Handbook to Merc

Introduction
Welcome to MercDonalds! We are very glad you decided to sign up for us and our franchise. Good payment, cloning and our beloved Mercbucks system all for you, only just in exchange you complete the various missions and fight the threats all across the universe! This handbook will give you some insight on what you should do on your first mission and possibly subsequent ones. Our crew of Screeches is ready to assist at any moment.

Getting Started


When you join the server, you will probably witness this or any other such lobby screen to the right. Click on Setup, at the bottom of the screen, and you will bring up the character menu. Here you can set your name and other settings.

Once you picked your job, saved your settings and done everything you wanted, exit the char setup. Once ready to join the game, click on the middle icon next to Setup, this will give you the faction selection panel, for the purpose of this guide, pick Mercdonalds.

This being the ship you'll spawn in as a Mercenary. You spawn in the Cryogenic section of the ship, with the rest of the mercenaries. All you need to do once the game starts is go to the left and enter one of the booths you will see with a vendor. You can also type Map ingame down in the command line(that being the reddish pink bar at the bottom right) to see the current map.

IMPORTANT: You can press Tab to switch between a Normal and Hotkey mode. Hotkey is much more recommended to use, as while Normal uses keys to move, and various ctrl+button, Hotkey simply uses WASD for movement and just one button press, so if you ever played any FPS or such game genre you are likely to be familiar with Hotkey than Normal. If you wish to use Normal, that is fine. Press Help at top-right for extra assistance. Take your time to figure out the controls.

Understanding the HUD


1 - Your stats, these change depending on your role and kit.

2 - Context actions, used for toggling the plashlight, leaving the tonk, unbuckling from chairs, etc.

3 - Toggled abilities, such as the Reporter's upload news report.

4 - Targeted abilities, such as Darth Vader's force lightning power.

5 - The accessory slot, used for cigarettes mainly.

6 - The suit slot, where your armor goes.

7 - The ID slot, self-explanatory.

8 - The chest slot, mainly used for storing guns such as rifles and shotguns, can be used for a chest webbing.

9 - The belt slot, mainly used for belts, can also store small guns.

10 - The back slot, used for backpacks, large weapons, and shields.

11 - The equip button, equips whatever is in your active hand(the hand with the white outline) into an inventory slot, such as a rifle onto an empty chest slot. The belt slot, mainly used for belts, can also store small guns. The hotkey for this is E.

12 - The swap hands button, swaps current hand. The hotkey for this is X.

13 - The use underbarrel attachment button, activates the underbarrel attachment of the gun currently held in the active hand. Examples include the masterkey shotgun and underbarrel grenade launcher. The hotkey for this is 1.

14 - The use rail attachment button, activates the rail attachment of the gun currently held in the active hand. Examples include the rail scope. The hotkey for this is 2.

15 - The toggle firemode button, used for switching between a gun's firemodes, such as an assault rifle's semi-automatic and burst-fire modes. The hotkey for this is 3.

16 - The hands, any items you pick up will go here. The active hand is denoted by the white outline.

17 - The pocket slots, used for holding small items.

18 - The drop button, drops whatever is in active hand. The hotkey for this is Q.

19 - Secondary Health Doll, click on this to check your health.

20 - The resist button, can be used for resisting out of grabs, pulls, and chairs. The hotkey for this is B.

21 - The throw button, clicking this toggles throw mode. Anywhere you click on will throw the item in your active hand towards it. The hotkey for this is R.

22 - The status button, can be used to lie down and stand up, mostly used for getting off the ground when you aren't stunned. You can crawl while in rest mode and use this to avoid inaccurate gunfire from enemies.

23 - The height layer viewing button, allows you to see what's above/below you. Hotkey for this is F.

24 - The height layer movement button, allows you to go up and down, requires a flight pack. The scroll-wheel can be used for this.

25 - The health indicator, if this is green, you're good. When severely injured, this will turn orange, then red.

26 - The temperature indicator, shows how cold/hot the environment is for you, IE, being in a plasma fire will make the icon go red, being in cold environs blue.

27 - The pressure indicator, if this is green, you're good. If the environment doesn't have safe pressure, it will flash yellow. As of a recent change, this is no longer in use..

28 - The oxygen indicator, will flash if your character is unable to breathe.

29 - The internals indicator, an empty tank means no internals, blue tank means internals are on. You can click on this to turn internals an and off.

30 - The tracker, can be used to find your squad leader, guns vended by you, or locations around the map..

31 - The radio panel, this is where you can configure headset channels, such as disabling, or changing default frequency.

32 - The help panel, acts as an ingame tutorial.

33 - Shows what last object or mob the mouse has hovered over.

Grabbing Gear
Once you enter a vendor, click on it. Then log in. The booth will lock and you can freely browse the gear, however your initial selection will be vastly limited to Mercdonalds and all other companies will be locked. As you play the game, you will get Company Ranks with them and unlock the rest of the companies.

