Mercenary Combat Dispatch Guide

This guide is for combat mercenaries taking /merc and /bounty contracts: hospitalizing real targets and securing chain bonuses, as opposed to loss-selling (where you are supposed to lose on purpose).

Becoming a merc

Merc work is for mercs staff have approved.

1. Link your Torn account in #get-started.
2. Press Apply as a Mercenary (or run /merc apply). Enter your hospitalization merits (0 to 10), whether you own a Stricken weapon, and anything about your merc experience. Relay reads your battle stats from your own key, so you don't type them.
3. Staff review it in #merc-applications and approve you at a tier (Budget, Standard, Premium or Stricken). You get a DM with the decision, the Mercenary role, and access to #merc-contracts.

You can claim contracts at your tier or below. New contracts ping the Mercenary role.

How this differs from loss selling

Taking a dispatch

1. Browse open dispatches with /merc board (or wherever the mercenary package lists them).
2. Claim one you can complete before it expires.
3. Go hospitalize the target using your normal loadout.
4. Relay verifies the hospitalization via the attack log, same verification pipeline used for loss selling, just checking for a different outcome.
5. Get paid automatically once verified.

Buying merc work

Every merc contract is paid up front from the buyer's Relay balance, so mercs are never working for an unfunded contract. Cancelling or having a contract rejected refunds every unclaimed hit, exactly once.

• Single target: /merc contract create for hospitalizations, keep-down windows, escapes and bounties. Pick a tier to use its price.
• War hits: /merc war faction:<id> total_hits:<n> hours:<window> pays per hospitalization on any member of that faction. Relay checks the defender's faction in the merc's attack log. Players on the protected list never count. When the window ends, unused hits are refunded automatically.

• From the website: the planner on the homepage has a Mercs option. Pick the job, tier, target (or faction) and window, then press Send to Discord or paste the code: /order new code:MH3P-T2107561 is 3 premium hospitalizations on that player. MK codes are keep-downs (-W6 = 6 hours) and MW codes are war hits (-F<faction>). Nothing is charged until you press Confirm.
• Retaliation cover: /merc retal hits:<budget> hours:<window> watches your attack feed (or your faction's with scope:My faction, which needs faction API access on your key). Whenever someone attacks, Relay posts a one-hit retal job on the attacker with a 5-minute window, paid from your budget. One job per attacker per 5 minutes (Torn's retal bonus only counts once), stealthed attackers can't be targeted, and anything unused comes back to you when the cover ends.
• Bounty placement: /bounty place target:<id> reward:<amount> has staff put a real bounty on Torn's board for you. You pay the reward, Torn's 50% listing fee (plus 50% for anonymity) and Relay's service fee up front; staff press Mark Placed (or Refund) and you get a DM, and another when the bounty leaves the board.

Hits that land just before a window closes are still paid, and hits a claim didn't deliver after the window closed are refunded automatically.

Hospital time is read from the target right after each verified hit and shown to both merc and buyer, so tier claims like "6h+ hosps" are backed by data. The web dashboard (/dashboard) shows each merc's average.

Chain bonuses

Torn's chain system rewards rapid, back-to-back successful attacks across your faction. As a dispatched mercenary:

• Time your hit to land inside an active chain window when possible - coordinate with faction leadership rather than guessing.
• Do not break a chain by attacking something that will not land a hit (e.g. a target already hospitalized by someone else). Check the target's status before you commit.
• Bonus payouts for chain-hits (if your server offers them) are on top of the base dispatch payout - check /merc board for any bonus tag.

Bounties

/bounty contracts are typically one-off, higher-value targets posted by a specific buyer (revenge, faction beef, etc.) rather than a standing queue. Read the bounty's notes carefully - some specify a minimum hospital time or a "no mug" clause even outside standard loss selling.

Safety and conduct

• Respect faction non-aggression / treaty status - Relay does not know your faction's diplomacy, you do.
• If a target retaliates or the situation escalates beyond a normal fight, use your own judgment and read community-guidelines.md before continuing.