Keep in mind that this is a pretty dense info dump. I can certainly try to add screenshots later for extra clarity, as well as more misc. tips, but this is a pretty long guide as it is. Also, this whole guide is full of content spoilers, so if you like figuring things out for yourself, viewer discretion is advised. No story spoilers though.

Starting off the game, the important thing to know is that Satellite Reign is not very long - spanning about 30 hours in gameplay for your first playthrough. Hitting max level isn't hard, though unnecessary. Getting all the weapons and gear unlocked is possible, though subsequent playthroughs are streamlined by previous knowledge (you know which weapons and gear you like, ditch the rest). You don't have to go full perfectionist to enjoy this game.

If you've played games like Shadowrun Returns, XCOM, or Wasteland 2, you'll feel right at home here. Granted, all of those games are turn based strategy, and this is not - it's real time strategy - but a lot of mechanics are carried over, and the game itself is not very complex. It's an easy game to dive into, though someone who loves knowing all the numbers may be disappointed, because the game is rather opaque at times.

That said, the general premise of Satellite Reign is that you're in control of four agents, each with their own specific class. Soldier, Support, Hacker, and Infiltrator. Their names are more or less self explanatory, but they each get unique skills and abilities that help them stand out amongst eachother. You can choose to control one, several, or all of them at a given time, and issue orders like moving and attacking. As you creep around restricted areas, you gain experience that can be spent on skills. As you loot facilities, you gain money that can be spent on gear and upgrades for your agents.

Skills are an important part of any playthrough (unless you're trying to handicap yourself), but what you choose is not nearly as important as you might think. That said, skills that give you new abilities, and reinforce those abilities should be a higher priority than just raw stat boosts. As an example:

For any agent, level 4 in the Health skill gives you 80 maximum health, and 0.9 health regen a second. I would not consider this worth the skill investment, seeing as how it would require 10 skill points to reach max. Weapon Specialist is interesting because Soldier gets a 4th level to unlock in it, granting 60% extra weapon damage and a weapon slot unlock. The other agents only get a max of 35% extra weapon damage, which is good, but not for the skill investment.

Pack Mule is always good, and its cost remains consistent, but its value is dependent on the agent. By end game, I had every agent equipped with Heavy Shields and Medium Armor, so that's 2 slots used. I gave Soldier Frag Grenades, EMP Grenades, and an Ammo Pack (never run out of ammo again!). Support got the MEP Magic Wand (limited use medkit but no cooldown), a Medipack (infinite use medkit but on a cooldown timer), and a AA Storage Cell (65 energy and 15% faster energy regen? Yes please).

I gave my hacker 3 HK4 Attack Drones, but I didn't mess with their drones until later, so their effectiveness is unclear. Lastly, I gave my Infiltrator Proxy Hacker (an amazing piece of gear by itself, let's you treat your Infiltrator like a second Hacker, same level as your first), a AA Storage Cell, and Sonic Grenades.

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For Soldier, Hardwiring is a great skill to have, but level 4 isn't necessary (it hardwires sentry guns, one of many ways to disable them). Hardwire is very useful because it can crack anything that Hacking cannot. Level 3 Rage is very potent, boosting damage by 150% for 30 seconds, while ALSO giving the effect to allies within 6m. (You turn this on when everything needs to die right ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ now.)

Draw Fire is important to grab aggro and act as the tank, but level 2 isn't necessary, just level 1. Level 3 Harden decreases damage taken by 100%, decreases speed by 25%, increases cooldown speed by 25%, and increases duration by 100%. All in all, maxing this is also a high priority if you want to avoid any agent deaths. Lastly, Explosive Specialist unlocks Frag Grenades (very OP pieces of kit), and at max level, will increase explosive damage by 30%, as well letting you carry 3 Frags before running out. (As a reminder, you can skip Health, but get Weapon Specialist maxed at some point.)



