Signal Ops is a game I often had to figure out the hard way, the game's obscurity means there's (at the time of creation of this guide) no youtube playthoughs and the only guide was in Japanese and often lacked what I needed at times.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=303182840

(Here is that guide since it covers every mission.)


This guide is not aimed at walking you through every single mission but instead to help you properly understand certain elements quicker and have walkthroughs specifically for sections where it's easy to get stuck. (Either where I got stuck or anyone who has asked for more info than that guide tries to provide.)

Signal Ops doesn't go in-depth into it's weaponry and item either in the game or manual (though the manual does show which Agents are good with which weapons so check that out!) so this section will aim to help you make better decisions regarding which items to use and when:

(NOTE: Every single weapon has much increased accuracy if the Agent using them is both crouched and using iron sights, keep that in mind as weapons like the Assault Rifle are borderline unusable on the move but far better if used when crouched and aiming with the proper agents.)

Weaponry

Revolver
The basic sidearm available to all agents and the only firearm that Bolt will start a mission with, it's not alot but it's surprisingly accurate and dangerous when used while crouched and aimed.

Submachine Gun
The default weapon of Demo and alternative primary weapon of Wrench, the Submachine Gun is not particularly effective, it has more range than the shotgun but low damage and has the same extreme inaccuracy as the assault rifle if you try to move when shooting.

Shotgun
The default weapon of Wrench, the Shotgun holds only 2 shells at once but it hits hard, it's good for clearing out buildings but you'll want Wrench to pick up something else for longer ranges.

Rifle
It holds only 3 shots but it does decent damage and is semi-automatic, Scope and Shield can take it as their alternative primary weapons but I feel the Sniper Rifle and Assault Rifle are far better, I suggest only using it when taken from enemies for other agents.

Sniper Rifle
The default weapon of Scope, always take it if you are bringing scope as while it only holds one shot, that one shot is enough to instantly kill every enemy aside from an armoured military soldiers and it's scope and high accuracy make it far more effective than the regular rifle.

Assault Rifle
The default weapon of Shield and what I recommend you use only as him,it does heavy damage fast (so watch out for enemies using it!) but it has extremely bad accuracy when used on the move, set up in a position and use it like a machine gun.


Items

Powerfinder
The "Main" weapon of Bolt, the Powefinder can be looked at with aiming in order to find power sources which is extremely invaluable, do not drop it or if you need to for whatever reason, do not lose sight of it.

You can also zap enemies with primary fire so it doubles as a melee weapon.

Melee Weapons
Knives, Wrenches and Scissors all function as identical melee weapons, you press primary fire and it instantly killls all non-heavy armour enemies and Scope can throw them for a stealthy ranged kill with the secondary fire.

More importantly, all melee weapons (and the Powerfinder) do not alert civilians if they see you with them which is pretty useful.

If an Agent dies and is replaced by a Reinforcement then they'll come into the field carrying only a knife.

Monocular
Honestly the most useless item outside of a niche use in one mission (which provides you one anyway), the Monocular is only available by having Scope take it and why would you do that when he already has a sniper rifle with a scope, I simply don't see any reason to take this over either the Revolver or Knife for scope as it's redundant as long as he has his rifle.

Bomb
Created by Demo picking up weapons, (holding action instead of tapping it) the bomb is somewhat useful.

You can place it on doors to blow up wooden doors/booby trap doors (If you have an upgraded bomb, it will revert 1 level but you'll still keep it.) though enough gunfire on it's own will open wooden doors, the bomb is faster (just stand back before shooting it!) and can kill anyone inside near the blast.

This is where I'll give you tips for any parts of missions that I found tricky: (or that anyone asks for help with)


Second Mission
One of the notes you need to collect is found through a window that you have to "climb" (by walking into it) on a bed to get to.


Fifth Mission
Signal Flares will only call in an strike if they land in a window or ontop of a truck, in addition the bonus objective suitcase will be destroyed if it's not collected first as the house it's located in is in the way of the strikes.

However if you're truly stuck, you can destroy both trucks and the houses with enough gunfire.

Sixth Mission
Oh boy, this one.

Don't worry about the parade being shot up, the car can only be disabled and not destroyed, so hang back and keep your troops safe.

Also the cloth windows that (thankfully) only appear in this mission somehow function as one-way bullet proof glass, so you'll have to break into the buildings that these snipers are in so you can take them out.

Eighth Mission
You need to control agents "indirectly" (by holding their number while playing as another agent) to beat this one.

You can use the forklifts that only appear in this mission to lift crates.

Ninth Mission
The tank that comes needs two of Demo's bombs in order to be destroyed so you're already done for if you don't plant two bombs where it parks on the left before it fires at the gates. (and it seems the bombs need to be practically ontop of the tank in order to destroy it)

It also seems to be immune to gunfire, thankfully according to the Japanese Guide, it only shows up once so if you're too slow and have to deal with it, you can at least rest easy once it's dealt with once.

Some of the switches that look like Alarm Panels are actually switches that you need to interact with to beat the mission. (You technically interacted with these in the tutorial but you probably forgot at this point.)