Squad building

Can you build a full squad of astromechs?

Yes, on skirmish missions — but not on story missions, because Hawks is required there. A pre-release achievement requires completing a mission with four astromechs.

Confirmed

Confidence: Confirmed
Verified: 8 September 2026
Version: Pre-release evidence, plus retail launch-build observations (August 2026)

The short answer

Yes, on skirmish missions — but not on story missions, because Hawks is required there. A pre-release achievement requires completing a mission with four astromechs.

In full

What that means when you are planning

Astromechs unlock early; the Droid Bay is among the first facilities available at the Den. Bit Reactor have said publicly that they are enthusiastic about players running a full droid squad — and the pre-release achievement list settles it beyond enthusiasm, with an achievement for completing a mission using four astromechs. A second achievement has two astromechs reaching Very High Bond, so a droid squad still earns Cross Training and Focus Points.

Understand what that squad gives up. An astromech enters combat without a blaster — it carries grenades, ally buffs and enemy disruption instead. Since the squad gains one Advantage each time an Operator damages an enemy, a squad with no ordinary attacks in it generates almost nothing, and every Advantage ability the squad has stays unaffordable.

What they offer instead is throughput: three Utility slots each with three uses of every item — nine charges a mission per droid — a comm link that donates an Action Point to a nearby squadmate, a scan that raises the squad's hit chance against revealed enemies, and a self-heal worth half the droid's maximum health every turn. Four of those is a very strange and quite powerful engine — it just is not one that shoots.

Two droids are where the interesting version starts, and it does not need four. The comm link's third rank removes its once-a-turn limit, so two astromechs have six Action Points a turn and nothing of their own worth spending them on; a retail guide describes pouring both into Cly Kullervo as a Gunslinger, whose hits then generate the Advantage that funds more of the same. That is a two-droid squad with two shooters in it, not a four-droid squad.

One distinction is worth keeping. The achievement proves a four-astromech squad can finish a mission; it says nothing about whether that squad is good, or whether it can finish every mission. Legality and viability are different claims, and only the first is evidenced — and this site's own reading is that the Advantage problem gets worse with every droid you add.

Open questions

Points the shipped game has not yet answered for us, or that need a controlled comparison to state as fact — recorded rather than guessed at.

When astromech recruitment unlocks, in cycles.
How many astromechs can be recruited.
Whether astromechs are immune or vulnerable to Ion weapons.
Whether four astromechs can complete any mission, or only some. The achievement proves one.

Can you field a full squad of Clone Troopers?: Yes on skirmish missions, once clone recruitment unlocks — story missions still require Hawks.
Do astromechs carry weapons?: No. An astromech enters combat without a blaster and has no basic attack.
Is Hawks required on every mission?: On story missions, yes. Skirmish missions allow any combination.

