The Prime Shield Health node in STFC increases all your ships’ base shield health, though you have to use real money to unlock it.
Star Trek Fleet Command (STFC) is an exciting video game that follows the Kelvin chronology of the classic Star Trek series.
You can therefore encounter the same legendary characters and ships in the game as those seen in the franchise.
Prime Shield Health
As you progress in STFC, you will be able to unlock research nodes and if you do this, you will receive various buffs and bonuses for your fleet and officers.
Scopely released the patch notes for update 61 on Tuesday, 5 December 2023 and it released 2 new Prime Research nodes that players can unlock.
One of the new Prime nodes that you can unlock is Shield Health, which essentially increases base Shield Health for all the ships you have constructed. This node has 2 levels and every level that you upgrade it to will increase its effects.
After unlocking the node, you will benefit from 400 percent base Shield Health for all your ships. However, if you increase the node’s level to 2, it will increase all ships’ base shield health by 800 percent.
Keep in mind, though, that your R&D Department has to be level 30 before you can unlock and upgrade the Shield Health Boost research node.
This means that low-level players will not be able to unlock the node, as they are yet to meet the requirement.
The R&D Building only unlocks at OPS level 4 and then you have to upgrade the building to level 30 before you can unlock the Prime Shield Health node.
Resources required
In order to build and upgrade the Prime Shield Health node, you need to procure the following resources:
| Resource | Description |
| Dilithium | Dilithium can be mined in the Neutral and Faction Zone. This resource is generally used to upgrade buildings, start researches and build ships. |
| Prime Dolamide Particle | This is the resource required to unlock the Prime Shield Health node. The only way that players can get this resource is by purchasing a package with real life money. |
| Astral Prime Particle | To upgrade the Prime Shield Health node to level 2, you need to acquire Astral Prime Particles. However, it is believed that you can only procure this resource through packs. |
Research trees
If you open the research menu, you will notice that there are several trees, each of which contains numerous nodes that you can unlock to get buffs and bonuses.
In order to unlock the Shield Health Boost node, commanders have to open the Galaxy tree and search the list of available nodes to find the Shield Health Boost node.
In-game packs
The Shield Health Boosts is a Prime Research Node, which, unfortunately, means that you have to spend real money to unlock it. Allegedly the pack that allows players to unlock the research node is currently unavailable in the game.
Regrettably, it is unknown when the pack will be available again, however, several players on the official STFC Discord channel believe that it will be released in the next update. Scopely is yet to announce when the next STFC update will be.
However when the pack is released, players can open the “Offers” tab in STFC to purchase it with real money.
At the time of writing it is unknown what the exact cost of the pack is, but we believe that it will be roughly the same as the other Prime packs.
Is it necessary to unlock the Prime Shield Health node?
Since the Prime Shield Health node can only be unlocked with real money it is not mandatory to complete. This means that if you decide not to unlock the node, your progress in STFC will not be hindered.
That being said, you may have a slight disadvantage when it comes to Shield Health, as players who unlocked the node will receive an increase in their ships’ base shield health.
There are numerous officers that you can procure in STFC, and each officer has unique abilities.
This means that there is a chance that there is an officer in the game that can increase your ship’s base shield health.
Keep in mind, however, that the bonus will only be applied to the ship the officer is assigned to and not your entire fleet.