Let's start with what you will actually do while playing this game mode.


Operations allow you to create a gang and then start an Operation in a Sector with your gang. You can also use them to play against other players if you wish, but you'll have to look elsewhere for a PvP guide - I got this game too late and missed the golden hour so to speak, as of writing this guide there are currently 17 people playing the public multiplayer mode. But you can create a private lobby by inviting friends.

Note, when you start your first gang and their first operations you will have less options than you will later on. This is because the game has a built-in tutorial for operations mode that activate the first time. So if your experience doesn't matches what is below, that's because you're in your first operations. Finish it or create a new gang to get the full experience.

After creating your gang you can choose the option Operations, this will show you the following screen:



As you can see there are different levels of difficulty that you can play on. Which also affects the rewards you get and exp earned per battle etc.
One thing not mentioned here though is that your facilities become stronger based on the difficulty which means some exp related things are cheaper on higher difficulties such as learning a new skill.

More gangs on the board also means that things will be a bit longer and that there will be some more back and forth at times. And also the sectors will sometimes last more rounds, here named "shifts", because there will be more resources to compete over.

Aside from that, the enemy teams will have higher ranked fighters and be equipped with higher ranked gear of course.

Also worth mentioning here is that the enemy teams will be based on your own gang rating when you start the operation. So if you've improved a lot since last time you played on "normal", your new "normal" operation will not be as easy as the last one since the game will try to match with your current team.

Next you will have the setup of facilities and Infamy for this particular Operation. You have 2 choices of facilities, the Training Ground being really useful at the start of your gang's journey and the others rewarding you will consumable items of different kinds when you finish a mission.

You can also spend your Infamy Points on different bonuses, ranging from cheap and slightly good to expensie and really good. And with that decided, you are ready to start which will also give you access to the shop and the Infamy menu. (More in Infamy later, it got too big).

When you start you will see a map over the Sector like this one:



Here you can see some intel on how the Operation in the Sector is going, how much resources are left, current house requests etc. And you can also see how many shift have passed and choose what mission you want to try during this shift.

After you pick a mission the AI gangs will also pick a mission. If you pick the same mission as another gang a battle will start, if not then you will simply get a reward screen for the mission. And then, you move on to the next shift in the operations.

Sometimes the enemy gang may locate your HQ and try to raid it, in which case you will get the option to defend instead of doing the mission you assigned yourself to. But more on the different missions and workings of the sectors in a later part of this guide.

When the resources on the map are depleted (you can see the bar there to the left) the Sector will end meaning that the operation is over.

With an operation in a sector over you will get a score screen, earn your rewards based on how well you did compared to the other gangs and you can start a new operation with your gang that you developed and repeating the same process with more challenge.


PS, if you abandon the sector and the operation your Infamy Points will be temporarily frozen until you play a future operation to completion.

When you start Operations Mode you need to create a gang. You choose between the 3 houses (5 with the DLCs) and if you want a custom gang or standard gang.
Custom gangs are more fun.
Choose your gang name, do some other choices and enter the Operations mode proper.



You have no fighters yet, there is no operation started yet. But if you want to have access to the bonuses that you'd have in an Operation you can start one now before creating your fighters.

The Training Ground for example reduces the recruitement cost of new operatives and is available from the start. You can also spend Infamy Points for Weapon Caches, gain a random operative, reduce recruitment costs even more etc.

Next the first fighter you create will automatically become your Leader. You can promote other fighters to leaders later, but for now this will have to do. Choose one of the game's classes, and then make some choices that affects the starting stats (and body stature), pick gender, name and do some quick character customization before paying up the credits to recruit them.

When you create another fighter after that you can also decide if you want to pay more money to gain a fighter with more experience. We have the following choices as shown in the picture below:



With your choice of fighters done, you can also individually manage them. This is where you can spend experience points to increase stats, gain active skills and passive skills. But you can also customize their looks more than in the creation screen, change colours and manage their inventory.

Note that a fighter doesn't automatically gain a certain rank when created, instead they start with experience which will advance them in rank when spent. More on that later.

You need to have at least 3 fighters in a crew to start a mission. A full 5 is of course always better than less since you can do more actions in a mission. But to each their own.

Your gang can consist of 3 crews / teams with a total of 5 fighters in each. So don't be afraid of experimenting or replacing fighters that aren't pulling their weight.

Let's just quickly summarize some of your class choices in the game.
You don't need to have one of each, pick the ones that suit how you want to approach the game.

Also keep in mind that all your fighters will have access to skills depending on the following things:

• Gang House
  
• Class
  
• Rank (Juve, Ganger, Leader)

So regardless of class all Escher fighters can pick and choose from the Escher passive skills and have the Escher specific gang trait.

