Guides
Zero Company mechanics and campaign guides
Each guide opens by answering its question directly, then separates confirmed rules from what they imply for squad building — and lists what has not been published.
Start here
Everything we know about Zero Company
Every confirmed Zero Company build mechanic, with sources — and an honest list of what we have not yet verified in the retail build.
Deep dive
The Advantage economy
You earn one each time an Operator damages an enemy, and every strong ability in the squad competes for the same pool of ten. Deciding who spends it is the core tension.
Campaign
How the cycle clock works
Missions expire, healing costs a cycle, and the opposition gets stronger whether or not you do. The scheduling layer above every fight.
New
Status effects and damage modifiers
Flat damage reduction punishes squads built on volume. Marking a target strips range penalties. The modifiers that decide if an attack is worth making.
Squad building
How to compose a squad
Four slots, four jobs — someone who is shot at, someone who fills the Advantage pool, someone who prevents Injuries, someone who answers cover. The two compositions the developers warn against are the two that skip one.
Mid-campaign
The best secondary Specialization
A dual-class Operator is limited by the shared Advantage pool rather than by damage, which changes the answer completely: the best secondary is usually the one that funds the primary.
Mechanics — 21
How the systems work
Grouped by what you are trying to work out. Every rule is sourced and dated, and every page ends with what is still unpublished.
Winning a fight
The turn itself — what an Operator can do, what it costs, and how hit chance is decided.
Confirmed
Action Points
Every Operator gets three Action Points per turn, spent on movement, attacks, Utilities and Abilities in any order.
Confirmed
Advantage
A shared squad resource, earned one at a time by damaging enemies, that powers strong abilities without spending AP. Maximum: 10.
Confirmed
Overwatch
A directional cone that triggers reaction shots when enemies move or act, at the cost of ending the Operator's turn.
Confirmed
Cover and flanking
Partial and full cover reduce hit chance; flanking and high ground raise it. Some cover can be destroyed.
Confirmed
High ground
Elevation improves hit chance, making verticality a positioning goal for long-range Operators.
Confirmed
Chance to hit
The percentage on every shot, what moves it, and the confirmed fact that neither 10% nor 90% guarantees anything.
Confirmed
Displacement
Moving an enemy against its will — out of cover, into an ally's Overwatch, into another enemy, or off the map entirely.
Preview-reported
Status effects
Defense, Burning, Spotted, Disoriented and invulnerability — the modifiers that decide whether an attack is worth making.
Confirmed
Weapon Mods
Weapon Mods are sixteen effects at four strengths each, four competing for every one of a weapon's four slots. Choosing a mod means choosing a line, and this is how the lines work and which weapon each belongs on.
Keeping your squad alive
Injuries, permadeath and the support actions that stop one bad turn ending a campaign run.
Making Operators stronger
Bonds, Focus Points and the two systems that decide what an Operator becomes.
Confirmed
Bonds
Relationships between paired Operators that unlock permanent combat bonuses, maximum-Bond passives and most of your Focus Points.
Confirmed
Cross Training
The progression system tied to Bonds that turns pair relationships into permanent shared bonuses.
Confirmed
Focus Trees and Focus Points
Focus Points, earned mainly from Bonds, upgrade Talents, Abilities and Passives through each Operator's Focus Tree.
Confirmed
Talents
There are eleven Talents. Ten are open to any Custom Operator, one is astromech-only, and all of them are chosen separately from a Specialization.
Confirmed
Dual Specializations
A second Specialization unlocks around the middle of the campaign, creating dual-class Operators.
Running the campaign
The layer above combat: the cycle clock, expiring missions, and what to do between them.
Preview-reported
Cycles
The campaign clock. Completing a tactical mission advances the cycle, missions and Operations expire, and healing costs a cycle.
Preview-reported
What to do at the Den
The between-mission routine: talk to everyone first, because conversations unlock missions that otherwise never appear.
Retail-reported
Difficulty and Beskar Mode
The game's four difficulty settings, the ironman-style Beskar Mode that removes the ability to reload an earlier save, and the fact that you can change difficulty between missions.
More mechanics
Not yet sorted into a group above.