How To Hire New Squad Leaders In Menace.

Menace is all about making choices. Which factions to support, which missions to take on, what upgrades to apply to your ship, and so on. But the decisions you’ll never stop making are those surrounding your squad and their leaders.

Squad Leaders are the bulk of what makes a squad, so it’s important you know what you’re doing with them. The promotions you give them, the equipment you use, and the missions you send them on.

What Are Squad Leaders?

At the beginning of the game, you are able to choose up to four squad leaders to comprise your first four squads. You can get more later, but they’ll fundamentally work the same. Squad Leaders are unique individuals who alter how their entire squad functions.

There are two types of Squad Leaders:

• Pilots – These squad leaders man vehicles, such as troop transports, tanks, and so on. They do not use squaddies, and the items they can equip are based on the vehicle they are currently using.
• Infantry – These are the most common of Squad Leaders. They use squaddies and can utilise a massive variety of tools and weapons, though tend to be on average weaker compared to the weaponry of Pilots.

Squad Leaders have a unique selection of perks available to them upon promotion that can make them very specialised, such as removing the encumbered status from heavy weapons, or gaining more accuracy the more they target the same enemy.

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Hiring New Squad Leaders

After making your initial selection of four Squad Leaders, the majority of the rest you can gain are from the Black Market. This is the store in the game, which exclusively uses a bartering system. You do get many commodities used exclusively for trading, though you can also give up unwanted gear and weapons as well.

You can choose between both Pilots and Infantry when hiring, though you can’t determine who will appear in the hiring pool. After a new Squad Leader has been hired, you can immediately start bringing them on missions, so it’s never too late to hire a new one. That said, do try to always have some handy just in case one of your existing Squad Leaders dies or becomes fatigued.

Squad Leaders can have up to eight promotions, and always begin with one. Promotions are granted with Promotion points, which are gained from completing missions. The harder the mission, the more Promotion Points. These aren’t applied to each leader individually, but is a resource you can choose who to spend on.

Promotions are split into tiers. There are only four tiers of promotion, so you’ll end up selecting multiple perks from the same tier eventually. As such, try to plan out in advance what perks you want so you know what role you want a given Squad Leader to play.

You can also demote a Squad Leader to return some of the Promotion Points and choose a new perk for them when you promote them again.

As a Squad Leader gains more promotions, it becomes more expensive to gain further Promotions, as shown in the Promotion Tax attribute. Some Squad Leaders, such as those with the eager trait, can get upgrades for cheaper, which can be a very helpful trait.

Outfitting Squad leaders

Squad Leaders determine all of the gear supplied to their squad, so it’s important to equip them properly. This is a little different for both Pilots and Infantry. Pilots do not have a squad, only their vehicles, though the process is mostly the same.

For Infantry, you must equip a Primary weapon, and then you can also equip a Special weapon. Accessories can also be equipped, though these are much more diverse. Here’s a quick breakdown for each:

• Primary – Your main attacking weapon, typically rifles and the like. Come with the most ammo.
• Special – More specific weapons, like mortars, RPGs, and so on. Usually used for specific purposes like suppression or destroying tanks.
• Accessories – Can be a massive variety. Extra ammo pouches to hold more ammunition, a back-up pistol for quick, close-range damage, or grenades.

For Pilots, the process of choosing equipment is the same, though the number of slots available and the exact types you can equip differ. For example, some vehicles may only offer light or heavy weapon slots, while also having variable accessory slots.

For Infantry, the equipment you use is multiplied in supply cost by the number of squaddies in said squad. So more squaddies equals more health and damage, though also a higher supply cost, and vice versa.

What Are Squaddies?

Squad Leaders are the only people you need to personally choose when creating a squad, though there are more people in them, all of which can be seen in missions, as well as their names. These are squaddies, the individual troops that make up your squads.

You choose the number of squaddies applied to every squad, from a minimum of two, to a maximum of eight. However, these are not just generic troops assigned to your squads, but are persistent individuals. Once they die, they are permanently dead unless you have a Med Bay that can save them.

You can see the total number of squaddies in your employ from the resources screen between missions. This will fill up naturally over time with some Impetus components, though it is incredibly slow, and you’ll mostly need to rely on hiring new squaddies from the Black Market if you start getting low.

This is, however, incredibly expensive. As such, try to take care of your squaddies, and maybe reduce the number you bring on missions if you’re starting to get too low.

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