This month we’ve got a new ship, the USS Franklin-A. It’s an updated version of the USS Franklin you’ve come to know over the past year and a half. Like the old ship, it’s a swarm killer.
The problem with higher level players is that, other than on Swarm Sunday, the Franklin has become obsolete. You can do the dailies if need be, and this will give you some nice repair speed ups. But in terms of the resources you can get from biominerals, it’s useless. When your next station upgrade costs billions in parsteel, getting 7 million parsteel a day isn’t going to make that much of an impact.
So we’ll see new biominerals that will pay more in resources. But you’ll get them by defeating new higher level swarm, level 37+, and in new swarm systems.
For the purposes of this article, I’m going to assume that you’re familiar with the original Franklin, and I will be discussing the new ship in comparison with the old one.
Franklin-A Ship Ability
It’s a swarm killer. Period. Here’s a chart comparing the bonus to damage against swarm by the old ship and the new ship, by level. You can see that the old ship has a bigger bonus out of the box, but the new Franklin quickly overtakes it. And by level 60, hit a whopping 500,000%.
Of course, the other difference is that your new ship will be stronger by level than the old one.
| Level | Franklin | Franklin-A | Difference |
| 1 | 4,800 | 3,500 | (1,300) |
| 5 | 5,000 | 4,000 | (1,000) |
| 10 | 5,400 | 8,000 | 2,600 |
| 15 | 6,000 | 12,000 | 6,000 |
| 20 | 8,200 | 16,000 | 7,800 |
| 25 | 10,400 | 22,000 | 11,600 |
| 30 | 12,600 | 28,000 | 15,400 |
| 35 | 20,850 | 35,000 | 14,150 |
| 40 | 29,000 | 45,000 | 16,000 |
| 45 | 60,000 | 80,000 | 20,000 |
| 50 | 150,000 | ||
| 55 | 250,000 | ||
| 60 | 500,000 |
Weaponry
Whereas the old Franklin only had three energy weapons that each fired once per round, the Franklin-A is also outfitted with two kinetic weapons and one energy weapon. So keep this in mind when you’re looking at the chart above, especially in the early rounds. While your damage percentage will look similar between the two ships until about level 10, you’re going to be taking more shots with the Franklin-A. With it’s odd firing pattern, it averages out to two more shots per round.
What About My Old Franklin?
If you’re wondering if you can now scrap old Franklins, you can. Here’s what you’ll get for a maxed-out Franklin.
It is a bit disappointing that even though you’ve poured a bunch of G2 and G3 common materials in, you’re not going to be getting any out when you scrap it.
Your new Franklin should come out of the box at about the same strength as your old one. And scrapping your old Franklin will give you 200 Advanced Data Cores, which is the exact amount you’ll need to buy the 200 blueprints you’ll need for your new ship.
Upgrading Your Franklin-A
Here’s what it’s going to cost you to upgrade your Franklin-A. You’ll notice that like its older brother, it switches over from one grade to another, this time from Grade 3 mats to Grade 4 at tier 5. And like the Franklin, it needs frequency modulators, obtained by killing swarm, though this time, their tier 2 modulators. You will be able to exchange your old modulators for the tier 2 ones, though the exchange rate is not 1:1.
You’ll also note that the tiers are gated by level. You’ll need to be level 35 to build the ship, level 37 to get to tier 2, and level 39 to get it to tier 3.
All in all, in terms of materials, this isn’t all that expensive, especially when you consider that this is a G4 ship, and that the costs above don’t reflect any of the efficiency technologies.
The USS Terror
This ship refit that you’ll be able to earn in Franklin event in April 2021 will give you a massive buff to damage against Swarm.
Your Franklin Officer
And for the first time, we’ve got an officer whose ability is specifically tied to a ship. The long-awaited Jaylah is here, and she’ll give you a shot bonus each round on your Franklin and Franklin-A.
And there will be… SWARM ARMADAS that will give you a chance to earn Jaylah shards. They’ll cost 100 Rare Armada Directives to launch.