This page compiles the questions that are actually asked in the official STFC “Cadet Channel”—the in-game chat exclusively for players from Level 1 to 19, region-wide (not just your own server), moderated by officially designated [Mentor] players. This isn’t a made-up tutorial, but real beginner questions and the answers that were actually given there.
What is the Cadet Channel?
A dedicated chat tab in the game (next to Galaxy, Alliance, Private), visible only to accounts at Levels 1–19, spanning all regions (EU/APAC/USA) rather than being server-specific. You’ll often see [Mentor] players marked in green there—they’ve been selected by STFC itself to answer questions. It’s not customer support, but a genuine, surprisingly active resource for new players.
By the way: The colorful additional titles that sometimes appear under player names in chat (e.g., “Volcanic Champion”) come from completed events and can be selected in the profile settings under “Titles”—they’re purely cosmetic, with no in-game mechanics.
Changing Servers and Alliances: What You Need to Know Early On
- The game doesn’t show you at a glance which server you’re currently on. One way to check: Open Settings → The “Universe” line displays your current universe directly in the list (e.g., “EU – 409 Obsidian Order”), as confirmed by a screenshot at OPS 5. Important: This line disappears completely from the settings as soon as a server change is no longer possible—on an old account, it was gone starting at OPS 51, whereas on a new account, it had already disappeared immediately after the (one-time) server change at OPS 6. So it doesn’t seem to be tied to a specific OPS level, but simply to the fact that the single server change has already been used. A second method that still works even after that: in a region-wide chat like the Cadet Channel, look at the number in parentheses next to your own name/power circle—that’s your server.
- According to several consistent responses on the Cadet Channel, you can join an alliance starting at Level 12.
- Important to know: At the beginning, the tutorial will prompt you to find an alliance—in the selection screen that appears, there’s a purple “Join Automatically” button that assigns you to a suitable alliance from the list of open alliances (on a test account, this is possible as early as OPS 6). This does not contradict the Level 12 rule mentioned above; that rule only applies to later, independent searches or applications to an alliance of your own choosing.
- Changing alliances: Open the alliance panel in the lower-left corner, select “Leave Alliance” in the upper-right corner, and you’ll then be free to apply for or join a new alliance.
- The join screen (via “Join an Alliance!”) has three tabs: “Join” (list of suggested alliances, including the purple “Join Automatically” button), “Create,” and “Invitations”—this is where you’ll find alliance invitations you’ve received (with a red counter badge) to accept.
- In the list under “Join,” depending on the alliance’s settings, you’ll see either “Join” (immediate joining), “Apply” (application, must be confirmed by the alliance), or “Private” (no clickable button). If an alliance is set to “private,” the normal application feature does not work—instead, you must send a private message directly to an admiral of the alliance and ask to be admitted (the “Private” tab in the chat area). The admiral can then send an alliance invitation directly via the sender’s profile (displayed as: “Player has no alliance”)—which will then appear under “Invitations” for the sender.
Tested thoroughly: This exact process—changing servers, joining a private alliance, sending a private message to an admiral, receiving an invitation, and accepting it under “Invitations”—actually resulted in admission to an alliance when tested on a test account.
Switching servers to join friends: how and for how long?
Procedure: Open Settings → Tap the “Universe” line (it already displays your current universe there, as long as a change is still possible) → The following screen is officially called “Universe Transfer” and lists destination servers for you to tap. You can also enter a server number directly using the search bar (top right) (e.g., “401”)—the game will then find the corresponding server name (e.g., “401 Bloodwine”), so you don’t have to scroll through the entire list. After that, the game displays a confirmation dialog with the official warnings before the transfer finally begins.
- This is only possible up to Level 12—after that, the server is permanently locked in.
- Can only be done once during the entire game—so choose your destination server carefully before switching.
- Some servers may be locked for transfers due to maximum capacity.
- What is retained: Level, station progress, ships, officers, and resources.
- According to the official confirmation dialog, the following also happens: The game restarts, and your station is randomly placed somewhere in the new universe—but you’ll receive a free relocation token that lets you move your base to a specific new location once afterward. You will be automatically removed from your current alliance, which means you may no longer be able to claim any unclaimed rewards from alliance events in the old universe. Additionally, all chat messages and battle reports will be deleted.
