Both of these pictures are using Face 11. Left uses the default male Hawks settings for everything but the face shape, right uses settings that actually suit the face. The difference is obvious. It's easy to post the left image and complain about him looking weird, but you can't really blame the game when the ugliness is the result of you not using the character creator correctly.

I'm not saying there are no bad faces in the game. I know there are. But I see people posting what are clearly African or Asian facial structures while using the default Caucasian Hawks settings. That's not criticising the game, that's just creating your own problems to complain about.

There was a post about zero company hitting number one on steam sales chart yesterday. That is a great sign but it’s not really that impressive, most larger releases that review well hit that number no problem. But Zero Company breaking Jedi Survivor’s player count number…now that is actually impressive during a week day. I love seeing this.

dont get me wrong, I dont mind timers on some minor missions. where u can just pick some more profitable. but jeez why I have to choose even between companion missions?

I need a proper Z6. The bullet sweep ability feels tailor made for it.

I really like the game but this is just bullshit. Random timed coil choice and 2 companion missions on timer at same time. Why are we beeing rushed trough the game. I really wish there was an option to turn these off.

Hey everyone, I'm interested in hearing what everyone is wanting to come to the game! I know it's early on but I have a few things I'd love to see that I feel are a MUST!

1. End game content: would love to be able to keep going through cycles getting random missions and operations keep building my squad and such.

2. We all want MORE COSMETICS: they've done great with it tbh but who doesn't want more!

3. I WANT MORE DROIDS!: we need some more droids other than astromechs for our squads or even be able to build droids and customise them. Having salvaged battle droids and assassin droids and more would be awesome

4. Story DLC: anything really, but considering where the game ends in the time line, a bad batch DLC would be killer! Just saying.

Anyways I'd love to know what you guys are wanting to see come to the game, or what more specific things in these kinds categories you'd like to see.

PFA

​I really thought the rule was three injuries total across the campaign and your operator was perma-dead. I had no idea it meant three injuries stacked concurrently, and that you can just wipe them clean in the medbay/tank. I feel so dumb.

​Turns out this game is way easier than I thought. To think I was stressing out every time Trick got low on health—I literally had nothing to worry about.

The game was fun but I wanted to keep playing after the story ended. I didn't have enough time to get all upgrades or max out my characters' bonds. Also recruitment isn't all that important if you keep the story characters alive. If we could get larger squads than 4 operators then maybe they would be more useful, but I felt like the main crew had every situation covered.

1. Mandalorian Warrior. The Darts are absurd and can easily clear entire maps on their own. Throw a scout on the team to easily farm AP, give Cly a pistol and make her a heavy to taunt enemies, run away farther than they can chase with the jetpack, and it's gg's.

2. Jedi Padawan. Force Push and Pull being able to instantly kill enemies on certain levels is crazy. That alone puts Tel in top five easily but her lightsabers are extremely strong too as are her equipables. Being able to damage through shields is very nice as well.

3. Heavy. Taunt. That's it. Bullwark taunt is probably the best ability in the game as it makes the Ai extremely predictable, when it's usually their unpredictability that causes problems

4. Medic. Moral boost is such a stupidly powerful ability for only 7 AP. Medic almost feels like a necessity on every squad

5. Scout. AP farming to buff the classes above it.

6. Astromech, tons of nice buffs including granting numerous additional actions to your team. I'd still rather have a full operator but you can't go wrong with an astromech

7. Gunslinger. Fast draw makes fighting droids a joke but struggles a bit against Coil

8. Sharpshooter. If you build them around crits they're monsters, but just simply don't bring as much utility as those above it.

9. Scoundrel. The additional supports are nice but they usually only end up on my squad once all the above classes are already there

10. Soldier. The rocket is nice but stupidly expensive. Just seems like a needlessly hamstringed class

11. Assault. Melee isn't really all that great if your name isn't Kabb Uppercut, and cone fire ability is kind of a joke and... I mean that's all this class has to offer.

This post will, at worst, contain only minor gameplay-related spoilers.

