The Recruits system allows you to build your own squad of AI-controlled resistance fighters in Overthrow. These recruits can follow you into battle, help with operations, and grow stronger over time.
There are two ways to recruit civilians into your resistance:
- Approach any civilian on the street
- Look for the "Recruit Civilian" option in the interaction menu
- Cost: $250 (default, may vary by difficulty settings)
- The civilian will immediately join your group
- Build a Recruitment Tent at any FOB or captured base (it is a buildable, and paid for once when you build it)
- Access the tent to recruit from nearby town supporters
- Cost: $125 per recruit (50% discount compared to street recruitment)
- Requires: Available supporters in the nearest town
- Each recruit hired this way uses up one of that town's supporters, so heavy recruiting eats into the support you have built there
- Recruits hired at a tent appear beside the tent, in front of it and on the ground, whichever way the tent was built
The tent carries a second action, Buy Equipped Recruit, which hires a recruit that arrives already wearing one of your saved loadouts. See Equipped Recruits below.
Buy Equipped Recruit is a held action on the recruitment tent's table, beside the ordinary Recruit Civilian action. It opens your Loadout Manager list in a purchase mode: the same loadouts, the same selection, plus a price.
Selecting a loadout asks the server for a quote, and the details pane and the Buy button fill in with it (something like "12 items, $2,140 equipped"). The price is:
- What that gear would cost at a shop near the tent, item by item, including the contents of containers and the attachments on weapons. Local stock and your own trader perk are already in that number, so the same loadout is not the same price everywhere
- plus a convenience fee on the gear, a multiplier the server's difficulty settings carry (the shipped presets run from a little over the shop price to well over it)
- plus the ordinary tent recruit cost, because an equipped recruit is a tent recruit that happens to arrive dressed
The whole thing is worked out on the server, so the number on the button is the number that is taken.
- The recruit spawns beside the tent, wearing and carrying the loadout, and joins your squad
- One supporter is taken from the nearest town, exactly as a plain tent recruit takes one
- It uses one of your 16 recruit slots
The purchase is refused with a reason, and nothing spawns and no money moves, if you are not at a tent, you are at the recruit cap, the nearest town has no supporter to give, you cannot afford the quote, or the loadout records no items. A loadout holding something the shops do not stock cannot be priced at all and is refused by name, rather than guessed at.
Two things are charged differently from the quote, both in your favour: if nothing spawns you are charged nothing, and if the recruit arrives but not one piece of the kit could be issued, only the ordinary recruit cost is taken. A kit that arrives partly pays the quoted price, which is the price you read before pressing the button.
Only your own loadouts are reachable, and only you can spend your money on them.
- Open the Main Menu (U Key on PC)
- Select "Manage Recruits"
- View all your recruited fighters in one place
- Rename: Give your recruits custom names to identify them easily
- Dismiss: Remove unwanted recruits from your squad (with confirmation)
- Show on Map: Mark the selected recruit's position on your map
- Hold Position / Follow Me: Take the selected recruit out of your squad so it holds where it stands, or bring it back (G on the keyboard, Left Trigger on a gamepad)
- Status Tracking: See each recruit's level, experience, kills, home town, and whether they are currently in the world along with how far away they are
The roster is split into an Active section for the recruits following you and a Holding Position section for the ones you have parked. A header above the list shows how many of your 16 slots are in use, and each row carries small status icons for whether that recruit is armed, whether it still has ammunition, and whether it is wounded.
- Maximum of 16 recruits per player (a fixed limit, not a difficulty setting)
- Recruits holding position still count towards the limit
- Plan your squad composition carefully
¶ Commanding Your Recruits
¶ Using the Command Menu
- Open the command menu using the ~ key (tilde) on PC
- Issue orders to all your recruits
- Use standard Arma commands:
- Move to position
- Follow me
- Stop/Hold position
- Engage/Hold fire
A special command allows you to open a recruit's inventory remotely:
- Open the command menu (~) while looking directly at a recruit
- Choose the "Open Inventory" command to manage their equipment
A recruit you own can be parked where it stands, so it stops following you without leaving your roster.
- Tell to Hold Position is a short held action on the recruit itself (about a second and a half). The same thing can be done with the toggle button on the Manage Recruits screen.
- Tell to Follow Me is an even shorter held action that brings the recruit back into your squad.
A recruit that is holding position:
- Leaves your group and waits where it stands rather than wandering off, and returns fire if it is attacked
- Shares one AI group with any of your other parked recruits within about 50m, so a garrison of five does not become five one-man squads
- Still belongs to you and still uses one of your 16 recruit slots
- Is not taken along when you fast travel, and does not add to the fare
- Stays behind when you join another player's group, and is left alone when you leave it again
- Is back where you left it, still holding position, after a save is loaded
A recruit sitting in a vehicle cannot be told to hold position. The action stays visible and tells you why, rather than disappearing.
