The Zero Company Advantage economy

Why a shared pool changes squad building

• Morale Boost

  Medic✓Confirmed

  Costs 7 Advantage and grants this Operator and nearby allies 4 stacks of Morale. At the start of an Operator's turn they heal for twice their remaining stacks and then lose one — 8, then 6, then 4, then 2, for 20 healing in total. At maximum rank it grants 10 stacks, healing 110 over ten turns. Morale also cancels the chance-to-hit penalty an injured Operator suffers.

  Squad-wide sustain on a decaying curve, so it rewards long fights and does little in short ones. The half people miss is the accuracy half: on higher difficulties, where Operators go down and keep fighting injured, cancelling the injury hit-penalty keeps a damaged squad functional in a way that raw healing does not. Its 7 Advantage competes directly with Rocket Strike, Easy Mark and Precision Shot for one pool that caps at 10 — this is the decision the Advantage economy exists to force.

• Rocket Strike

  Soldier✓Confirmed

  Costs 10 Advantage and no Action Points at all. It fires a rocket that detonates on impact, damaging all targets caught in the blast and destroying cover — and because it spends nothing from the turn, it can be fired after the Operator has already moved and attacked. Retail ability cards give its base damage as 12, 16, 20, 24 and 28 across the first five ranks, reaching 34 at the sixth, where survivors are also left Vulnerable so the next attack against each of them critically hits.

  The squad's answer to Outlaws fighting in numbers and to droid formations arriving a dozen at a time — and the strongest single reason to bank Advantage. Ten Advantage is the entire pool at its known maximum, so the turn this fires, nobody else in the squad spends anything: it is not a purchase to budget around, it is the budget. What it does not cost is the turn. No Action Point is spent, so the Soldier moves into position, takes an ordinary shot, and fires the rocket anyway — which makes the real question when the pool fills rather than whether the turn can afford it. The final rank is what ties it to the rest of the squad: leaving survivors Vulnerable turns one area attack into a set-up for everyone else's, and the Soldier's own extended grenade range is the natural way to collect. The tension is the pool starting each fight empty while enemies are most tightly packed on turn one.

• Pico-5

  Hawks◈Retail-reported

  Grants a targeted ally one additional Action Point for the turn, paid for in Advantage rather than Action Points, so Hawks can use it after moving and attacking. Each use also adds 4 Bond Points to the Bond between Hawks and that ally, capped at 20 Bond Points per character per mission. A previewer spending it pre-launch named the cost as 3 Advantage; the retail guide that names the ability does not repeat a figure.

  Two tools in one action, and the second one is the one nobody plans around. As an action-economy tool it is the only confirmed way to add AP to a turn, and whether the trade is good depends entirely on who receives it — an AP spent by a Padawan mid-combo is not worth the same as one spent by a recruit with a pistol. As a **Bond tool** it is the fastest source of Bond progress in the game: five uses is the 20-point mission cap, which is two-thirds of what a completed Tactical Mission pays a pair, on top of the mission itself. Bonds pay Focus Points at every rank, so a turn spent handing Hawks' Advantage to the ally you are trying to bond with is progression as well as tempo. Because it belongs to the Operator every story mission requires, every squad has to budget around it — and every squad can aim it.

• Sweeping Salvo

  Assault◈Retail-reported

  Costs 4 Advantage rather than an Action Point. Sweeps a large cone with blaster fire, damaging everything inside it and applying Disoriented, which imposes a 20% chance-to-hit penalty on the affected enemies. **The cone is the whole of its reach**: from Patch 1.1 enemies outside the targeting cone are no longer hit, which the launch build did. Usable three times per combat, with no limit on how many of those come in one turn. Retail ability cards give its base damage as 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 across the first five ranks, reaching 20 at the sixth, and its effective range as 12 metres widening to 18. It scales with blaster damage mods and effective range, and cannot critically hit until the sixth rank removes that restriction.

  The only Ultimate that is a defensive tool bought with an offensive resource: dropping a group's accuracy by 20% mitigates more damage than most heals restore. At 4 Advantage it is also the cheapest Ultimate priced so far — under half of Open Fire's 9, and affordable twice over on a pool that caps at 10 — which makes the three-per-combat cap the real constraint rather than the price. Past the third use, saving Advantage for it is waste. The crit restriction is what makes the sixth rank worth reaching, because until then the Assault's own Strike the Flanks bonus does nothing for its biggest attack. **Aim it more carefully than the launch build asked you to.** Patch 1.1 stopped it hitting enemies outside the cone, so its effective coverage is smaller and more strictly defined than the behaviour a 1.0 player got used to. Anyone who watched it catch a straggler off to one side was watching a bug, and a turn planned on that happening again will come up short. This is also what the rank ladder is buying: 12 metres widening to 18 is the difference between a cone that has to be aimed and one that can be pointed. It is the strongest argument on this site for giving the Assault's Ultimate to a Heavy. Intimidating Posture Taunts on a blaster hit, a launch-week guide reports that Taunt firing from blaster-based area attacks and Assist Attacks too, and this is a blaster-based area attack covering up to eighteen metres. A Heavy holding it Taunts everything the cone contains, for 4 Advantage and no Action Point.