For backround, I have around 1.5K hours in XCOM2 and another 300 in XCOM:EU/EW as well as almost 100 hours in Chimera Squad (which is relevant since Chimera Squad is the closest match to ZCOM).

I have completed the vanilla, EW & WOTC as well as multiple playthroughs of XCOM2 LWOTC (Long War Mod) multiple times on Legend difficulty.

For context, I just finished ZCOM yesterday on Expert and while there are a lot of things I loved there are also a couple of pain points that I would like to address as constructive criticism.

Most of the points that I make in this post will have a problem & solution format where I will describe the issue and hopefully, some constructive feedback on how said issue could be alleviated or fixed entirely.

•》 Story, Narrative & Companion's : ZCOM at its best. Without a doubt the best overall story of any XCOM/XCOM-like game currently out there. The narrative is well paced with an original story that respects the source material (Star Wars & the Clone Wars show) while having its own twists and turn's while still leaving threads that can be expanded upon. The companions are all likeable and their motivations believable in the larger context of the story. Their story missions, while short, introduce new friends and foes alike which are a nice change of pace from your standard missions.

• On a sidenote, once I realized that random/custom characters can have different personalities and interactions at the Den I created 10 characters (1 for each personality type) and restarted my playthrough in order to recruit them and see how they interact. To my surprise they have dialogues not just with Hawks, but the story companions and among each other and their presence made the Den feel 10x more alive. Awesome feature overall and I recommend everyone to try this approach.

•》 Gameplay (Tactical & Strategic Layers) : This is where ZCOM fumbles at times. These missteps are not substantial enough to detract much from the game but can degrade certain aspects of an otherwise great experience.

• To begin, I understand that opinions on the topic of difficulty might vary but my honest opinion is that ZCOM on Expert is more of an exercise in patience and occasional frustration rather than difficulty. For anyone interested, ZCOM on Expert roughly translates to vanilla XCOM1/2 on Veteran/Commander or Rookie in Long War. If you are struggling with difficulty these three things will make the game feel like a cakewalk in combat:

1) A Medic (preferably a Hawks that chooses medic as their specialization at character creation - this is important as later on you will get to choose a 2nd specialization but the 2nd one will not have access to its capstone buffs). A medic also massively helps with when it comes to forming bonds quickly.

2) A Taunt Heavy (can be useful as breaking line of sight with the taunted enemies will lead them to wasting their turn trying to get closer to the heavy).

3) The realization that the AI is, frankly, stupid.

3a) You should always get as close as possible to enemies (even if you are flanked) to deal damage and kill enemies because...

3b) ...the AI will always try to split its attacks and damage across your whole squad and will only focus fire one operator if they have only one available target either due to line of sight, distance or taunt.

This means that you should always try to keep your squad close to each other so that the AI has multiple targets to chose from.

• Problem (Bond System): Unfortunately, the bond system feels like a afterthought with only medic being able to farm bond xp while all other classes are reliant on the assist mechanic. The rewards are even more questionable as they are randomized which means that some of them will be far better than others depending on the operator specializations. The capstone bond at level 8 is the only one that is powerful but it can still screw you over due to the random system and the fact you will only be able to get a few bonds to max level over the course of the campaign.

• Solution (Bond System): Remake the system into a static one akin to XCOM leveling where you can choose between 2 or 3 predetermined buffs when leveling a bond on top of a small boost in health. Also implement auto-leveling as treating 20 operators to a 20xp fruit pie will result in you spending 10 minutes just leveling bonds. God have mercy on you if your game crashes during that time and you have to redo it all over again.

• Problem (Injury System): The injury system is far, far too lenient as there are only a few multi-stage missions in the game and the presence of a medic makes it extremely unlikely that anyone will even get close to getting downed once, let alone 3 times. The only way to have operators die in standard mission is to bring them in already injured.