Likewise all Heavy fighters have access to all the Heavy passive and active skills regardless of house and rank, and they all start with Heavy Barrage and can use heavy ranged weapons.

And finally some skills are only available when you pass a certain rank (5) or become a Leader.

That means that you can build your fighters in different ways, even if most fighters like Brawlers will end up similar to other Brawlers because you probably want some of the Brawler specific abilities since they all suit the role the fighter will play in a mission.

PS: Also some skills have "house variants" such as Battle Advice, which are small tweaks on what stats they effect. This is usually the bottom active and bottom passive for each class. One team will lower the cost of Strike while another may affect Shoot etc. So it's not really a unique skill, they function similarly, but they play more into that gang's archetype.

Some classes also have specific equipment that they can equip. We're talking weapons here. And some classes start with a class specific passive trait that makes them always start with an armor piece that can't be removed. Such as the Lay Mechanic's mechanical arm.

You can find all this information when creating your character, it's all there so you don't really need this part. But let's give a short rundown in the same order as they appear when creating a fighter.

These are your agile units with range focus.
The Deadeye-specific skills you can learn require:

• Alertness
  
• Accuracy
  
• Ranged Aptidude

They can use typical ranged weapons like everyone else, but also Bolt weapons.
They also have a special tactical skill called Ascension that can be used to travel upwards on the maps to ledges and objects.
In addition, a Deadeye has a passive trait that decreases Overwatch by 5 AP.
They start with a ranged weapon, either one or two handed. And a special left arm armour with 65% protection against all damage types.


These are your tanky melee specialists.
The Brawler-specific skills you can learn require:

• Melee Prowess
  
• Willpower
  
• Toughness

They can use heavy melee weapons which require 2 hands to use and tend to deal more damage than the single hand counter parts.
They also have a special attack skill called Death From Above that can only be used against targets below you and you deal damage and stun the targets in the area around where you land.
In addition, a Brawler has a passive trait that decreases Ambush by 5 AP.
They start with a melee weapon, either one-or two handed. And a special left- and right arm armour with 45% protection against all damage types.


These are your static ranged units.
The Heavy-specific skills you can learn require:

• Toughness
  
• Ranged Aptitude
  
• Intelligence

They can use heavy ranged weapons which have better range and damage than other ranged weapons, but they come with higher AP cost.
They also have a special reaction skill called Heavy Barrage that can only be used against targets below you when they move in that area.
In addition, a Heavy has a passive trait that decreases Field Repair by 5 AP. And deals 200% more damage to objects like barricades and bridges.
They start with a heavy ranged weapon.

These are your crowd control units with area damage.
The Saboteur-specific skills you can learn require:

• Agility
  
• Willpower
  
• Alertness

They can use spray weapons such as flamers, cryo guns, acid spewers that hit nearby enemies in a cone.
They also have a special ability to sabotage interactable objects on the maps such as ziplines, health dispensers and control stations.
In addition, a Saboteur has a passive trait that decreases Carry by 5 AP. And gain 10% extra Impact protection on everything but head.
They start with a spread weapon, either 2 one-handed or 1 two-handed.

These are your fixers and builders.
The Lay Mechanic-specific skills you can learn require:

• Intelligence
  
• Strength
  
• Melee Prowess

They can use mechanical arms which come in both ranged and melee versions, and then a single handed weapon in the other.
They also have the ability to repair broken or sabotaged objects on the field.
In addition, a Lay Mechanic has a passive trait that decreases Disengage by 5 AP.
They start with a servo arm weapon. And a special left arm armour with 45% protection against all damage types.

This class was added in a post-game update.
These are your disruptors, specialists at screwing with your opponent's plans.
The Servo Tech-specific skills you can learn require:

• Intelligence
  
• Accuracy
  
• Alertness

They can use special ranged weapons like the Mangler and Needle Gun or melee weapons like the whip.
They also have a special active skill that uses the servo skull to target nearby enemies even in cover.
In addition, a Servo Tech has a passive trait that decreases Aimed shot by 5.
They start with a whip or mangler. And a special left arm armour with 45% protection against all damage types.

Here's a guide with some suggested builds in case you need inspiration. Or you can check out the characters from the story mode campaign to get an idea of what you can do or try things out.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2222925491

So what do you gain when you win missions? Sure you get some spoils that you can sell for credits and resources for the Operation itself. But each of your participating fighters also gain experience points.

