Suder at a glance
Suder is a Rare Engineering officer in Star Trek Fleet Command, released as part of the Voyager 30th Anniversary group. He is Independent faction and sits in a small synergy group with two other Voyager officers.
His draw is a hull repair effect that triggers between rounds when fighting hostiles. Crews running long PvE fights against hostile waves can use him to claw back hit points round over round, which can be the difference between a survivable grind and constant repair downtime.
One thing to flag up front: Suder has no usable captain ability. His value lives entirely on the officer bridge slot.
Star Trek background
Lon Suder is a Betazoid Maquis fighter who ends up on the USS Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. The Voyager episode “Meld” is the defining Suder story. He murders a fellow crewman with no motive, and Tuvok agrees to a mind meld to help him control his violent impulses, with rough side effects on Tuvok’s own emotional control. Suder spends the rest of his arc under house arrest in his quarters, breeding orchids and learning to live with himself.
“Basics, Part II” closes his canon story. When the Kazon take Voyager, Suder hides aboard, partners with the Doctor, and sneaks into engineering to sabotage the backup phaser coil so the Kazon’s first shot blows up in their own faces. He kills eleven Kazon soldiers single-handedly during the operation and dies in the firefight. Tuvok offers a brief Vulcan prayer over his body, wishing him the peace in death that he could not find in life. Brad Dourif played the role across all three Suder episodes.
STFC’s version riffs on the time-altered storyline used across the Voyager 30th Anniversary group. In that timeline Suder never had his sacrifice moment. He came back to the Alpha Quadrant instead, and his violent impulses sharpened in captivity. That is the version the officer card represents.
Role in STFC
Suder is an Engineering-class officer aimed at hostile farming. His officer ability triggers at the end of each round of combat against hostiles, so the effect is built for fights that run multiple rounds: tougher hostile waves, extended PvE grinds, and any farming loop where your ship is taking incoming hits but is not getting blown up in a single salvo.
He is not a captain. The captain ability slot prints “no effect,” so do not put him in the chair. Treat Suder as a passive officer-slot pick that boosts survivability when paired with a captain whose own ability covers offense or hit point scaling.
Captain ability
Suder’s captain ability, called Chain of Command, does nothing. The in-game description states that this officer does not have a captain’s maneuver and that equipping him as captain provides no benefit. Skip the captain seat entirely and use him in one of the bridge officer slots.
Officer ability: Silence Your Demons
Suder’s officer ability repairs a percentage of the hull damage your ship took in the previous round of combat when fighting hostiles. The repair triggers at the end of each round, so the longer the fight runs, the more value he returns. The repair only fires against hostiles, so this ability does not apply to PvP, armadas against players, or PvE objectives that are not classed as hostiles.
The repair percentage scales as you promote him through ranks. The starting repair sits in the low double digits at rank 1 and climbs into the mid twenties of damage repaired per round at maximum rank, as of the latest in-game data. The takeaway: rank Suder up before you commit to him as a grind anchor, because the scaling from early ranks to max is what makes the ability worth the bridge slot.
A few things to bear in mind. The repair is a percentage of the damage your ship took in the previous round, not a percentage of total hull. Fights where you are taking very little damage round to round will see correspondingly small repairs. The ability also activates from the officer bridge slot, which means he does not need to be captain for the effect to fire.
Where Suder shines
The cleanest use case for Suder is a hostile farming crew where you want to extend the time you can stay in space without docking for repairs. He pairs well on Explorer-class ships used for grinding hostile-heavy systems, especially fights that resolve over several rounds rather than a single salvo.
Players grinding faction reputation or chasing materials from hostile drops are the natural audience. Suder is not the right pick for one-shot fights or PvP. The trigger condition (hostiles, end of round) rules out most of those scenarios.
How to get Suder shards
Suder belongs to the Voyager 30th Anniversary group of officers. Officers from limited-run groups typically rotate through event stores, recruit tokens tied to that group, and time-limited events. Check the current event and recruit store availability in your game client for the live rotation; Suder may or may not be available outside an active Voyager-themed event window.
From recruitment through rank 5, Suder takes 588 shards in total: 38 to promote into rank 1, 55 into rank 2, 115 into rank 3, 155 into rank 4, and 225 into rank 5. Plan around that if you are buying shards from a store with a daily cap.
Synergies
Suder sits in a synergy group with two other Voyager 30th Anniversary officers, Annorax and Seska. Slotting Suder alongside either of them on the same ship triggers the group’s synergy bonus. The data does not surface a clean per-rank synergy percentage for this group, so treat the synergy as a tiebreaker for crew construction rather than a number to lean on.
For class synergy, Suder is Engineering. If your captain seat has an Engineering-friendly synergy effect, putting Suder underneath them picks up that bonus. Check your captain’s ability text for the synergy multipliers that apply when an Engineering officer fills the slot.
Crew building notes
A workable hostile grinding crew has Suder in an officer slot, a captain whose ability boosts hostile damage or hostile-fight survivability, and a third officer that supports the same combat profile. The Voyager group as a whole is built around survivability and round-over-round effects, so pairing Suder with Annorax or Seska is the natural in-group play if you have either of them ranked.
Outside the group, any captain whose ability covers offense leaves Suder free to do what he does best: keep the hull bar from dropping while you grind through wave after wave. Avoid pairing him with very short combat scenarios where you will end the fight before his repair triggers.
Frequently asked questions
Is Suder any good?
For hostile farming on Explorer-class ships, yes, he is useful, particularly at higher ranks where the repair percentage climbs. He is a specialist, not a generalist. He does not contribute to PvP or to fights that end in a single round, and he has no captain ability.
Where do you get Suder shards?
Suder is part of the Voyager 30th Anniversary officer group. Shards typically come through event stores and recruit tokens tied to that group’s release window. Check the current store and event rotations in your game client.
Can Suder be a captain?
No. His captain ability does nothing. The game text confirms this directly: equipping Suder as captain provides no benefit. Put him in one of the officer bridge slots instead.
What ship is Suder best on?
An Explorer-class ship used for grinding hostiles is the best home for him, since the round-over-round repair scales with how long the fight runs. He has less value on Battleships or Interceptors that prefer to end fights quickly.
Is Suder worth ranking up?
If you are actively running him in a hostile farming crew, the rank-up progression makes a clear difference, since the repair percentage climbs each rank. If he is not part of an active crew, lower his priority below officers you actually use day to day.
Bottom line
Suder is a niche but useful Engineering officer for players who spend time in extended hostile fights. He has no captain ability, so build him into the officer slots and lean on his repair when your grinding loop runs long enough for the trigger to add up. If you are not currently farming hostiles, hold his shards and rank-up tokens for officers your crews actually need first.