Last Updated on 25 March, 2026
Step into the unforgiving sci-fi battlefields of MENACE, a brutal tactical RPG where a single strategic mistake costs you everything. The game aggressively punishes new commanders by obscuring critical combat mechanics, stealth calculations, and vehicle management systems. This comprehensive guide solves that steep learning curve by exposing every hidden system and black market secret you need to survive. Read on to discover how to optimize your squad loadouts, manipulate enemy turn orders, and build an unstoppable strike force that dominates any operation.
Fun Fact: MENACE is a massive step up in scale for the studio, and it was partially made possible by a significant government grant. In 2021, Overhype Studios received €1,073,555 from the German government’s Games Funding Programme to help develop the project.
Table of Contents
- Understanding Your Enemy
- Squad Management and Supplies
- Tactical Combat and Turn Order
- Mastering Smoke and Watchtowers
- Vehicle Warfare and Upgrades
- Black Market Secrets and Economy
- Top Equipment Recommendations
- The Jane Darby Stealth Assassin Build
Understanding Your Enemy
Knowing what you are fighting dictates exactly how you should prepare your loadout and approach the battlefield. You will primarily face two very distinct threats, and treating them the same will lead to a swift defeat.
Pirates
Pirates rely heavily on ranged attacks and carry guns exclusively. They understand the value of cover and will use it extensively to protect themselves. You must likewise utilize cover, as any of your units caught in the open will take massive damage and become very easy to kill. To counter their defensive setups, you should employ flanking maneuvers or use your vehicles as mobile cover to advance safely. Weapons that bypass cover completely, such as grenades and flamethrowers, are incredibly effective against entrenched Pirates.
Furthermore, suppression is a vital tactic against this faction. Both Pirates and your squads are vulnerable to suppression. Suppressing their squads reduces their Action Points and mitigates the damage they deal. Hitting them with heavy suppression will inflict the pinned down status, completely disabling them and rendering the squad unable to act at all for one turn. Machine guns cause high suppression, so use them aggressively. When you defeat Pirates, missions will drop weapons, armor, and gear as rewards for completion. You can equip these items or trade them on the black market.
Aliens
Aliens require a completely different tactical approach. They field a mix of melee and ranged units and completely ignore the concept of cover. This makes your shots highly accurate against them, but it also means hiding behind cover will not protect your troops from their brutal melee strikes.
Do not waste your time trying to suppress Aliens. They cannot be suppressed at all. Instead of getting pinned down, they will simply run away if they take too much damage. Because suppression is irrelevant, you should leave the weak infantry chainguns behind. Vehicle mounted machine guns are fine, but you should bring raw damage dealers like flamethrowers and rocket launchers to prioritize killing them outright. Keep in mind that Alien attacks can still suppress your squads if you take enough ranged damage. Defeating Aliens yields alien parts, which are only useful for trading on the black market.
Tactical Tip: Retreating enemies count as killed if they successfully run away. You do not absolutely need to chase them down or waste attacks on retreating foes to achieve the objective of killing 80% of enemy forces.
Squad Management and Supplies
Building your team efficiently forms the backbone of any successful operation. Hover your mouse over various attributes in the menus, such as accuracy, to get an explicit explanation of what they do.
Maximize Your Squaddies
Always check the small button at the top right of a squad leader’s menu. This button allows you to choose the exact number of squaddies to bring to a mission. More squaddies provide significantly more firepower, but fielding them also costs more supply. You must remember that squaddies are not expendable cannon fodder. They are a finite resource. If they are killed in action, you lose them permanently. You can gain more squaddies through the black market or through specific ship upgrades, but protecting your current roster is paramount.
Supply Limits
Every mission has a maximum supply limit that increases as you progress through the game. This limit dictates exactly how much gear and personnel you can deploy. There is absolutely zero benefit to having unused supply points. You must bring as much equipment and as many squaddies as possible. Try to use up every single supply point so your team operates at maximum strength.
The Promotion Trap
Promoting a squad leader increases the base supply cost of bringing them into battle. Sometimes the most tactical decision is to hold off on promotions. By keeping supply costs low, you can afford to recruit additional squad leaders or vehicle pilots from the black market. Bringing an extra squad or vehicle often provides far more overall firepower than fielding a single promoted leader. Pay attention to the skill trees, as each leader possesses promotions that are unique to them alone, alongside generic promotions available across all leaders. Additionally, abilities like first aid do not revive killed squaddies. This ability only heals wounded soldiers, meaning you generally need a tanky squad to use it effectively before your squaddies get one-shotted.
