Pax Autocratica soldiers are not interchangeable bodies. Their class affects range, weapon behavior, survivability and the support they add to a squad. The game also lets captured enemies become part of your colony and army, so understanding a class helps you decide both whom to deploy and whom to capture.
This guide separates three evidence levels:
- Officially named: the class or unit appears in official Steam material or patch notes.
- Community-observed: players describe the role or skill in the current Early Access build.
- Needs in-game verification: the name is known, but the exact effect or unlock condition is not publicly documented.
The official material does not currently provide a complete skill tree for every class. Exact skill text should be checked in the current game before being treated as confirmed.
Quick role overview
- Strike Force / Strike Squad: ranged generalist and area control. Players report a grenade at green quality and a projectile-blocking wall at blue. Evidence: community-observed.
- Medic: sustain and recovery. Heals the Leader or allied soldiers. Evidence: community-observed.
- Shieldmaster: shield support and durable frontline. Restores shields; a tier-five passive has been reported. Evidence: community-observed.
- Sniper: long-range single-target damage. Exact progression skills are not publicly documented. Evidence: officially named.
- Berserker: aggressive melee pressure. Exact progression skills are not publicly documented. Evidence: officially named.
- Cluster Shotgunner: close-range area damage. Mechanical versions are also reported as strong workers. Evidence: official name, observed role.
- Sattleri Energist: ranged energy or lightning specialist. Lightning effects were fixed in an official maintenance update. Evidence: officially named.
- Mechanical soldier: combat unit and efficient colony worker. Strong production and gathering skills are widely reported. Evidence: official category, observed work role.
- Gladiator: durable melee frontline. Reported to absorb close-range pressure well. Evidence: community-observed.
- Assassin: mobile melee damage. Appears fragile compared with heavier melee units. Evidence: community-observed.
- Ruinist: specialist ranged damage. Often described by players as mage-like. Evidence: community-observed.
- Sattleri Emissary: rare ranged specialist. Described as a stronger alternative to general ranged units. Evidence: community-observed.
Strike Force / Strike Squad
Role: reliable ranged damage, holding positions and controlling approaches.
Both "Strike Squad" and "Strike Force" appear in official text and community use. Check the exact English UI name in the current patch and treat the other as an alias.
Players report:
- a grenade becoming available at green quality;
- a projectile-blocking wall becoming available at blue quality;
- good performance when ordered to hold a firing position;
- enough range and survivability to work well with Medics.
This is the easiest class around which to build a simple ranged formation. It does not require the Leader to force melee enemies away from fragile specialists constantly.
Best use: general progression, defensive positions and unknown encounters.
Needs: healing, good firing angles and protection from flanking spawns.
Medic
Role: keep the squad operational during long battles.
Community players consistently treat Medics as a core expedition unit. Healing reduces the chance that an otherwise successful run ends because accumulated damage removes key soldiers.
The value of a Medic rises when:
- enemy strength is escalating;
- the squad contains rare or highly upgraded soldiers;
- the objective is a long Decisive Battle;
- the Leader's Core build needs time to reach full output.
Medics are less valuable if poor positioning causes them to die first. Use close follow while moving into danger, then place them behind the frontline when the battlefield allows it.
Best use: almost every long expedition.
Needs: protection and a squad that can control nearby enemies.
Shieldmaster
Role: restore shields and reduce pressure on the Leader or frontline.
Players report that Shieldmasters can regenerate allied shields and can be asked to restore the Leader's shield in a way similar to requesting healing. Community discussion also reports a later passive that can apply poison and increase damage taken, but that exact skill text and unlock condition require an in-game check.
Shieldmasters are most useful when the squad already has damage and needs more time to survive projectile-heavy encounters.
Best use: boss preparation, long runs and protecting ranged formations.
Needs: enough damage behind the shield support to end fights.
Sniper
Role: long-range priority target damage.
Sniper is an officially named class, but public official sources do not list its complete skill progression. Its weapon identity suggests use against exposed elites, ranged enemies and targets the frontline cannot reach safely.
Avoid surrounding a Sniper with too many units that force it to fight at close range. Use terrain and squad positions to preserve its firing distance.
Best use: open battlefields and dangerous single targets.
Needs: frontline control and protection from close-range attackers.
Berserker
Role: aggressive melee pressure.
Berserker is officially named as both a soldier type and a Scourgeborn unit in current public lists. Exact skills remain unverified here.
Melee classes can keep enemies occupied and may fit builds that benefit from close-range effects, but they are more exposed to area damage and AI pathfinding problems.
Best use: adding frontline pressure when support is already present.
Needs: healing, shield support and careful control around large projectile patterns.
Cluster Shotgunner and mechanical soldiers
Role: close-range spread damage, with mechanical units also contributing strongly at the colony.
Cluster Shotgunner is officially named. Community players describe robot or mechanical versions as effective in both combat and production, particularly mining, lumber, carrying and manufacturing.
This makes mechanical soldiers strategically valuable even when they are not part of the main squad. They can stabilize the workforce while organic specialists recover or deploy.
Best use: close-range infantry control or base labor.
