Dispatch Complete Game Guide
Core Gameplay Loop
Dispatch is a strategic police management simulation where you manage a team of specialized officers responding to various incidents. Your decisions determine mission outcomes, officer relationships, and the overall narrative direction.
Mission Assignment System
Each mission has specific skill requirements and challenges. Consider these factors when assigning your team:
- Skill Match: Ensure your team's combined skills meet or exceed mission requirements
- Hero Abilities: Some abilities provide significant bonuses on specific mission types
- Team Size: Missions have optimal team sizes - deviation reduces success chances
- Relationships: Positive relationships boost performance, negative ones hinder it
- Hero Status: Fatigue, injuries, and exhaustion significantly impact outcomes
Hero Management
Each hero has unique strengths, weaknesses, and personality traits that affect mission performance:
Base Skills
- Strength: Combat effectiveness and physical operations
- Tech: Hacking, surveillance, and technical operations
- Speed: Quick response and pursuit capabilities
- Negotiation: Hostage situations and diplomatic missions
- Stealth: Infiltration and covert operations
- Investigation: Evidence gathering and case building
Abilities & Flaws
Abilities provide conditional bonuses (e.g., +20% on negotiation missions), while flaws impose penalties or increase risk probabilities. Understanding these is crucial for optimal team building.
Relationship System
Heroes have pre-existing relationships that affect team performance. Positive relationships (above +10%) boost success chances, while negative relationships (below -10%) reduce them. Relationship values range from -30% to +30% and are modified by:
- Story events and dialogue choices
- Mission outcomes (success/failure)
- Time spent working together
- Personality conflicts based on hero flaws and traits
Risk Management
Every mission carries inherent risks that can be mitigated through proper team selection:
- Injury Risk: Physical harm to team members, reduced by high strength/speed heroes
- Collateral Damage: Civilian casualties or property damage, increased by reckless heroes
- Detection/Cover Blown: Operation compromise, reduced by high stealth heroes
- Public Image: Media backlash affecting department reputation
- Evidence Loss: Failed investigation outcomes
Strategic Tips
- Use the Right-Call Simulator to calculate optimal team compositions before deployment
- Rotate heroes to prevent fatigue accumulation
- Build positive relationships by pairing compatible heroes
- Specialize your roster - don't try to make every hero good at everything
- Pay attention to mission tags - they indicate which abilities will trigger
- Higher difficulty missions require near-perfect skill matches and team synergy
- Download simulation results to analyze patterns and improve decision-making
Advanced Mechanics
Fatigue System
Fatigue accumulates with each mission and scales from 0-100. Effects:
- 0-30%: Minimal impact
- 31-60%: Moderate performance reduction
- 61-100%: Severe penalties and increased injury risk
Success Calculation
The simulator uses a deterministic algorithm that weighs:
- Mission base success rate (varies by difficulty)
- Skill match ratio (hero skills vs. requirements)
- Ability bonuses (conditional based on mission tags)
- Flaw penalties (conditional based on mission tags)
- Relationship modifiers (average across all team pairs)
- Status penalties (fatigue, injury, exhaustion)
- Team size modifier (compared to optimal size)
🚨 Top 10 Beginner Mistakes to Avoid
❌ 1. Spamming the Same Heroes
Why it's bad: Overusing heroes causes injury penalties (-1 to all stats). A hero deployed 3+ missions in a row without rest will become injured.
✅ Do this instead: Rotate your roster. Use 6-8 heroes regularly rather than relying on 2-3 favorites.
❌ 2. Ignoring Team Size Requirements
Why it's bad: Missions have optimal team sizes. Sending 1 hero to a 3-hero mission or 4 heroes to a 2-hero mission drastically reduces success chances.
✅ Do this instead: Match the recommended team size exactly. Use the simulator to verify optimal composition.
❌ 3. Upgrading Stats Randomly
Why it's bad: Stat upgrades are permanent. Spreading points evenly creates mediocre heroes instead of specialists.
