The U.S.S. Athena in STFC is an Academy-class Explorer, a grade 6 Epic Independent ship with two jobs: hunting Venari Ral pirates and backing your team in Wave Defense. You build it at Shipyard level 61 from 200 blueprints, which come from the Academy Refinery, and it runs to tier 15 and level 75. If you play late-game Academy and Venari Ral content, the Athena earns its slot; if you do not, it will mostly sit in dock.
U.S.S. Athena at a glance
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Hull type | Explorer |
| Faction | Independent |
| Grade and rarity | Grade 6, Epic |
| Max tier / level | Tier 15 / level 75 |
| Build requirement | Shipyard 61 |
| Blueprints | 200 (Academy Refinery) |
| Passive abilities | Athena’s Fury, Revenge, Valor, Wrath and Solace |
| Active abilities | Amplify, Regenerate |
| Refits | Programmable Matter, Venari Ral Infiltrator |
How to get the U.S.S. Athena
The Athena is a built ship. You need 200 blueprints and a Shipyard at level 61. The build costs 315 Σ-Dilithium, 173,000 Σ-Tritanium, 20,790 6★ Common Refined Gas and 11,700 6★ Common Refined Ore, and construction takes 3 days and 22 hours.
The blueprints come from the Academy Refinery. Academy Engineering Credits buy rewards there including U.S.S. Athena Blueprints, Σ-Parsteel, Σ-Tritanium and Σ-Dilithium. Academy Science Credits buy U.S.S. Athena Parts, U.S.S. Athena Data Modules and 6★ and 7★ materials. So the Academy Refinery is where you build, upgrade and research the ship.
Upgrade materials
| Material | Used for |
|---|---|
| U.S.S. Athena Parts | Upgrading the ship |
| U.S.S. Athena Sophomore Enrollment | Upgrading past tier 4 |
| U.S.S. Athena Junior Enrollment | Upgrading past tier 8 |
| U.S.S. Athena Senior Enrollment | Upgrading past tier 13 |
| U.S.S. Athena Data Module | Athena research in the Starships tree |
| U.S.S. Athena Prime Data Matrix | Prime Athena research in the Starships tree |
| Adaptive Repair Alloy | Activating the Regenerate ability |
Tiering the ship also changes how often you can run Duo Wave Defense: at tier 1 the Athena lets you start one every two days, and from tier 4 every day.
U.S.S. Athena abilities
The Athena’s headline passive is Athena’s Fury, which raises its Weapon Damage against Venari Ral [VENRA] faction hostiles. Ship abilities are always active, so this applies whenever the Athena fights that faction. It starts at 8,500,000% at ship level 1 and climbs to 2,000,000,000% by level 75. Those numbers look wild out of context, but they only apply against Venari Ral. The Athena is a hard counter to one enemy, not a general damage dealer.
Four more passives back it up, all tied to the same two fights, as of the current game version:
| Passive | Effect | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Athena’s Fury | Weapon Damage vs Venari Ral hostiles | 8,500,000% (level 1) to 2,000,000,000% (level 75) |
| Athena’s Revenge | Critical Mitigation vs Venari Ral hostiles | 140,000 (level 1) to 2,000,000 (level 75) |
| Athena’s Valor | Apex Barrier vs Venari Ral hostiles | 10,000,000 |
| Athena’s Wrath | Apex Barrier vs Academy Drone [ACAD] hostiles in Wave Defense | 15,000,000 |
| Athena’s Solace | Immune to the Venari Ral Programmable Matter ability | Always on |
Athena’s Solace matters more than its short description suggests. Programmable Matter is an ability Venari Ral hostiles bring into combat, and the Athena is not affected by it at all, which is a large part of why it is the ship for that fight.
U.S.S. Athena active abilities
The Athena also has two abilities you trigger yourself. Unlike the always-on passives, these run on cooldowns, and research shortens them.
Amplify raises Apex Barrier by 1,000 and applies the Amplified state to every player ship in the system during Wave Defense for 30 seconds. While Amplified is up, each Simulation Hack research node you have finished in the Starship tree adds its own Wave Defense bonus, covering Critical Damage, Isolytic Damage, Hull Repair, Apex Shred and Apex Barrier. In practice Amplify is a team buff: the more of that research you have done, the more it hands everyone in the fight. The Athena Cooldown Efficiency research node reduces its cooldown.
