Delta Force guide: How to survive your first runs in Operations mode
When you enter a match of Delta Force’s Operations mode, your mission control always tells you the same thing: “Remember—shoot, loot, then time to scoot!” They’re words to live by.
Delta Force, which is currently in open beta on the Epic Games Store, is out to revive the long-dormant mil-sim genre. We’ve already highlighted the game’s Operatives and their various tactical strengths. Now it’s time to give Operations mode a try. Operations is a player-vs-player-vs-CPU “extraction” shooter where you and up to two teammates are sent into hostile territory around the war-torn country of Ahsarah. As members of the Global Threat Initiative (GTI), you’re here to stop the civil war between Ahsarah’s local militia and the Haavk Corporation, a technocratic PMC. To do that, you’ll need supplies, and the easiest way to get them is to take them from your opponents.
Your first run at Operations mode comes with a quick five-minute solo tutorial, along with a big payout of in-game currency. This gets you set up with the basics, but there’s still a lot to learn before you can routinely expect to extract successfully. Here are some tips on how to survive your first runs in Delta Force's Operations mode.
Gearing Up
Your choices in Operations mode are initially limited. You can choose a primary and secondary firearm, as well as a handgun as a fallback weapon, and you always get a knife. There are many different types of guns in the Operations armory, but you initially can’t afford more than a basic M4A1 or a few different SMGs.
Delta Force is set up to prevent you from entering the field at all unless you’re appropriately equipped. That means securing a helmet, body armor, a backpack, and a chest rig. The latter is important as it’s where you need to stow consumable items (such as spare bullets) to have easy access to them in the field.
You also need to pay close attention to what bullets you’re bringing. Delta Force has a wide variety of guns, each with their own ammo needs. It doesn’t simply abstract it all out to “pistol ammo” vs. “rifle ammo." You have to make sure you brought enough 9mm rounds for one gun and 5.45mm for another.
While Delta Force will usually pop up a warning if you’re carrying a lot of ammunition for a gun you don’t have equipped, it’s not impossible to accidentally load up on the wrong kind of bullets. When you’re just getting your feet wet, it can be helpful to deliberately carry three different guns that all take the same rounds, i.e. 9mm SMGs with a matching pistol.
You’ll also need to acquire medical supplies. Unlike Warfare mode, you don’t have regenerating health in Operations. Any hits you take persist until you use something like an Injector to seal your wounds. You may also suffer other injuries like fractures, which need to be treated with appropriate medical kits.
And of course, you need to make sure you’ve got room to store all your loot. It’s tempting to load up on enough ammunition to knock down a skyscraper, but in practice, you don’t want or need to get into sustained firefights in Operations. Bring enough ammo to get the job done, stow it in your chest rig for easy access, and get a big backpack to store your plunder.
Silent Running
Operations mode perches you on the same tactical knife’s-edge as Warfare, but with a much steeper death penalty. You can’t take a lot of damage before you drop in Operations—and if you die, you immediately lose everything, including the armor and weapons you brought with you.
You’ll be returned to your base of operations with nothing but your trusty knife, and must re-equip yourself from whatever credits you’ve got in reserve. You can spend a Gear Ticket to automatically slap together a default kit for “free,” but those are in limited supply.
That loop lends Operations mode a unique tension. You’re loose in a big map with your teammates, an unknown number of AI-driven soldiers, and several other teams of players. The soldiers can be dangerous, but other players are the real danger, and you have no idea where they are. It’s possible that they’ll get distracted or killed before they reach you, but it’s more likely that they’ll show up at the worst possible moment.
The easiest way to stay alive is to avoid drawing unnecessary attention. It’s so quiet under ordinary circumstances that you can generally hear gunshots from a long distance away. If you get into a sustained exchange of fire, that’s like ringing the dinner bell for every other player in the match.
That means that you don’t want to get into long fights, or even linger outdoors for long. This is the “scoot” part of the Delta Force saying in action: Don’t fire an unsuppressed gun unless you have to, and if you do, leave the area as soon as you can. It’s easy to come out of a tough fight with NPC soldiers, only to get mowed down by an enemy player who has their eye on your now-bulging rucksack.
Team Composition
In Delta Force's Operations mode, you can pick from the same eight Operatives as Warfare mode—and for the most part, they have the same selection of active and passive abilities. A few do change between modes, such as Toxik’s Swift Healing passive, but most characters’ specialties remain the same.
By default, you run Operations with a three-person squad. As a general rule, Operations are heavily tilted towards stealth, silence, and reconnaissance, which makes Luna and Hackclaw solid go-to picks. Hackclaw’s Silent Step gives her an edge on infiltration, and Luna’s Detection Arrow can come in clutch when you’re going into a new location blind. Back the two of them up with Stinger or Toxik for additional support.
You can bring Assault or Engineer characters into Operations, but they tend to work loud, which can be a drawback. Any Operative can potentially get the job done, as teamwork and tactics always count for more than your loadout, but characters like D-Wolf and Uluru go into Operations at a slight disadvantage. They’re at their best when everything’s already blowing up.
Keep Safe
It’s easy to overlook, but you start Operations with a two-slot pouch called a Safe Box. Only the smallest items can fit inside it, but that can include some high-value items like Spy Pens.
Anything inside your Safe Box stays with you even if you die.
When you’ve got a spare moment in a match, try to grab some loot and secure it in your Safe Box. That guarantees that you’ll come out of the run with something. You’ll unlock larger Safe Boxes with greater capacity as you advance along the Battle Pass. Get lucky, and an early drop can easily pay for the whole run.
Close Quarters
It’s important to take a tactical approach to Operations, which can be tricky in a pick-up group. Use your voice chat, stay behind cover, and move as if you’re under fire. That means (as noted above) staying out of the open. Stay indoors as often as you can, and keep your head on a swivel if you have to cross a street or run across a parking lot.
Like we said, you don’t have regenerating health in Operations mode. Instead, you need a few crucial seconds to use an Injector or similar item if you want to recover. Even then, most of them heal over time, not instantaneously. It’s important to find cover if you need to heal, as using medical supplies makes you vulnerable.
It’s much harder for an enemy player to take you off-guard if you’re indoors. While you’ve still got to stay on your toes, it limits their avenues of approach. It’s even worth setting up a couple of surprises, if you’re playing a character like Shepherd who comes with traps as part of his standard kit.
However, that comes with the noticeable drawback that many enemy troops are at their most dangerous up close. It takes no time at all before you start running into highly-armored minigun-toting members of the Ahsarah Guard, and they can cut you in half if you try to hit them from the front. Once you make it into a building, it’s time to get sneaky.
In a perfect world, if you spot AI troops first, you can go to ground and wait for less cautious enemy players to get their attention. That gives you a chance to finish off whoever loses the fight.
What are you waiting for? Hop into Delta Force's Operations Mode and try to make it out with something!
Delta Force is available now on the Epic Games Store.