Tactical Tip: If you only want to utilize a powerful squaddy weapon like a laser rifle and do not care about a special weapon, unequip the special weapon from your squad leader. A squad leader will not carry a squaddy weapon if they have a special weapon equipped, so unequipping it gives your unit slightly more overall squaddy weapon damage.
Tactical Combat and Turn Order
MENACE uses an alternating turn system that requires careful planning. How the game works is you move one unit only, then any allied faction makes one move, and then the enemy makes one move. This cycle repeats until all units have moved, and then a new turn begins.
Mastering the Turn Order
Choosing which unit acts first is a critical decision. If you have multiple units engaged, you must decide which unit acts first, usually meaning the other units will get shot by the enemy in the meantime. To minimize casualties, you generally want to prioritize your actions carefully. First, move away or use smoke on whichever unit is in critical danger and cannot engage a more powerful enemy. For example, move basic infantry with no rocket launcher away from a heavy machine gun truck. Second, destroy or pin higher threat enemies and ignore lower threat enemies. Third, suppress enemies that have not yet taken a turn instead of those that already acted.
Units closest to a fight should take their turn first. Units far away and incapable of contributing to a fight should go last. If Squad Leader 1 and an enemy are facing each other, and Squad Leader 2 is far behind, the wrong move is to move Squad Leader 2 first. If you do that, the enemy will shoot Squad Leader 1. The correct move is to have Squad Leader 1 engage the enemy first, and then move Squad Leader 2.
The Power of Suppression
Suppression reduces the Action Points of all enemies except bugs. Pinning an enemy completely disables them for one entire turn. It can often be more beneficial to suppress or pin multiple enemies rather than focus fire a single enemy. If you have a vehicle with a machine gun and a squad with a rocket launcher fighting two pirate infantries, do not shoot the rocket first. The correct move is to have the vehicle suppress both pirates by shooting each of them once. Then, either have the rocket squad shoot the pirates or move to flank them to negate their cover.
Tactical Tip: You can left click your mouse to speed up a unit’s turn. This applies to your allies and your enemies as well. If the unit is currently moving, simply click to speed up the animation.
Mastering Smoke and Watchtowers
Positioning and environment manipulation separate novice commanders from veteran tacticians.
Watchtowers on Defense
During defense missions, look closely for blue outlined squares on the deployment map. These indicate watchtowers. Garrisoning an infantry squad inside a watchtower provides massive benefits. They receive an extra tile of weapon range, three extra tiles of vision, and the tower automatically deploys any heavy tripod weapons. The tower itself acts as a shield and soaks up incoming damage for the garrisoned unit. Keep in mind that the garrisoned unit does not actually count as deployed, meaning you do not get the standard 15% accuracy bonus. Be warned that heavy machine guns can one shot a watchtower, causing heavy casualties for the occupying squad.
The Supreme Power of Smoke
Smoke is a powerful tool in your arsenal. It grants powerful defensive bonuses to units standing inside it, including 80% extra defense, a 70% damage reduction, and a 70% reduction to incoming suppression. Smoke also blocks both line of sight and the field of fire past one tile. Units standing in the middle of a 3×3 smokescreen cannot be seen or targeted by enemies at all. This is very useful for protecting threatened units without even needing them to move. You can lay ambushes by waiting for a tank to drive past your rocket squad hiding in smoke, and then giving them backshots when the smoke clears.
You can use smoke aggressively as well. Drop smoke directly onto a high threat enemy to prevent them from firing while you engage their friends. Units cannot fire past multiple smoke tiles, but they can fire on the edge of a smokescreen with a massive 70% accuracy penalty. Alternatively, drop smoke between the enemy and your units to allow your troops to push forward safely and engage at close range with devastating SMGs, shotguns, grenades, and flamethrowers.
Tactical Tip: A funny tactic you can execute with your vehicles is smoke edging. Move the vehicle outside of the smoke to shoot the enemy, and then reverse back into the smoke before your turn ends to remain fully protected.
Vehicle Warfare and Upgrades
Vehicles provide immense firepower and mobility, but they require careful management to keep them operational.