Needs: a route into effective range and protection from distant threats.
Sattleri Energist
Role: energy or lightning specialist.
The class is officially named in an Early Access maintenance update that fixed its lightning effects. Public official text does not describe the entire kit, so avoid assigning exact damage or chaining behavior without an in-game tooltip.
Best use: classify after verifying the current skill panel; likely valuable where energy effects can pressure groups.
Needs: a current-patch skill-panel check before a detailed build can be written.
Capturable Scourgeborn and specialist classes
Publicly named hostile units include Gladiator, Gunfighter, Musketeer, Blaster, Berserker, Ravager, Chief Ravager, Gunner and Swift Blade. Community players also discuss Assassin, Ruinist and Sattleri Emissary units in their captured squads.
Gladiator
Players describe Gladiators as durable melee units capable of soaking up damage.
Use: frontline for mixed ranged squads.
Assassin
Players describe Assassins as dangerous melee damage dealers but comparatively fragile.
Use: flank or burst role only when the squad can protect a light melee unit.
Ruinist
Players describe Ruinists as mage-like ranged specialists.
Use: specialist damage; verify weapon and skill text before trusting a precise matchup.
Sattleri Emissary
Community discussion describes Emissaries as rare, powerful ranged units and a stronger alternative to basic ranged generalists.
Use: high-value ranged slot in a protected formation.
Ravager and Chief Ravager
The official AG-14 notes mention improved projectile and animation effects for the Scourgeborn Ravager. Exact recruitable behavior and skill progression require verification.
Names recorded, roles not yet documented
Musketeer, Gunfighter, Blaster, Gunner, and Swift Blade are publicly recorded roster names whose verified skill descriptions are not yet available in the public text this guide cites. Treat them as roster names without confirmed roles rather than inferring a role from the name alone.
Soldier quality and progression
Community class reports refer to quality tiers unlocking additional abilities, such as the Strike Force grenade and wall. Directive AG-12 also changed soldier management by adding an aging toggle, allowing exile and lowering upgrade point costs.
Do not assume that two soldiers of the same class are equally valuable. Compare:
- quality and unlocked abilities;
- combat traits;
- health and current injuries;
- colony work skills;
- negative social or loyalty traits;
- replacement difficulty.
A rare class with destabilizing traits may be less useful to the colony than a common class with reliable work and combat performance.
Character traits
Traits change what a soldier is worth to a squad and a colony: consumption, work output, movement, social conflict, morale, and loyalty. The full recorded trait list, from Loyal, Workaholic, and Runner on the useful side to Agitator, Venom-Tongued, and Black Cloud on the risky side, is kept in the colony management guide's citizen traits section, together with the management response to each category.
For squad decisions, weigh traits against the class itself:
- a rare class with destabilizing traits may be worth less than a common class that works reliably (see the quality comparison above);
- conflict-prone traits matter most where soldiers share transports and formations;
- movement and survival traits (Runner, Tough Fate) raise the value of dangerous-expedition slots.
Exact percentages and triggers are not published as numbers; read the current in-game tooltip for live values.
Class synergy templates
These are role templates for combining classes, not a universal tier list; objective-driven expedition squads are built in the expedition strategy guide.
Beginner-safe ranged squad
- Strike Force units as the main damage line;
- Medics for sustain;
- one Shieldmaster if available;
- the Leader supplies area damage through weapons or Cores.
This is straightforward to position and does not depend on many rare units.
Mixed frontline squad
- Gladiator or another durable melee unit;
- ranged generalists;
- Sniper or specialist ranged damage;
- Medics and shield support.
This keeps pressure away from the backline while preserving target priority.
High-value support squad
- rare ranged specialist;
- Shieldmaster;
- multiple healing sources where capacity permits;
- replaceable frontline units.
Use this for difficult objectives, but return before the support core becomes too damaged to protect.
Colony-first roster
- mechanical units assigned to high-value production and hauling;
- organic specialists assigned to research, food and flexible work;
- a separate expedition squad that does not remove every bottleneck worker.
This recognizes that soldier choice affects both halves of the game.
How to choose a capture target
Prioritize:
- a missing role, such as healing or shield support;
- a better-quality version of a class already proven useful;
- a rare specialist that fits current squad capacity;
- a mechanical unit that improves an active production bottleneck;
- a unit whose traits will not destabilize the colony.
Do not attempt every elite capture simply because the target is rare. Prison space, processing time and battlefield safety still matter.
The catching itself, including the capture squad template and AG-14's post-failure kill protection, is covered in the expedition strategy guide; what the colony must have ready before the prisoners arrive is in the colony management guide's prisoner section.
Sources and verification
- Official Steam store page: soldiers, orders and Early Access content.
- Official Steam News feed: class, unit and soldier-management names.
- Directive AG-12: soldier aging, exile and upgrade changes.
- Directive AG-14: Ravager effects and capture changes.
- Official subreddit class discussion: community-observed roles, skills and formations.
Verified Aug 26, 2026, against Directive AG-25. Class-specific skills beyond official patch wording remain community-observed until checked in game.