The three medals - pinning it all down

[Thicci Avocado]

I have to say that after a few months of this game being out I am astonished to the lack of info or misinformation. A lot of games have every question answered you could even think of asking by week 1. Even guides are badly lacking so like my old man used to say, if you want something done right do it yourself. But nothing wrong with asking you guys for a little help

ANYWAYS

so Ive got little else to do in the game and I've been trying to figure out the finer points. So on medals, this is what I have found:


Medals provide stat bonuses as a means to increase stats of characters, thereby increasing the usefulness of soldiers the player may be attached to.

There are 3 main types of medals. Each individual DD Soldier can potentially accumulate all 3 for a maximum stat boost; however, they are required to be in the Combat Unit at least temporarily - despite the fact that medals increase all of a soldiers stats.


Distinguished Service Medal

Awarded to staff who participated in numerous missions, making significant contributions to the unit.

The Distinguished Service Medal is awarded one of three ways: *see note*

Completing an indeterminate amount of missions as a particular soldier.
Completing an indeterminate amount of dispatch/combat deployment missions.
Completing a Forward Operating Base invasion. Includes practice invasions against one's own FOB.

* NOTE - it appears this works on a points system, you need 9 points for the medal. So for main missions, S rank is 3 points, so do three of them and you got it. I would guess A is 2 points and so on. For combat deployment and FOB invasions im not sure about the breakdown - however be careful doing FOB because if he dies, you lose him as well as if you deploy him in combat missions. Easiest would be main missions or practice FOB, and besides if your base is decked out to the max, practice probably wouldnt hurt


Service Cross

Awarded to staff who fought through extreme conditions and returned alive. *see note*

This is given to soldiers who are kidnapped and then saved. Soldiers are kidnapped in certain missions, selected through systematic, but seemingly random methods. As such, this one is the most difficult to ascertain through controllable (currently known) methods.

Wandering puppets receive this medal upon extraction.

* NOTE - So I know all puppet soldiers get this automatically. What I don't know is about the one mission where one of your guys gets captured. I cant remember the specifics of it, but there is a prisoner and a DD soldier together who got captured or something like that. There might even be more than one. However I don't know if they actually come from your base and if so do they get this medal. If anyone can confirm this please let me know.
- the other method referred to is when your staff is captured by a rival, if you recover them, they will get this medal. Obviously this is the hardest medal to specifically shoot for unless we can find some of this out.


Medal of Honor

Awarded to staff who performed outstanding acts of combat in defense of base facilities. *see note*

This is given to soldiers who kill infiltrators in Forward Operating Base missions.

What I cant figure out about this is the following - does it require it be YOU controlling a combat member on a defender mission, or does anyone on your security team who takes out the rival automatically get this medal?


Any help or insight here, especially backed by an source, would be much appreciated

[Thicci Avocado]

FYI I sometimes see this breakdown as well

hree different medal types.
Service Cross:
1Puppet Soldiers extracted in the field get this, and any MB staff that gets taken hostage and rescued gets this in F.O.B.
2.Staff member completes dispatch missions
3. Staff member wins FOB invasions/practice invasions

Medal of Honor: Awarded to staff members who kill the infiltrators during FOB missions.

Distinguished Service Medal by doing missions as the person.


Difference being that the Service cross is also obtained by dispatch and FOB however I do not believe that is the case - I think they are all under the Distinguished Service Medal, but again any input would be delicious

[cedystic]

I highly doubt that they'll receive the MOHs offline when they take down a defender by AI, it probably has to be controlled if not the game should notify us that so and so soldier got a new medal upon start up defense successful

[Rauvoir]

Service Cross medals are given to Puppet Soldiers, and any DD soldier that gets put into Mission 17, 22, or 27. Missions 17 and 27 pull random staff from your Intel team (17 pulls 2, 27 pulls 1), and Mission 22 pulls 6 random staff from your R&D team. The mission will pull staff at random, so it's possible to get a staff member who has the Service Cross to appear in the mission (farming strategy is to clear out the entire team and add in staff you want to get the medal, and then move them out of the team every mission completion).

