Morale

**Morale** is an important gameplay mechanics in SWAT 4. As SWAT is a life saving organization that only uses lethal attacks as the last resort, draining suspects and civilians of their morale and force them to surrender (achieve compliance) while not incapacitating or killing them is a key consideration in passing missions at higher difficulties.

## Description

During each mission, the suspects and civilians will be spawned with a morale value between 0 to 2.0. Once the player or an AI SWAT officer targets a suspect or a civilian and shouts for compliance ('F' (default) key), the morale value will be checked to see if the suspect or the civilian is willing to surrender. If the check fails, then the suspects may feint surrender, attack or flee the scene, while civilians will stubbornly stand their ground and refuse to raise their hands. A morale value around 0.8 or greater will results in a subject that is very resistent to morale checks, while a value below 0.3 can results in a subject easily giving up without a fight. However, regardless of the morale value assigned to a target, the morale check is always carried out based on chance - as long as the target morale value is not equal to 0, there will always be a chance the subject will refuse to surrender.

If the morale check is successful and the subject surrendered with their hands raised, it is referred to as in a compliant state. Once a compliant subject is cuffed with a zip tie, it is considered to be in a secured (or arrested) state. A mission will not be considered completed until all subjects on the map are either secured, incapacitated or killed. It should be noted that, in practice, killing *any* suspects will result in a mission failure on Elite difficulty setting regardless of other factors, making morale management a key skill at higher difficulties.

An important thing to remember is that the morale value will only be checked at the moment a shout for compliance is yelled out. Mission critical suspects with no morale like Clark Jennings will still press their attacks if the shout is not yelled out, and it may trigger lethal retaliation and mission failure in return. Also if the player yells out the shout for compliance, the target must be visible and close to the center of targeting reticle for the morale check to happen. In the event that a morale check fails, the player can only re-roll the check by modifying the target morale then yell for compliance again.

Some barriers like the glass walls in Red Library Offices or the windowed doors in St. Michael's Medical Center will allow shout for compliance to be yelled out across them. Counter-intuitively, chain linked fences like the one in Victory Imports Auto Center will not allow morale checks to be carried out.

Suspect's morale can also increase in certain circumstances, such as when gunning down SWAT officers in a firefight or being left unobserved by SWAT officers after surrendering. In SWAT 4: The Stetchkov Syndicate, a surrendered suspect has a chance to flee the scene if their morale value manages to reach 1.0 (or 0.4 in SWAT: Elite Force), and the player will have to lower and recheck the suspect’s morale to force them to surrender again.

## Methods to Lower Morale

The game has several methods to lower suspect and civilian morale in order to increase the chance a morale check will succeed. When an event that lowers the morale of a target is triggered, it will take the current morale value of the target and *subtract* it by the morale modifier values per the table below. It is also possible to drop a target's morale value to negative if enough morale modifier are stacked.

Please note that the values in the table below are taken from suspects at max skill level. Lower skilled suspects and civilians will take heavier morale penalty when the following events are triggered. The "Stackable" column denotes whether the modifier value will multiply if multiple events of the same type have happened to the same target, while the "Permanent" column denotes whether the modifier will be permanently applied to a target's morale value instead of wearing off after a period of time.

Given that most suspects will spawn with their morale value set to around 1.0, applying Taser Stun Gun or Cobra Stun Gun against uncooperative subjects will almost always guarantee the morale check will succeed due to its massive morale modifier of 0.9.

## Changes in Elite Force

Aside from adjusting the morale modifier value per the table above, SWAT: Elite Force also ensured that applying less-lethal attacks against uncooperative civilians will now lower the morale for other unaffected civilians in close proximity. Also the mechanic of cardiac arrest has been introduced to lower the effectiveness of stun guns.

In the vanilla version of Mt. Threshold Research Center mission, the suspects can spawn with their morale values up to 9.0. This is almost nine times the average value when compared with other suspects in the game while making it almost impossible to subdue such suspects using less-lethal methods. The SEF version of the mission reset it back to 1.2.

## Trivia

* With the exception of bugs and quick mission maker, the character with the highest possible morale is Jean Trouffant. If Jean Trouffant manages to spawn with his max possible morale value of 1.5, he still stands a good chance to resist arrest even after being stunned by Taser or Cobra stun guns.