As an aside, Frag Grenades are useful for multiple reasons. 1. They do AOE damage, which few weapons in this game can do. 2. They can be thrown over walls. 3. They can stagger, knock over, and interrupt enemies. 4. They can be collected from ammo drops, so there's no need to use an ammo crate. 5. They can be exploded without the Soldier being blamed for it, so you can "stealth-kill" with grenades if you wish. Combine this with the Ammo Pack gear piece and you'll have effectively infinite grenades!

In a nutshell:

• Get Level 3 Hardwiring. Level 2 to start, level 3 later.
  
• Get Level 3 Rage. Prioritize this for dealing damage.
  
• Get Level 1 Draw Fire. Get Level 3 Harden. Prioritize this and Draw Fire to keep your agents alive.
  
• Get Level 1 Explosive Specialist.
  
• Get Level 4 Weapon Specialist.
  
• Spread the rest of your points however you wish.

For the Support, Level 3 World Scan results in no longer having to pay for info on scanned individuals, as well as a 55m radius of the scan - an excellent quality of life improvement, but not strictly necessary. Field Medic is the bread and butter of the Support class, resulting in 55% more healing from medpacks and magic wands, 25% quicker cooldown for medpacks, increases every agent's HP regen by 0.5 a sec, increases every agent's health by 50, AND you get a mass-party heal at a rate of 3.25 HP a sec at level 4. That's amazing. (Just remember that Support has to put their gun away to heal everyone via Field Medic.)

Mark Target doesn't seem to alert the target of the tag, but the limited effect (increased damage to a single target, nothing else) makes me hesitant to suggest this. Now granted, there does appear to be an exploit involving this skill, but barring any bugs I wouldn't recommend it. It also doesn't seem to stick reliably.

Team Stims enables you to turn Syndica- I mean Satellite Reign into a turn based strategy, though that's not the true intention. You can stop time for a brief moment to queue up orders or change tactics, then unpause it to proceed. The passives it enables (increased cooldown speeds, agent speed, accuracy, and damage) all last for a few seconds after resuming realtime, so this can be abused if you have the energy. Lastly, Leadership increases max energy by 80, energy regen by 35%, and cooldown speed by 40% for ALL agents, which is pretty darn potent.





In a nutshell:

• Get Level 3 World Scan.
  
• Get Level 4 Field Medic.
  
• Get Level 4 Leadership.
  
• Get Level 4 Team Stims. (Try lower levels of it first to see if you prefer the slowed time, get more if you prefer stopping time altogether.)
  
• Get Level 2 Pack Mule or higher.
  
• Spread your points as you see fit.

Hacker is more straightforward. Hacking is incredibly vital, and should be maxed out ASAP. Hijack is also very good, though you can get away with level 4 over 5. Drone Puppeteer lets you control more of the HK-4 Attack Drones at once, but if you don't intend to use them this skill is useless. Lastly, Master Technician improves laser damage by 35%, shield regen by 3 a sec, and shields start regen 30% sooner - all very good at midgame and onwards, but useless early.



As an aside, Hijacking is incredibly important, not only to obtain clones that have better stats than the starting characters, but it can also: 1. interrupt enemies from raising the alarm, 2. obtain scouts to open doors and act as extra eyes, 3. to screw with cameras without serious penalty, and 4. to give your team extra firepower in a pinch. Your hacker will be huffing and puffing the whole way due to lack of energy, but having 5 other elite combatants to soak up damage and deal it in turn will let you wipe the floor with all but the highest levels of alarm.






In a nutshell:

• Get Level 5 Hacking.
  
• Get Level 4 Hijacking. (Level 5 if you wanna hijack big mechs.)
  
• Get Level 3 Master Technician. (Save this for later if you have no shields or laser weapons.)
  
• Spread your points as you see fit. (Hacker makes a great mule for various gear if you don't care for their drones.)

