Time Crystal is an Epic Forbidden Tech in Star Trek Fleet Command, and it exists for one job: winning fights against other players. It raises your ship’s damage against players by up to 1,500% and its hull health by up to 3,000%, adds a critical-damage bonus while cloaked, and gives Klingon ships a large extra damage boost in player combat. If you spend time in PvP, this is one of the pieces worth chasing. If you only run hostiles and mining, it does nothing for you.
What Time Crystal does
Time Crystal stacks four combat buffs, and every one of them applies only against other players. The headline effect increases your damage against players, starting at 100% when it first unlocks and climbing to 1,500% at max tier and level. The hull-health buff is just as large at the top end, and the last two buffs reward specific setups: extra critical damage while your ship is cloaked, and a separate damage bonus that only Klingon ships receive.
| Buff | Unlocks at tier | Unlock value | Max value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Increases damage against players | 1 | 100% | 1,500% |
| Increases hull health | 3 | 150% | 3,000% |
| Increases critical damage against players when cloaked | 6 | 20% | 600% |
| Increases Klingon ship damage against other players | 8 | 250% | 3,000% |
The buffs unlock one at a time as you tier the piece up, so an early Time Crystal is mostly the damage and hull boosts. The cloak and Klingon buffs come online only at tiers 6 and 8, which means the piece pays off most once you push it deep.
How to get Time Crystal
Time Crystal is an Epic piece, so you unlock it with Epic Forbidden Fragments in the Forbidden Tech refinery. You earn those fragments from Q’s Trials and from special rewards. Slotting a Forbidden Tech onto a ship, and removing it later, uses Forbidden Tech Fusion Rods, which come from the refinery and the store. There is no shortcut: the refinery and Q’s Trials are the supply line for the fragments, and you build up enough to unlock the piece before you can start upgrading it.
Upgrading Time Crystal
Two tracks raise a Forbidden Tech. Tiering up uses Forbidden Tech Tier-Up Catalyst and Reactors; each tier raises the level cap and unlocks the next buff at the tiers listed above. Leveling up uses Forbidden Tech Protomatter and Reactors, and scales the buff values between their unlock and max numbers. Reactors are spent on every upgrade attempt, and Probability Devices raise your odds on those attempts.
| Tier | Level cap | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | Starting tier, no cost |
| 7 | 35 | 32 Reactor, 9,900 Tier-Up Catalyst |
| 12 | 60 | 32 Reactor, 11,500 Tier-Up Catalyst |
Taking it all the way to tier 12 costs 352 Forbidden Tech Reactor and 161,550 Forbidden Tech Tier-Up Catalyst in total. Leveling from 2 to 60 adds 1,856 Forbidden Tech Reactor and 1,305,350 Forbidden Tech Protomatter on top.
Best ships and uses for Time Crystal
Time Crystal is an Offense piece built for player combat, so it belongs on whatever ship you take into PvP, not on a miner or a hostile grinder. The cloak buff points it at cloak-capable ships that fight while hidden, and the Klingon buff makes it a natural fit for a Klingon battleship in a war fleet. If you fly Klingon hulls in territory or Alliance combat, this is close to a best-case home for the piece. Pair it with your strongest PvP crew and it turns an already dangerous ship into a harder target that hits back for more.
Time Crystal in Star Trek
Time crystals are real Star Trek lore, drawn from Star Trek: Discovery. In the show they are rare crystals that can bend time itself, so unstable and dangerous that most who try to take one are lost. The Klingons guard a supply of them at a monastery on the moon Boreth, watched over by an order of monks. Captain Pike travels there to claim one, and the moment he touches it he witnesses his own future, a fate he chooses to accept. The game leans on that mythology: a crystal so advanced that only a handful of civilizations have ever controlled its power.
Is Time Crystal worth it?
If you fight other players, yes. The damage and hull buffs alone make your PvP ship tougher and deadlier, and the cloak and Klingon bonuses reward players who commit to those builds. It earns its Epic cost for anyone active in territory wars, Alliance combat, or open-space hunting. If your game is mining, hostiles, or events, skip it and save your fragments for a piece that matches how you play.