Those experience points can be spent on the following:

• Increasing Stats
  
• Learning skills
  
• Upgrading skills

Regardless of what you spend them on, you will progress towards the next rank when you upgrade stats or gain/upgrade skills. You can see your progress with these boxes in the top left of the screen:


As you reach the end, your fighter will rank up which will unlock more slots to learn skills as well as eventually unlock more bonuses such as implant slots, more skills to choose from the general pool and the option to upgrade to Leader.
Once you reach Rank V (5), you gain access to Ganger skills in addition to the Juve skills. If you promote the fighter to Leader you also gain access to leader skills.


What about promoting to leader then?
Your fighter gets:

• +2 to all maximum stats, allowing the leader to boost stats even higher.
  
• You also get +2 willpower in addition to the +2 maximum willpower
  
• You gain 3 more Max stat upgrades for each rank going forward, and retroactively for the ranks you've taken since 5 (if any).
  
• Gain access to the Leader tier of skills.
  
• Automatically learn Order Attack and Order Planning without using up any of your slots

What does it cost? Nothing, nothing at all. But you can have a total of 3 leaders in your gang and no more than 1 leader in a crew/team undertaking a mission.



Stats are important since stats make your fighters stronger. Each stat increase is pretty cheap, but the cost increases the more points you spend on stats. So while your first increase may cost 4 exp, later on you've increased them so many times they cost 42 instead. So what should you spend them on? For a new player all of these stats will be a bit overwhelming.


Luckily the game is pretty good at communicating what you get in-game by highlighting the affected stat in green:


It's nice to know what you're getting before you decide to invest your experience points. I'd advice to make a fighter either focused on ranged or melee combat. Or make a utility fighter with more of a hybrid build of course. But the stats that affect range combat doesn't benefit melee combat and the other way around.

Aside from the stat related bonuses each class requires certain stats to learn their class specific skills, these are the same stats that are increased when you pick that class.
You also need to increase those stats further to be able to upgrade the skills you learned.




Your passive and active skills can be learnt and upgraded only when you have the required stats. All skills luckily share the same requirements in numerical values, so you don't need to remember everything.

• A skill can be learned when the required stat is 4
  
• A skill can be upgraded when you have 8
  
• And a final upgrade can be bought at 12

When you upgrade an active skill the change is mosly a decrease in AP cost.
When you upgrade a passive skill the change is mostly its effect in percentage values.

What if you got a skill that you no longer need? Or maybe a rank up gave you a cooler skill that you now want but it's full?
Then you can pay for a Mind Wipe to remove that skill from your fighter. Your rank will not decrease from this as you've still spent the exp on it. The cost for a Mind Wipe increases each time you do it on the same fighter though, and the cost is in credits - not exp.

Interested in seeing all the available skills for each class and gang? Well you can do that in-game, but if you want everything listed this user made a guide about it:

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2227616511

By the time one of your fighters reaches Rank V (5), they'll also get a chance to gain a random passive ability every time they rank up.
These come in 3 different versions based on what they do to your operative and while some are good others are just straight up something that screws them over. This is a carry-over from the tabletop game and makes for interesting decisions when playing a campaign with friends/rivals. But it can be a bit anoying in a video game.

You get one of each. One Talent, one Virtue and one Vice. So that is at least something you can prepare for.

I don't know if there are any conditions that trigger what you get etc. But if your fighter rolls something terrible just remember that you can always mindwipe them or put them on the bench if you're trying to minmax a certain build.



I'm not gonna say more on that but instead direct you towards this other guide that covers it.
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2231615136

When you start an Operation you can choose to spend your Infamy Points to gain Infamy (bonuses) that last that Operation. All spent and unspent Infamy Points are refreshed when the Operation is over.
You can't add more bonuses once the Operation has started.

There are 4 different tabs of bonuses to choose from. The cheap ones give a slightly worse bonus but stay cheap which is perfect for the first Operations you play. The ones on the last tab are quite expensive but most of them are also just straight up improved versions from the previous tabs.



In total you can pick 10 different bonuses, regardless of how many Infamy Points you have. Some of the bonuses can be choosen several times, others are one time only.

All of the bonuses can also the upgraded after you've chosen them. Simply click on them in your list of Infamy and choose upgrade which costs the same as the initial price up to 2 more times.



Common
Cost: 1
House Blessing (1) - Completing Clan Requests grant 1/2/3 Loot Casket.

Infamous Crew (1)- Completed Guilder Proposals give 100/200/300% extra credits.

House Request: Offensive Consumables - Adds a Reward Casket to your gang storage with 2/5/8 - 4/7/10 Explosive Consumables of rank 1 or 2.

