The U.S.S. Franklin is a Grade 3 Uncommon Explorer flying the Augment faction flag, and it exists for one job: hunting the Swarm. Its Sabotage ability multiplies the ship’s damage against Swarm targets by a large margin, so a modest mid-game hull becomes a dedicated Swarm-clearing specialist. You can build it once your Shipyard reaches level 17. If you farm the Swarm at all, the Franklin earns its dock space.
How to get the U.S.S. Franklin
Building the Franklin takes 90 blueprints and a Shipyard at level 17. Once you have the blueprints and the shipyard, the build cost is 300 Frequency Modulators, 35,000 Tritanium, 50 units of 2★ Gemeinsame Refined Gas, and 1,400 Dilithium, with a build time of 18 hours.
Von Betrieb level 35 you can scrap the Franklin, so it can double as parts for a later ship once it has done its job for you. Against most mid-game builds the cost is light, and the payoff is a hull that clears Swarm content faster than ships several grades above it.
U.S.S. Franklin ability
The Franklin’s ship ability is Sabotage. When it fights Swarm ships, its damage is increased by 4,800% at ship level 1, rising to 60,000% at the max level of 45. Ship abilities are always active, so this bonus applies every round of a Swarm fight with nothing to trigger.
Outside of Swarm combat the ability does nothing, which is what makes the Franklin a specialist rather than a general Explorer. Against the Swarm, that damage multiplier lets a Grade 3 hull hit far above its tonnage, which is why players keep it around long after its build tier stops being relevant elsewhere.
Stats and tiers
Base values from the current game Daten; research, buffs, and officers raise them in play.
| Ebene | Warp (speed / range) | Impulse | Cargo (protected) | Shield HP | Hull HP | Health (displayed) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stufe 1 | 2.6 / 13 | 100 | 3,500 (100) | 1,600 | 800 | 1,200 |
| Stufe 5 | 3.1 / 23 | 100 | 7,100 (150) | 4,176 | 800 | 2,488 |
| Stufe 9 | 3.6 / 27 | 100 | 21,000 (400) | 21,500 | 800 | 11,150 |
The Franklin leans on its shields. Shield HP climbs from 1,600 at Tier 1 to 21,500 at Tier 9, while hull HP stays at 800 the whole way, so tier upgrades mostly buy you a bigger shield to soak damage before the hull is exposed.
Weapons and firing pattern
Warm-up is the round a weapon first fires; cool-down is the number of rounds between shots after that. The Franklin carries three identical energy weapons that all fire on round one and again every round.
| Waffe | Typ | Shots | Warm-up | Cool-down | Damage | Crit chance | Crit damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Waffe 1 | Energie | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1,211–1,273 | 10% | 150% |
| Waffe 2 | Energie | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1,211–1,273 | 10% | 150% |
| Waffe 3 | Energie | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1,211–1,273 | 10% | 150% |
Because all three weapons are energy, the raw damage is steady rather than spiky. The Sabotage ability, not the base gun stats, is what makes those shots land hard against the Swarm. Every round the ship fires all three guns, and the multiplier applies to each hit, so damage stacks up quickly once a Swarm fight is underway.
Crew slots and officer bonus
The Franklin opens officer slots as it levels up, reaching a full bridge of five at ship level 45.
| Ship level | Officer slots |
|---|---|
| 5 | 1 |
| 10 | 2 |
| 15 | 3 |
| 30 | 4 |
| 45 | 5 |
The ship also boosts your officers’ stats, stepping up a ladder as it progresses. The attack, defense, and health bonuses are identical at every step, so the single ladder below covers all three.
| Amount | Bonus |
|---|---|
| 100 | 10% |
| 200 | 20% |
| 325 | 30% |
| 450 | 40% |
| 600 | 50% |
| 800 | 60% |
| 1,100 | 70% |
| 1,500 | 80% |
| 2,000 | 90% |
| 3,000 | 100% |
Crew for the U.S.S. Franklin
Because the Franklin’s whole value is its Swarm damage bonus, crew it to push that further. The captain seat wants an officer who raises weapon damage or critical hit chance, and the two bridge seats want support that either adds more damage or keeps the ship alive against the Swarm’s return fire. Since the Sabotage bonus is already doing the heavy lifting, survivability officers pay off once you push into higher Swarm levels.
Specific picks shift with each update and with which officers you have leveled, so check the Officer Tier List for the current best crews. Whatever the meta, the principle holds: stack damage first, then add enough defense to survive the fight.
The U.S.S. Franklin in Star Trek
The Franklin is real screen canon. It appeared in the 2016 film Star Trek Beyond as the first Earth ship capable of reaching warp 4, launched in the early days of Starfleet. After a run of successful missions it vanished near the Gagarin Radiation Belt and was presumed lost for roughly a century. Its captain, Balthazar Edison, survived the crash on the planet Altamid and became the villain Krall. In 2263 the crew of the Enterprise found the wrecked Franklin and flew its antiquated hull one last time to defeat Krall and his Swarm, which is the exact fight the game hands you with this ship.
Is the U.S.S. Franklin worth it?
For a Grade 3 Ungewöhnlich, the Franklin is a strong niche buy if the Swarm is on your to-do list, since no other early ship deletes Swarm targets the way its Sabotage bonus does. It falls off fast against anything that is not the Swarm, and it becomes a scrap feeder once you hit Operations level 35. Chase it if you want a cheap, reliable Swarm hunter; skip it if you have already moved past Swarm content.