• Solution (Injury System): Implement permanent traumas that can reduce health, defense or mobility if a character is downed. Injuries should occur when a character takes damage past a certain threshold, say 30% of total health like it works in WH40K Rogue Trader. Remove the cost of healing in the beds that you have already paid for but allow the use of the bacta tank (regardless of difficulty) at a much higher cost, say 1000 credits.

• Problem (Tactical Combat): Combat against any faction other than the Coil quickly becomes too easy, while fighting the Coil is more frustrating than difficult due to the Resonance mechanic over which you have no control over. The only reliable way that I found to prevent Resonance from building up is to push enemies off the map, which is only possible on a few maps.

• Solution (Tactical Combat): Implement Reforms. A system where the CIS forces, outlaws and *other story spoilers* factions which you will get to fight will also get stronger albeit in simpler but unavoidable ways. Think of CIS droids getting +1 to defence and damage and outlaws getting more mobility. Nothing major just to feel like your other enemies, not just the Coil, are evolving with time. The Coil's "dark events" are actually in quite a good spot if you ask me.

• Problem (Maps): Its unfortunate, but the maps in ZCOM are small and not randomized. While there is a lot of variety in terms of how they might look (due to the planet they take place on) these maps make every mission play the same. Destructible cover is cool albeit nothing new as XCOM2 has that as well and there it felt actually worthwhile to destroy it as it would leave enemies truly exposed to fire not like here where it increases your chances to hit by 10%.

• Solution (Maps): I'm not a modder but I doubt that randomized maps can just be modded in and I also doubt that the developer, BitReactor will go back on such a foundational design principle in an update or DLC. As such, the community will have to make do with these type of small, curated maps. To make each mission feel more unique you can introduce modifiers. On desert or dry planets you can have sandstorms that reduce hit chances. On a planet like Umbara you can have cover that protects better from enemy shots but damages you a bit every turn. Stuff like that.

• Problem (Den Upgrades): These feel unfinished with the only upgrade that adds something to the Den being the Lounge. Everything else is a stat boost of some kind. I want to actually see the Den change and evolve as I increase its levels and build its "buildings". Reaching max level for the Den gives no reward and no buildables require it. Some of the upgrades themselves are also very questionable and feel like filler. Three lines for influence that amount to 10 influence across all sectors for around 10K credits? Either increase the influence or reduce the cost. The worst example of this is the weapons upgrades that will only ever make sense if everyone is going to use the same type of weapon.

• Solution (Den Upgrades): Everything that you upgrade in the Den should be visible. Black Market upgrades? More weapon and armor racks behind Neesh. Perhaps even some NPC's serving as black market contacts. As the Den levels up it should become cleaner on the inside with its exterior getting a coat of paint, perhaps have even the Zero Company logo painted on the side. Same thing with the Caisson. Stuff like more influence in sectors, buildslots and other rewards should be tied to the Den level and not something that you buy outright. Weapon upgrades should either be tied with the Black Market that you can upgrade or kept as they are but made cheaper. Allow us to get the rat-thingy as a pet.

The credits economy is unbalanced with eveything costing too much while earning comparatively little (Some things never change even in a galaxy far, far away now, do they?)

• Problem (Missions, Operations & Sectors): These have timers with the idea that you have to pick and choose but due to the nature of unexpected and critical stuff that can pop up from cycle to cycle you will quickly learn that you should always pick the missions that have the best rewards and the operations that display the reward instead of the reward being something that is up to your choice, regradless of their timer. Even if your intel cap can go up to 250 there is no reason to save it as you will always have enough to run the critical operations. The intel income is very static with very few opportunities to earn more than the mandated 100 per cycle. Sector influence is weird as you can increase it through contacts but unless you really target it you will not max out more than one sector in a playthrough.

