SNW Una Chin-Riley in Star Trek Fleet Command
SNW Una Chin-Riley is an epic Engineering officer from the Strange New Worlds crew. Her captain ability turns up your weapon damage against hostiles, which makes her a strong pick for players who spend a lot of time grinding mobs for loot, reputation, and resources.
She also brings a mobility perk as an officer: her ability raises your ship’s impulse speed, so your fleet moves faster around the map. That pairing, more damage in the captain seat and more speed on the bridge, gives her a clear home in hostile-hunting crews.
This guide covers who Una is in Star Trek canon, what her two abilities do, where she fits in your roster, how her shards work, and the crews that make sense around her.
Who Una Chin-Riley is in Star Trek
Una Chin-Riley, known by the call sign “Number One,” is the first officer of the USS Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike. She is a central character in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, played by Rebecca Romijn, and the role traces back to the unnamed first officer in the original 1965 Star Trek pilot.
Her defining secret is her heritage. Una is Illyrian, a species that genetically modifies itself to adapt to harsh environments. The Federation bans that kind of augmentation, so for years Una hid what she was. When a light-based virus swept the Enterprise, she turned out to be the only crew member immune to it, a direct result of her Illyrian biology. Her heritage comes out in the episode “Ghosts of Illyria,” and she later faces a court martial in “Ad Astra per Aspera,” where Starfleet grants her asylum and clears her of the charges.
Earlier in her career, serving aboard the USS Martin Luther King Jr. as an ensign, Una rescued a young La’an Noonien-Singh from Gorn captivity. That act pushed La’an to join Starfleet herself, which ties the two officers together in the game’s Strange New Worlds group.
Una’s role in STFC
Una is an Engineering-class officer built around fighting hostiles. Hostiles are the AI ships and targets you attack across the galaxy for loot, faction reputation, and mission progress, and a captain who raises weapon damage against them speeds up that grind.
Because her captain bonus is tied to hostiles, she works in player-versus-environment combat rather than player-versus-player. You bring her when you are clearing mobs, working a faction grind, or farming a resource node guarded by hostiles, not when you are fighting other players’ ships.
Captain ability and officer ability
Modified Weaponry (captain ability)
When Una is your captain, Modified Weaponry increases your ship’s base weapon damage while you are fighting hostiles. At rank 1 the bonus is 100% to base weapon damage against hostiles (as of the latest data). A captain ability only applies when the officer sits in the captain’s chair, so Una has to lead the bridge for this to do anything.
The bonus changes as you promote her, but the data for the higher ranks is not clean enough to publish as a reliable per-rank table, so treat the rank-1 figure as your anchor and expect the effect to grow with promotion.
Engine Redlining (officer ability)
As a bridge officer, Una’s Engine Redlining raises your ship’s impulse speed, the sublight speed your ship uses to move inside a system. The bonus scales up each time you promote her. Faster impulse speed helps you reach hostile spawns, mining nodes, and waypoints sooner, which adds up over a long farming session.
Engine Redlining works from any bridge seat, so you can slot Una as a supporting officer next to a different captain when you want the speed without the weapon buff.
Where SNW Una Chin-Riley shines
Her clearest use is as a hostile-grinding captain. If your daily routine includes clearing mobs for faction reputation or chasing resource drops, the weapon-damage bonus shortens each fight and lets you push through more targets per session.
She also helps any fleet that wants to cover ground faster. The impulse-speed boost suits players who hop between nodes, run circuits of hostile spawns, or want to close on a target before it gets away.
She fits players building a Strange New Worlds themed crew. If you are collecting that group, Una gives you a damage-oriented captain option that pairs with the other officers from the same show.
How to get SNW Una Chin-Riley
Like other Strange New Worlds officers, Una is recruited from shards rather than bought outright. You collect her shards from in-game sources and promote her through five ranks. Shard availability rotates, so check the current event schedule and the faction or event stores in your game for where she is offered right now.
The shard cost to promote her into each rank, as of the latest data:
| Rank | Shards to promote |
|---|---|
| 1 | 100 |
| 2 | 100 |
| 3 | 200 |
| 4 | 300 |
| 5 | 800 |
That works out to 1,500 shards total to take her from recruitment to rank 5. The cost stays light through the first few ranks and then jumps at rank 5, which is the usual shape for an epic officer, so plan the back half of the grind around that final 800-shard step.
Synergies and crews
Una belongs to the Strange New Worlds synergy group, the set of officers drawn from that series. STFC gives grouped officers bonuses when you crew them together, so the most natural pairings for Una come from other Strange New Worlds officers such as Christopher Pike, Spock, and La’an Noonien-Singh.
Beyond the themed group, build the rest of the bridge around the job at hand. Since Una’s captain bonus only fires against hostiles, pair her with officers whose abilities also reward fighting mobs, and lean on her impulse-speed perk when your crew needs to reach targets quickly. Specific class-synergy percentages for her are not published in a form worth quoting, so treat group membership as the reliable synergy signal and tune the supporting seats to your own roster.
Frequently asked questions
Is SNW Una Chin-Riley good in STFC?
She is a solid pick if you grind hostiles. The captain bonus to weapon damage against hostiles speeds up that work directly, and the officer ability adds map speed. She is not built for player-versus-player combat, so judge her by how much hostile farming you actually do.
What does Modified Weaponry do?
It is Una’s captain ability. While you fight hostiles, it raises your ship’s base weapon damage, starting at 100% at rank 1 (as of the latest data) and increasing as you promote her. It only works while she is captain.
Where do you get SNW Una Chin-Riley shards?
From rotating in-game sources tied to the Strange New Worlds content. Availability changes over time, so check the current event and store rotations in your game rather than relying on a fixed source.
What ship is she best on?
Put her on whatever ship you use for hostile hunting at your level, since her captain bonus is tied to fighting hostiles. A ship class that already leans on weapon damage gets the most out of Modified Weaponry.
Is she worth ranking up?
If you use her as a hostile-grinding captain, the rank-ups raise her weapon bonus and her impulse boost, so promotion pays off. If she mostly sits on your bench, spend shards on officers you crew more often first.
Una Chin-Riley is a focused officer: a hostile-damage captain with a speed perk attached. Players who spend their sessions clearing mobs will feel the difference, and anyone collecting the Strange New Worlds crew gets a useful damage seat. If you rarely fight hostiles, she is easy to skip until your priorities change.
