Gray Zone Warfare Vendors: Reputation and 0.5 Guide

How Gray Zone Warfare Vendors Work in Rogue Ops

Gray Zone Warfare vendors connect your completed tasks to better equipment for your next deployment. Building reputation unlocks more gear and supplies, giving your mission choices a purpose beyond the immediate payout. Understanding Gray Zone Warfare vendors also helps you navigate Rogue Ops, where crafting, smuggling, and equipment found in the world expand your progression options.

Vendors sell equipment, buy eligible loot, and offer work that builds your standing with them. Their specialties give you different reasons to return: replacing protective equipment, supplying a weapon, or advancing toward another inventory tier.

Reputation is tracked separately for each vendor. Progress with one trader does not represent your relationship with everyone else, so choose your tasks with a particular equipment goal in mind.

Handshake and Gunny cover familiar equipment categories, while Vulture has an important access change in Update 0.5:

Vendor	Trading focus or access
Handshake	Protective equipment and carrying gear, including helmets, armor, backpacks, and tactical rigs
Gunny	Weapons, ammunition, magazines, weapon parts, and attachments, with a NATO weapon specialty
Vulture	Available through the standard vendor screen in Rogue Ops rather than through Combat Outposts

Use those specialties to narrow your shopping. Check Gunny when assembling a weapon and Handshake when replacing your carrying or protective equipment.

For Vulture, open the regular vendor interface. You no longer need to travel between Combat Outposts to reach him in Update 0.5.

The relationship between Gray Zone Warfare vendors and equipment is also less exclusive now. Vendor reputation still matters, but the Hideout introduces another route to useful items, and most weapons added in Rogue Ops are found throughout Lamang rather than purchased.

Official page: Gray Zone Warfare (grayzonewarfare.com)

Build Vendor Reputation Around Your Equipment Goals

Completing vendor tasks builds reputation and opens access to better supplies. Smuggling and hunting add more opportunities to earn money and improve vendor relationships in Rogue Ops.

Start by deciding what you need from progression. Pick a practical goal, such as access to equipment you regularly replace, then direct your attention toward the trader connected to it.

Avoid choosing every task reward solely by its cash value. When a decision involves competing vendors, compare the reputation outcome with the equipment you want to access.

Choose Between Vendors Deliberately

Earlier progression choices illustrate why a blanket “always side with this vendor” rule is too rigid.

In January 2025, level-three inventory included Delta backpacks from Turncoat, a large keyholder case from Banshee, and AK-308 magazines from Artisan. Those were different reasons to prioritize different traders.

Use those examples as a planning principle: identify a specific unlock before committing to a reputation grind. For Rogue Ops purchases, inspect the current vendor inventory rather than building your entire plan around an older item price or shopping list.

Handshake and Gunny also had substantial task opportunities in that earlier progression cycle. That history explains the temptation to favor other vendors during competing assignments, but Update 0.5 adds new tasks and activities to the picture.

Choose based on your current objectives and standing. Keep the gear you actually use at the center of the decision.

Account for Reputation Consequences

In Rogue Ops, your actions can improve or damage relationships with individual vendors. Smuggling and hunting therefore belong in the same planning process as ordinary tasks.

Before committing to an activity:

• Identify the vendor involved.
• Read the objective and any displayed consequences.
• Compare the reward with your current equipment goal.
• Gather the necessary resources before starting a timed contract.

Keep Gray Zone Warfare vendors on a short list of immediate priorities instead of trying to advance every relationship at once. Choose the equipment access you need next, then work toward it through the activities available to that character.

What Update 0.5 Changes About Buying and Crafting

Rogue Ops changes several purchasing habits that made sense before the update. Some items have moved into crafting, Vulture has moved into the regular interface, and new weapon acquisition emphasizes exploration.

These changes matter whenever you are deciding whether to spend money, keep a component, or head back into the field.

Item or system	Update 0.5 behavior
Vulture access	Uses the standard vendor screen; no longer tied to Combat Outposts
Tracking Tags	No longer sold by vendors and must be crafted
Stims	No longer sold by vendors; crafting provides a route to obtaining them
Most newly added weapons	Found throughout the world rather than purchased from vendors
High-value loot	Spawns less frequently as part of the economy rebalance

Stop searching vendor inventories for Tracking Tags and Stims. Move those needs into your crafting plans.

For the seven added weapon platforms—AUG, Benelli M4, G3, G36, FAMAS, UMP, and Glock 18C—plan around exploration as well as shopping. Most new weapons enter your inventory through the world, and rare weapon builds have low drop rates.

Give Loot a Purpose Before Selling It

The Hideout makes more items useful beyond their sale value. Building rooms, upgrading equipment, producing substances, and assembling components all create reasons to retain materials.

The Electronics Workshop supports disassembly, modification, and assembly of mechanical and electronic components. Certain items can be dismantled into parts used for crafting hacking tools or completing tasks.