- This change cannot be undone.
Practical tips before confirming: All ships should be back at the station, not out on missions, mining, or in combat—otherwise, there may be issues when restarting or moving the station. Also, if there are any ongoing Alliance events with unredeemed rewards, it’s best to complete them or claim the rewards beforehand—according to the in-game notice, they may no longer be accessible in the old universe afterward. The transfer itself takes “a few minutes” according to the loading screen; the game will then restart.
PvE for Beginners: Cadet Missions or Frontier?
Starting around OPS 10+, experienced Cadet Channel members generally recommend “Frontier” over the standard Cadet Missions for more efficient progress. For brand-new accounts, Cadet Missions remain the best place to start.
Combat Basics at a Glance
- A single ship can only attack one enemy ship at a time (1-on-1).
- In armadas, multiple players can team up—each with their own ship—and attack together.
When can my station be attacked? (Peace Shield)
When can my station be attacked? Peace Shields aren’t unlocked until OPS 15—and only then can your station be attacked by other players. However, you can obtain shields earlier, for example from events and daily quests. They appear in your inventory under “Peace Shields,” with durations ranging from 2 hours to one day. It’s worth saving them until OPS 15 instead of giving them away.
Your station isn’t permanently protected, but you have several built-in safety nets. After the first attack on your station, the game automatically activates a 10-minute peace shield—though this only triggers once every 2 hours. Additionally, you can activate a peace shield yourself at any time (via the shield icon or the Items tab), with a duration of your choice. Important: Shields do not stack (a longer one replaces a shorter one; a shorter one cannot be applied on top of a longer one), and they expire immediately as soon as you attack another player’s ship or station—regardless of the remaining time. Scopely does not specify fixed level thresholds for protection.
Helpful tip: Can’t activate the shield?
In territory takeover zones, you can only place normal peace shields if your alliance owns the zone. An active shield will remain in place, and truce shields as well as the 10-minute shield after the first attack will continue to function.
However, there is a known game bug: If your station is located in an area controlled by your own alliance, but the map view is currently focused on a foreign Veil area, the game will deny the shield—displaying a message stating that activation is disabled in “Origins” zones that do not belong to your alliance. Simply switching the view back to your station isn’t enough.
Workaround: Completely exit the game and restart it. After that, you can set the shield again. In an emergency, every minute counts—so don’t waste time trying different things; just restart immediately.
Sources: Scopely, FAQ on Territory Takeovers (November 11, 2020); own testing (October 2026). Retrieved October 11, 2026.
Practical UI Tip: PvE Loot Boxes
If the exact loot isn’t displayed individually when opening PvE chests: turn off “Disable Frequent Game Animations” in the general game settings.
Where can I get the latest promo codes?
You can always redeem codes officially at home.startrekfleetcommand.com/redeem-code. Scopely distributes current codes irregularly via official social media channels and the in-game “In Warps” feature; Community sites also collect codes, but they are not official sources. A number of older, permanent word codes are also circulating in the Cadet Channel. I’ve tested these thoroughly myself (OPS 5, as of September 27, 2026): KIRK, SPOCK, BOOST, LLAP, COMMANDER, and TNG work (including Kirk officer parts). ENGAGE, CADET, FRONTIER, FLEETCOMMAND, and BOLDLYGO do not work (anymore) at OPS 5. Two mentors had even said that the codes “might still work, but they’re old” and “don’t work for everyone or at every OPS level”—which aligns with the test results. At higher OPS levels, some of the codes marked as “no” here may still work in certain cases, or conversely, may have expired.
Faction Call: Can you change factions?
Not in the sense of a complete switch—STFC is intentionally designed to allow multiple affiliations; you never have to commit exclusively to the Federation, Klingons, or Romulans. Your reputation with all three factions changes constantly through missions and battles, so it can also decrease. So-called “reputation locks” at 10 million, 1 billion, 15 billion, 500 billion, and 450 trillion However, reputation points ensure that your reputation never falls below the most recently reached threshold—so you can safely build reputation with another faction without losing everything with your previous one. With the Augment, Outlaw, and Bajoran factions, your reputation cannot decrease anyway.
What are the “Academy Events”?
