Combat System

Overview

Star Wars Zero Company uses a turn-based tactical combat system. Missions deploy a squad of four characters. Each character has 3 Action Points (AP) per turn, spent on movement, attacks, and abilities. The squad also shares a single Advantage pool used for special abilities outside the AP economy.

Combat is resolved in team turns: your entire squad acts first, then the whole enemy force takes its turn; actions are not interleaved unit by unit.

Action Points

Every unit begins their turn with 3 Action Points. AP cost varies by action:

• Movement: costs AP based on distance
• Standard attacks: cost AP
• Abilities: cost AP (varies by ability)

Unspent AP does not carry over between turns.

Action Types

Ability cards label each action by type, which tells you which resource it draws on:

Cards also carry their own use limits and targeting mode, independent of cost: many abilities are capped at 1 per turn or a number of uses per combat, and the targeting line states whether the ability hits a Single Enemy, a Target Area, or (for Chained Ranged attacks) any combination of enemies.

Hawks’ AP ability: Hawks can spend Advantage to refresh 1 AP for any squadmate, once per turn.

Advantage System

The entire squad shares a single Advantage pool, which holds a maximum of 10 Advantage at a time. Advantage is earned by attacking enemies and can be spent on special abilities independently of AP. Abilities can generate it too: the Scout’s Combat Recon grants +1 Advantage for every enemy inside its assessment area, so a tight enemy cluster can be converted straight into pool for the squad.

• Every class has an Ultimate ability demanding a large Advantage spend; see the ability tables on the Class System page
• Other confirmed Advantage abilities include granting an extra AP to an ally for the turn, calling in a rocket strike, temporarily raising Chance-to-Hit for the entire squad, and taunting nearby enemies into attacking a single operator
• Smaller abilities also draw from the same shared pool
• Advantage spending is a squad-level resource decision, not a per-character one
• Because Advantage doesn’t cost AP, it can rescue a squad after its AP is spent, or set up a calculated burst turn

Hit Chance

Each attack displays a Chance-to-Hit against the target before you commit. A clean, well-positioned shot can reach 100%; cover and range reduce the chance, while flanking or attacking from higher ground raise it back up. A 70% shot therefore signals that something is working against the attacker, and the game rewards eliminating those factors before firing: the opposite emphasis to XCOM, where accuracy is built up from a lower base.

Statuses

Abilities apply named statuses, shown on the ability card with a stack count (Vulnerable 1, Marked 1), and stack counts are how several buffs scale: Morale, Retaliation, Harmony, and Sharpened Senses all describe their strength in stacks. Statuses named in official material so far:

See Class System for the abilities behind each entry.

Squad Size

The standard combat squad is four characters. Players choose which four squad members to deploy from their full roster at the Den before each mission. Certain missions let players control additional characters beyond the standard four.

Terrain and Exploration

A key design feature is that combat is influenced by player exploration. The terrain and layout of a mission area changes based on how the player has explored it prior to or during combat, providing strategic advantages or disadvantages depending on knowledge of the map.

Story missions open with a small third-person free-roam phase: a main-story-only espionage segment where exploring before the fight grants Intel and Advantage Points for the combat encounter ahead. Weather effects during combat are purely cosmetic and do not affect visibility or efficiency.

Cover

Cover is a confirmed mechanic with two levels: units in partial cover are harder to hit, and units in full cover are harder to hit still. Flanking a target or attacking from higher ground negates the protection their cover provides. The game features destructible environments, so cover can be eliminated during combat (a rocket launcher or explosive can clear enemy cover outright), and holding one position too long risks ending up fully exposed.

Environmental kills are confirmed: an enemy pushed into a void (turbolift shafts, water, cliffs) dies instantly. Some enemies can be cloaked, and a droid’s map scan can reveal a cloaked target.

No Fog of War

Zero Company does not use Fog of War. Unlike XCOM, the player can see all enemy positions at all times before engaging. This is a deliberate design departure: in XCOM, concealment of enemy positions was a primary driver of the overwatch-crawl strategy. Without that uncertainty, overwatch becomes a less dominant tactic.

Seeing everything does not mean shooting everything: Bit Reactor notes that snipers still need line of sight, so a full Sharpshooter squad is viable but may land fewer kills than a balanced one. Objective design also pushes against a pure Overwatch crawl; it suits holding ground in supply runs, but sabotage, rescue, and extraction missions all demand movement.

Overwatch in Zero Company is also cone-based rather than omnidirectional: a unit in overwatch covers a defined, adjustable firing arc, and the number of enemies it can fire on scales with the AP invested. Chance-to-Hit varies with the length of the cone. Placing Overwatch immediately ends that operator’s turn, making it an ideal final action, and an enemy caught moving through the cone may have its movement interrupted. Combined with the absence of Fog of War and map structures that force players to advance, this pushes squads toward active, forward engagement rather than static defensive play.

Mission Objectives

Missions feature a variety of objectives, including:

• Eliminating all enemies
• Rescuing specific characters
• Defending strategic points

Map layouts vary between close-quarters environments where defensive positioning is appropriate and longer maps where players must advance while completing objectives simultaneously.

References

If information is missing, it has not been confirmed by an official or press source.