Operators

Can you recruit astromech droids?

Yes, and they unlock early — the Droid Bay is among the first facilities available at the Den.

Confirmed

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

The short answer

Yes, and they unlock early — the Droid Bay is among the first facilities available at the Den.

In full

What that means when you are planning

They can be deployed on missions and sent on Operations. They use the Astromech class, which is exotic: a standard recruit cannot take it, and an astromech cannot take a standard Specialization.

They carry three Utility slots — the ceiling for the class, where everyone else starts with one and unlocks the rest — and two stacking passives give every limited-use item a third use, so a droid brings nine charges to a mission against another Operator's three. A comm link donates an Action Point to a nearby squadmate, an enhanced scan raises the squad's hit chance against the enemies it reveals, and Coordinated Support grants every Operator an Action Point for 10 Advantage falling to 6.

They also heal themselves for half their maximum health every turn, spending whatever Action Points are left. Medpacs do not work on droids, so that is their only recovery — and it is the strongest heal in the game, which is what makes a droid a plausible thing to leave standing in the open.

At Cycle 18 they gain a second Specialization called Analytics, which they do not choose and cannot change. It has its own page-worth of detail; the short version is a squad-wide Defense Ultimate, an Evasion-stripping scan, and a passive giving the whole team +5% Chance-To-Hit.

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.

How many astromechs can be recruited.
Whether they suffer Injuries the same way organic Operators do. A droid that heals half its health a turn is durable within a battle; whether that durability survives between them is unstated.
Whether Self Repair heals more when more Action Points are spent on it. Two guides give the same 50% and disagree about this.

Do astromechs carry weapons?: No. An astromech enters combat without a blaster and has no basic attack.
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.
What second Specialization do astromechs get?: Analytics, and it is not a choice — every astromech gets it at Cycle 18 and cannot take any of the other classes.
What is the Zero Company pre-order bonus?: The Crystalline Astromech Cosmetic Pack, on both the Standard and Deluxe editions.

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
I played 54 hours of Star Wars Zero Company
Dantics · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 11 August 2026
Supports: 5:26–11:55 — an injury is taken only on being reduced to zero health; normal, hard and expert named, plus an Ironman-style toggle; crisis operations; weapon mods slotted freely before missions; a second Specialization after cycle 18; every Bond level granting Focus Points and one of three joint training bonuses; the Sharpshooter's unmissable shot and the Soldier's rocket barrage
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.
Star Wars Zero Company: How the Astromech Class Works
allthings.how · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 8 September 2026
Supports: Bylined Kabir Anand, updated 2 September 2026. On the self-heal, verbatim: Self Repair "Consumes all remaining AP to restore 50% of the droid's maximum health." **This is the source that contradicts Mobalytics** on whether spending more AP heals more; both readings are recorded and the disagreement sits on the record. On capacity: an astromech has "all three unlocked" Utility slots, and with both storage passives "one Impact Bomb becomes three throws" — the third independent statement of the three-uses figure, after `retail-questdaily-astromech` and `retail-mobalytics-astromech`. On the class: astromechs are "locked to a single specialization called Astromech". **Checked for and absent**: any mention of Analytics, and any interaction between two astromechs.