Another note about the Service Cross missions is they won't select from your special characters (Gray Mongoose a.k.a. Legendary Gunsmith) or women, meaning you won't be able to earn Service Crosses for them using this method. The only other method to get those characters Service Crosses is to have them be captured by a rival player and rescue them with a successful retaliation.

You got pretty much everything about the Distinguished Service medal. My preferred safe farming strategy is repeating Mission 4 by putting the starting LZ over the Comms Outpost. Use the chopper minigun to smash all three antennas, and fly out. Easy S-ranks and takes about 2 minutes total per run, from mission start to back to ACC.

Medal of Honor is awarded for getting the killshot on an invader. If the guards KS the invader, you're out of luck. It's not awarded to random AI staff that get the kill either, even during a successful defense on your own FOB. Had 3 successful defenses on my own FOB where the target was neutralized by gunfire, checked staff for medals, nobody had that specific medal.

[Thicci Avocado]

Originally posted by Rauvoir:

Service Cross medals are given to Puppet Soldiers, and any DD soldier that gets put into Mission 17, 22, or 27. Missions 17 and 27 pull random staff from your Intel team (17 pulls 2, 27 pulls 1), and Mission 22 pulls 6 random staff from your R&D team. The mission will pull staff at random, so it's possible to get a staff member who has the Service Cross to appear in the mission (farming strategy is to clear out the entire team and add in staff you want to get the medal, and then move them out of the team every mission completion).

Another note about the Service Cross missions is they won't select from your special characters (Gray Mongoose a.k.a. Legendary Gunsmith) or women, meaning you won't be able to earn Service Crosses for them using this method. The only other method to get those characters Service Crosses is to have them be captured by a rival player and rescue them with a successful retaliation.

You got pretty much everything about the Distinguished Service medal. My preferred safe farming strategy is repeating Mission 4 by putting the starting LZ over the Comms Outpost. Use the chopper minigun to smash all three antennas, and fly out. Easy S-ranks and takes about 2 minutes total per run, from mission start to back to ACC.

Medal of Honor is awarded for getting the killshot on an invader. If the guards KS the invader, you're out of luck. It's not awarded to random AI staff that get the kill either, even during a successful defense on your own FOB. Had 3 successful defenses on my own FOB where the target was neutralized by gunfire, checked staff for medals, nobody had that specific medal.

ok great so this was really helpful filling in the missing pieces. so the MOH can only be obtained if you are the defender and you go in as a combat member? That seems like it will be very hard to get a lot of those medals, especially because while you are defending any one of your crew could take out the invader. I wonder if there is anything more to this medal

and thanks alot for letting me know about the missions that it takes - because even if you wanted non R&D people to go you could just swap them out and put who you want in there.

thanks again - unless we hear more that seems to be everything.

[Rauvoir]

Originally posted by ebola.sniper:

ok great so this was really helpful filling in the missing pieces. so the MOH can only be obtained if you are the defender and you go in as a combat member? That seems like it will be very hard to get a lot of those medals, especially because while you are defending any one of your crew could take out the invader. I wonder if there is anything more to this medal

Yep, you gotta join in the defense and kill the invader to get the Medal of Honor. The staff member you pick will get the medal if you land the killing shot. Only managed to get it on 4 staff. Suicides robbed me of a few attempts and one invader got taken out by the guard after I pegged him a few times with a Serval.

[ZetaZaku]

And make sure to shoot the invader in his face. Instant Medal of Honor. I made the mistake of fultoning the invader a couple of times and wasted my chance of getting the medal.

[Thicci Avocado]

wow so you dont get it if you fulton him? I have a feeling this is something they will address because you should get it either way

[ZetaZaku]

I'm not sure if it's a bug or if it was just intended that way. Another user says you do get medals from fultoning, but you need to do it a couple times with the same character, which isn't worth it. From my experience, shot to the face is instant medal, so why risk?