Skip to content
Zero Company Builds
Build

Mechanic

Zero Company cycles explained

The campaign runs on cycles. Completing a tactical mission advances the cycle, and one previewer reports you can run only one full combat mission per cycle. Missions and Operations expire after a limited number of cycles, so anything you cannot reach is lost. Healing an Injury in a standard Medbay bed also costs a cycle.

Preview-reported
Confidence
Strongly supported
Verified
14 September 2026

One mission, one cycle

Completing a tactical mission advances the cycle. A previewer states that you can complete only one full combat mission per cycle, which — if it holds — is the central scheduling rule of the campaign.

For pace: another previewer reached cycle 7 in roughly eight hours, so something close to an hour per cycle early on. That is a rough figure from a capped build and will not hold across a whole campaign.

What expires

Both Operations and tactical missions are time-limited at the holotable, and previewers consistently describe watching things disappear. You will not have enough Intel or enough cycles to do everything.

Some missions only appear if you have talked to the right squad member at the Den, and some are tied to a specific Operator. Between those two facts, content can be missed twice over: once by never unlocking it and once by unlocking it and running out of time.

Three things compete for the same cycles

Healing costs a cycle at a standard Medbay bed, or Credits for an instant Bacta Tank. So injury recovery is paid in either time or money, and you rarely have enough of either.

Money buys less of it than the launch build suggested. Patch 1.1 fixed the Bacta Tank being usable more than once in a cycle, so from 9 September one Operator a cycle can skip the bed and the rest wait their turn — which is what makes the cycle, rather than the Credit, the unit every Injury is really priced in.

Injuries persist and accumulate towards permanent death, so deferring treatment raises risk on exactly the Operator you most want to deploy.

And the opposition improves regardless. A previewer describes enemy factions strengthening over the campaign no matter what you do, with your crisis decisions steering how rather than whether. Another reports that ignoring certain Operations hands enemies upgrades that last the rest of the game. Time spent recovering is time the enemy spends improving.

Crisis decisions

Among the Operations are crisis events that force a choice between two bad outcomes. You are making them with incomplete information, and the one you resolve shapes how the factions develop.

This is the part of the campaign layer that most resembles a strategy game rather than a mission select, and it means late-campaign difficulty is partly a consequence of your own earlier choices. Build advice written for the late game has to acknowledge that two players can arrive there facing different opposition.

Confirmed

The rules as officially stated

  • Completing a tactical mission advances the cycle.
  • A previewer reports one full combat mission per cycle.
  • Missions and Operations expire after a limited number of cycles.
  • A standard Medbay bed costs one cycle; a Bacta Tank is instant and costs Credits.
  • From Patch 1.1, the Bacta Tank can be used once per cycle. The launch build allowed more.
  • Recruitment offers a new selection of Operators each cycle.
  • Enemy factions strengthen over the campaign regardless of player action.
  • Ignoring certain Operations grants enemies upgrades that persist all game.
  • One previewer reached cycle 7 in roughly eight hours.

Planning

What this means for squad building

  • Treat Injury avoidance as a scheduling advantage, not just a safety preference.
  • Value builds that keep Operators deployable — a healing cycle costs a mission.
  • Read the whole holotable before committing; expiry makes the order of missions matter.
  • Do not write late-campaign advice as though every player faces the same opposition.

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.

  • Whether one combat mission per cycle is correct. It is a single spoken claim, and a great deal rests on it.
  • How many cycles a mission or Operation stays available for.
  • Whether the campaign has a total cycle limit.
  • Whether Operations advance the cycle in any circumstance.
  • How much stronger enemy factions get, and how quickly.
  • What a Bacta Tank costs. Its once-per-cycle limit is now first-party; its price is still nobody's.

Questions

Common questions

The way these come up in search, answered directly.

What are cycles in Zero Company?
The campaign clock. Completing a tactical mission advances the cycle, and missions and Operations expire after a limited number of them.
Can you miss an Operation permanently?
Yes. Operations expire, and one whose window closes is gone for good.

Every question, answered with its sources

Related mechanics

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

  • 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"

  • 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

  • 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 preview — after 15 hours

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

    Supports: 3:15–9:43 — conversations at the Den unlocking side missions; late companions forcing a rethink of squad composition; missions carrying a limited window; fighting alongside Anakin Skywalker late in the preview; fifteen hours without a crash

  • Star Wars Zero Company hands-on impressions — story and gameplay

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

    Supports: 0:00–7:39 — the company opening 80,000 credits in debt to the Hutts; dialogue choices moving Bonds; Operations forcing a choice between squadmates; rescue and escort objectives; reaching cycle 7 in roughly eight hours

  • STAR WARS Zero Company — Patch 1.1 Notes

    Electronic Arts · Tier 1 — Official · accessed 14 September 2026

    Supports: Published 9 September 2026, the first post-launch patch; re-read in full on 14 September 2026, when it was still the newest entry on EA's News & Updates page. **Every item below is listed by EA under bug fixes**, which is what makes each one a statement about 1.0 as well as about 1.1. Secondary Specializations: their passive Cross Trainings "now correctly enter the selection pool at Relationship +8", and Secondary Specializations "now count for Specialization-specific Operation requirements and results". Chance-to-Hit: attacks displayed at 100% "can no longer erroneously miss". Scattergun: Tiers II, III and IV "no longer incorrectly use Tier I values". Droid Dismantler: Harmony "is granted only on Droid deaths, not on every enemy death". Tel-Rea: the Ranged Damage Cross Training bonus "is now applied once rather than twice" to her Force attacks, and Critical Damage bonuses "now correctly apply" to them. DC-17m Anti-Armor: it "can now critically hit" and "receives damage bonuses that apply to grenades". Ion Blasters "no longer double Critical Damage". Sweeping Salvo: "enemies outside the targeting cone are no longer hit". A Life of Labor II "can no longer infinitely accumulate bonuses when purchased repeatedly". Immovable: the status "now provides its intended bonuses". Bacta Tank, missed on the first read and added 14 September: "Fixed an issue where the Bacta Tank could be used more than one in a cycle" — EA's wording, typo included; the intended rule is one use per cycle. Overwatch, three lines, quoted verbatim on 14 September because the first pass had paraphrased the first of them too loosely: "Fixed an issue where Overwatch shots triggered against attackers caused the enemies to fire through solid objects at Operators they couldn't see" — an enemy-side line-of-sight failure, not the player's reaction shots passing through walls; "Fixed some instances of Overwatch triggering on a unit outside of the targeting cone"; and "Fixed various Overwatch issues that caused enemies and Operators to be unintentionally attacked". A fourth mentions it in passing: "Fixed a turn ordering issue that caused the Coil Captain to heal a target already slain by Overwatch". **Checked for and absent**: any figure for anything — no Scattergun tier statistics, no Harmony amount, no DC-17m damage, no figure for what Immovable now provides, no Bacta Tank cost. Also absent: any fix for Overwatch *failing* to trigger. Every Overwatch line corrects a shot that should not have happened, and none claims a shot that should have happened now does.