This likely refers to the “New Commander Academy”—a guided series of missions for new players divided into three stages (Introductory Challenge: OPS 3–6; Second Challenge: Levels 7–10; Final Challenge Levels 11–15)—that unlocks resources and several free officers and concludes with the epic Klingon Captain Gorkon. The official source doesn’t specify exactly where to find it in the menu—that remains unconfirmed for now.
Short on Officer XP or Recruit Resources? The Latinum Trick
If you’re missing the necessary Officer XP when leveling up an officer (real-world example: 40 XP needed, only 27 available), the game automatically displays a “Convert” dialog—the missing XP can be exchanged directly for Latinum (in the example: 4 Latinum for the missing XP). So you don’t necessarily have to keep collecting XP first if you want to speed things up.
The same trick also works in the “Recruit” tab—but based on our own testing, only for standard recruits: If you’re missing the required recruitment tokens (example: 10 tokens required, 40 Latinum as the conversion cost), the game also offers a Latinum conversion. For the other recruit types (Ultra, Premium, Federation, Klingon, and Romulan recruits), this conversion option is not available.
The key point here—which new players can easily overlook—is that you have to actively tap the button even though you’re missing the resource; it looks more like an error message than a purchase option, and you often wouldn’t even think to try it on your own. If you know this trick, you can use it to specifically exchange recruitment tokens for Latinum and thus increase your officer parts more quickly, instead of just waiting for random drops.
Alliance Tournament: Why isn’t my new account getting any tasks?
When you open an ongoing Alliance Tournament, you’ll see it right away—but new accounts in particular often wonder why nothing appears in the task list. The reason: Alliance Tournament tasks aren’t assigned until you reach Operation Level (OPS) 10. Until then, you can open and view the tournament, but no tasks will appear for you to complete.
As soon as your account reaches OPS 10, this changes automatically—no special trick or manual activation is needed. Until then, it’s best to simply ignore the tournament window and focus on normal base development.
Handy Tip: Transfer Resources Strategically (Mirror Space)
Normally, “protected cargo” shields part of a freighter’s cargo—if the freighter is destroyed, the attacker can never loot the entire cargo. In the first system of Mirror Space, however, this protection rule does not apply. If a “donor” and a “recipient” meet there and the donor intentionally allows their own freighter to be destroyed, the entire freighter’s cargo is transferred to the recipient. This allows you to specifically pass resources on to other players, such as to provide targeted support to alliance members.
Practical Tip: “Freezing” Computer Opponents (Hostiles)
If you want to move freely in a target area guarded by Hostiles without constantly being attacked, you can “freeze” the enemies in place using two different methods:
- Method 1 (one ship): Select your own ship, aim near the enemy, and take off. While in flight, click “Return” and immediately afterward click “Cancel” without moving the ship any further. The enemy will then fly to the originally selected destination and remain there.
- Method 2 (two ships): Fly two ships to the target area with a maximum interval of 10 seconds between them. As soon as both ships have arrived, recall the ship that arrived first. The attacker will then disappear, and the second ship will no longer be attacked.
Real-Money Purchases: Not in the Mobile App
If you want to spend real money in the game, you should not make purchases in the mobile app (billing there is usually via Google Pay or the App Store), but rather in the browser shop. For the same price, the content in the mobile app is inferior: it lacks the multi-phase credits that you constantly need to exchange for items in the shop.
Based on my own comparison (November 4, 2026): “GE Season Pass Premium Elite Unlock” for €99.99—in the browser shop and in the PC game, each includes 17,000 Multiphase Credits, while the mobile app version does not. All other content (Latinum, Prisms, Officer Parts, etc.) was identical.
Rule of thumb: Feel free to browse offers in the app, but make your purchases in the browser shop. Quickly compare the item lists before buying—Scopely can change packages at any time.
Open question (posted in the Cadet Channel, not yet conclusively answered)
- What does the blue marker mean when you click on a system in the Galaxy View (“I can mine here”)? The official Scopely guides on mining and map navigation do not mention any color-coded markers of this kind. One theory: it may be a temporary event notification rather than a permanent UI feature—not yet verified, as the system in question (Valakis) was currently out of range.
This page grows with every new Cadet Channel observation. Additions and corrections are expressly welcome.