First, you'll need to pick a kit, this will be your armor. Happy Merc and Greedy Merc will be on the right side of the menu. Click on them and press Vend on bottom-right of the screen.

Then, it's time to pick your guns. You may have noticed the Company Buttons have been replaced with several screech icons. Top rows represent guns and attachments and use W$, bottom rows represent various storage, engineering, medical and misc gear and use G$. Take your time in figuring out each one. You only have 3W$, those are your Weapon Points, used for the top row. This is enough to buy a stock rifle, a SMG or Revolver with attachment or a pistol with 2 attachments. Rifles are a good choice overall, such as the M41A. It comes with a under-barrel grenade launcher by default giving you an option for blasting enemies hiding around corners or in trenches. Its also recommended to grab a free 9mm Pistol and put it in your pocket. It will allow you to fight off enemies in crit and serves as a excellent back up weapon.

Once you are done with guns, move onto the bottom row. For here, you spend Gear Points, known as G$. You will only have 2 G$ so spend it wisely and find the storage section. Grab the Morphic Versions of Backpacks, Belts and etc. Morphic serves as ammo and supplies for virtually everything in this game, guns and medical supplies included. If you got a rifle, put it in your Chest Slot, otherwise use Belt for SMG or Pockets for pistols/revolvers. Don't forget to load your main guns with Morphic as well, as they start unloaded. Once you got the storage items, you should fill up your pockets. Either take 1 Medical Pouch, 1 Plare and 1 Knife, or 1 Trauma, 1 Chemical and 1 Plare/Knife. You can swap Plare and Knife as you wish, but its recommended to have Plares for caves and night gamemodes. If you wish, you can use your G$ to pick up bigger Morphic Storage. Its not recommended to use Grenades without some practice beforehand.

At this point, if you done everything right, you should be a Happy Merc or Greedy Merc with some Main Weapons (Be it either Rifle, SMG, Dual Pistols, etc) and a optional backup pistol with 2-3 Morphic Storage Items and medical supplies + plares in Pockets. The most important part is you have a Kit, a gun and medical supplies. Don't forget to turn on the flashlight. Its on the left side on the screen. Click on it to turn it on.

Getting to the Battleground
Once geared, move to the left-most side of the ship and look for the deployment bay, this will send you to the Dawn Crawler, just drag your character to one of the seats without holding any items to buckle yourself in and be sent.

Once you've landed inside the Dawn Crawler, you'll find five pads to the north, AMA to the east and a replenishment area to the south. The five pads are used for actually deploying based on the current objectives, with the pads being:

Assault: Go kill something, expect hostiles.

Raid: Go get a thing.

Defense: Go keep something alive.

Aerial: For deploying Aerial Mercs

Fortify: ''to leave the Dawn Crawler, mostly used for defending the Dawn Crawler. On Raid, used for deploying to Outposts.''

Actually Doing Your Job
Now that your equipped and in the mission area, check the status panel on the right side of the game window and cooperate with other Mercenaries to accomplish your objectives.

For more advanced/specific guides, visit the respective Mercenary Role page.

Or click on these:

Aerial Guide

SL/Vehicle Guide

Other Tips

 * Always stick with your Squad Leader and their Vehicle. Doesn't matter how they look like, you still should follow them, as they have both a tacmap and the marker to the objective.
 * Experiment! There is many different types of gear and attachments. Find out which one suits your style best.
 * You can perform a Tactical Reload by clicking a morphic storage item with your weapon, with the time it takes to reload based on how much morphic is required for reloading.
 * If you find yourself with no Squad Leader, follow the marker and stick close to your comrades. Its better to stick in numbers than alone and easy prey.
 * Accomplish your objectives as fast as possible, it won't matter how many enemies you kill if all of you just run out of ammo and the objective isn't completed.
 * For items that you need to complete your objective, you simply need to throw them onto the evac pad. As long as they are in the green square, they will be extracted.
 * Pay attention to the radio at all costs. Practice if needed. It can save your life when someone calls for a retreat or says the Zurganids are flanking.
 * Point-Blanking is not a thing here. Shoot past the enemy that's next to you or start meleeing them.
 * Bump Attacks are in this game. You can wield a melee weapon in one hand and a ranged weapon in another, and run into something while shooting at the same time, the bump attacks will have your more damaging melee weapon hit as well.
 * A skill system is in place, while any Mercenary can repair structures or heal teammates, more specialized roles are better equipped and have greater efficiency in doing those tasks.
 * Guns are all auto-wielded, you don't need to press Z or click on them to properly use them. As long as your other hand is free, a weapon that needs two-hands will always do so.
 * You can wield SMG's and Pistols in one-hand and such, but any weapon that you can usually wield in one hand can also be wielded in two for a much greater benefit in accuracy, recoil and etc.