House Request: Defensive Consumables - Adds a Reward Casket to your gang storage with 2/5/8 - 4/7/10 Support Consumables of rank 1 or 2


Rare
Cost:3
Wealthy Benefactor (1) - Start this Operation with 100/200/300 extra credits.

Persistent Haggler (1) - Gain 10/15/20% more credits when selling items at the Shop.

Bargain Hunter (1) - Reduce prices by 5/10/15% in the Shop.

Promises of Fame (1) - Gain a random Juve fighter to your gang of minimum rank 2/3/4.

House Request: Melee Weapons - Adds a Reward Casket to your gang storage with 1/3/5 - 2/4/6 Melee Weapons of Rank 1 or 2.

House Request: Ranged Weapons - Adds a Reward Casket to your gang storage with 1/3/5 - 2/4/6 Ranged Weapons of Rank 1 or 2.

House Request: Armour - Adds a Reward Casket to your gang storage with 2/5/8 - 4/7/10 Armour Pieces of Rank 1 or 2.

House Requisition: Offensive Consumables - Adds a Seized Casket to your gang storage with 2/5/8 - 4/7/10 Explosive Consumables of rank 3 or 4.

House Requisition: Defensive Consumables - Adds a Seized Casket to your gang storage with 2/5/8 - 4/7/10 Support Consumables of rank 3 or 4.


Epic
Cost: 6
Loyal Client Discount (1) - Reduces cost of Gambling Caskets by 10/20/30%.

Capitalistic (1) - Gain 15/30/45 extra credits each Shift.

Dubious Contracts (1) - Reduce cost of hiring fighters by 15/25/35%.

High Roller (1) - When the Shop restocks there will be 2/4/6 extra Gamling Caskets available.

Enemy Tenacity - All enemy fighters gain +30 HP. Each successful Operation give you 10/30/50% extra credits and 1/3/5 extra Loot Caskets.

Enemy Ferocity - All enemy fighters deal +10/30/50 damage. Each successful Operation give you 10/30/50% extra credits and 1/3/5 extra Loot Caskets.

House Requisition: Implants - Adds a Seized Casket to your gang storage with 1/3/5 - 2/4/6 Offensive and Defensive Stat Implants.

House Requisition: Melee Weapons - Adds a Seized Casket to your gang storage with 1/3/5 - 2/4/6 Melee Weapons of Rank 3 or 4.

House Requisition: Ranged Weapons - Adds a Seized Casket to your gang storage with 1/3/5 - 2/4/6 Ranged Weapons of Rank 3 or 4.

House Requisition: Armour - Adds a Seized Casket to your gang storage with 2/5/8 - 4/7/10 Armour Pieces of Rank 3 or 4.

House Sponsorship: Offensive Consumables - Adds a Sponsored Casket to your gang storage with 2/5/8 - 4/7/10 Explosive Consumables of rank 5.

House Sponsorship: Defensive Consumables - Adds a Sponsored Casket to your gang storage with 2/5/8 - 4/7/10 Support Consumables of rank 5.


Legendary
Cost: 10
Lucky Streak (1) - Adds 2/4/6 Gambling Caskets to your gang storage with random items of various ranks.

Promise of Glory (1) - Gain a random Ganger fighter to your gang of minimum rank 5/6/7.

Elite Training (1) - All surviving fighters gain 10/20/30 extra experience points each battle.

Contact: Implant Surgeon (1) - Reduce cost of Controlled Memory Wipe by 25/50/75%.

Contact: Bio Surgeon (1) - Reduce cost of Bionic Upgrades by 10/20/30%.

Neuro Inhibitors - Adds a Neuro-Inhibitor Casket to your gang storage with 5 Neuro-Inhibitor Consumables of Rank 1/3/5.

House Sponsorship: Implants - Adds a Sponsored Casket to your gang storage with 1/3/5 - 2/4/6 Primary Stat Implants.

House Sponsorship: Melee Weapons - Adds a Sponsored Casket to your gang storage with 1/3/5 - 2/4/6 Melee Weapons of Rank 5.

House Sponsorship: Ranged Weapons - Adds a Sponsored Casket to your gang storage with 1/3/5 - 2/4/6 Ranged Weapons of Rank 5.

House Sponsorshipt: Armour - Adds a Sponsored Casket to your gang storage with 2/5/8 - 4/7/10 Armour Pieces of Rank 5.


As you can see, these are some serious bonuses for a gang. Some are of course more useful than others depending on how your gang is doing.

PS, if you abandon the sector and the operation your spent Infamy Points will be temporarily frozen until you play a future operation to completion. This is to avoid cache farming probably.

PSS: One interesting bonus is the Neuro Inhibitors. They give your fighter a hefty amount of extra xp at the end of the combat if they survive, but reduces their stats for that battle.And they also sell well.

