How to Get & Spend Intel in STAR WARS Zero Company

Bonuses are conditional, so they are never all live at once: Espionage is written for combat missions, Rumor Gathering pays on completed Missions, and the regional bonus only applies where that reward is unlocked. Add them one at a time rather than summing the whole list.

Mission Database →Decisions that pay Intel →Credits Guide →

The complete list of Intel sources the collected data resolves, in the order they land on a Mission reward. Anything not on this table is not a verified Intel source.

These are the only categories the page counts. Speculation about bonus Intel from other systems is left out until the data resolves it.

Pick what is actually true for the Mission you are about to run.

• With no bonus selected this is the base reward the game states for every Mission.

Espionage is the only talent that changes Intel income, and its tiers state their own numbers. Every one of them also states that the bonus does not stack.

No. The game text on every tier says “Does not stack”.

Two Operators carrying the Spy Talent do not add their Espionage bonuses together, and upgrading two of them does not double the reward. The bonus that applies is the best single Espionage tier on the Operator who completes the combat mission.

Only one Talent slot per Operator is involved, which is why the value question below is about what the slot buys, not about stacking more of it.

Talents & Abilities →Build Planner →

Intel has no value on its own — it is worth what it unlocks. Multiply the bonus by the Missions you have left, then read the result against the Intel prices the collected data does resolve.

A 25-Intel option and a 50-Intel option are the two prices the collected data resolves on Operations, so the totals above are expressed in those units rather than in a star rating. Espionage is not automatically the right Talent: it competes with every other use of the same slot, which is what the Talent pages compare.

Best Talents →Talents & Abilities →Build Planner →

Two regional rewards move Intel, and they do different jobs: one raises income, one raises capacity. Whichever zone you invest in decides which of the two you are working toward.

Income rewards compound with Missions; capacity rewards do nothing until the cap is actually in play. The zone-by-zone thresholds behind both belong to the regional layer, so this page only states what each reward changes.

Compare Regional Rewards →Best Zone Rewards →

Two things follow. First, the cap is the reason income bonuses are not the whole story — once a Cycle is near the ceiling, more Intel per Mission stops helping. Second, the cap itself is raised by a regional reward (“+25 Intel Cap” — “Increases Maximum Intel”), so capacity is a zone investment rather than a Mission reward.

The collected data does not resolve a baseline cap value for a campaign, so this page does not print one. The calculator below takes the cap your own save shows.

Enter the Intel you are holding, the cap your save shows, and the Mission Intel figure calculated above. The page then shows both the total after the Mission and how far past the cap it lands.

The game calls the cap the maximum Intel you can gain per Cycle. The collected data does not say whether that ceiling counts what you hold or what a Cycle pays in, which is why both numbers are shown: the total after the Mission, and the amount past the cap. If a useful Operation is available, spending it before you deploy is the one lever this page can verify from the data.

Decisions that pay Intel →Mission Priority →

“The currency of information and assets. Intel is primarily used to complete Operations on the Holotable. Missions always reward 100 Intel plus additional bonuses.”

So the destination is Operations, and the collected Operation records break down as 28 main operations, 132 optional operations and 13 Bond Events. What each one pays back is in the next section.

The collected data resolves Intel as a price on 6 options and as a reward on 17 options across 13 operations. Everything else an Operation moves is Credits, Influence, items, Capacitors or Bonds, and the Holotable launch price of an Operation is not stored in the collected data.

Collected Operation records: 173. Amounts below are the rewards the data resolves for the operation, which is why they read as "up to". The Intel price of starting an Operation on the Holotable is set by the campaign and is not stored in the collected data, so it is not printed anywhere on this page.

“Up to” is deliberate: the columns show the largest single payout the collected data resolves for that record, which is generally the best option on it. The Holotable launch price is not in the data, so no column claims to be a full cost comparison.

This is not a tier list. It is an order of questions, and every step names the collected evidence behind it.

1. 1 — Anything that can expire

   An Operation that carries its own expiry fact is the only kind of opportunity the data proves you can lose. If you want it, it outranks everything below.

   8 collected operations carry an expiry fact of their own.

2. 2 — Main operations

   The strategy layer marks these as main operations, which is the only story signal the data carries.

   28 main operation records.

3. 3 — Operations that pay Intel back

   An Operation that returns Intel funds the next Operation, cap permitting.

   13 operations, 17 options, up to 150 Intel.

4. 4 — The Operation that answers your current shortage

   Low on Credits, Influence or Capacitors, or short on a Bond you actually field? Take the record whose resolved reward is that resource instead of the one with the biggest headline number.

   The reward filter in the table below is built from resolved amounts only.

5. 5 — Check you can run it at all

   A specialization requirement you cannot fill makes a reward irrelevant, no matter how good it reads.

   9 collected operations name a required specialization.

6. 6 — Everything else

   Optional records with no expiry, no specialization requirement and no resource you are short of.

   132 optional operation records.