Finishing up, the Infiltrator gets a useful Melee Attack that can let you smack assassination targets in a single hit stealthily, or to smack drones in one hit stealthily. Higher levels only boost the damage though, and enemies scale up pretty fast. Cloak is the Infiltrator's bread and butter, allowing them to reach a facility's office door without a whisper. It lets you hack objects unmolested (if you have Proxy Hacker), and it makes stealth kills so much easier. Higher levels decrease the energy drain, but the skill investment is worth it.

Master Assassin only increases speed by itself (up to 30%, not bad at all!) but when your infiltrator has a sniper rifle, they can get set up to deal 100% more damage, increase their range by 35%, and increase their fire rate by 20% at max level. Very good, but not critical. Lastly, Master Thief lets the infiltrator use high vents (not bad to have), and increases the cash they can steal by up to 100% (making banks incredibly lucrative in the short term). Max this out if you want to be rolling in money by midgame.




In a nutshell:

• Get Level 1 Melee Attack. (This lets you dispatch guard + drone patrols easily.)
  
• Get Level 4 Master Thief.
  
• Get Level 4 Master Assassin.
  
• Get Level 4 Cloak.
  
• Spread your points as you see fit.

As far as Augmentations are concerned, I gravitated towards a few, but I'll touch on all of them briefly. Cranial Bio Plating just increases health and armor, each up to a max of 35. Water Coolant decreases ability cooldowns by 20%, always good. The Drone Controller chip lets the Hacker get another drone if desired, but I wouldn't use it on anyone else. Ocular Upgrades increases accuracy by 7%, not bad. Dual Core Response Processor increases weapon accuracy by 7%, and increases dodge chance by 5% - effectively an improvement over the upgraded eyes. Firewall allows the Hacker to Hijack in spite of being within a Jammer's radius, so as far as I can tell it's only useful on them.

Subdermal Fascia Plating increases health, health regen, and armor - each by 50, 2 a sec, and 50 respectively at max. Self destruct can turn your agents into kamikaze fighters, if you want that. Iron Lung nullifies the effect of poison gas, which can be useful, but I prefer it on the Infiltrator. Ammunition Cavity is amusing, and it's hard to argue with 50% more weapon ammo, plus 25% faster reload speed. Rhino Skin is like Harden, but can be used on anyone, and with energy drain. Energy Generator is probably my favorite, increasing energy regen by 100%, and max energy by 20 with the V2 version.

Brachium Arm Bio-fibres increase health and armor by 30 at max, which is not great. You can get an extra weapon slot, which is pretty good for extra options in the field. Nanofiber Muscles let you reduce or nullify the Heavy Weapon accuracy penalty on everyone that isn't the Soldier, meaning everyone can get miniguns! Lastly, the Full Arm Replacement lets you turn poison valves and reach high vents, the former of which Soldier can do, and the latter Infiltrator can do (with a skill), but Hacker and Support cannot do without this augment. More options, but not important.

Lacertus Leg Bio-fibres increase health and armor by 30 at max. Support and Stability prevents being knocked down due to explosions or robo-stomps. Nanofiber Muscles let you carry heavy weapons without a speed penalty. Sprint Legs decrease the cost of sprinting by 60%, and increase speed by 10%, but decrease energy regen by 8%. I like these, but your preference may vary. Speed X legs allow uninterrupted sprint for 10 seconds, but they cost energy to be activated, and they have to be activated manually. (They also give a 10% speed boost). Full Leg Replacements give the agent access to high vents.

Sidearms in this game are pretty much that - just an accessory to your main gun. I generally prefer having a Silencer on it, so stealth kills are always an option no matter the character, you just have to remember to swap to and from the sidearm. The fun stuff is in the primary category: Automatic weapons, Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, Miniguns, Explosive Launchers, and Beam Weapons (Flamethrower included). Guns come in three flavors: Ballistic (bullets and flame that don't discriminate), Laser (like to ♥♥♥♥ up shields and robots really bad, not great against armor), and Plasma (likes to ♥♥♥♥ up armor really bad, not great against shields or robots). I would say a mix of Laser and Plasma for mid game onwards, but ballistic is a fine middle ground.



