The exit is the most important object in the facility, and it is the one crews think about least.
You cannot sell scrap you cannot carry out, and every minute spent looking for the door is a minute with loot in your hands. Finding the exit early is not caution. It is the whole job.
Fire exit first
When the crew lands, the first move is not to loot. It is to walk to the fire exit and confirm it opens.
The fire exit is the closest thing to a guaranteed way out, and knowing where it is turns every later decision into a simple one. You always know how far you are from safety, which means you always know how long you can afford to stay.
Crews that skip this step spend the rest of the trip with a number they do not know.
The exit is not the entrance
The way in is the way the building is designed to be walked into. The way out is whichever door is nearest the loot.
Facilities have a main entrance and usually a fire exit, and they are not in the same place. A crew that loots the far wing and then walks all the way back to the entrance has spent ten minutes it did not need to spend, loaded, in the dark.
Plan the exit before you plan the route. Decide which door you are leaving through, then loot toward it.
Use the exit as the rally point
The fire exit is where the crew regroups, not where the haul is staged.
If somebody gets separated, the answer is “meet at the fire exit,” because it is a fixed point everybody already knows. That single rule prevents more deaths than any amount of coordination over the radio.
It is also where you drop loot you are not carrying yet, because a pile at the exit is a pile you can collect on the way out.
Set the turnaround, then keep it
Decide how long you are staying before you go in, and leave when the time is up even if the trip is going well.
The turnaround is what stops the exit from becoming a problem. A crew that leaves on time never has to run, never has to choose between loot and safety, and never meets the thing that only comes out after dark.
The night survival guide covers why that clock gets harder later in the day.
Mark the route back to it
Once you have the exit, mark the way back to it from where you are working.
Spray paint at the junctions, or the one-wall habit, or both. The point is that the last leg of every trip — the one you make loaded, tired and possibly chased — should be the part you are most sure of.
When you cannot find the exit
Stop and work backwards rather than forwards.
Last marked junction, last counted turn, last recognisable door. Pick one and follow it all the way. A wrong guess followed confidently gets you out faster than three right guesses second-guessed.
And if somebody is on the ship monitors, that player can see the facility from above and tell you which way the door is. That is the moment the ship player earns their seat.
Related guides
- How to not get lost — the navigation habits behind all of this.
- Map guide — reading the facility layout before you land.
- How to escape a chase — why the exit is always the direction you run.