• Shockwave

  Tel-Rea Vokoss◈Retail-reported

  For 6 Advantage, an area Force push that displaces all enemies around her simultaneously and throws them a long way back. One observed use scattered three droids and killed two more enemies outright by pushing them into hazards. Its final upgrade grants Harmony for every enemy hit. Like her other Force attack it takes the Ranged Damage Cross Training once from Patch 1.1, and accepts Critical Damage bonuses, which it did not before.

  Mass displacement is worth more here than its damage suggests: it strips cover from a group, can push several enemies into prepared Overwatch cones at once, and forced movement damages a droideka through its shield. The upgraded version is also the only route past the six Harmony she starts a turn with, which turns it from a panic button into the way a big turn is funded — hit several enemies, bank the Harmony, and spend it on Lightsaber Strikes at 4 damage a stack. At 6 Advantage it competes directly with the rest of the squad for the pool, and it is repeatable as long as the pool holds. Two Patch 1.1 changes meet on this ability. Her Force attacks now accept Critical Damage bonuses, which makes the biggest of them the natural place for that investment to land. And the sixth tier is no longer the only route past her six-Harmony ceiling: the Droid Dismantler grants Harmony on a Droid death, which against Separatists is a second tap that costs no Advantage at all. That does not make the node cheap, but it does mean a Tel-Rea fighting droids is not waiting on it.

• Bulwark

  Heavy◈Retail-reported

  Taunts every enemy inside a large target area, compelling them to attack the Heavy, and raises the Heavy's Defense by 2 for the rest of the turn. Each rank widens the area and increases that Defense bonus, reaching 6 at maximum — a second guide now reports the same ladder, up to a 24-metre cast range over an 8-metre area at +6 Defense. The final rank also grants Impervious, which makes the Heavy immune to all status effects, and Immovable, which prevents it being pushed. **Immovable did not apply its bonuses at all until Patch 1.1**, so the sixth rank is worth more now than it was at launch. Usable once per turn.

  Redirection rather than mitigation, and the difference matters: a Medic healing one predictable target is far more efficient than one chasing scattered chip damage. The max-rank state is what makes it a late-game keystone — Impervious and Immovable together answer the two things that otherwise beat a tank, status effects and forced movement. Paired with the Grit Talent's stacking invulnerability it becomes the strongest defensive pattern available: taunt the group, absorb the return fire, then kill freely. The half of that pairing to re-read after Patch 1.1 is Immovable. EA list it among the fixes — the status now provides its intended bonuses — so a Heavy who reached the sixth rank in the launch build was buying the most expensive node in the ladder and receiving Impervious alone. A tank built on this since 9 September is a different Operator from one built on it in August, and the ability card is word for word identical in both.

• Precision Shot

  Sharpshooter◈Retail-reported

  Spends Advantage to fire a shot that cannot miss. Each rank raises its base damage and its critical damage, reaching a 50% critical damage bonus at maximum. Usable once per turn.

  The answer to any target where a miss is unaffordable — high-Defense units, shielded leaders, anything telegraphing an attack for next turn. It is also the best carrier in the game for a critical somebody else guaranteed: a Scoundrel's Identify Weakness on a shot that cannot miss, at +50% critical damage, is the squad's largest single hit. The squad consequence is the catch. The Sharpshooter is a pure Advantage sink, so pairing it with a generator is a requirement rather than a preference.

• Electro Web Dart

  Cly Kullervo◈Retail-reported

  For 2 Advantage, shocks a single target. It halves that enemy's movement and ignores evasion, so it lands regardless of how hard the target is to hit. The target is then tagged for Electro Web Surge.

  Judged alone it is unremarkable, and it is not meant to be judged alone: its job is placing the tag that Electro Web Surge detonates. That makes it the setup half of the only two-step combination on the roster, and it wants spending on several enemies in a turn rather than on the most dangerous one. Ignoring evasion is the quiet detail — the setup cannot be denied by a target that is simply hard to hit.

• Electro Web Surge

  Cly Kullervo◈Retail-reported

  Creates an electrical blast centred on Cly and a second blast around every enemy tagged with Electro Web Dart. The blasts ignore Defense. Where two blasts overlap, an enemy caught between them takes both.

  The payoff half of the roster's only setup-and-detonate pattern, and the reason Cly is described as Advantage-hungry: roughly 10 Advantage buys three darts and the detonation, which is the whole pool in one turn. Ignoring Defense is what makes it worth that price — Defense is flat damage reduction here, so armoured targets that blunt ordinary attacks take this in full. Placing the darts so the blasts overlap is the difference between a good turn and a decisive one, which makes it the most positioning-dependent ability on this site.

