How to Carry Heavy Scrap in Lethal Company — Trips, Weight, Hands

The 84 lb problem

Lethal Company’s scrap table has 7 items at 30 lbs or more, and they are not a rounding error — they are 328 lbs and 590 credits between them, or 1.80 credits per pound. The four best light items in the same table return 10 to 14 credits per pound. That is the entire argument about heavy scrap, and it is settled before you leave the ship.

Everything below is read from src/data/lethalcompany-scrap.json, parsed from lethalcompany.wiki.gg and cached in this repository. The weights and values are the game’s own table values, not estimates.

The heavy seven, priced honestly

Read that table by the last column and the tier collapses. Nothing here reaches 3 credits per pound. The best of the seven, Panting at 2.94, is still a quarter of what Coffee Mug returns at 9.00.

Four of the seven are also two-handed — Cash Register, Chemical Jug, Apparatus and Panting. That combination is what actually kills divers: not the weight on its own, but weight plus no free hand for a light or a weapon.

Why two-handed heavy is a different category

Think of it as three separate costs stacked on one item:

1. Speed. 84 lbs is 4.2 times the weight of a full four-item light haul (20 lbs, 244 credits).
2. Tools. Two-handed means no flashlight, so you are navigating a dark facility by memory.
3. Fight. No free hand means no shovel, no stun, no answer to anything at 70% hazard.

Any one of those is survivable. All three at once, in a corridor, with an indoor median hazard of 70%, is how a 119-credit item turns into a wiped run.

By contrast the Gold Bar is 77 lbs and one-handed. That single flag makes it a legitimate carry: you keep your light, you keep a free hand, and you only pay the speed penalty. It is still a bad ratio at 2.01, but it is a bad ratio you can survive.

Trip maths: one heavy load versus two light ones

The comparison that matters is not item against item, it is load against load.

The four-item light haul pays 244 credits for 20 lbs. The two-heavy haul pays 274 for 161 lbs. Thirty more credits for eight times the weight is not a trade — it is a different game, played at half speed.

This is why the practical unit is the 470-credit trip: ten items at the table’s 47.0 average. You can hit that number with light scrap and still move. The quota guide turns that into a per-day plan.

Staging: how to move an 84 lb item

You cannot make the Cash Register light. You can make the distance shorter.

1. Clear the route first. Walk the corridor to the exit empty-handed. Note every turn. This costs you one pass and saves three.
2. Move in segments. Carry the item one room, drop it, go back for nothing, continue. Each segment is short enough that you can sprint out if something appears.
3. Never stage in a dead end. Drop points should have two ways out, because the item will be there when you come back and so might something else.
4. Use a second diver as a spotter. One carries, one watches the corridor. This is the only reliable way to move the 84 lb item, and the co-op guide covers the role split.
5. Stage at the door, then load once. The last 20 metres are the ones with the ship in sight and the least risk.

Staging converts an 80-metre crawl into two 40-metre walks with a rest in between. The distance is the same; the exposure is not, because you are only slow for half of it.

Which heavy items actually earn the trip

Not all seven are equal. Ranked by whether the trip is worth it:

Worth it near the exit: Gold Bar (155, 77 lbs, one-handed). The highest average value in the file, and the only heavy item that keeps a hand free while paying 155 credits.

Worth it with a partner: Panting (91, 31 lbs, two-handed) and Apparatus (80, 31 lbs, two-handed). Both are decent value at a moderate weight, and both need a second diver to be safe.

Marginal: Chemical Jug (57, 32 lbs, two-handed) and Heart (61, 31 lbs, one-handed). The Heart keeps your hands free, which makes it the better of the two at almost identical value.

Never: Yield Sign (27, 42 lbs, 0.64 per lb) and Cash Register (119, 84 lbs, 1.42 per lb). The Yield Sign is the second-worst ratio among real loot in the entire table; the Cash Register is the heaviest item in the game and two-handed.

Player Body sits outside this tier at 11 lbs and 5 credits (0.45 per lb), and it is the worst ratio in the file by a distance. It is not heavy scrap. It is a marker.

The abandon rule

Carrying heavy scrap is a decision you re-make every room, not once at pickup.

Drop it when any of these is true:

• A 70%+ entity is confirmed. Six of sixteen indoor rows are in that band; the run is now an exit run and the item is ballast.
• You cannot see the exit and you are moving slowly. Distance plus weight is the fatal combination.
• You are holding a two-handed heavy and something is between you and the door. Cash Register, Chemical Jug, Apparatus, Panting — all four go.
• The load is over 100 lbs total. At that point you are slower than the threat you are trying to outrun.

None of those rules needs a percentage you cannot compute. Weight is printed on every item, and the 70% list is six names long. The survival guide covers the stamina and exit side in more depth.

What the table cannot tell you

The scrap file has no distance, no stamina value and no movement speed. Any guide that quotes “you lose 30% speed at 50 lbs” is inventing a number, because that figure is not in lethalcompany-scrap.json.

What the file does give you is a clean ranking: 84 lbs is heavier than 77, which is heavier than 42, and the credits attached do not scale with the weight. That ordering is enough to make every decision on this page. The scrap guide has the full 70-row table if you want to check an item’s flags yourself.

Related guides

• Scrap guide — all 70 items with weight and flags.
• Survival guide — drop order and exit discipline.
• Co-op guide — two-diver carries for the 84 lb items.
• Quota guide — building a 470-credit trip.
• Best scrap tier list — heavy items ranked against light ones.