Snowbreak: Containment Zone Operative (Character) Guide
Building and outfitting your operatives is integral for you to be able to clear the increasingly-challenging game content. In our article, we will be discussing the various methods of building your operatives.
If you're wondering which operatives you should prioritize building, check out our Operatives Tier List.
At the same time, you can also check out our article for various methods of acquiring new weaponsfor your operatives. We also have a dedicated article about upgrading your weapons.
We also have a Weapons Tier List which will help you identify the weapons worth upgrading and giving to your operatives.
Also, take note that the amount of resources needed to build each character increases significantly as they increase in level around mid-game so make sure to save your resources as much as possible early on and avoid carelessly building characters you're not sure that you'll use eventually. There's no character reset option in the game that will allow you to recover the resources you have spent on a character that you'll be benching for a while or permanently.
Leveling Up
Leveling up is straightforward. Your operative earns EXP from main story missions but that's usually not enough. The fastest and most efficient method of leveling them up is by using consumables called "Combat Records". These consumables have different qualities, with the best quality (purple) record providing an operative with the most amount of EXP.
You can earn these consumables by completing various tasks, events, purchasing them from the shop, or conveniently farm them via Operations mode, in the Black Market stage. Collecting these resources is straightforward since they're quite common rewards in the game's various activities and modes.
Logistic Officers
The game's logistics system acts similar to equipment screens of normal RPG games. This menu allows you to assign up to three logistics officers to an operative. Each logistic officer has random stat bonuses that they provide to the operative they are assigned to. There's also a Squad Effect bonus that will get activated if you assign logistic officers belonging to the same squad to the same operative. There are two Squad Effect bonuses; one is activated by assigning any two officers from the same squad and the second one is activated by assigning all officers from the same squad.
For an in-depth explanation about Logistics Officers, you can check out our dedicated guide about it.
Manifestation
These are locked latent abilities of your operatives. These can only be unlocked by using the operative's Extracts. Extracts are obtained through various means but the most common method is by getting more copies of the operative or completing their Personal File missions.
Each operative has 5 manifestation levels. And in each level, there are 9 nodes that need to be activated before fully unlocking the Manifestation Level. 8 of the nodes will each have permanent stat boosts to the operative, while the last node unlocks a new passive skill for the operative - usually significantly enhancing their skill set.
Unlocking all 5 manifestation levels is necessary in unlocking the character's full potential. For more in-depth information about manifestations, please follow this link.
Neuronics
All operatives have three skill types: Standard Skill, Support Skill, and Ultimate Skill. Neuronics is a feature that allows you to permanently add improvements to these skills, adding bonus effects and enhanced damage.
Since you can add up to two Neural buffs to each of your skills, you'll need to prioritize which ones to improve first since the resources needed and required level to unlock these clusters will increase as you complete each cluster. Normally, the standard skill and ultimate skill will take priority, depending on the operative's kit. If your operative's standard skill is her bread-and-butter, then it makes sense to prioritize activating the two clusters related to her Standard Skill.
For more in-depth information about Neuronics, please refer to our dedicated guide.
Summary
That's our short guide for improving your operative in Snowbreak: Containment Zone. The resources needed to do the methods here increase over time so expect to be gated once you're in the higher adjutant level. When that happens, just take it easy. Mobile games aren't really designed to be completed in a short span of time. Just play regularly, do your dailies, and some basic automated tasks, especially the operations with Auto-Clear options.
For other methods of improving your operatives, you can check out our Manifestation Guide, Logistics Guide, and Neuronics Guide.