Black Market

The Black Market is the only way through which the player may obtain new Squad Leaders and Pilots, as well as directly acquire specific or rare Equipment. Similar to much of the trade in the Wayback System, it works on a barter basis[1] - sufficient looted and earned miscellanea can be exchanged for any item within a select stock, which itself rotates at the end of every Operation.

The Black Market Stock is split into three "sections", the manpower offerings - which includes the Small Recruitment Effort and the SL/Pilot Dossiers, that can be obtained once and twice per operation, respectively; the regular equipment stock - which has a wide range of progression-appropriate weapons, vehicles and accessories; and the Rare Items section - which will always offer rare or "further-than-progression" items, albeit at double the standard price.

For better prospects when trading, tools such as the Fixer OCI and Jean Sy's Trinketing perk may be of interest.

Rare Items & Progression-Dynamic Stock

Much like how Operation rewards improve over time, the Black Market will also offer stronger and rarer items more commonly as you progress. For example, one might have only seen the Medium Walker stocked in the Rare Items section only once or twice coming up on their 10th Operation, but will start seeing it every other rotation within the Vehicles section when nearing their 30th.

Black Market stock at Operation 1	Black market stock at Operation ~30
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The Monitor

According to TCRN intelligence, the Black Market is run by an individual known as Manidhar The Monitor. It is through him that The Major, or Lieutenant Hayflick, arranges the trades and pickups that happen between the TCRN Impetus and the Wayback's criminal underworld.

According to Hayflick, it would ordinarily be unacceptable for a TCR vessel to engage in these dealings, but due to the Impetus ' dire condition, bending the rules was the only option for survival.

The introductory message on the Black Market