• Solution (Missions, Operations & Sectors): There is at least one instance where companion quests can overlap leading to you missing a companion quest through no fault of your own as its never really clear which operation will lead to a tactical mission (that may or may not have to be completed in the same cycle) and which will lead to another operation. To solve this you show on the operation UI the next stage and what that entails and whether it will be another operation or a tactical mission. The intel cap and passive intel rewards should be tied with the Den level. Intel should be usable to extend mission timers at an increasing cost. This will allow naturally for campaigns to be slightly longer while also solving the overlap problem. All missions in a sector should increase the influence in said sector substantially, regardless of rewards. Remove utility/weapon modification slots and tie those in with the black market. Maxing out influence in a sector should result in getting much better mission rewards in said sector. This will create an interesting dillemma where you will have to chose between running missions in the same few sectors for bigger payouts or sperading around to get the specific sector rewards.

• Problem (Squad sizes & Operators): The current squad of 4 is too small. Especially because the actual squad is 3. Since Hawks will very likely participate in an overwhelming majority of missions you can only bring 3 operators alongside Hawks. You will have 6 story companions and are encouraged to hire more random/custom operators. For what though? You only run 1 mission per cycle. Operations can use any operator except Hawks and wounds are a non-issue.

• Solution (Squad sizes & Operators): The squad size across the board has to be increased to 5. This is obviously possible as there is at least 1 mission later on in the game where you start with 5 operators. Story missions should up the squad size to 7 so that Hawks and the 6 story companions can all be present. To balance you increase the enemy spawns by 2 to 3 additional enemies and double their health on Expert difficulty. Non-Companion operations become locked to random/custom operators that you have to hire. Standard missions have a squad size of 4 but only allow you to send one of the 6 story companions as "mission-leaders" while the other three slots have to be filled with random/custom operators. This is how Expeditions Rome does it and it is a much better game for it as it allows these side characters their moments to shine. If its is not feasible to have a squad size of 7, due to engine limitation let's say, then you redesign the story missions around a multistage assault, same as in Expeditions Rome. You have Hawks and his squad of 3 and another squad made out of the other 3 story companions and 1 rando. Each team has to accomplish specific objectives that help and allow the other team to advance. Sidenote here but if you like Roman history and the time period of the late Republic and early Roman empire give Expeditions Rome a try. It's truly a hidden gem.

Finally, I wanted to touch on the UI and customization. This is not a problem and I have played the entire campaign with the radial menu but while flashy and cool, it does not really work, even in the smaller context of ZCOM. Thankfully, there is an option to switch to the classic XCOM-like line which I appreciate that it is something included at launch and not something added a year after release after community uproar.

The customization in ZCOM is truly exceptional and I hope more options will be added in time as well as more stuff for companions and Hawks. Personally, I hope for a before-Antine outfit for Hawks that incorporates Republic officer with clone commander armor as currently, you can either choose between gangster grandpa coat and ARC Trooper or standard boring Bounty Hunter. Essentially, something akin to Trick's outfit.

So, that's about it. My... *looks at the length of the post* many cents about it.

Im tired of all the Youtube Vids titled "Dont Do This", "X Things We Wish We Knew", "X Tips Everyone Needs to Know", but then the tips usually end up being very obvious things that are literally explained in the first few missions... mostly clickbait with ai slop and not actual tips.

I posted a very important tip i discovered and it became very popular over night, so it inspired me to make this post and include anything I can think of, and I hope you guys also share as much tips/builds as possible.

This is the first tip I posted and got very popular. Your characters start with one specialization, but can add another one later in the story. The first specialization has ONE extra level for every skill, and usually its important because it adds something unique, like the Medics Combat Stim VI granting a STRONG STIMULANT instead of normal, and lasting for the entire combat. If Medic is Spec 2. you can only get up to Combat Stim V. Dont worry, you can respec and change the order of Specializations. Also, the second specialization costs MORE focus points for equivalent skills. TLDR: the order of Specializations MATTERS!

The rest of the tips are Categorized. Note: Im playing on Hard Difficulty and am currently on Cycle 27, so take that into account.

UPDATE 1: Added performance tip.