Now how do you get Infamy Points? Well consider these to be achievements in a sense. You complete them and gain the points added to your gangs in Operations mode. You can find the list of tasks in the Infamy menu once an Operation is started for that gang.

Each completed task will add 1,3, 6 or 10 Infamy points to your total.

Note that some of the counters will be different depending on what gang you are checking the list on because some progress is tied to a specific gang.

These are divided up into different tabs based on what you need to do:

Operations
Total points: 85

• Achieve a Tier 3 score in a Sector with 1250+/2100+/3000+/3800+/4500+/5400+/5600+/5800+/ 6000+ Enemy Rating (50p)
  
• Steal 25/50/100/150 resources from an enemy HQ in a single assault (20p)
  
• Achieve a Tier 3 score with a Goliath/Cawdor/Van Saar/Orlock/Escher Gang (15p)

Enemy rating is related to your gang's rating and the difficulty.
Assaults are a special kind of mission, but you must let your enemies collect resources for this.
Tier 3 means getting enough resources for the tier 3 reward of the current Operation.


Careers
Total points: 24

• Train 5 active & passive skills to rank 1/3 on a Brawler (4p)
  
• Train 5 active & passive skills to rank 1/3 on a Heavy (4p)
  
• Train 5 active & passive skills to rank 1/3 on a Saboteur (4p)
  
• Train 5 active & passive skills to rank 1/3 on a Lay-Mechanic (4p)
  
• Train 5 active & passive skills to rank 1/3 on a Servo-Tech (4p)
  
• Train 5 active & passive skills to rank 1/3 on a Deadeye (4p)

Recruit a high level fighter of each class, upgrade a stat to 12 and spend the rest of the exp on skills. (ps, a higher difficulty means that the reduction from Training Ground is increased)

Combat
Total points: 60

• Defeat 10/50/100 Heavies (10p)
  
• Defeat 10/50/100 Saboteurs (10p)
  
• Defeat 10/50/100 Brawlers (10p)
  
• Defeat 10/50/100 Deadeyes (10p)
  
• Defeat 10/50/100 Lay-Mechanics (10p)
  
• Defeat 10/50/100 Servo-Techs (10p)

Play the game! You will probably defeat around 1-2 of each class per battle.

Cosmetic Customisation
Total points: 4

• Customize and apply gang colours on 1/5 custom gangs (4p)

From the Crew menu, choose to customize the colours of the entire team and apply it by pressing the Gang Customization button in the upper right corner.

Equipment
Total points: 20

• Use Memory Wipe 1/10/50 times (10p)
  
• Equip 1/5/15 fighters with rank V weapons (10p)

Memory wipe is when you remove a learnt skill.
To get rank V weapons you can spend Infamy on weapon caches. Or play enough to increase your gang rating.

Gang
Total points: 64

• Lead a gang of 5/10/15 fighters (10p)
  
• Reach rank V with 5/10/15 fighters (10p)
  
• Reach rank X with 5/10/15 fighters (19p)
  
• Reach rank X with 1/5/10 leaders (19p)
  
• Upgrade a primary stat to 25 without implants (6p)

Dubious contact reduces the cost of recruiting new fighters, so does the Training hall.
A leader always starts at rank V, otherwise you need to recruit with experience or play enough to rank them up.
A fighter past rank 5 earns max stat upgrades that can be used to increase a stat beyond the class related max (to a total of 25). Easiest on a leader since they get even more of those, so promote!

Hired Guns
Total points: 18

• Recruit Top Juve-Ganger Brawler (3p)
  
• Recruit Top Juve-Ganger Heavy (3p)
  
• Recruit Top Juve-Ganger Saboteur (3p)
  
• Recruit Top Juve-Ganger Lay-Mechanic (3p)
  
• Recruit Top Juve-Ganger Servo-Tech (3p)
  
• Recruit Top Juve-Ganger Deadeye (3p)

Spend additional credits to recruit fighters with starting exp. Dubious contact reduces the cost of recruiting new fighters, so does the Training hall.

Multiplayer
Total points: 69

• Win coop 1/10/25 times (10p)
  
• Win 1vs1 1/10/25 times (10p)
  
• Win 1vs1vs1 1/10/25 times (10p)
  
• Win 1vs1vs1vs1 1/10/25 times (19p)
  
• Win 1/10/25/50 battles (20p)

It's PvP, good luck!

