Table of Contents Show
Phantom Brigade World Map Guide
UI
The UI is full of icons, but don’t worry, they’re not very complicated.
Shortcut keys can be viewed on the pause menu.
The top left bar lets you navigate to your management screens where you get to look at your pilots, units, inventory, workshop, and upgrade tree.
The top right section gives you a summary of the province you’re in, with additional information if it is hostile, and also controls for fast-forwarding time on the overworld.
There are no interface interactions on the world map itself, apart from movement. You interact with a location by moving into it.
Some locations on the map have special effects once liberated, such as reducing the amount of Liquid Fix consumed in the province.
If you can’t interact with a location that should be interactive, try moving away from it and back into its radius again.
The bottom left shows a quick summary of your unit status but not pilot status. Units are repaired with liquid fix, pilots need time to recover but their status isn’t shown on the world map.
Note that repairs only happen while in cruise mode.
Finally, the bottom bar contains your movement controls. Halt, stealth, cruise, overdrive, and retreat.
Cruise is the default mode. It does not consume energy and lets you fix your units.
Stealth reduces enemy detection radius by a significant amount (shown on the map as red rings around sites and patrols) and consumes energy. Your own detection range is also shorter in stealth mode.
Overdrive is Pretty Darn Quick but consumes battery and makes you more easily detected until you build the appropriate upgrades. Your own detection range is also shorter.
Retreat lets you return to the nearest supply base at any time for no penalty.
Random Events
Every now and then, random events happen on the world map. You can lose resources (hope, reputation, and so on) from them, so don’t just mash the button to skip them.
Provinces
Escalation Level
A provinces’ escalation level determines the frequency and difficulty of enemy patrols. Escalation slowly drops when you leave the province, and rises while you spend time in it and when you defeat enemy units and capture sites.
Taking out a patrol raises escalation by 10. Taking out a convoy raises it by 40.
Escalation also drops when you lose a battle, but this is not generally recommended.
Escalation level can be quickly read from the border around the province. A dotted bright red line means an unfilled escalation level. Solid red lines represent filled escalation levels and that the province is on a higher alert level.
Escalation level rises at 50, 200, and maxes out at (I’m pretty sure) 500.
Sites
A province always contains multiple sites. Some of these are lightly-guarded farms, others are part of civilian infrastructure, still others are heavily guarded military installations.
Taking over some sites will get you bonuses in that area, such as battery regeneration for power plants, more efficient Liquid Fix usage for farms, and the almighty Liquid Fix replenishment at logistics centres. Make those a priority!
Sites can be recaptured from you by enemy patrols, unless the province is being contested. When the province is being contested, the Home Guard moves in and guards all the sites you’ve already captured, leaving you to focus on the main objectives.
The difficulty of a site is shown next to its icon.
Sites have a detection radius. Most will send a patrol or two after you if you stay within that radius for too long and get detected. Hence the stealthiest way to capture a site is to approach as close as you can with stealth, then once you are in the detection radius, switch to overdrive.
Roaming Enemy Units
There are two main types of enemy unit that move around the map: patrols and convoys.
By hovering over the icon, you get a summary of the unit, its abilities, and even its composition.
Patrols
These are usually comprised of a single walker alongside two vehicles. Patrols will move between points on the map and will chase you if they detect you. If other sites or units detect you, they may also radio in your location and send patrols after you.
If you enter combat with patrols actively chasing you, they will show up as reinforcements if you take long enough in combat.
Elite Patrols
Elite patrols are bigger, better, and all-round nastier, with a larger detection radius to boot. The loot is correspondingly better, though.
Convoys
Convoys flee when they detect you and come in three flavours.
Repair convoys contain supplies like batteries and / or Liquid Gold Fix. Finding batteries can resupply your energy to let you stealth / overdrive just that much longer, whereas finding Liquid Fix lets you repair in the middle of enemy territory.
Equipment convoys carry parts, blueprints, and other such tasty loot. Always a good idea to hunt them down, since they’re the best source of rare and uncommon components.
Finally, reinforced convoys are just like regular convoys, but with more guards.
Since convoys run away from you, it’s necessary to use a bit of planning in your approach. The best way to ambush them is to attack from their front. They will be moving towards you, and so you will spend less time in their detection radius.
Use the same tactic as with sites. Approach in stealth until you get to the edge of their reduced detection bubble, then overdrive the rest of the distance. Remember to approach from their front! It makes things a lot easier.
Contesting
Contesting a province frankly doesn’t change much. If you’ve taken over some sites, more will spawn and act as objectives.
After some time, the Home Guard will assign you objectives within the province that will reduce the enemy’s ability to hold the province. These appear as triangle icons on the right side of the escalation popup, and clicking on them will jump the camera to the location. They will also have a flame icon above them. Enemy-held sites and enemy units can both be designated as contest objectives.
Every now and then, the Home Guard will get into a battle. These are timed events that will reduce your ability to contest the province if ignored or failed. Success will reduce the enemy’s ability.
This means that you have a limited amount of time to contest a province. Either you will fail too many warzones and lose, or complete enough objectives quickly enough to win.
When you successfully liberate a province, enemies in all other provinces level up. This is the only way that enemies get permanently stronger.