The ISS Jellyfish was the first 4* ship introduced in Star Trek Fleet Command, and it carries quite a wallop. It entered the game in November 2019 and will have a huge impact on the way you play the game.
Building
In order to build the ISS Jellyfish, you’re going to need 120 Blueprints. You can get these either from the ISS Jellyfish Pursuit Event, from the new Territory Capture Service, or from Epic Armada Chests (if you’re ops level 36 or above.)
Repairing
You’ve probably been warned about this. It’s a little pricey for a unique fixer-upper opportunity. (Bonus points if you remember where that reference is. I get the feeling it might come up in a trivia contest in the next few weeks.)
The nice thing is that at level 39, you’re probably not tritanium poor (hopefully.) But even still, you’re really going to want to invest in repair technologies, both in repair times and resources.
Note that the Jellyish wasn’t affected by the recent reductions in G4 ship repairs. As you can see below, my tier 4 Jellyfish is still quite pricey to repair, but my research and drydock buffs have reduced the cost from 7.1 million Tritanium to 2.1 Tritanium.
The moral of the story is that if you can do whatever you’re doing with your Jelly with another ship, do it with the other ship.
Upgrading your ISS Jellyfish
Here’s a nickel’s worth of free advice to you, before you start upgrading your Jelly – do as much research as possible as you can to reduce your costs. Specifically, for explorer parts; so Explorer Bartering in the Outlaw Research tree, and Pure Parts Explorer in the Galaxy tree.
It’s not the G4 gas that’s likely going to hold you back from upgrading, but rather, it’s the G4 uncommon parts. You’ll get an awful lot of the gas you need to upgrade it from the Para Bellum events. You will get a good deal of parts from the Jellyfish Brawl events, but not to the degree you’ll get them from.
You’re also going to need to pay attention to your research for upgrading this ship. A lot of the new researches recently released increase the power of the G4 ships, and the Jelly will benefit from that.
Exploring
I was actually most excited to get the ISS Jellyfish for its warp range. This was a healthy upgrade for me, and let me finish up a lot of missions.
Tier 4 will also let you get to warp 75, which will let you move your base into Deep Space, where you have easier access to fast latinum mining and G4 raw material mining. It’s also a bit quieter. Less of the riff-raff.
| Tier | Warp Range |
|---|---|
| 1 | 60 |
| 2 | 65 |
| 3 | 70 |
| 4 | 75 |
| 5 | 80 |
| 6 | 85 |
| 7 | 95 |
| 8 | 100 |
| 9 | 105 |
| 10 | 110 |
| 11 | 120 |
| 12 | 130 |
The other thing you’ll notice is that it’s a fast ship in warp. With tech bonuses, mine zips around at warp 15.7.
It’s not a particularly quick ship in systems using impulse power. It starts out at 85, though there is research you can get starting at level 42 in the Outlaw Research tree that will speed it up, maxing out at 110.
The ISS Jellyfish in Combat
Apart from its range, the key to maximizing your use of your Jelly is understanding its ship ability:
Imperial Might – The ISS Jellyfish gains an additional 15% damage bonus at the start of every combat round. This bonus stacks with no limit.
This bonus, by the way, starts at 15% per round. It maxes out at 74% per round.
So the key is this, the longer your battle goes, the more damage you’re going to do. For reference, my 4.5 million strength Tier 4 ISS Jellyfish currently does 440k damage per round. My 3.8 million Tier 7 Augur does 595k damage per round. So in short battles, the advantage goes to the Augur. The longer the battle goes, the more damage done by the Jellyfish will increase dramatically.
In terms of weaponry, you’ve got three weapons. Two phaser cannons (energy weapons) that each fire twice in every round, and a “red matter torpedo” kinetic weapon that fires in every other round.
If you’re thinking that you’re going to go toe-to-toe with similarity-powered G3 epics, you’re probably going to be disappointed. The Jelly’s ability doesn’t work that fast. So your 4 million Jelly will likely fall victim to a 4 million Enterprise or Augur.
It’s also a terrible base cracker. Those battles tend to be in the 4-6 round range. Short battles are not your friend in this ship.
It’s not bad at all in hunting hostiles, just throw the Pike crew on and get to work. Just keep in mind that you’re not going to get faction “devotion” rep bonuses because it’s not a faction ship.
It can be also be very good at defeating mission bosses. For tougher ones, I’ve used my Jelly to wipe out the shields of mission bosses, and then used my Augur to finish them off.
But, where you will absolutely love this ship is in armadas. It’s in long battles where it’ll shine, and armada battles tend to be very long indeed. 25+ rounds, and doing increasing damage in every round.
Basic Crewing
(For the sake of space, I’m going to go with just a few basic crews here, and probably write something more in depth at a later date.)
For armadas, if you’re confident that you’re going to win easily, then Five of 10 (Borg Jaylah) is a go-to. If it’s going to be closer, the old reliable of Kirk, Spock, and Khan is the way to go. You can also mix and match, and put Five as the captain, for the increased loot, with Kirk and Spock as your officers.
Keep in mind that it’s an Explorer, so your new TOS officers will work nicely with it.
For hostiles, you can’t go wrong with your Pike crew.
The setup itself gives you a lot of flexibility. The ship ability doesn’t require any special conditions like burning or morale to set it off, so you’re free to max your officers, and tailor your crew to your opponent. It fires both energy and kinetic weapons, so you can also use that to your advantage.