Star Wars Zero Company Bond Guide

Bonds represent the connections forged with various characters in Star Wars Zero Company. Improved Bonds open the door to better rewards, Cross Training benefits, and Focus Points. If you want to get the most out of your Bonds, it helps to know which activities give a better experience.

Understanding the Bond System

A Bond level exists between each operator’s relationship and ranges between 1 and 8. An improvement in the relationship enables rewards as well as Cross Training benefits.

Cross Training comes into play when a relationship goes up to the next level. Through Cross Training, the two characters can train together and make use of three passive bonuses. The benefits of the bonuses could include increased grenade damage, improved critical hit chance, and increased health.

Bond levels have their own Focus Points so this is yet another important point you should work on when building the relationship with your operators. You can check the progress of your relationships through the Personal section and its Bonds tab. Each level of Bond requires a specific amount of experience on Bond to level up.

The Main Ways to Build Bond

In the game, various sources can be utilized to achieve Bond. Players may increase Bonds by taking part in Missions together, completing Operations together, making appropriate dialogue choices, receiving Cross Training rewards, upgrading the Teamwork node in The Den, making decisions in Troubles, and playing through the main story.

Nevertheless, if you want to focus on getting Bond during missions only, there are some steps that require priority.

Your Choices Can Affect Bond

The Bond system does not always have advantageous effects on characters. Some of the conversations or events in the story may lower your Bond level.

Dilemmas can influence more than one operator at a time. You have three choices presented to you in the game, and moving even a single piece can affect the Bond of more than one operator in that moment. This means your actions throughout the game can directly impact your relationships.

Don’t End the Mission Too Early

The duration to carry out actions is influenced by the mission objective. If the mission says “eliminate remaining hostiles” then once the last enemy has been killed, the mission is complete.

Melee enemies can make this easier. If you move far enough away from one, they may simply remain where they are, giving you an opportunity to continue performing the actions needed for Bond farming.

Use Minor Combat Actions

A second method of farming is through minor combat activities. Each valid action provides 4 Bond, but you can earn this bonus up to only five times. Once you get the five actions, that’s a total of 20 Bond from minor actions.

The hardest part is to find a good way to perform the tasks repeatedly. Healing and supporting spells are beneficial for this, and using the Medic build allows you to do this without using consumables or Advantage Points.

Don’t Ignore Operations

Besides missions, operations also provide players with an opportunity to improve relationships. Unlike missions, they don’t ask you to combat enemies.

During operations, you can decide how to manage a situation and choose which operators to take with you. Once you’ve selected the operators, they can enhance their relationships through the operation.

There are operations that require a specific number of operators and those that involve certain risks. For this reason, it’s important to take into consideration the risk level before you start an operation.

Make the Most of Backup

The use of the Backup command is one of the simplest techniques to gain Bond during fights. Regardless of whether the character performing Backup will be the one to shoot an enemy, you will still receive 10 Bond by using the command between any two characters.

The only restriction is that you cannot use Backup more than twice in one mission; hence, you can obtain a total of only 20 Bonds between relevant characters by using the command two times. If you’re trying to maximise your Bond gains, make a point of using Backup twice with each character whenever possible.

Use the Teamwork Upgrade

The Bonds can also be farmed using the Teamwork node in The Den, which allows gaining 5 Bond XP for each operator that is off the mission. Though this amount is small for each operator, it contributes to a large sum over time.

Turn a Character Into a Medic

The Medic is the most suitable way to farm the Bond bonus through minor action. Hawk is presented as an example of this strategy because he can buff his ally, helping to increase health as well as damage. 

This ability costs Action Points so players can use it several times in one turn. This way one can use this ability three times on one character in one turn, gaining 12 Bond points. After two turns, one can get to the limit of 20 Bond points through minor actions. 

For a faster farming setup, combine this with your Backup uses. Complete your two Backup actions for each character, then use the Medic’s healing and buffing abilities to fill out the minor-action Bond gains.

Watch Out for Mission Chains

Connections between various chapters exist in some sections. After finishing one chapter, you can watch a cutscene before heading to another mission.

Moving forward in the game doesn’t reset the Bond progress. There is a hard limit for Bond transactions in different connected missions. The limit applies across the connected mission chain. Thus, you should always consider the Bond limitation when deciding how to spend your actions.

How Much Bond Can You Farm Per Mission?

In the case of the predominant method of farming based on missions, we can break it down like this:

There’s a tally of about 30 Bond obtained by finishing a mission together, 20 Bond provided by Backup, and 20 Bond given via minor combat actions; bring all these three factors to the maximum level, and you will end up with somewhere around 70 or more Bond.

The main limitations are easy to figure out: Backup grants 10 Bond per activation and activates twice per character, and minor combat actions yield only 4 Bond each time and can be done five times per character.

The Combat Stim of a Medic is identified as the solution allowing to repeatedly activate minor actions without having to use consumables or Advantage Points.