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Iron Commander - AKA How To Not Play The Game As Efficiently And Effectively As Possible
Iron Commander unlocks in Chapter 5 of the main story, and gives you the ability to dispatch fireteams of Lightbearers on AFK missions for rewards.
Basic Iron Commander Mechanics
Each day, you can purchase a certain number of Ops Authorisation tokens ("Ops Tokens"). At base, you can buy one Ops Token per day. You should always buy all your Ops Tokens.
Once you reach Acclaim 9 (postgame levels), you will be automatically upgraded to buying 2 per day, and at Acclaim 19 you can spend one Bronze Medal to upgrade to buy 3 per day. You can hold a maximum of 9 Ops Tokens at once.
Each Ops Token costs 20 Pinnacle energy, and each Ops Token lets you dispatch 1 Fireteam of Lightbearers to do an activity you don't want to do. You have to have cleared the activity at that difficulty yourself before you can dispatch. The activities are:
- Legacy (Normal, Heroic - Solar, Heroic - Arc, Heroic - Void)
- Gauntlet: Blitz (Normal, Heroic)
- Strike (Normal, Heroic)
- Morgran's Prey (Normal, Heroic)
Each Lightbearer has Iron Commander Energy. They each have a cap of 3, and they regenerate 1 Energy per day at the daily reset until they reach the cap.
Iron Commander Fireteams & Dispatch Requirements
When you dispatch a Fireteam, you pick a number of Lightbearers to complete the activity for you. There's a heading saying Dispatch Requirements, with 3 greyed-out ticks underneath it. Never dispatch a Fireteam without all 3 ticked.
The first Dispatch Requirement is always "Dispatch 3 Characters". This one's easy to meet.
The second is "3 Characters' Total Power" - this will give you a target number that your 3 Lightbearers need to add to.
The third is "3 Characters' Individual Power" - this gives you a target number that each of your Lightbearers needs to meet.
Iron Commander Rewards
Three things affect Iron Commander Rewards; Activity Difficulty, Reward Level, and Dispatch Requirements.
Activity Difficulty is easy. Never spend an Ops Token on a Normal Activity unless you are at cap, don't have Heroic unlocked, and you have Ops Tokens you need to buy that day.
Reward Level is also easy. You will be at Reward Level 7 once you get to Team Level 71, and this will increase to the maximum cap of Reward Level 8 once you reach Acclaim 10. Never spend an Ops Token below Reward Level 8 unless you are at cap and you have Ops Tokens you need to buy that day.
Dispatch Requirements are slightly trickier. If you have 1 tick, you'll have Minimum Rewards, which are 20% less than if you did the activity yourself. This is a waste of the 20 Pinnacle energy you spent on the Ops Token. If you have 2, you'll get the same rewards, and if you have 3, you'll get 10% more rewards.
This 10% boost is why you should always buy every Ops Token. However, because of Rewards Rank and activity difficulty, you might not want to spend every Ops Token immediately.
As you will notice in the menu, by far the best rewards are in Heroic Strike and Heroic Gauntlet Ops. The only difference in the rewards is the Mythic Weapon and Exotic Weapon pools. Never spend an Ops Token on Legacy or Morgran's Prey unless you really, really, really need those specific rewards.
Optimising Iron Commander / TL:DR
In order to squeeze every little bit of value out of your Pinnacle energy and Ops tokens, you need the following:
- Buy all Ops Tokens every day, and hoard Ops Tokens until you have Rewards Level 8.
- Get Acclaim Level 19, to buy 3 Ops Tokens per day.
- Have 9 Lightbearers that can satisfy all Dispatch Requirements. This is for Energy management so you never run out (3 Ops Tokens per day * 3 Energy spent per dispatch, 1 Energy regenerated per Lightbearer per day = 9 Lightbearers).
- Send your Lightbearers on Heroic Strike or Heroic Gauntlet, and nothing else.
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