Repair and Rotation
Vehicles fully repair after each operation, not after each individual mission. This means it is not absolutely necessary to build the repair module on your ship if you can preserve the vehicle all the way to the end of the operation. You can also swap out damaged vehicles for fresh ones between missions if you have multiple units in reserve. If you own 43 pirate trucks, you never need to repair them; you just switch to a new undamaged one.
Anti Vehicle Tactics
Targeting the rear of enemy armor deals significantly more damage. It is much less risky to use the AT drone to hit the rear of vehicles than trying to push your squad to flank the vehicle and expose themselves to more enemies. You can purchase the Wardog AT Skybot drone in the black market.
When fighting troop transports, destroy the vehicle before the infantry can dismount. Destroying a passenger vehicle instantly stuns their mounted infantry. Stunned infantry skip one turn and are easy pickings since they drop out of cover and are not deployed. You can also use anti armor weapons like rocket launchers and grenades to blow up enemy watchtowers directly.
Twin Linked Weapons
Medium walkers feature multiple weapon slots. You can equip two of the same weapon on a medium walker to twin link them. This allows you to shoot both guns and deal double damage for only one weapon’s AP cost. A very good weapon to link is the autocannon. Twin linked autocannons will shred all infantry and light to medium vehicles, though they struggle against heavy armor like heavy tanks and other medium walkers.
Tactical Tip: The Berserk promotion available to Charles and Renu grants 30 extra Action Points upon killing an enemy once per turn. This ability actually triggers upon destroying an empty passenger vehicle that was previously used by enemies.
Black Market Secrets and Economy
Managing your resources outside of combat is just as important as your tactical decisions on the ground. The black market refreshes every time you complete an entire operation, not after a single mission.
The Rare Section Scam
Treat the rare section of the black market with extreme caution. It charges double the price for items that can actually be purchased from other sections. For example, the long barreled tank gun can be found in the vehicle modules section for half the price. It is the exact same module with the exact same stats. The rare section serves the purpose of only offering high tier gear to make good items accessible at all times in exchange for doubly inflated pricing. If you do not desperately need that gear, try not to buy it from the rare section.
Intelligence and Ship Upgrades
Your ship cannot be upgraded between missions. You have to complete the entire operation before you can upgrade it. Make sure to upgrade your ship before you start an operation. Ensure you secure the Sensor Array ship upgrade for better intelligence. More intelligence gives more details on enemy positions and unit types on the pre mission map. Lesser intelligence results in red blips being white blips labeled as unknown entities.
Authority Management
Authority points cap at 100. If you have close to max authority, consider spending it to hire a squad leader by purchasing their dossier from the black market first. Otherwise, the authority you would have gained gets completely wasted. Since authority affects combat discipline, you can hold off hiring the leader until right before the last mission of an operation.
Tactical Tip: The Salvage Teams O.C.I. is a great source of trading material. Each vehicle destroyed awards an item worth 20 black market value. It combos perfectly with destroying pirate weapon trucks and empty passenger trucks, allowing you to easily rack up hundreds of trade value.
Top Equipment Recommendations
Optimizing your loadouts will drastically increase your survival rate. Consider these community tested recommendations.
Squaddie Weapons
- Laser Rifle: This weapon is very effective against infantry, even those hiding in cover. It provides good damage, armor piercing, and suppression. It has infinite ammo and does not heat up as fast as the laser lance.
- SMGs: You can one shot enemies if you flank them and close in. Smoke, jump jets via pirate commando armor, and infantry carriers are great tools to close the gap. SMGs are a huge step up from the default carbine.
Special Weapons
- Autocannon: This tripod weapon absolutely deletes infantry and treats cover like paper.
- Light Mortar (U60A1 HWCM): This is a long range smoke deployer great at saving pinned squads. It can be fired over large buildings so it does not need line of sight, keeping your mortar team immune to retaliation. Be aware that mortar shells can miss and land on an adjacent tile. The fragmentation shell is very weak, dealing as much damage as pointing a pot of popcorn at someone, and inflicting as much suppression as an angry chihuahua.
- ATGM Launcher: This tripod weapon delivers absolutely bonkers anti armor damage at ridiculous ranges. Consider getting a target designator for this, or use a squad leader that has the Call Out ability.
- Laser Lance: This is stronger than rocket launchers, but it builds up heat quickly and is prone to missing like storm troopers. It features infinite ammo.
