Mercenary Quickstart Extermination Guide

For the purpose of this guide, we heavily recommend you go the standard mercenary role, in the Alpha section.

Lobby:
To start off, click on the leftmost icon shown here:

Then, click on Job Setup, and select Mercenary under Alpha on the bottom row:





Then click on the exit button in the top right of the UI to close character setup, and click on the middle icon to ready up:



To clarify, when the middle icon says 'NOT READY', you have not readied up. When the icon does say 'READY', you're readied up and will spawn at roundstart.

Roundstart:
Once the round starts, locate an unused Voucher Redemption Terminal and get geared. First you'll need to select a kit, you can cycle through companies and shift+click the kits to see their stats. Once you've found a kit you like, click the vend button. Next, you'll need to get a weapon, you have pistols, SMGs, longarms, and exotics. Pistols are 1 W$, and have free special ammo. SMGs cost two W$, and can fit on the belt slot. Longarms typically cost 3 W$ and mostly consist of rifles and shotguns. Exotics are uncommon weapons like swords, flamethrowers, and heavy weapons such as the LMG and rocket launcher.

To get ammo for the weapon you selected, click on the gun and in the bottom right, you'll have the option to vend ammo, as well as buy specialized ammo.

Next, you'll want storage items to hold your gear. Click on this icon, and vend a belt, satchel/backpack, and/or webbing. Experiment to see what works best for you.

Lastly, you'll want medical pouches, click this and vend a few. First-aid pouches contain medipacks and autoinjectors, Chemical aid pouches contain just autoinjectors, and Trauma pouches contain medipacks.

Mission start:
Once you're in the AO proper, you'll typically want to stay with your squad, as the Queen can see mercs through their own special overwatch map and single them out for attack. Most of the fighting will take place in the south side of the colony, due to the vaults that can spawn there, which are also valuable to Hives.

Rescue Ronald
Agent Ronald is a special Screech somewhere in the AO, hidden inside a vault in one of the colony's buildings. You'll need to power the area to see the vault. This can be done either by using a generator, or fixing the broken generators in the engineering complex. Once you have Ronald, you'll need to bring him back to the Saltshaker's bridge for the objective to complete. If done successfully, you'll recieve two goal points. The objective will fail if Ronald dies.

Deposit Resin Cores
Resin cores are items dropped by dead Zurganids. The value of these cores ranges from 1 to 5 points. You'll need to deposit 20 points worth of cores to complete the objective. This objective can and will need to be done multiple times.

Resin cores can be deposited on the Dawn Crawler, in the south side of the room. Look for the light blue containers that say 'CORES HERE.' Cores can also be processed on the Salt Shaker, in the hall leading to the ladders and Cargo.

Collect Artifacts
Artifacts can be found inside Vaults contained inside special crates. This crates will need to be brought up to the Saltshaker's research wing and deployed on an available pad by using a wrench. Every successfully deployed artifact crate will award two goal points.

Transport:
You have four means of getting to the AO, these being: The Dawn Crawler, the shuttles, the teleporters, and the pods.

Dawn Crawler:
The Dawn Crawler can be found on the lower deck, west of the ladders. To enter it, click on it, then use your ID on any of the flooring in the center. Make sure you sit in the chairs inside the red lined section, and not the blue lined section, as that's Beta's, which drops the squad into air. Not having a parachute or flight pack during this will kill you.

Command has two modes of deploying the mercs inside the Dawn Crawler, mode one being individual squad drops, and mode two being to launch the Dawn Crawler itself down to the AO. Only one mode can be used, and if the Dawn Crawler itself is launched, it'll have a cooldown before it can move again. It's common for the Dawn Crawler to be sent down once, and only returned when starting the extermination or jump ship orders.

Shuttles:
Shuttles are another method of transporting cores back to the Saltshaker. These belong to the Transport Pilots, but Squad Leaders and the Field Commander are able to access them as well.

Note: When you're returning to the ship on a shuttle and see these tiles, do NOT exit the shuttle. You'll gib.

Teleporter:
The teleporter is the least used method of transportation, due to the access requirement, and power point cost needed to operate it. There are two inbound pads, and one outbound pad.

Pods:
When the Dawn Crawler is launched, a small podbay under where it used to be is available. Just use your ID on the floor next to the computer, then interact with the Computer. This will send your pod directly to the Dawn Crawler.

Squad Pods:
Pods that belong to a squad, and can be launched by their respective squad leader and Overwatch. To enter it, click on it. For Gamma vehicles, get the vehicle right upside beside the pod before it launches. Beta squad pods are armed with sentry guns. Delta pods are issued individually to each member and have one use. These squad pods can be found in the Port(south) side hangar.

To clarify, these are NOT the same pods as the ones in the Dawn Crawler.

Cleanup phase:
When enough objective points are obtained, the cleanup phase of the mission will begin, and the Extermination ship order will unlock. At this point you'll need to return to the ship and prepare defenses, as the ECM will need to be disabled for the Extermination order to start. You'll need to keep atleast one ISP(Important Ship Part) alive to successfully exterminate the AO, this takes ten minutes. These being:
 * The Artificial Screech Intelligence core in the CIC (west side of the ship, on top deck).
 * The Life Support System in cryogenics (where non-command mercs spawn, east side of the ship on top deck).
 * The Super Autolathe manufacturing unit in the manufacturing room (west side of the ship, on the lower deck).
 * The Warp Engine control unit in engineering (east side of the ship on lower deck).

Once the ECM order is off, the Zurganids will be able to launch their pods up to the ship, though flak can destroy some of the pods to buy you time. Once boarded, a hive will most likely be placed, and the Zurganids will start gaining a foothold where-ever they're now spawning from.

Breaches:
Combat on the ship usually leads to breaches. To counter-act this, you'll need internals. You can find these around the ship, as the blue and orange wall lockers. There'll also be a medical vendor with these.

Jumping:
In the event completing your objectives isn't possible, or feasible, Command can opt to initiate a Ship Jump. The ship will then need five minutes to perform the jump, it's imperative you return to the ship and get inside before the timer elapses or you'll be left behind and deleted. If a Zurganid hive is started on the ship and survives past the jump, Overtime mode will start, and the round will continue until all ISPs are destroyed, or the Zurganid hive is killed.

Jumping's primary use is getting a minor victory, instead of a full lose, which can alter the amount of Mercbucks you'll recieve at round end.

I lost my gun:
In the event you've somehow lost your weapon, you can use the tracker in the top right of your HUD to locate it. This will not work if the gun has been destroyed.

It's also possible that your gun ended up in cryo recovery storage if you accidentally hit the clean room button while gearing up. If this happens, go to the entrance of cryo and look for a wall mounted computer with the name of 'cryo recovery storage.'

Recommend pages:
Handbook to Merc

Mercenary Roles

Mercenary Gear and Equipment