Check those uses before selling something simply because it looks like miscellaneous loot.

Crafting recipes must be unlocked before you can produce their items. Crafting itself is almost immediate, while production and disassembly take longer. Separate those processes when preparing for a session; an item entering production is a different commitment from an immediately crafted tool.

Connect the Hideout to Vendor Work

The Laboratory produces specialized substances, including medical products and drugs. Some of its products are required for vendor smuggling contracts.

The Utility Room supplies electricity for Hideout equipment and supports the other rooms. Each of the three rooms has three upgrade levels in this initial Hideout implementation.

Plan Gray Zone Warfare vendors and Hideout development together. Keep ingredients for a contract you intend to run, and check your crafting requirements before turning a full bag of materials into cash.

Use Smuggling and Hunting to Expand Your Progression

Smuggling and hunting offer additional ways to earn money and build vendor reputation in Rogue Ops. Each vendor offers different opportunities, and the activities connect field operations with resources collected or produced beforehand.

Image: Steam / MADFINGER Games, a.s.

Smuggling starts with preparation. You must gather the required resources and contraband before accepting the contract.

After handing the contraband to the corresponding vendor, you receive a marked pickup location for a smuggling backpack. That backpack is visibly recognizable, making its carrier a potential target.

Contract stage	Required action or rule
Preparation	Gather the required resources and contraband before accepting
Vendor handoff	Give the contraband to the corresponding vendor
Shipment pickup	Collect the smuggling backpack at the marked location
Delivery	Reach the designated smuggling zone and deposit the shipment
Deadline	Complete the transport within one hour of accepting the contract
Failure conditions	Death, expiration of the timer, or placing the backpack in another player’s stash

The one-hour timer begins when you accept the contract. Finish your resource gathering beforehand, and leave enough playtime for the delivery.

Keep the backpack’s failure conditions in mind throughout the trip. Placing it in another player’s stash ends the contract in failure; it is not a way to preserve the shipment for later.

Death also fails the contract. Treat staying alive as part of the delivery objective when deciding whether to take an optional fight along the way.

Understand the Difference Between Modes

In Warfare, the PvEvP mode, smugglers and hunters have opposing objectives. A shipment creates a reason for other players to intercept its carrier.

In Joint Operations, the PvE mode, hunting activities involve regular AI enemies.

Choose activities with that distinction in mind. In Warfare, account for the backpack’s visibility when planning your movement. In Joint Operations, prepare for the AI combat involved in hunting.

Keep equipment replacement costs in view, too. A contract payout has practical value only alongside the resources and gear you commit to attempting it.

Gray Zone Warfare vendors now give you reasons to move between task completion, resource collection, Hideout production, and deliveries. Pick the activity that advances your current goal rather than accepting timed work before you have its materials ready.

Protect Your Vendor Progress Through the Soft Wipe

Update 0.5 uses a soft wipe rather than restarting all progression. Returning players retain their vendor levels, completed tasks, rank, unlocked apparel, and statistics from Update 0.4.

Their locker contents and money are wiped.

That split changes your return to Lamang: you keep your established progression, but you still need to rebuild your equipment and funds.

Progress or resource	Update 0.5 transition
Vendor levels	Retained from Update 0.4
Completed tasks	Retained
Rank, unlocked apparel, and statistics	Retained
Locker contents	Wiped
Money	Wiped
Existing character progression	Transferred to the selected mode; faction remains unchanged

When first entering the Supporter Preview or full release of Update 0.5, you choose which mode receives your existing character progression. That choice is irreversible.

Choose carefully before transferring a character with developed vendor relationships. PvE and PvEvP progression are separate in Rogue Ops.

Your account can hold up to four playable characters, each with a selected faction and mode. You cannot have two characters with the same faction-and-mode combination simultaneously, and character deletion is limited to one per week.

For a returning character, inspect your retained vendor access before spending your rebuilt funds. Buy toward a usable loadout and check crafting needs alongside equipment purchases.

For a new character, build your plan around the tasks and vendor opportunities available to that character. Separate progression makes the character you select an important part of your next session’s goals.

FAQ

How do you level up Gray Zone Warfare vendors?

Complete tasks to earn vendor reputation and unlock better equipment and supplies. Rogue Ops also introduces smuggling and hunting activities that provide additional opportunities to build vendor relationships.

Where is Vulture in Update 0.5?

Vulture is accessible through the standard vendor screen. Rogue Ops removes his connection to Combat Outposts, so you no longer need to visit those locations to trade with him.

Can you buy Stims and Tracking Tags from vendors?

Neither is sold by vendors in Update 0.5. Tracking Tags must be crafted, and crafting also provides a way to obtain Stims. Include their materials in your Hideout plans.

Did the Rogue Ops wipe reset vendor levels?

No. The soft wipe retains vendor levels and other progression from Update 0.4 while wiping money and locker contents. You choose which mode receives your existing character progression, and that selection is irreversible.