Regenerate restores a share of the Athena’s own maximum Hull Health, starting at 25%, and scales with the Regeneration Boost research node. Each use consumes Adaptive Repair Alloy. It is a survival button for the ship itself during a long defense.
Stats and tiers
Base values in the current game version; research, buffs and officers raise them in play.
| Tier | Warp (speed / range) | Impulse | Cargo (protected) | Shield HP | Hull HP | Health (displayed) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7.2 / 900 | 100 | 110,000 (5,500) | 21,092 | 20,463 | 20,777.5 |
| 8 | 10.2 / 1,280 | 100 | 148,000 (7,400) | 508,838 | 443,968 | 476,403 |
| 15 | 12.1 / 2,700 | 100 | 1,050,000 (52,500) | 65,612,123 | 59,647,385 | 62,629,754 |
Weapons and firing pattern
Warm-up is the combat round a weapon first fires; cool-down is how many rounds it waits between shots after that. These are the Athena’s weapons at max tier 15.
| Weapon | Type | Shots | Warm-up | Cool-down | Damage | Crit chance | Crit damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Energy | 2 | 1 | 1 | 10,225 to 11,362 | 10% | 150% |
| 2 | Energy | 1 | 1 | 2 | 61,337 to 68,155 | 10% | 150% |
| 3 | Kinetic | 1 | 2 | 2 | 61,337 to 68,155 | 10% | 150% |
Athena’s Fury applies to Weapon Damage across the board, so it lifts all three against Venari Ral rather than favoring one.
Crew slots and officer bonus
| Ship level | Officer slots |
|---|---|
| 5 | 1 |
| 10 | 2 |
| 20 | 3 |
| 35 | 4 |
| 55 | 5 |
| 65 | 6 |
| 70 | 7 |
The ship also boosts the officers you seat on it. Attack, defense and health get the same bonus, stepping up a ladder as the ship progresses.
| Amount | Bonus (attack / defense / health) |
|---|---|
| 56,000 | 650% |
| 112,000 | 1,300% |
| 182,000 | 1,950% |
| 252,000 | 2,600% |
| 336,000 | 3,250% |
| 448,000 | 3,900% |
| 616,000 | 4,550% |
| 840,000 | 5,200% |
| 1,120,000 | 5,850% |
| 1,680,000 | 6,500% |
U.S.S. Athena refits
The Athena has two refits, each unlocked with 120 shards.
| Refit | What it does |
|---|---|
| Programmable Matter | Increases the Athena’s Isolytic Damage against Venari Ral hostiles by 25% at the start of combat, and adds an extra pull of U.S.S. Athena Parts and Data Modules in the Academy Refinery. |
| Venari Ral Infiltrator | Increases the Athena’s Impulse Speed by 20. |
Programmable Matter is the stronger pick for most players, since the extra Academy Refinery pull speeds up the whole upgrade path.
Crew for the U.S.S. Athena
Because the Athena is a Venari Ral and Wave Defense ship, its crew should follow that role rather than a generic damage build. Against Venari Ral, the ship’s own passives already supply the damage multiplier, so your officers are there to keep it alive and lean into Apex Barrier and mitigation. In Wave Defense, where the Athena faces Academy Drones, officers that add survivability and support the team pay off more than raw attack. Crews shift with the meta, so use the current picks on the officer tier list to fill the seats.
The U.S.S. Athena in Star Trek
The Athena comes from the 32nd-century era of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, the period after the Burn. The game describes it as a working campus and diplomatic ship under Chancellor Nahla Ake that fought the Furies and the Venari Ral. In the game’s own storyline the Athena was pulled into the past, leaving the Doctor and a group of cadets to hold off the Venari Ral and their de facto leader, Deidamia, until they could rescue their Chancellor. The ship you build is a reconstruction from the original Athena’s blueprints, kept in service to keep those pirates in check.
Is the U.S.S. Athena worth it?
For a grade 6 ship, the Athena is narrow by design. It is close to essential if you fight Venari Ral or run Wave Defense at Operations 61 and up, where its counters and team buff do work no general ship can match, and tiering it also opens daily Duo Wave Defense runs. Outside those two settings it has little to offer. Chase it if you are deep into Academy content, and hold off if you are not there yet.
