USS Franklin – the Swarm Killer

Just in time for Swarm Sunday, it’s my review of the USS Franklin.

What the Franklin Is Good At?

“Hide not your Talents, they for Use were made. What’s a Sun-Dial in the shade!”
– Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1750

The Franklin is great at killing swarms. That’s what it’s talent is. Its ship ability is “Sabotage,” which gives it an enormous damage ability when fighting swarm ships. This bonus starts off at 5,000% and tops out at 60,000% at level 45.

This is going to be a tremendous advantage when you’re trying to complete your Swarm Sunday events: Threat From Beyond, and Threat From Beyond – Heroic!

These have some good rewards. They give out tritanium, tritanium tokens, uncommon ore, uncommon gas, and rare crystal, and at the highest level of each event Khan and Mara shards. (If you complete these events during a Daily Recruiting event, you’ll get points for the Khan and Mara shards.)

Also, your daily swarm events, which give you milestone points, biominerals, frequency modulators and repair speed ups.

What It’s Not So Good At

Everything else. Maybe if you set it up with a lawnmower blade attachment, it could mow your lawn.

 

But I’ve Got Other Ships that Can Kill Swarm

You probably do. The rub is in repair costs. So I did a side-by-side comparison. I took my Tier 5 B’Rel, which is amazing at killing hostiles, and sent it out to kill swarm. Then I took my Tier 8 Franklin out, crewed the same, and went to the same systems (Frysta) to kill level 32 swarm. I made sure to avoid any damaged swarm, this is after all, for SCIENCE! (click for 80s reference)

Ship	Strength	Total	Tritanium	Dilithium	Repair Time
Franklin	404,750	63	137,500	23,400	1.5 hours
Brel	1,444,863	45	324,700	44,500	6.75 hours

As you can see, the Franklin was able to kill about 40% more swarm and do it much more efficiently when you look at the repair costs and the repair time.

So you CAN kill swarm with ships other than the Franklin, you’re just going to kill less of them, and do so at a greater cost.

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The chart below is a good base for what level your Franklin should be able to defeat. But the better your crew and research, the higher level swarm you’ll be able to take out.

Tier 1	Level 17
Tier 2	Level 18
Tier 3	Level 20
Tier 4	Level 22
Tier 5	Level 24
Tier 6	Level 26
Tier 7	Level 28
Tier 8	Level 30
Tier 9	Level 32

How Do I Improve My Franklin?

The Franklin doesn’t come out of the box killing level 35 swarm. It’s going to take a lot of “Frequency Modulators” to upgrade your Franklin. Unless you spend a good deal of money on these, you’re going to grind them out. You can get them in three ways – by killing swarm, through alliance event rewards, and by completing your swarm dailies.

Even with these swarm dailies, it’s going to take you a long, long time to fully upgrade your Franklin.

It’s worth it in the end, but I won’t lie to you – it’s a grind.

Crewing Your Franklin

The crew always matters in Star Trek Fleet Command, but probably in no other area more than with the Franklin. Since the ship already does an enormous amount of damage to swarm ships, you’re going to want to focus your crew on damage mitigation.

So the ideal swarm crew is Pike, Moreau, and T’Laan. Pike’s captain’s ability will increase the effectiveness of the officer abilities of the other two. Moreau decreases the armor-piercing, shield piercing, and accuracy of hostiles. T’Laan decreases the weapon damage from kinetic weapons.

Also, be sure to max your below decks crew.

If you don’t have them, you can use Cadet Uhura as your captain, with Cadet McCoy (or Cadet Kirk) and T’Laan as your crew.

Ship-Specific Research

There is Franklin-specific research!

You’ll find it in the Galaxy tab. The good part is that most of these upgrades won’t cost you any materials at all. The bad part is that they do cost what most players will consider an obscene amount of dilithium. These are great researches to save for research spending events.

Keep in mind that these upgrades only apply when you’re using the Franklin.

• Swarm Weakpoints – Weapon damage is increased. This starts at 1,000% at level one and goes up to 30,000% at level 10.
• Swarm Targeting – Accuracy is increased against swarm hostiles, ranging from 10% at level 1 to 120% at level 10
• Swarm Jammer – Dodge of swarm ship is reduced. It’s 20% at level one and tops off at 50% at level 10.
• Swarm Fortification – Your ship’s armor is increased, from 10% at level 1 to 120% at level 10.

Also, it’s an Explorer, so all of your Explorer tech is going to make your Franklin better.

How You Get the Franklin?

It takes 90 blueprints to construct the Franklin. You’ll also need a level 17 shipyard.

The cheapest way to get the Franklin is by completing the periodically held Franklin events – you could get 45 blueprints by completing a mining and a hostile hunting event. The problem is that these events aren’t offered very often. To my knowledge, they’ve been offered twice. And I have two Franklins (not that I particularly recommend you going out of your way constructing a second one.)

They are also made available for purchase from time to time.

Background

The Franklin entered the Star Trek universe in Star Trek: Beyond. It was the ship that Kirk and company used to defeat the swarm.

It was Starfleet’s first warp 4 ship, launched before the NX-01 Enterprise, which was the first warp 5 ship. Originally launched under the command of Captain Balthazar Edison (who should be in the game), before crashing on Altamid.

Bring the USS Franklin Home!

The Special Edition model of the Franklin is available from Eaglemoss. Get yours today.