Attachments are varied but very useful. Silencers and Mufflers decrease damage by 15%, but make gunshots whisper quiet and stealthy. The 4x Scope increases a weapon's range by 17%, though this is better on short range weapons. Laser Targeting increases accuracy by 6%, never bad. EMP Charger is basically an EMP grenade for your gun, it's not an ammo type. High Impact Rounds gives any character a Knockback Shot, not just the Infiltrator. Rapid Fire APPEARS to increase the fire rate of a given weapon, though I imagine the primary benefit is to keep a target in cover and easier to flank. (Not a big fan of the attachment myself.)

The Super Heater and Overclocker increase Plasma and Laser damage respectively by 20%. Extended Clips, Canisters, and Batteries increase mag size by 100% (!!), and have a cute Star Wars reference baked in. The Super Particle Accelerator and Plasma Furnace Inducer allow you to kick up the weapon to 11 (laser and plasma respectively), dealing what appears to be 50% more damage for about 15 seconds, which is plenty of time to lay down some hurt. I would go with extended mags, or the Active Damage Boosters.

Touched on briefly in the section involving Pack Mule, this section will let me describe the gear available in more detail.

Magic Wands are the poor man's medkit, healing less than one and having consumable charges, but at the benefit of having a neglible cooldown (1 second?). You can refill them via an Ammo Pack, but the rate at which you get them is less than ideal (like 10 seconds a pop?). A Medi Pack (a medkit, basically) is reusable, not requiring ammo refills, with a decent cooldown, but cooldown reductions can shorten this even further (Max Team Stims can too!). Ammo Pack lets you put down a portable ammo crate to refill from, though there can only be one out at any given time. Proxy Hacker "gives the user the ability to hack into any systems the Hacker agent can access," which is pretty darn useful. Zip Claws let you use ziplines without a fear of falling. Stealth Generators gives your other agents the Infiltrator's Cloak, Mk II being the best.



There's three kinds of Armor, with Medium being strictly better than Light in terms of effectiveness (but not respawn cost). Heavy is more than double the Medium version's armor (250 vs 120), but you get a 15% speed penalty (ouch!). Shields come in four forms: R7, R60/5, AE30 Light, and AE100 Heavy. AE30 is the standard, giving 120 shields at 4 shields a sec. R7 reduces your shields to 90, but you get 5 a sec and they come back 25% quicker. R60/5 increase shields to 180, gives 8 shields a sec, and regen 30% quicker. Lastly, AE100 increase shield by 250, 6 shields a sec, and regen 10% quicker. (I prefer the heavy shields myself.) You cannot stack shields on shields, or armor on armor, but you can have shields AND armor together.



Shield Recharger lets you spend 60 energy to completely recharge your shields, great if you have big shields and a lot of energy to spare. Shield Booster increases your shield's size to a large bubble capable of encapsulating multiple people, at the cost of 10 energy to start and 12 energy a second to upkeep. A FRED Designator allows you to bring agents back into the fight directly without having to run them back - great if you're doing a suicide strategy. HK-4 Attack Drones can take hits for you, have laser pistols, they fire when you do, and if they die they come back after a indeterminate cooldown. Only usable with the appropriate augmentation, or as a Hacker with Drone Puppeteer. Ammo Vest increases carried ammo by 30% (bleh). Energon Storage Cell: AAA increases max energy by 35, and AA increases it by 65, as well as boosting energy regen by 15%. (This with the Energy Generator augment is a great combo.)

Frag Grenades have been touched on previously, but they are a great piece of kit to have. EMP Grenades are also good, acting like stun or concussion grenades that work on everything - drones, people, machines, you name it. The blast is silent, and its uses are only limited by your imagination. Sonic Grenades work as a distraction, letting you slip by unseen, or to bunch up enemies for explosive kills. Smoke Grenades block anyone from shooting into or out of the smoke, blocking line of sight and giving you a moment to breathe if you need to heal or move. (Also potentially useful during stealth?) Sound Dampening allows agents inside its radius to shoot without being heard, nullifying the need for silencers on all of your guns. Good for making a lot of localized chaos. Finally, Remote Satchels come in two flavors: Explosive and EMP. Great if you like to set traps for your enemy in advance, like the reinforcement doors.