Armour and Gear
You do not need armor if you do not get shot. Smoke grenades are incredibly powerful. That 70% damage reduction can easily be the difference between a full health squad and one that has red lines across your soldiers’ names.
Vehicle Gear
- Twin Linked Autocannons: Requires a medium walker. Extremely powerful on the right leader like Rewa, acting basically as a cheat code.
- Radar: Features a huge 20 range. It lets you know exactly where the enemies are so you can blast into the fog. Your weapons often outrange your vision. It helps you locate ATGM teams so you can drop particle lasers on them.
- Long Barreled Tank Gun: Shoots powerful APFSDSABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP rounds (armour-piercing-fin-stabilised-self-discarding-SABOT-asdfghjkl rounds) that can one tap enemy vehicles. It is like a laser lance but without the laser and with more lance.
- Smoke Launcher: Only costs 20 AP and pops 3 grenades per use, covering a generous 5 tiles length. It is great for saving a burning APC.
Tactical Tip: If you only want to utilize a powerful special weapon, use a squad that only has two squaddies. This minimizes the supply cost, giving you a highly efficient three man autocannon or mortar team. Equipping the pirate pipe gun also shaves off a little bit more supply.
The Jane Darby Stealth Assassin Build
If you want to completely break the game, you can build starting character Jane Darby to become an invisible killing machine.
The Stealth Formula
Stealth in MENACE revolves around a specific formula. The enemy detection radius equals their vision radius minus your concealment value. The goal is to stack concealment items.
Step-by-Step Progression
1. Starting Characters
Start out with Darby, Pike, Rewa, and Carda. This entire guide assumes you are using full strength 8 to 9 man squads. Do not ever bring smaller squads than that.
2. Early Game
Jane Darby is handy early on for disabling specialists but comes at an immense point cost. Use vehicles mainly for killing. Choose Scout as her first level to go ahead unseen and detect the enemy. Equip everyone with BR3A3 Kr-Bar Crowbar weapons for superior damage, penetration, and kiting ability. Equip one squad with the R14A2 ARC space AK47 to deal with bugs.
3. Hunt Pirates
Fight Pirates as soon as possible. They provide Outcast Rags which give 1 concealment. Darby’s first promotion, Covert Ops, provides 2 concealment. This puts you at 9 minus 3, equaling a 6 detection radius. You can come within 7 tiles of an enemy without being seen.
4. Skill Tree
Promote her to Sharp shooter to reduce cover effectiveness, Ambush for 25% extra damage from an undetected status, and Commando for 15% accuracy and defense when removed 4 tiles from a friend.
5. Mid Game Gear
You must luck out and find the Camouflage Kit accessory for 2 concealment. This puts you at a 4 detection radius. Try to find Armor Piercing Ammo black tips providing 25 armor penetration and a tiny 2 damage penalty.
6. The Silenced Weapon
Around the time the Rogue Army shows up, the R14A2 ARC SOCC will appear on the black market. This is the first suppressed weapon and will keep Darby in permanent invisibility.
7. The Final Armor
The last piece of the puzzle is the Jaeger Fatigues providing 2 concealment. You must kill Rogue Army Snipers or luck into it. The black market also sells the SAPP Recce Outfit with 2 concealment and more armor. This final armor puts you at a 3 detection radius.
You are basically walking up to PDW range and emptying silenced mags into foes with maximum armor penetration. With proper flanking, Jane Darby will delete a squad or two every round, ventilate light walkers, perforate jeeps, and turn MENACE Gun crawlers into Swiss cheese.
Tactical Tip: Unsilenced weapons will instantly break your concealment, and silencing is never accurately described in squad weapon text. You must secure the silenced R14A2 ARC SOCC to maintain your invisibility while shooting.
Conclusion
Mastering the intricate tactical systems of MENACE transforms your fragile recruits into a hardened, lethal military force. Applying these advanced strategies and optimized weapon loadouts solves the harsh learning curve and eliminates deadly guesswork from your planetary deployments. Take full control of the battlefield, exploit the black market economy, and show the hostile factions exactly why your squads rule the stars. Command your forces with absolute confidence and lead your team to total victory.
Did You Know? The concept for the game has been brewing for a long time, with prototypes starting as early as 2018. When fans asked if a cryptic sci-fi artwork reveal posted on the developer’s blog all the way back in 2017 was actually an early tease for MENACE, the developers responded with a chuckling, “Perhaps. Ehmm, might be…”