Story
Total points: 9

• Complete chapter 5,10,15 (9p)

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3407561473


Grand total points: 353


I like the idea of the Infamy Points and the bonuses you can purchase for them, but I don't like that they are global for all of your gangs. Because when you create a new gang it will have the same total to your previous gang. I would completely understand if some of these were global such as the campaign related ones or, gang colours, operations with different gang hourses etc. But it's a pretty substantial bonus for a new gang to be able to gain a random rank 4-5 fighter or to reduce recruitment cost, get implants caches and all the other things.

If this interests you and you want to sequence-break the game a little to skip past the early game gang you can read this guide about getting 80 Infamy Points before finishing your first Operation.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2246172243

The damage of your fighters is more or less only based on your equipment, so is your armour values that reduce damage taken. So in order to become stronger you will need to get your hands on better gear.
Gear comes in different ranks (I-VI )which increases their overall stats. You don't need a specific rank on your fighters to use them.

One-handed weapons will cost 15 AP to attack with. 30 to attack with two one-handed weapons.
A two-handed weapon will cost 30 AP to attack with.



Different weapon types have different stats such as damage per shot, number of shots, ammo in clip/jamming/overheat, grazing chance, crit chance, crit damage, penalty to Initiative, inflicting debuffs etc. So don't just look at the overall DPS number when choosing a weapon. Try some different ones that suit your playstyle.



Each armor piece will have a higher protection for one of the damage types, impact, energy or piercing and then a lesser percentage for the other two.
As you play longer and try out harder difficulties you'll fight enemy teams with every fighter having high rank armour which means pretty hefty reductions. Suddenly they have 45% impact reduction and 20% against the rest for example. So you need to match that with better weapons.
Also note that only Heavies and Saboteurs will ever use Left Arm armour pieces. The rest of the classes has that slot locked up with a class specific trait.



There are also implants that you can equip on high-rank fighters for an extra passive bonus, mostly in the form of a stat increase or something that affects AP costs.



The Shop is unlocked for all teams when you have completed your first three Operations missions.

The shop has an inventory of items for you to purchase with your credits. These will restock after a set amount of shifts have passed in your current Operation Sector (3).
We're talking:

• Defensive and offensive consumables.
  
• Ranged and Melee weapons
  
• Armor pieces
  
• Implants
  
• Caches

There is also an Infamy bonus you can take which reduces shop prices, increase number of gambling caches etx.

Aside from spending credits to purchase items this is where you can sell your looted items and trinket items.

And this is also where you can open up the caches you've gotten as rewards. Or if you picked house requests for items as your Infamy bonus as the start of the operation.




Looting will be your other main source of gearing up your team aside from choosing caches with weapons etc in the Infamy menu.

Now, there are times when the gear your opponents carry aren't better than what you have, or for the wrong class. But remember how you can sell things in the store? Yeah, that's the main purpose of the looting. Most of the weapons you loot can be sold for 100 credits. That's a lot when starting off.

There are some Infamy bonuses you can pick that increases the amount of credits you gain when you sell items.

You can also search Loot Caskets on some of the maps for consumables and token items that can be used or sold. I have yet to find any equippable gear in them though.

Note that Goliath Gangs can pick up weapons without an AP cost as one of their gang bonuses. For other gangs it costs 5 ap per item.

Also, when you loot your opponent's gear you now have it and they don't. Meaning that they need to spend credits to buy new weapons for example. I've had situations where I've met the same gang two times in a row and half the fighters were missing weapons the second mission and couldn't do much aside going for the resources or trying to ambush me with fists.

As your Operation in the sector advances you'll have to pick missions from the map that you want to embark upon.

When playing a mission it's a good idea to keep your fighters alive to ensure that they are fit for fight in the next mission as well. Some of the mission types allow you to Extract fighters. This makes them, and whatever they are carrying to be removed from the map.

Most of the missions don't force you to extract with the resources, but if you're carrying 2 mission items and have taken damage then it is a pretty good option.

Also worth noting that rounds remaining is usually decreased to 0 and the current round immediately end once you defeat the last enemy, or the last enemy has extracted. Then you get a last "Looting round" with all of your fighters. Keep that in mind to be able to grab as much stuff as possible.

And lastly before we move on, in Operations mode the missions will most likely have a Salvage Casket placed somewhere as an optional objective. You can pick these up to get some extra rewards in the form of 20 resources.


There are some common types of missions that you can get used to. So let's break those down:


Secure Area

• Defeat all enemies

This is a typical battle. Choose deployment zone, defeat your enemy's fighters then win.
This is apparently what is considered a "Guilder Proposal", you get rewarded with credits.


Retrieval

• Gather resources and extract

This is a time restricted mission (usually 6 rounds) where you want to gather as many resources as possible in the form of carriable mission items. You can extract all your fighters to end the mission, or you can defeat all the enemies and grab the items before it ends.
Each team gets rewards based on the amount of resources gathered (extractions not needed).


