The first rule: a mission advances time
Zero Company divides campaign time into Cycles. The Den is your preparation space, and its Holotable presents the Operations and Tactical Missions available during the current Cycle. A completed Tactical Mission advances the clock, so deploying before you finish conversations, healing, recruitment, or other preparation can close opportunities.
Operations are different. They are non-combat assignments resolved from the galaxy map, usually cost Intel, and can supply Credits, equipment, influence, or new choices. Some can also change relationships. You cannot clear everything the Holotable offers, so the useful beginner question is not “How do I complete the whole map?” but “Which reward or relationship does this squad need next?”
A safe first-cycle checklist
- Walk through the Den and speak with every teammate showing new dialogue.
- Check the Holotable for expiring Operations and Tactical Missions.
- Review Operator health and Injuries before choosing a mission risk.
- Equip a useful Utility on each available slot instead of saving every item.
- Deploy a balanced four-Operator squad with more than one way to damage exposed enemies.
This order is editorial advice based on the official campaign loop. It is not a mandatory route, and a different mission choice is one of the ways campaigns diverge.
Learn the battlefield in three resources
Action Points
Each Operator normally receives three Action Points per turn. Movement, attacks, Utilities, and standard abilities draw from that allowance at different rates. Actions can be interleaved, so an Operator can attack, move to better cover, then use a final action rather than finishing every unit one at a time.
Advantage
Successful damage builds the squad’s shared Advantage resource. Powerful abilities spend it without consuming AP. The official gameplay overview places the cap at 10, which makes sitting at maximum Advantage a missed opportunity: spend it to create a decisive turn, then rebuild it through coordinated attacks.
Health and Injuries
An Operator reduced to zero Health becomes Downed and receives an Injury. An ally can Rally that unit during the mission. On standard rules, accumulating three Injuries causes permanent death when permadeath is enabled, so a victory that repeatedly downs the same Operator can still damage the campaign.
Cover, objectives, and mission risk
Partial and full cover reduce the danger of incoming fire, while flanking and higher ground improve attacking positions. Do not assume every mission requires eliminating every enemy: follow the objective panel, especially during extraction or rescue scenarios.
Mission labels such as Risky, Dangerous, and Extreme describe the immediate deployment, not a replacement for the campaign difficulty setting. If a favored Operator is already injured, a lower-risk contract or a different squad may be the stronger long-term choice.
What to upgrade first
Prioritize a small number of improvements that affect the squad every mission: dependable weapons, one coherent role per Operator, and enough recovery capacity to avoid fielding injured favorites. Early variety is useful for learning; spreading every Credit and Focus Point across the whole roster is not.
The best next reads are the combat guide for turn sequencing, the starting-class guide for Hawks, and the permadeath guide before deciding how much campaign loss you want.