• Trick's explosive strike

  Trick⧗Outdated

  Kept as a record of how this attack was evidenced before it was identified, not as a separate ability. Two written previews described Trick charging a long-range explosive strike, one pricing it at 10 Advantage; two more described him firing a rocket launcher that destroys cover and hits clustered enemies. All four were watching the Soldier's Rocket Strike, on an Operator whose starting Specialization is Soldier.

  Read Rocket Strike instead — the cost, the ranks and the Vulnerable effect all live there, and they apply to any Soldier rather than only to Trick. What survives here is the one thing this record got right before anyone could name it: 10 Advantage is the entire maximum pool, so the ability is not something to fit into an Advantage budget. It *is* the budget.

• Open Fire

  Gunslinger✓Confirmed

  Costs 9 Advantage and fires two attacks, either at one target or split between two. Both shots carry whatever Onslaught damage the Gunslinger has stacked that turn. Five ranks raise it to three shots and add a 20% chance-to-hit bonus. It has no per-turn use limit.

  The payoff shot for a turn spent stacking Onslaught. After three Quick Draw kills and three ordinary attacks, each Open Fire shot carries roughly +6 damage, which is why the Gunslinger wants to clear chaff before firing rather than after. Uninvested it is the weakest Ultimate of the eight; fully invested it is the most flexible, because no other Ultimate can be used more than once in a turn.

• Easy Mark

  Scoundrel✓Confirmed

  Costs 7 Advantage to mark a single enemy. Whenever an ally attacks that target the Scoundrel assists, and if the attacker scores a critical hit the assist critically hits too. Each rank raises the assist's critical damage to a maximum of +6, and the final rank removes the once-per-turn restriction. The mark does not expire at the end of the turn.

  The only Ultimate that persists across turns, which makes it a set-up placed one turn and cashed the next. It compounds with the Scoundrel's own Never Play Fair assist bonus, and because an assisting Operator never misses, the Scoundrel's contribution to a chain is unconditional. It needs the squad to agree on a priority target — a mark nobody shoots pays nothing.

• Coordinated Support

  Astromechs◈Retail-reported

  Grants all Operators 1 Action Point, up to the normal ceiling of three. It costs 10 Advantage at the first rank, falling to 6 by the fifth, and the sixth rank grants 2 Action Points instead of 1.

  The largest single swing in the game and the reason a weaponless droid earns a bay. Four Operators at +1 Action Point is a whole extra Operator's turn; the sixth rank is two of them, for 6 Advantage. Read the ladder as two purchases rather than six: everything up to the fifth rank is a discount, and the sixth is a different ability. The ceiling matters when planning the turn order — a point handed to an Operator already holding three is wasted, so this is cast before the squad has spent, not after. It also makes the astromech the squad's largest Advantage consumer, which sits awkwardly beside its inability to generate any by dealing damage.

• Predictive Analytics

  Analytics◈Retail-reported

  All allies gain Defense for the rest of the turn. The ability card reads "Nothing beats these odds". Five ranks grant +2, +3, +4, +5 and +6 Defense. **No Advantage cost is published for it**, which is unusual for an Ultimate and is the source's omission rather than the ability being free.

  The only squad-wide defensive Ultimate in the game, and it turns the astromech from a support unit into the reason a squad survives an alpha strike. Defense is flat damage reduction, so +6 across four Operators is worth more against many small hits than against one large one — which makes it the answer to a room full of B1s rather than to a Droideka. It is also the one Ultimate whose timing is obvious: it lasts the rest of the turn, so it is cast before the enemy acts, not after. Against the class's other Ultimate it is a genuine choice rather than an upgrade. Coordinated Support buys the squad actions; this buys the squad turns alive. A droid can afford one of them per fight on a 10-point Advantage pool, so a second astromech is how a squad gets both.

Related pages

• Zero Company Advantage mechanic guide
• Zero Company Action Points guide
• The Hawks Pico-5 support buildtheorycraft
• Zero Company Soldier class guide
• Zero Company Medic class guide

Sources

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Star Wars Zero Company: turn-based tactics that aren't just for XCOM experts

  IGN · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 11 August 2026

  Supports: 2:15–12:39 — Advantage earned from successful attacks; four difficulty settings; ringing a droideka with Overwatch cones; Bonds granting health and critical damage; changing Hawks' species at the Den; the Bespin guest mission; preview-build defects including shots passing through solid cover

• I played Star Wars Zero Company early — new gameplay and details

  Star Wars HQ · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 11 August 2026

  Supports: 5:01–12:48 — one full combat mission per cycle; Hawks alone cannot permanently die; the exotic classes restricted to Cly, Tel-Rea and astromechs; recruitment refreshing each cycle with a name, Talent, Specialization and weapon type; Medbay bed and Bacta Tank costs; ignoring Operations granting enemies lasting upgrades

• 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