The Clone menu can be a bit confusing, but the short of it is this: You need to hijack civilians or enemies. You need to send them back to be cloning fodder (via the HUD, next to their picture). Once captured, you select an agent you want to modify and give the new clone. You select the new clone and apply the changes. Supposedly FRED drops don't decrease the stats of clones, but regular dying and respawning do. When you select an agent in the cloning menu, you can see what their current bonus stats are.

Generally speaking, Commander units are the best to hijack for cloning, giving benefits like health, health regen, speed, energy, and energy regen. Heavy Gunners usually have increased health, Grunts usually have increased accuracy, and lighter units have increased speed. (Supposedly you can find civilians with stats like 60% speed, but that's likely just a rumor.) Anything above 50 health is good, but 100+ is really good. Above 15% speed is good, 20%+ is better. Above 0.5 HP a sec is good, but 1+ HP a sec is really good. Above 40 energy is good, but 60+ is better. 0.4 Energy a sec is better, but 0.3 a sec is pretty standard. Above 10% Accuracy is good, but higher than 15% is better.

At any time via Mission Control, you can purchase prototypes from the Black Market at an exorbitant cost, but it allows you to unlock technology without having to grab it from a facility. The prototypes can be researched for a further cost. If you know what you want, this is a great head start - assuming you have the cash for it. This also lets you obtain prototypes you might've missed.

Research can be done at any time as long as you have prototypes to study, but it becomes significantly cheaper when you have researchers to use. Walking around the city with World Scan on lets you find yellow NPCs you can hire to be researchers, which work for less than outsourced ones. Some missions provide you researchers too. You can accelerate research by assigning more researchers, but the effect diminishes the more you assign. You can pause or resume research as needed, and you can see how long researches will take to complete, as well as how much they will cost.

• Destroying a camera always summons a patrol to inspect the location via a nearby reinforcement door. Enemies nearby will also come to investigate. Use this to your advantage however you see fit.
  
• Relay Beacons increase regen of health, armor, shields, energy, and remove alert status quicker. You can teleport between them, and you can bring hijacked enemies with you too.
  
• Checkpoints have three ways of being bypassed - through fighting, through a quest chain, and through cold hard cash. The quests are easier but more time consuming, fighting through them can be done but having a big group to fight, or a small group to sneak through is wise.
  
• Suicide drones can be shot before they reach you, or you can allow them to run up and start their charging sequence, then sprint away.
  
• The buffs from Team Stims last about 4-5 seconds after it's turned off.
  
• Sidearms are better for stealth kills than sniper rifles, given that the later doesn't give a range boost, and they require time to line up a shot.
  
• Some missions require you to use a particular agent on the facility's office in order to get additional rewards. Using your whole group can void this. Use the specified agent first, then your infiltrator/whole group to reap maximum rewards. Banks don't care, so use your whole group. Pay close attention to quest text from Tag in the Mission Control.
  
• Buy all the info you can get your hands on. Everything except checkpoint passes and civilian stat info is worth buying, and you'll make the money back later.
  
• Breaching the Bank allows you to see all unhacked ATMs within that bank's district.
  
• Don't be afraid to explore a district first thing and put down all the Relay Beacons. Unless an area is restricted, and as long as you don't have your guns out, you won't be accosted or shot at. Then go back and find ATMs, info terminals, and so on.
  
• Keep around 25k in your wallet to spend if you need it, but above that you can spend on research and such. A lot of money is 200-300k or more.
  
• Hijacked enemies are lost after reloading a save, so make sure to send them off for cloning if you're getting off for the night.

If you managed to get through all of that, I commend you! Your time and patience is appreciated. If any of this was useful to you, a thumbs up and a rating is also appreciated.