✅ Do this instead: Play to strengths first - amplify what a hero is already good at, then patch critical weaknesses.
❌ 4. Deploying Heroes with Negative Relationships
Why it's bad: Negative relationships below -10% reduce mission success by 5-15%. This compounds on difficult missions.
✅ Do this instead: Check the relationship matrix before deploying. Pair heroes with positive synergies (+10% or higher).
❌ 5. Ignoring Mission Tags
Why it's bad: Mission tags (Stealth, Combat, Tech, etc.) determine which abilities and flaws activate. Missing bonuses can cost you 20-30% success rate.
✅ Do this instead: Read mission tags carefully. Deploy heroes whose abilities match mission requirements.
❌ 6. Not Using the Simulator
Why it's bad: Guessing team compositions leads to avoidable failures. Failed missions have story consequences.
✅ Do this instead: Use the Right-Call Simulator for every mission above Medium difficulty to optimize success rates.
❌ 7. Rushing Through Story Choices
Why it's bad: Dialogue choices affect hero relationships, unlockable missions, and endings. Some choices are irreversible.
✅ Do this instead: Read dialogue carefully. Save before major story decisions to explore different outcomes.
❌ 8. Neglecting Low-Level Heroes
Why it's bad: Late-game missions may require specific hero combinations. If you haven't leveled backup heroes, you'll struggle.
✅ Do this instead: Run low-difficulty missions with bench heroes to keep them level-competitive.
❌ 9. Forgetting About Hero Flaws
Why it's bad: Flaws impose severe penalties when mission tags match them. A "Reckless" hero on a "Stealth" mission can reduce success by 25%.
✅ Do this instead: Memorize your heroes' flaws. Never deploy a hero whose flaw matches the mission tag.
❌ 10. Not Planning for Fatigue
Why it's bad: Fatigue above 60% causes severe penalties and increases injury risk. Pushing heroes too hard creates cascading failures.
✅ Do this instead: Let heroes rest when fatigue reaches 40-50%. Plan your mission sequence to rotate teams.
🎯 Best Team Compositions by Mission Type
⚔️ Combat Missions
- Titan (Strength 9, Tank role)
- Blaze (Strength 8, Speed 7)
- Shadow (Speed 9, Stealth 8 - flanking)
🥷 Stealth Missions
- Shadow (Stealth 9, Speed 8)
- Phantom (Stealth 8, Tech 7)
- Whisper (Stealth 7, Investigation 8)
💻 Tech/Hacking Missions
- Cipher (Tech 10, Investigation 7)
- Oracle (Tech 8, Negotiation 6)
- Phantom (Tech 7, Stealth 8 - security bypass)
🤝 Negotiation/Hostage Missions
- Diplomat (Negotiation 10, Investigation 6)
- Oracle (Negotiation 8, Tech 8)
- Guardian (Negotiation 7, Strength 8 - backup)
🔍 Investigation Missions
- Detective (Investigation 10, Tech 6)
- Whisper (Investigation 8, Stealth 7)
- Cipher (Investigation 7, Tech 10 - forensics)
🎲 Multi-Objective Missions
- One specialist for each required skill
- One flex hero with balanced stats
- Ensure positive team relationships
Universal Team Building Rules:
- Always match or exceed the mission's required skill totals
- Check for relationship bonuses/penalties before deploying
- Avoid heroes with flaws that match mission tags
- Consider hero fatigue levels (keep below 50% for important missions)
- Use abilities that synergize with mission tags for bonus success rates
📋 Quick Reference Cheat Sheet
Skill Priority by Mission Type
| Mission Type | Primary Skill | Secondary |
|---|---|---|
| Combat | Strength | Speed |
| Stealth | Stealth | Tech |
| Tech | Tech | Investigation |
| Negotiation | Negotiation | Investigation |
| Investigation | Investigation | Tech |