Royal Rumble

• Defeat all enemies
  
• Stay alive
  
• No extractions
  
• 1 Fighter deployed per round

A typical battle aside from you deploying one fighter each round instead of all at once. This means that you will have limited choices at the start.
Rewards are earned based on how long you manage to survive (or if you straight up win by defeating all enemy fighers)
You get a cache as a reward.


Supremacy

• Control the most lights at the end of the battle
  
• No extractions
  
• 5 Rounds

This is a time restricted mission where you only need to hold control at the end of the mission. So take your time to reduce enemy numbers and ensure you have the most mobility and choice towards the end. If you defeat all enemies the mission will end prematurely.
You get a cache as a reward.


Pit Brawl

• Defeat all enemies
  
• Stay alive
  
• No extractions
  
• 1 Fighter deployed per round

This is a melee only battle in a pretty confined space.
Rewards are earned based on how long you manage to survive (or if you straight up win by defeating all enemy fighers)
You get a cache as a reward.

Retrieval: Archeotech

• Gather the Archeotech
  
• 6 round limit

When this mission appears no other missions will be available. So get ready for a full battle against all enemy teams. This is a time restricted mission (usually 6 rounds) where the goal is to gather the Archeotech Object in the middle of the stage.
Once you have the Archeotech you can extract your fighter carrying it to ensure that no one grabs it. The mission will keep going until the rounds run out or all enemies are defeated.


Assault

• Collect as many resources as possible
  
• Choose deployment zone

If you manage to get intel on the enemy gangs you can initiate a special raid mission where you assault your enemy's HQ in an attempt to steal their resources.
This is like an ordinary mission but usually on a map with a fort in the middle. The enemy team's resources are all stacked in there nicely and your job is to grab as much as possible and extract - or defeat all enemies. (Note, there is no round limit).
It's a good idea to look at the mission selection screen for which of the objects are worth the most resources to get as much out of the mission as possible.
Afterwards the enemy HQ will be in "High Alert", meaning that it can't be raided again for a couple of shifts (depending on your difficulty)



Defense

• Defend your resources
  
• Defeat the enemy

If an enemy gang manages to get intel on you they can launch an attack at your HQ. If that is the case you'll get a notification after choosing a mission letting you know that your HQ is under attack and you will abandon your mission to protect your HQ instead.
This is like an assault but the other way around. You will deploy in the fortified position and your enemy is trying to steal your resources. Keep an eye on where the extraction zone is to avoid any sneaky plays by your opponents. Luckily most fort maps is where the enemy AI struggles, they tend to get lost in some strange way and end up ending their turns. But then, every once in a while they'll run the gauntlet, grab one of your 20 resource objects and make a run for it.

When you complete a mission you gain rewards which also marks the passage of a Shift.

First you'll earn the resource related rewards for the current Operation or caches and items from the mission itself that you picked up.




Then you earn experience points for your fighters which can be used to increase their stats, learn skills, upgrade skills etc that makes your fighters rank up.



The experience gained depends on a few things.

• If the fighter became the MVF (most valuable fighter)
  
• Participation and surviving the mission (based on difficulty)
  
• Landing the killing blow on an enemy fighter
  
• Things set up when starting the Operation such as facilities and infamy
  
• How high your Intelligence stat is

Then you'll earn credits or items from your facilities and other Infamy bonuses etc.

And finally the Shift is over which means the shop comes one step closer to restocking, you have new missions available, injured fighters may recover some of their wounds and then anything that your facility or Infamy might add.

While playing Operations your sector is generated with a set number of resources shown up here in the corner.


Different missions will deplete different amounts from the sector's total resources when you complete them and be added to the team that gained them. Which you can also see in the bars below the sector's current.

For most retrieval missions you compete against the other team to collect as much as possible. And other missions you simply get resources for winning. During a raid you can also try to steal the resources your opponents have gathered and add it to your own.
"If you're not strong enough to keep something, you didn't own it in the first place".

The winner of an Operation is the team that has collected the most resources, and the end will trigger in the shift following the one that depleted the last of the resources. A message will appear after a mission saying that agents of your house will show up shortly since the Sector's resources are depleted. Sector progress will say "Final Shift" and you have one final push to make (you will most likely get raided by an opponent if it hasn't happened already).



You will then earn rewards based on the Tiers, the more resources you collected - the better rewards you'll get.





Aside from the main mission that is the resource collection of the Sector each Operation also has a generated Clan Request (also called House Request sometimes(?)). A side mission so to speak. There are some different possibilities, but most involve defeating certain character classes or collecting Salvage Caches.

