Day one is a weight problem, not a combat problem
Your first day in Lethal Company does not fail because a monster is too strong. It fails because you pick up an 84 lb Cash Register worth 119 credits and cannot walk to the ship. The scrap table is blunt about this: the heaviest item in the file pays 1.42 credits per pound, and the best carrier pays 14.60. That is a ten-fold difference in what your hands are worth.
Everything in this guide comes from src/data/lethalcompany-scrap.json (70 items) and src/data/lethalcompany-monsters.json (25 entities), both parsed from lethalcompany.wiki.gg. No numbers are invented, and where the files are silent this guide says so.
The first-day numbers
Five figures are enough to plan a beginner run:
- 70 scrap items in the table, average 47.0 credits, median 44.
- 24 of 70 items weigh 0 lbs — a third of the table costs nothing to carry.
- 16 of 70 items are two-handed — they take both hands and leave you unable to fight.
- 10 items at average value is roughly 470 credits, a realistic first-day haul.
- 6 of 16 indoor entities rate 70%+, and the indoor median is 70%.
If you remember one thing: your quota is a small number of light items, not a large number of heavy ones.
Six items worth learning on day one
These six are the top of the ratio column, and every one of them is light enough to run with.
| Item | Avg value | Weight | Credits per lb | Hands |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toilet Paper | 73 | 5 lbs | 14.60 | Two |
| Easter Egg | 37 | 3 lbs | 12.33 | One |
| Hairdryer | 79 | 7 lbs | 11.29 | One |
| Old Phone | 55 | 5 lbs | 11.00 | One |
| Coffee Mug | 45 | 5 lbs | 9.00 | One |
| Red Soda | 53 | 7 lbs | 7.57 | One |
Learn the shapes and colours of those six and you will out-earn most beginners without ever learning a monster’s name. Four of them — Toilet Paper, Easter Egg, Hairdryer, Old Phone — total 244 credits at 20 lbs. That is a first day, done.
One caution on Toilet Paper: it beats Hairdryer on ratio, 14.60 against 11.29, but it is two-handed, so you cannot hold a flashlight while carrying it. On your first run, prefer the one-handed items until you are confident in the layout.
Five items to leave on the floor
These are the beginner traps. They look like money and they are, technically — just not enough of it for the weight.
| Item | Avg value | Weight | Credits per lb |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash Register | 119 | 84 lbs | 1.42 |
| Big Bolt | 25 | 19 lbs | 1.32 |
| Gift Box | 19 | 19 lbs | 1.00 |
| Yield Sign | 27 | 42 lbs | 0.64 |
| Player Body | 5 | 11 lbs | 0.45 |
The Cash Register is the classic first-day mistake. It has the second-highest average value in the file and the worst weight in the file. A beginner sees 119 credits; the table sees 84 lbs, a two-handed flag and a slow walk through a facility whose median threat rating is 70%.
Player Body is not loot at all. Five credits for 11 lbs means it exists in the table as a marker of where someone died. Leave it and remember the spot.
The three entity facts worth memorising
You do not need the full bestiary on day one. You need the three rows that have real numbers in them, because those are the only entities with documented stats:
| Entity | Hazard | Power | HP | Hitboxes | Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bracken | 70% | 3 | 5 | 2 | 1 |
| Jester | 90% | 3 | Invincible | 2 | 1 |
| Nutcracker | N/A | 1 | 5 | 1 | 10 |
The Jester cannot be fought. Its HP field reads “Invincible”, its power is 3, and its own log entry says “You cant hide from it, just evacuate.” When the music stops, you leave. That is the whole strategy.
The Bracken can be fought, but only once. Five HP across two hitboxes, capped at one spawn. The catch is in its log: “brackens are known to up their hostility when cornered or simply watched for a long time.” Glance at it, do not stare, and do not let it corner you.
The Nutcracker is the exception to every rule. Hazard field N/A, HP 5, one hitbox, and a max of 10 — the highest spawn cap in the file. It is the easiest single kill and the most likely to appear in numbers. On day one, treat it as a “walk away” until you can land a clean hit.
Everything else indoors has an empty HP field. Empty is not “weak”. It means no kill threshold is recorded, so no beginner should be planning a fight around it.
The first-day route
This is the order the data supports, and it does not change much as you improve.
- Read the terminal before you leave the ship. Write down the target. Divide by 47 — that is your item count.
- Take one light source and nothing heavy. 24 items weigh nothing; start there.
- Clear the first two rooms properly. Low-band entities (Spore Lizard 5%, Hoarding Bug 0%) live near scrap piles.
- Bank at ten items or at the first 70%+ sighting, whichever comes first.
- Walk the haul back before you go deeper. Do not carry 470 credits into a third corridor.
- Sell, then re-read the terminal. The next target is set from the sale, so the loop only works if you actually sell.
Step 4 is the one beginners skip. The indoor hazard median is 70%, which means the moment you have a real haul in your hands, the odds of an encounter you cannot win start to matter more than the odds of finding one more Toilet Paper.
What the numbers do not cover
Two things matter on day one and neither is in the data files: the layout of the facility you land in, and how long the day lasts. The scrap and monster tables cannot tell you where the fire exit is or how much daylight is left.
So the honest guidance is: use the table for what to pick up, and use the exit for when to stop. A beginner who banks 470 credits on day one and survives has done better than one who banks 700 and loses it in a corridor. The survival guide covers the exit discipline, and the how to find the exit page covers the navigation habits.
If you want to go deeper on the item side, the scrap guide has all 70 rows and the best scrap tier list ranks them into bands.
Related guides
- Scrap guide — all 70 items ranked by credits per pound.
- Enemy guide — the full 25-entity table.
- Indoor monsters — why the facility median is 70%.
- Quota guide — sizing the haul to the target.
- First day checklist — the same plan as a tick list.