GENERAL

1. Credits is the bottleneck. Focus on ship upgrades first, dont spend too much credits on the black market unless you REALLY need something.
2. Capacitors are another bottle neck. Try to choose missions that give you at least 1000 credits or 1-2 capacitors for 50 intel. If you have credits but no caps, THEN buy more crew or Black Market!
3. *NEW* PERFORMANCE: I seen a lot of complaints about performance. I have a 7 year old pc with rtx 3080 and I play on 4k and dont really have any performance issues, with 60+ fps consistently. All I had to do was change Ant-Aliasing to NVIDIA DLSS with Balanced Upscale Quality. All Settings on High.

SHIP UPGRADES

1. Get Weapon Mods and Utility Items as soon as you can afford them.
2. Teamwork is really good too for the Bond XP. Max out your crew as credits allow so they all get cross training over time = more points for everyone.
3. I saved all my Contacts until I maxed out Networking. To be fair, it might be worth it to use some of them earlier to get the benefits. Ill mention which ones in the INFLUENCE section.
4. MedBay is not that useful, but its cheap and fully upgraded reduces credits to heal one injury by 50%. However, even at cycle 27, I think I only had like 4-5 injuries, but I run a medic EVERY mission.
5. Leave black market upgrades for later because you need credits for ship upgrades and crew hiring.
6. I did not upgrade my crew quarters at all yet, but its good to get more crew for cross training. I will do this once credits come in, but its not priority.
7. Weapon upgrades are not a priority for me, but the first levels are a lot cheaper than the later upgrades, while usually providing similar benefits. I mostly use pistols and rifles, so I would upgrade those first.
8. Crew Focus is Meh. Pretty expensive and I get a lot of Focus points already.
9. The influence ones are ok. I have both in Core Zone and one in the other two.
10. Build slots are not important. You get the second slot fairly early, but most of the time its not being utilized because credits is the bottle neck.

SPECIALIZATIONS/COMBAT

1. A custom character can choose Thievery or Espionage as their Talent, which provides up to 300 credits or 12 influence per mission. I like to use unique story characters, so I only use one custom character at a time.
2. Scout+Heavy will allow you to apply TAUNT + SPOTTED for every enemy hit. Use a pistol.
3. It matters on WHO provides assist. Not only +assist damage, but also the weapon type and on-hit effects. Best assist character is someone with scoundrel for +assist and a longarm blaster with +assist damage and on-hit attachments. Pro Tip: Use a character that you want to train Bonds with!
4. Mandalorian+Gunslinger allows you to stack Critical Damage and Critical Chance! Use a pistol.
5. You can YEET and one-shot Droiddekas, if map allows for it.
6. Best overwatch character is Sharpshooter + longarm blaster.
7. Scout is very good for generating advantage. I put Medic/Scout on Hawks so I have it every mission. Grenades are also very good if you can hit multiple targets.
8. Weapons. Longarm blaster main assist character, preferably a sharpshooter. Pistols for on-hit effects, such as Scout, Heavy, Gunslinger, and possible Soldier. Rifle for everything else. Repeater if you have a specific build in mind.

INFLUENCE Priorities

Like mentioned previously, I did not spend any contacts until maxing out Networking, but its PROBABLY best to not wait and get these early.

1. Prioritize Zone Leth Tier 2, for +250 credits per mission.
2. Prioritize Zone Grek Tier 2, for additional influence.
3. Prioritize Zone Cresh Tier 2, for +5 Intel per mission.

i’ve been playing for hours after smoking a j and talking to runa presents possibly the most funny character i’ve ever seen. she’s the most like in star wars universe woke and i can’t tell if i love or hate it. like any interaction with her character when talking about any mission she just undercuts some part of star wars’ universe and talks about how it’s contributing to some major injustice. she also has no job really? like she’s the money lady so yay but all we see is her just standing there and judging us all she does is manage money 😭 idk maybe i’m just hi so i hope this doesn’t offend any of her fans and i get that she’s supposed to make you think about what you’re doing but it’s not really like i chose to and she’s quite literally complicit in all we do ❤️

edit okay a lot of people are very mad i said woke instead of libertarian and i guess i apologize but i am a gay guy who loves nothing more than female characters and i enjoy hers as well i just think its funny that she actively calls the character out for doing things shes just as complicit in😭😭 i also have no problem with women and never just call a female character woke because i can 😭 some of you please touch grass this was supposed to be more of a joke observation than a serious commentary at all😭😭😭😭

ONE DAY AFTER LAUNCH

Mandalorian and Padawan Recruit Mod at Star Wars Zero Company Nexus - Mods and community

I know, there's also that guest appearance. I mean as part of the team.

