What is Cross Training?

The short answer

The menu where Bond progress is converted into permanent bonuses that both Operators in the pair receive.

Do Bonds actually matter in Zero Company?

Yes — they are the main source of Focus Points, so who you field together shapes your whole progression.

What are Focus Points and how do you earn them?

The currency spent in Focus Trees to upgrade an Operator's Talents, Abilities and Passives. They come mainly from Bonds.

What is a Very High Bond?

Rank 8, the top of the relationship ladder — 350 cumulative Bond XP, 7 Focus Points and a Passive Ability unique to that pairing.

Where this is covered properly

• Cross Training
• Bonds
• Every Cross Training with its value

Sources

• Lead Zero Company To Victory on August 27

  Electronic Arts · Tier 1 — Official · accessed 6 August 2026

  Supports: Operator introductions; 3 Action Points per turn; Advantage caps at 10; the eight Specializations; Bonds in the Personnel Facility; Hawks' species options

• Star Wars Zero Company: How Some of the Greatest Minds in Tactics Games are Pushing the Genre, Again

  Xbox Wire · Tier 2 — Developer interview · accessed 6 August 2026

  Supports: Greg Foertsch and James Brawley on the eight Specializations, Combat Stim + Gunslinger synergy, Advantage, and Specialization changes on authored characters

• 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

• PC Review — 'Star Wars Zero Company'

  WorthPlaying · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 27 August 2026

  Supports: Weapons — "Regardless of specialization, operators can use any of the game's four ranged weapon types: blaster pistols, blaster rifles, longarms (sniper rifles), and repeaters (machine guns)", and "Blaster pistols deal the least damage but always cost one AP to fire. Blaster rifles cost one AP for the first shot and two for the second, using all three AP an operator starts with each turn. Longarms always cost two AP but offer the longest range." No cost is given for the Repeater. Progression — "Focus points can be completely reset and reallocated at any time, so you're never stuck with a bad build." Bonds — "Reaching a new bond level lets you choose one of three permanent buffs for both operators, including increased health, ranged accuracy, movement range, or additional Focus points." Published 2026-08-26

• Star Wars Zero Company Bonds & Cross Training Guide

  Hack the Minotaur · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 8 September 2026

  Supports: Bylined Hack The Minotaur, "Latest Update: September 1, 2026". **The complete Cross Training table, fourteen rows, verbatim**: Speed Training "+0.50m first movement"; Target Practice "-5% range hit penalty"; Agility Drills "-5% enemy ranged hit chance"; Close Combat Drills "+1 Melee Damage"; Precision Shooting Games "+1 Critical Damage"; Timing Exercises "+3% Critical Chance"; Freeform Training "+2 Focus Points"; Ranged Combat Drills "+1 Ranged Damage"; Cover Combat Practice "+5% Cover Bonus"; Fitness Work "+4 Max Health"; Reflex Fire Training "+1 Overwatch Damage"; A Friendly Game "+40 Bond XP"; Grenade Training "+1 Grenade Damage"; Combined Fire Games "+1 Assist Damage". Introduced as "All known basic Cross Training rewards are listed below" — a claim about the author's knowledge, not a claim of completeness. **The eight-rank Bond ladder**, as a table of Rank / Tier / Total Bond XP to Unlock / Focus Points Earned / Cross Training: 1 Very Low 40 1 "1 Standard Upgrade"; 2 Low 70 1; 3 Low 80 1; 4 Neutral 100 1; 5 Neutral 125 1; 6 Neutral 175 2; 7 High 250 4; 8 Very High 350 7 "1 Unique Upgrade". Prose around it: "You also earn Focus Points by hitting each Bond Rank, with 8 Bond Ranks in total", and "There are 8 confirmed Bond Tiers... Very High is the maximum tier and the threshold the game's trophy list recognizes for reaching maximum Bond with a given pair." On the choice: "You get to select from 3 random Cross Training passives each time your Operators rank up in Bond XP. You cannot predict which options will appear at a given tier, only that they will be drawn from the total pool of available trainings." On stacking: "Cross Training STACKS on each Operator. This means you can have multiple instances of Fitness Work (+4 Max Health) or Speed Training (bonus First Movement) for example". On permanence: "Cross Training bonuses apply permanently to both operators in the pair once chosen, regardless of deployment status." On Bond XP: "Each completed mission awards 30 Bond points to every pair that participated"; Call for Backup is "a Free Action available once per turn to one randomly selected operator, at no AP cost", and "Both the operator who called and the operator who assisted gain Bond progress"; healing a specific squadmate builds Bond between those two; assigning two Operators to the same Operation does too. On the top tier: "The maximum-Bond Cross Training grants a Passive Ability unique to each pairing, which cannot be obtained through the Focus Tree or any other progression system." On permadeath: a dead Operator's Bonds are severed and "The Cross Training bonuses already earned and locked in from that pairing remain on the surviving operator." **Checked for and absent**: any Focus Point cost for any node, any figure for Bond decay, and any name for a single maximum-Bond passive.

• Star Wars Zero Company: How to Increase Bond Levels

  allthings.how · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 8 September 2026

  Supports: Bylined Pallav Pathak, updated 28 August 2026. Names three Cross Trainings this database already held — "Timing Exercises: +5% Critical Chance", "Reflex Fire Training: +1 Overwatch Damage", "Freeform Training: +2 Focus Points" — and two it did not: "Ranged Combat Drills (+1 Ranged Damage)" and "Fitness Work (+4 Max Health)", plus Conflict Resolution, which it describes as pushing "the pair toward their next bond level" rather than granting a stat. **Its Timing Exercises figure is the pre-release +5%**, where `retail-htm-bonds` reads +3% off the shipped card; see that record. On permanence, verbatim: training rewards are "locked in once taken, unlike Focus Points, which you can refund and respend." On the menu: "The training options are drawn at random for each playthrough, so no two campaigns present them in the same order." On the top tier: "Reaching the maximum bond unlocks a special Cross Training that grants a Passive Ability, the strongest tier of reward." **Conflict Resolution appears on no other source read in this pass**, including the fourteen-row table on `retail-htm-bonds`, which is why it is entered with that absence stated rather than as a fifteenth row of the same standing.