning resources, is where things have become more complicated.
Over time, we’ve added more cost efficiency across the game to speed up progression, especially into later Grades. Events, new loops, and other sources have also made G4 ship parts and resources more accessible. That’s been good for progression, but has also raised the value of scrapping far beyond what was intended. Simply put, G4 ships have become cheaper to build, but the rewards from scrapping into G5 haven’t changed—creating an imbalance.
This has had a big effect on how players move through G5, and it risks turning scrapping into a main path of progression. That’s not the experience we want. As we look ahead to G6, our goal is to make sure progression comes from exploring the galaxy and engaging with other players, not running scrapping queues.
That said, clearing shipyard space is still a must. We looked at solutions like a “scuttle” option with no payout, but that didn’t feel right. So, as an immediate step, we recently increased shipyard space significantly in June and we’ll be giving more additional ship slots in October. More updates on the future of scrapping will come later this year.
Performance and Stability
We continue to focus on stability and service uptime, with several core infrastructure upgrades already live and more on the way. These aren’t always easy to talk about, since performance can feel very different from player to player. “Lag” can mean a lot of things—but behind the scenes we track response times, server load, crash rates, and other metrics to measure impact. The most important measure, though, is what you tell us about your experience.
Recently, we updated the communication gateway to strengthen the connection between client and server. This has helped improve resiliency during heavy traffic spikes, and open the door to even more improvements that will make gameplay smoother, and more consistent.
We also just rolled out the Unity 6 update after extensive testing. Compared to Unity 2021, this upgrade has already shown stronger stability and performance in key areas, giving us a much stronger foundation for the future.
There’s still more work to do, but we’re pushing in the right places—and the results are starting to show. We’ll share more details in the next update as we measure the impact of these changes.
Charting the Course Beyond September
This is just the beginning. The updates this month set the momentum, but the larger changes ahead will take a bit more time.
We know we won’t please everyone with every update, but our goal is to make STFC more exciting, more rewarding, and more engaging as it continues to grow. We want to build a game that challenges you, rewards your efforts, and evolves alongside you.
Next year marks the 60th anniversary of Star Trek, and we’re committed to delivering updates that honor that legacy and bring you experiences worthy of the celebration.
As always, we want to hear from you. Share your feedback with us on the official Discord or through in-game support– we’re listening.
Live Long and Prosper,
-Conor
