The Pro-Flashlight costs 25 credits. The standard one costs 15. The store lists one difference between them: the Pro-Flashlight has a larger battery.
That is the entire upgrade, which makes the decision easy to reason about.
What you are paying ten credits for
You are not buying a brighter beam, a longer throw or any extra function. You are buying working time.
So the question is never “is the Pro-Flashlight better” — it is “does my crew run out of light before it runs out of reasons to stay.”
If the answer is yes, the upgrade pays for itself in one run. If the answer is no, you have spent ten credits on capacity you never used.
Why the standard one wins early
On the first days of a cycle, crews are not limited by battery. They are limited by how much of the facility they can safely reach.
Two standard Flashlights cost 30 credits and give the group something the Pro does not: a spare. A crew with two lights can lose one and keep working. A crew with one Pro-Flashlight has a single point of failure that is expensive to replace.
Ten credits also matters when the quota is tight. Early money is better spent on a Shovel, because a Shovel turns a chase into a solved problem while a bigger battery only lets you see the chase for longer.
When the upgrade becomes the right buy
Upgrade when the pattern of your runs changes:
- You are staying deeper. Longer routes mean more dark rooms between you and the ship.
- You are splitting up. Two pairs need two lights, and the pair going furthest needs the one that lasts.
- You have lost a run to darkness. If you have ever walked back loaded with scrap and unable to see the floor, the upgrade is cheaper than doing it again.
- The quota is no longer the problem. Once money is comfortable, buying the better version of a thing you use every minute is reasonable.
Who should carry it
Give the Pro-Flashlight to the player who goes deepest, not the player who carries the most.
The hauler’s hands are busy with scrap. The navigator is the one whose light defines how long the group can work, and the navigator is the one who ends up alone in an unlit room when the group splits.
The case for keeping both
The strongest setup is not one Pro-Flashlight. It is a Pro-Flashlight for the person reading the route and a standard one for whoever is second.
That costs 40 credits and removes the failure mode where one dead battery ends the trip for everybody. Compare that to two Pros at 50, which buys more working time but still leaves a crew with no spare if one is dropped or lost.
The four setups, priced
| Setup | Cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| One standard | 15 | One battery, and it is a low one |
| Two standard | 30 | One battery plus a spare |
| One Pro | 25 | A longer battery, no spare |
| Pro plus standard | 40 | A long battery and a spare |
Read the middle two rows together, because they are the actual decision. Five credits separate “a spare” from “a longer battery.”
Early on, the spare wins: crews lose lights by dropping them and by dying, and a spare survives both. Later, when nobody is dropping anything and trips are long, the longer battery wins.
The last row is where settled crews end up, and it is the only one that removes the failure mode entirely.
Related guides
- Flashlight guide — what the standard light does and how fast it drains.
- Best equipment tier list — the full buying order.
- Best loadout — how to split items across a crew.