Where this is covered properly

Sources

Answering the Internet's Biggest Questions about Star Wars Zero Company
Electronic Arts · Tier 1 — Official · accessed 6 August 2026
Supports: Squad limit of 4, with additional characters controllable in certain missions; roster starting at 7 and capped at 20, raised by Den upgrades, story progression and authored Operators joining; no species or faction weapon-proficiency advantage; Clone Trooper and astromech recruitment; permadeath default and toggleable; Hawks required on story missions. The headline itself is the evidence for the game's abbreviation: "Answering the Internet’s Biggest Questions about SWZC"
Is Z-COM our new X-COM? Star Wars Zero Company gameplay deep dive
ChristopherOdd · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 11 August 2026
Supports: 2:13–13:51 — Sweeping Salvo at 4 Advantage with three uses per mission; Hawks granting an ally 1 AP for 3 Advantage; Combat Recon granting 1 Advantage per unit scanned; the Grit Talent's stacking invulnerability; Heavy attacks taunting; the droideka ray shield; the Scout's Spotted status; Defense as flat damage reduction
I played Star Wars Zero Company — my honest thoughts
EckhartsLadder · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 11 August 2026
Supports: 3:18–12:36 — no hunker-down action, so a spare AP goes to Overwatch; astromechs carrying three utilities and extra uses of each; Trick able to negate some injuries along an upgrade path; twelve galaxy zones; super battle droids telegraphing a rocket one turn ahead; many of the 150+ planets being text-only
Star Wars Zero Company is full of (excellent) surprises
Skill Up · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 11 August 2026
Supports: 2:09–15:14 — the Gunslinger's core ability refunding its point on a kill; half and full cover; Hawks' two voices sharing one personality; companions able to leave the squad entirely; a closed-doors developer briefing and the studio's Firaxis lineage
Complete Star Wars Zero Company Trophy List — How to Get All Achievements & Trophies
Insider Gaming · Tier 2 — Achievement list · accessed 19 August 2026
Supports: Full trophy table — Very High Bond as a named relationship threshold, and the named pairings reaching it, including two astromechs and two Custom Operators; completing a mission with four astromechs; equipping four Weapon Mods to one weapon (“Fully Geared”); applying a Focus Point; using Force Push or Pull to knock one enemy into another; knocking an enemy out of the combat space; defeating enemies from higher elevation; landing a shot at 10% or lower Chance-to-Hit and missing at 90% or greater; the difficulty tiers Story, Normal, Hard and Expert, and Expert with Beskar Mode. Published 2026-08-17
Star Wars Zero Company Xbox achievements
TrueAchievements · Tier 2 — Achievement list · accessed 19 August 2026
Supports: Achievement list — independent corroboration of the same requirements, including the four-Weapon-Mod achievement and the difficulty tiers.
Ultimate Star Wars Zero Company Astromech Build and Class Guide
Hack the Minotaur · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 8 September 2026
Supports: Bylined Hack The Minotaur, "Latest Update: August 31, 2026", with an on-page change log reading "v1.4 – August 31, 2026 – Updated utility items" and "v1.2 – August 27, 2026 – Actively updating build, focus progression, and cross-training". **The Analytics table — the astromech's second Specialization, published here for the first time anywhere this database has found.** "The Astromech's Secondary Specialization called Analytics cannot be changed", and "Secondary Specializations cannot go about [sic] Tier 5 for Focus Tree upgrades". Predictive Analytics (Ultimate) "All allies gain Defense for the rest of the turn. Nothing beats these odds", five tiers +2/+3/+4/+5/+6 Defense. Deep Target Scan (Standard) "Conducts an intensive analysis on an enemy. Scans and Spots the target and removes all Evasion. Costs 1 AP", five tiers of Effective Range 14.0m, 16.0m, 18.0m, 20.0m, 24.0m. Self Preservation (Passive) "When the Astromech is hit by an Overwatch or Retaliation attack it gains 1 AP", Cannot Upgrade. Telemetry (Passive) "Increases Chance-To-Hit by +5% for all Operators on the team", Cannot Upgrade. Perfect Integration (Passive) "When the Astromech is attacked, its data increases a random teammate's Defense by +1 for the rest of combat", Cannot Upgrade. **No Advantage cost is printed for Predictive Analytics.** The primary Astromech table reproduces `retail-htm-focus-trees` and is not re-entered from here, with one exception that matters: this page explains the two storage passives as ranks of one four-tier line rather than as two rows — "Tier 1 adds one extra use to all Utility Items the Astromech is carrying. Tier 2 adds 1 meter of movement. Tier 3 adds 2 Defense. Tier 4 adds another extra use to all Utility Items, stacking with the tier 1 bonus for a total of two additional uses per item." The Storage Optimization card itself reads "This effect stacks with Extended Range", the same proofreading error as on the Focus Tree index. On capacity: "Unlike operators, your Astromech has three slots for utilities and cannot increase the number to four." On Medpacs, in the recommended-Utility table: "Heals 30% of ally Health. Not on Droids." On squad legality: "EA confirmed that all three remaining squad slots can be filled with Astromechs on non-story missions, since only Hawks is required." On chassis: the R2, R3 and R4 series and the BR-1, "a new droid design created specifically for Zero Company by Bit Reactor". **Checked for and absent**: any ability called Self Repair, and any Focus Point cost for any node.
Astromechs: How to Play the Strongest Character in Star Wars Zero Company
Mobalytics · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 8 September 2026
Supports: Bylined Mobalytics, "Updated on Sep 7, 2026". Read in a browser; the page returns 403 to an automated fetch, the same retrieval note that travels with `retail-mobalytics-zones`. On capacity, verbatim: "Astromechs get three utility slots and three uses per item, for nine total charges a mission instead of the usual one or two." On the self-heal: "Send the Astromech into the open and it can heal a large portion of its own health every turn, with a minimum of 50% of its max health, up to 100% if you spend all your AP on it", and "the Mech can't heal itself with Medpacs, but they're weaker than its self-heal anyway". On multiple droids: "Running two or more Astromechs stacks everything above. Two Astromechs feeding Action Points into a single fast, mobile Operator like Cly can let that Operator chain attacks well beyond what a normal turn allows, generating enough Advantage from each hit to keep the loop going. As a Gunslinger, she can then stack up immense Onslaught damage, or set up a huge Electro Web team nuke." On the Ultimate: "for 10-6 Advantage (depending on upgrades), it grants extra Action Points to the entire squad, INCLUDING ITSELF, once per fight", producing "somewhere between five and eight extra actions across that turn". On the Talent: "once its ability tree is fully upgraded, the once-per-turn limit on that sharing disappears". Build advice names a Focus Point price no other source prints: "Built-In Comlink 2 (3 is ideal, but 13 Focus Points is a lot)". **One naming error, recorded rather than followed**: "If you unlock the Self Preservation passive you permanently boost a random ally's defense by +1 whenever you're attacked." That effect is Perfect Integration on the ability card `retail-htm-astromech` reproduces, and Self Preservation there grants the droid 1 AP after an Overwatch or Retaliation hit. The card is taken as correct and this sentence as a mix-up.