Recruits following you within about 50m are taken along when you fast travel on foot. Each one adds another fare of the same size to the trip, so moving a full squad costs considerably more than moving alone. Recruits that are holding position stay where they are and are not charged for.
The map has a Recruits layer that draws a marker for every recruit you own.
- Recruits following you are drawn at full strength; recruits holding position are dimmed
- A badge on the marker shows whether the recruit is armed, and whether it still has ammunition for what it is carrying. An unarmed recruit has no badge
- The layer can be switched off from the map's layer panel, and that choice is remembered between sessions
- A player with no recruits gets no Recruits row in the panel at all
Markers cover recruits that are far away as well as the ones beside you, so a parked garrison can be checked on without walking back to it.
¶ Recruits and Player Groups
Added in v1.4. See Player Groups for the full rules.
Recruits are owned by a player, not by a group. They follow you into whatever group you are in.
If you join another player's group, that group's leader can command your recruits alongside the rest of the group's AI. Ownership never changes hands: dismissing, renaming, opening inventory, applying loadouts, showing on the map and kill XP all stay with you.
When you leave the group, switch groups, disconnect or reconnect, your recruits come back with you. None are left behind under the old leader's command.
Recruits you hire while in a shared group join that shared group.
Recruits that are holding position are the exception in both directions: they are not handed to the other group's leader when you join, and nothing happens to them when you leave.
Recruits hired the ordinary way start with civilian clothing and no weapons. You'll need to equip them:
- Manual Equipment: Give them weapons and gear from the ground or nearby containers using the "Open Inventory" command
- Loadout System: Use the Loadout Manager to save and apply equipment configurations. A saved loadout can be applied to one selected nearby recruit or to every nearby recruit at once
- Swap Gear: A short held action on a recruit that is following you, usable from close by, which exchanges your entire kit with theirs
- Buy them equipped: at a recruitment tent, a recruit can be bought already wearing a saved loadout. See Equipped Recruits
Swap Gear trades your whole loadout for the recruit's: clothing, armour, rucksack and weapons, along with whatever is inside them. It is the quick way to hand a well-equipped body to the fighter who needs it, or to take a captured kit off a recruit that carried it home for you.
The exchange moves the real items rather than copying them, so nothing can be created or destroyed by it. If a piece will not fit the place it belongs, it is stowed somewhere else or, at worst, left on the ground, and the message afterwards tells you the swap was only partial.
A recruit that is holding position does not offer the action. Bring it back into your squad first.
- Recruits can use any weapons and equipment available to players
- Consider their role when equipping them (sniper, assault, support)
- Don't forget ammunition, medical supplies, and armor
¶ Experience and Levels
Recruits earn experience of their own for killing occupying faction soldiers, and gain levels as that experience adds up. You are notified when one of your recruits levels up, and the management screen shows each recruit's level, progress towards the next one, and lifetime kill count.
Recruits also inherit their commander's Stealth skill when the occupying faction works out how far away it can spot them, so levelling your own Stealth makes your whole squad harder to pick out. See Skills.
- Recruits follow the same wanted system as players
- They won't be targeted when unarmed unless in restricted areas
- A recruit holding position stays on the ground it is standing on and returns fire if it is attacked, rather than chasing
- Permanent death - recruits do not respawn
- Dead recruits are automatically removed from your roster, freeing a slot
- Their equipment can be looted from their bodies
- Recruit wisely and protect your fighters
Your recruits are saved between game sessions:
- They'll respawn when you log back in
- Their equipment and inventory are preserved
- Position and health status are maintained
- Recruits that were holding position come back holding position, where you left them
- Recruits despawn 10 minutes after you log out (to reduce server load)
- Start Small: Begin with 2-3 recruits to learn the system
- Equip Properly: Well-equipped recruits are much more effective
- Use Cover: Command recruits to use buildings and cover in combat
- Mixed Roles: Create a balanced squad with different weapon types
- Recruitment Tents: Build these at your bases for cheaper recruitment, and for buying recruits that arrive already kitted out
- Garrison What You Take: Parked recruits hold ground without eating your attention, and they are still on the roster if you want them back
- Protect Your Squad: Remember, death is permanent
- Each player manages their own recruits
- Recruits are tied to your persistent player ID
- The map layer and the roster show only your own recruits
- Only your own saved loadouts can be bought at a tent, and they are priced and paid for on the server
- Other players cannot command your recruits, unless you join their group, in which case that group's leader commands them for as long as you are in it. See Player Groups
The recruit system will continue to evolve with planned additions:
- Specialized training options
- Squad-based operations
- Automated patrol assignments
- Player Groups - Squad up with other players
- Loadout Manager - Save and apply equipment configurations to your recruits
- FOB - Learn how to establish forward-operating bases where you can build Recruitment Tents
- Skills - Stealth and the other player skills, including the one your recruits borrow
- Economy - Understand how to earn money for recruitment and equipment