The Subspace Relay is a station building in Star Trek Fleet Command that raises your warp speed, ship hull health, and defense platform damage as you level it up. It unlocks at Operations level 25 and upgrades all the way to level 60. All three bonuses climb with every level and apply across your whole account, so this is a long-term investment that helps your fleet and your station defenses rather than one narrow job.
What the Subspace Relay does
In story terms, the relay is built from ancient Progenitor architectural drawings and turns your station into a node on the Progenitor Subspace Network, letting allied stations share computational processing power across long distances. In gameplay terms, it grants three stacking bonuses that grow as you upgrade the building, and all three are live from the first level, so even a low-level relay does something useful right away.
| Buff | Active from level | Level 1 | Level 30 | Level 60 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Warp Speed Bonus (all ships) | 1 | 10% | 320% | 1,000% |
| Hull Health Bonus (all ships) | 1 | 40% | 1,200% | 2,500% |
| Defense Platform Damage Bonus | 1 | 25% | 750% | 1,500% |
Warp speed shortens travel time to every node, hostile, and mining spot on the map. Hull health raises how much punishment your ships absorb in combat. Defense platform damage strengthens the platforms that fire back when another player attacks your station. These values are current as of the latest game data.
How to unlock the Subspace Relay
You need Operations level 25 to place the Subspace Relay at level 1. From there the Operations requirement stays flat until level 30, then rises one Operations level for each five-level band: level 30 needs Operations 30, level 35 needs Operations 35, and so on up to level 60, which needs Operations 60. In practice the top end of the relay tracks your Operations level closely, so you can only push it as far as your station’s core building allows.
Upgrade costs and build times
Early levels are cheap and quick. Costs then scale hard, and the Parsteel bill at the top runs into the trillions. Level 1 asks for Parsteel plus a one-time 100 Subspace Relay Key, and every level after that spends the building’s own Subspace Relay Upgrade material alongside a growing pile of Parsteel. The build times below are unboosted; construction speedups and build-speed bonuses cut them down heavily.
| Level | Cost | Build time | Requires |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 800 Parsteel, 100 Subspace Relay Key | 35s | Operations 25 |
| 5 | 1,000 Subspace Relay Upgrade, 1,800 Parsteel | 13m | Operations 25 |
| 10 | 1,500 Subspace Relay Upgrade, 7,000 Parsteel | 1h 50m | Operations 25 |
| 20 | 3,050 Subspace Relay Upgrade, 144,500 Parsteel | 1d 5h | Operations 25 |
| 30 | 5,750 Subspace Relay Upgrade, 13.26M Parsteel | 3d 1h | Operations 30 |
| 40 | 10,300 Subspace Relay Upgrade, 1.866B Parsteel | 48d 11h | Operations 40 |
| 50 | 15,450 Subspace Relay Upgrade, 125B Parsteel | 830d 2h | Operations 50 |
| 55 | 18,600 Subspace Relay Upgrade, 4.827T Parsteel | 1306d 21h | Operations 55 |
| 60 | 22,500 Subspace Relay Upgrade, 40.19T Parsteel | 1748d 22h | Operations 60 |
Taking the Subspace Relay from level 1 to level 60 costs roughly 114.2 trillion Parsteel, 480,000 Subspace Relay Upgrade, and the one-time 100 Subspace Relay Key for the first level. The cumulative unboosted build time adds up to about 16,708 days, which is why the deep levels are a project measured in months of real play with speedups, not a quick finish.
How the Subspace Relay fits your station
Think of the relay as an account-wide multiplier. The warp bonus speeds up everything you do on the map, the hull bonus keeps your ships alive longer in PvP and against hostiles, and the platform bonus makes your station harder to farm when a rival hits it. Because the requirement climbs with your Operations level past level 30, the relay naturally becomes a late-game upgrade once you clear its cheap opening stretch. Grab the early levels soon after it unlocks for a fast return, then feed it Parsteel steadily alongside your other economy buildings.
Is the Subspace Relay worth upgrading?
Yes, at a steady pace. The early and mid levels hand you large percentage jumps for modest Parsteel, and the warp and hull bonuses touch every ship you own, so the return is broad. The final levels demand trillions of Parsteel and years of unboosted build time, so treat those as a long-horizon goal rather than a rush. Keep the relay moving in the background and let your Operations level set the ceiling.