You can see your current progress, but the reward is only given to you at the end.


There is also a chance that an Archeotech mission will appear in the Sector. You don't know how valuable the Archeotech is until later (or is it always 70?) But it's a mission so it's worth going for!




Resources are cool and all, but in the Underhive you need credits to grow as a gang. Money is the power that makes all other types of power available after all.

You will earn some credits at the end of each Shift, but also when you complete the entire Operation. These carry over even when the operation is over, so you can spend them later to improve your team, recruit new fighters or buy gear etc.

PS, selling Trinket items and equipment found or looted from enemies is still the most effective way to get credits as far as I know.

PSS: Remember to start a new operation and invest your Infamy points etc. after getting your hard earned credit reward from the previous one. That way you can buy items cheaper or sell items for more money.

Remember that in order to earn the reward for the operation you only need to pass the given thresholds. You don't need to collect all the resources. So if maxing resources in each mission doesn't interest you, then just don't. I mean, there's an achievement for getting like 10000 resources total, but aside from that it's not that important.

Try to lean into your chosen house's strengths. Cawdor and Goliath both have passives and house variants that buffs melee skills (Ambush, Strike). Some gangs have bonuses to using one handed weapons, or using entrench and so on.

Loot your enemies. Not only do you get more equipment to choose from, you can also sell them for credits. And at the end of the day - your enemy no longer owns those items, you do.

Higher difficulty means better facilities and shop. I guess most people noticed the shop thing but the facilities you choose also scale according to difficulty. The Training facility gives a better discount, the ones that give you consumables and armor gives higher ranks etc.

Higher difficulty means more teams and more fighters. Enemy teams will not be as crippled after a loss since they can take in fighters from their reserves. This will also prevent your looting to screw them over. Also, you're less likely to fight a team you just won and mugged since there are more teams to choose from when teams are placed.

Don't try to learn every single defensive and offensive consumable, there are far too many. Instead try to focus on bringing and using a few of them that suits your playstyle. Such as classic healing, or removing debuffs, or getting critical precision.

Used aimed shot and variants to deal with enemies with high rank armor. A lot of the classes start with extra protection on their body parts. Such as the Lay mechanic, deadye and servo tech with a left arm piece with 45% to all damage types. Brawlers get both left and right arm. By using Aimed shot and other ranged skills where you choose the body part you target you can bypass this easily. This becomes even more important in high difficulty operations where most of your enemies have around 30-60% damage reduction armor pieces.

There is 6 different classes in the game and your crew can only have 5 at a time. So you will have to leave one specialization behind. You can always change this up with your reserve teams when you want. But a Deadeye is really useful for Retreival missions for example since you can get where you need to be. Ranged specialists don't do much in a Pit Brawl, and your heavy is kinda bad at doing anything useful while carrying an object.

Explosions can't miss. As far as I know at least, the Saboteurs' Homemade 'Nade as well as all variants of offensive consumables: Frag, Krak, Plasma, Melta Grenades etc. They can crit and they can graze, but I've never missed them as far as I know.

Choose your Infamy and facilities based on how you want to play. When you start an operation you pick the bonuses you want to gain from your collected Infamy Points. Get the ones that give you random fighters or decrease recruitment cost to bolster your team? Or do you want new equipment and stack up on caches with weapons etc. Or do you need to to focus on getting credits? Gain better rewards? Reduce the cost of mindwipe and surgery to take care of some of your fighters? It's up to you.

Need starting funds? You can take the Infamy for reduced recruitment cost and the increase for selling items in the shop and purchase a lowest level tier fighter, sell their weapon and make a profit. It's not a big profit but it works. But a patch made it so that sometime you're not garatued to get a weapon every time though.

Need a quick way to get high rank fighters? You can take the Infamy for caches of Neuro Inhibitors and a free Rank 6-8 fighter plus the reduced mindwipe to easily get a fighter to rank X. That way you can see what talent, vice and virtue it gets without spending it on stats and other important things. And decide if you want to keep them or not...

Hit and run works surprisingly well. For a lot of missions you can usually run in, grab a few resources and then bolt to the extraction zone and make it out without defeating all the enemies. Likewise, you can usually get in, shoot your enemies a few times and they'll feel like they're losiong the battle and try to extract themselves.

If you forfeit a mission all remaining fighters count as getting knocked out. You can end a mission early if you choose the forfeit option. But all non-extracted fighters you have will "roll" for injuries afterwards and have a chance of losing weapons and carried items. Also note that if you forfeit you never got to "the end of battle".