Mission Expiration →Mission Priority →

Side by side, on the values the data resolves. The comparator does not declare a winner — it tells you which record favours which goal.

• Choose based on
• Need Credits? A Droid Adrift resolves the larger Credits reward.
• Avoiding injuries? A Droid Adrift carries the lower recorded risk.

The community answer splits both ways, and neither extreme survives contact with the data. Intel is a campaign opportunity currency: holding it is only a cost when an opportunity can actually be lost.

This is not "always spend" and not "always save": the deciding evidence is whether the record can expire, whether it pays what you are short of, and whether the cap is about to make the Intel unkeepable.

Intel is the only resource where the thing you were saving for can disappear. 8 of the 173 collected Operation records carry their own expiry fact, so the honest question is never “save or spend” in the abstract — it is which of the two risks you are exposed to.

Both paths end in the same place: Intel is only worth what it unlocks, and the Operations worth unlocking are the ones that expire, pay something you need, and that you can actually staff.

Mission Expiration →Mission Priority →Compare Regional Rewards →

Intel also moves inside decisions. These are the options the collected data resolves — the ones that pay Intel back, and the smaller set that require Intel to take.

The name misleads. Cautionary Intel is a Networking Den upgrade, and its effect is written entirely in terms of operation risk: “Reduces the chance of Injuries on Dangerous Operations by 20%”.

So it belongs in an Intel-value calculation rather than an Intel-income plan: an Operation you cannot afford to lose an Operator on is a different proposition from one that pays more. It is worth building for the risk, not for the Intel.

Best Den Upgrades →Decisions with injury risk →

An Operation that pays Credits but carries injury risk is not the same purchase as one that pays the same Credits safely. The collected records carry that difference in their own risk tags, and the reward table above shows it in the Risk column.

Risk is also where Cautionary Intel pays off (Reduces the chance of Injuries on Dangerous Operations by 20%), which is the Den half of the same calculation.

Decisions with injury risk →Best Den Upgrades →

Work down the list; the first failure is the one blocking the assignment.

1. 01 — Does the operation require a specialization you do not have?

   9 collected operations name a required specialization: Astromech, Padawan, Scoundrel, Soldier. If none of your deployed Operators covers that requirement, the operation cannot be started by that squad.

2. 02 — Is the requirement met by a secondary specialization?

   Dual specialization means an Operator can hold a second path. Whether an operation accepts that second path as its requirement is the question the dual-specialization guide answers, so check it there before you rebuild anyone.

3. 03 — Is the Operator injured or still in the Medbay?

   An Operator being treated is not available. The Den page covers recovery, and the injury rules page covers what causes it.

4. 04 — Is the Operator already assigned this Cycle?

   An Operator committed to another operation or Mission cannot be in two places at once.

5. 05 — Has the Cycle already advanced past it?

   An operation that carries an expiry fact can be gone. If the record no longer appears, treat it as expired rather than as a bug.

Dual specialization is the one item on this list that an update can change: what an operation accepts as a valid requirement is a rules question, so check the dual-specialization guide rather than rebuilding an Operator on a guess.

Dual Specialization →How to Respec →Build Planner →

The gap is arithmetic: what you have, what the option costs, and what a Mission pays you. The collected Intel prices are 25 and 50, so those are the presets.

1. 01Run the next MissionEvery Mission pays the 100 Intel base reward.
2. 02Bring the Spy TalentEspionage tiers add +5 / +7 / +9 / +12 Intel and do not stack, so the highest tier you own is the one that counts.
3. 03Build Rumor GatheringRumor Gathering: Completing Missions provides an additional +5 Intel. It pays on every completed Mission, so it is the widest of the small bonuses.
4. 04Check your active regional rewardIntel Gathering pays +5 Intel each Mission while it is the reward you have unlocked in that zone.
5. 05Look for an option that pays Intel13 operations resolve an Intel reward on one of their options — several pay 150 Intel in a single choice.
6. 06Raise the cap before you bank moreOnce the cap is in play, extra income stops helping. The maximum amount of Intel you can gain per Cycle. Increasing this cap allows you to go on more Operations.

Raising the cap is the last step on purpose: once the cap is the binding constraint, better income does not help until capacity does.

Not in the grinding sense, and the data says why. Every Mission pays the same base reward, Missions advance the campaign rather than repeating freely, and the Intel Cap limits what a Cycle can pay in. There is no repeatable loop that turns time into unlimited Intel.

What you can improve is the rate and the spending: bring the Espionage tier, build Rumor Gathering, run zones where the Intel Gathering reward is active, and spend Intel on Operations whose rewards you actually need before they expire. That is the whole optimisation.

Mission Database →Campaign Walkthrough →Mission Priority →

One tool that reads your save and tells you what the next Mission pays, whether any of it is lost to the cap, and what your balance already covers. Every output below comes from the collected values plus your inputs.

Work the tool left to right: fix your real cap first, then the Mission setup, then check what the balance already covers before the next Mission banks Intel you cannot keep.

Campaign Walkthrough →Choice Solver →The Den Guide →