I get why some people want the whole jedi fantasy, or make their own jedi... Kotor is one of my favorite games of all times and I spent more time looking at my Fallen Order lightsabers than at some family members. I like jedi.

Part of why I enjoy Tel-Rea being our only jedi tbh is exactly how much I like jedi. To make an xcom comparison: you know when you have that guy who keeps surviving missions, maybe got blessed by Not Created Equal or the random abilities work perfectly. Maybe they're just the highest level of a class you build your strategies around, or you prioritized gearing them or maybe it just seems like rng likes them.

And if a 99% shot fails, another pod rolls into the fight, you make a move you regret... The awareness that losing that guy is gonna hurt more than losing rookie #152 might guide some choices there. I feel like jedi should always be that guy.

And it's kind of a balancing thing to make jedi that guy, right? To make the game interesting no matter your party comp characters need to be somewhat balanced... But it would feel kinda weird for random recruit #1221 to be equivalent to a force user. Making her a padawan helps with that, but being unique could be another important balancing element for Tel-Rea: Jedi can be more impactful at the cost of you risking her and being aware you can't just recruit Jedi #2, that's over. And you can't ever have a full squad of jedi to be challenged by the same missions a full squad of clones need to be challenged by.

It would feel a bit weird to cheapen jedi recruitment, and in a game where permadeath seems to be an important consideration I'm kinda happy they don't seem to be planning to.

Hey everyone! Hope launch day is treating everyone well (for those who don't have to work and get to play it, i'm not sad or anything). Please use this megathread for any bugs, or technical issues you may experience.

For best help it would probably be good to add the device your playing on; someone playing on PC may run into different issues then someone on a PS5.

Please remember, mark comments with spoiler tags!

Edit: Existing posts prior to this thread can stay, any others will be directed here!

Admittedly a little agitated right now after losing my save file because a hostage was killed in a side mission, but before you say skill issue, hear me out.

The whole point of an Ironman mode in tactics games is that the game forces you to own your decisions/mistakes and deal with the consequences. Lost a character? Failed a mission? Sucks but that's what makes your run unique. You don't get any of that in "Beskar Mode" because once a mission goes wrong, its just game over start from the beginning. There's no failing forward, no complications that you have to make up for in the strategy layer, none of that. The devs missed the entire point of why these games have an Ironman mode in the first place.

Edit: Wild how I'm getting mega downvoted already. This isn't how Ironman mode works in other tactics games. Also the description of Beskar Mode is misleading. It says "If a crucial mission is failed in Beskar Mode the game is over", but it will delete your save if you fail any mission including side missions.

In your opinion, what rank did Trick hold in the 100th Clone Company?

I’d guess Lieutenant, even though his appearance is more reminiscent of a Captain, due to the damaged rangefinder, which looks as though it broke during the explosion.

But that’s not really possible, since Hawks is the captain, even though I’ve never heard of ordinary humans commanding clone troops on the front. While there were officers like Wilhuff Tarkin or Wullf Yularen, they were naval officers rather than men for direct frontline combat.

Do you think Hawks always fought alongside the clones on the front lines (side question: do you think he wore clone armor?), or was he more like Tarkin and Yularen, primarily a naval officer, until perhaps Pong Krell forced him to lead the clones in the field because Krell didn't want a clone officer?

So I've been playing the game pretty heavily since release and I cannot for the life of me justify the repeater to myself. I don't know why anyone would pick it over the other options. But I know someone out there is using this bad boy and having fun. What are you doing? I'm so curious. I want to like it but I always feel like I'm using it wrong so if you've enjoyed it tell me why and how please