Mercenary Kings

• Weight is a factor in how your character moves, particularly in the air since higher weight means less control. Make sure to holster your weapon by selecting an item or the radio during a mission so you can make some jumps and dodge better. Rolling is not affected by your weight and it can be faster than your running speed, though it would depend on your tolerance for having to tap the roll button over and over again.

• You can use the radio to call for either a warp back to the insertion point, a first aid kit, some C4, or to have Cadillac point out where the boss of the level is currently hiding. Each of these options has a battery cost to it, with the C4 option being the largest at 5 BP. There's one more option to just leave that costs nothing and it is handy to have when something has gone terribly wrong or you are trying to manipulate a boss spawn so you can net a speedrun star. Just remember that, whether you win, lose, or retreat, you get to keep whatever materials you found on the field and whatever support items you used stay used.

• Shock bombs stun an enemy for some time and cause them to take double damage while also preventing enemy contact damage should you approach them. With the proper builds, you can do wild amounts of damage before it wears off. You need to be careful, however, as armor can cause the shock bomb to harmlessly bounce off your target and you'll have wasted it.

• Hand grenades have their damage scale with your rank. They explode on contact or after traveling for a set time. They can be handy for chunking off a boss's health or deleting a normal enemy with the press of a button.

• Previously, you were subject to RNG for mission clear rewards on any given one and some of them were rather irritating to gather up. Now, they display the rates of these rewards and if you miss any of them, you can visit Golden Gate to directly purchase whatever you missed for that mission. The costs for doing so can border on highway robbery, especially for the best of the best, so do not do this too often unless you know what you're doing.

• Elements are in this game and most every enemy has something they're weak to and some have a resistance to as well. Fire is usually best against fleshy targets, ice can cause freeze on the enemy and put them in a state similar to the shock bombs, electric is usually best against machines, and caustic is usually best against armor while also having the ability to destroy riot shields for the enemies who have them. Putting some elemental damage on your weapons will reduce some of the raw damage it can inflict but the idea is that the element compensates for that. Experiment with what works best for you and perhaps build up different weapon sets for different elements.

• Everything, from the weapon parts to the knives to the bionic mods to even the tent decor, takes materials and cash. Take the time to look at whatever you're trying to build and don't deviate from that if you really want it that badly. Also, whatever is a rare drop now could be either really common or turn up as a mission reward later, so don't feel the need to stick around in a given rank unless you feel you're close to getting enough. It's your call.