A crewmate dies and the first instinct is to keep going, because the trip is already paid for.
That instinct is wrong most of the time. What kills runs is not the first death. It is the second one that happens twenty minutes later because nobody changed how they were playing.
The first minute
Get out. Do not finish the room, do not grab the item you were reaching for. The survivors walk to the ship with whatever they are already holding.
Say the number out loud. How much is on the ship, and how much does the quota still need. Without that number the rest of the day is guesswork.
Take stock of equipment. What the dead player was carrying is gone until they come back. If the group’s only shovel died in that corridor, the survivors are now a crew with no weapon, and every decision below changes.
Then decide: finish today or cut the loss
If the quota is close and the moon is calm, one careful solo trip can still clear it. If the quota is far away, or the moon is hostile, or the group is down to its last light, the honest answer is to take what is reachable and survive the day.
A dead crewmate is a real cost. Two dead crewmates is a lost day, and the difference between them is usually one bad decision made in the minute after the first death.
What changes about how you play
The survivors are now playing a solo game, and every solo rule applies immediately.
One player, one job at a time. No splitting to cover more ground. No “I’ll check the left hallway while you grab the box.”
Turn back at the first sign of trouble. The margin for a mistake is one player’s health. There is no second person to cover a chase or finish a fight.
Take the shallow route. Rooms nearest the entrance, high-ratio light items, first exit. The goal is a guaranteed small payment, not a big one.
The solo guide is the full version of this, and it is what the rest of the day should look like.
Recovering the equipment
Going back for a dead crewmate’s gear is sometimes worth it and often not.
It is worth it when the item is expensive and hard to replace — a zap gun, a jetpack, a full haul that never got sold — and the facility is quiet.
It is not worth it when the group is short on lights or weapons, because a recovery trip without equipment is how the second death happens. The dead player has all of it back tomorrow anyway.
Tomorrow
Your crewmate returns on the next cycle. That means the recovery is mostly about the equipment list, not the roster.
Buy back the basics in the usual order — shovel, lights, walkie-talkies — and treat the first trip after a death as a re-equipping trip rather than a quota trip. A crew that spends its first day back buying lights instead of clearing the target usually clears it anyway, on day two.
What not to do
- Do not split up to “cover more ground.” That is the single most common way the second death happens.
- Do not go deep to make up the difference. Deep facilities are where crews die, and a short-handed crew should be doing the opposite.
- Do not chase an expensive moon to fix the number. Travel costs credits and the trip is long. The cheap moon, run three times, is the better answer.
Related guides
- Solo guide — playing the rest of the day alone.
- How to recover from a bad run — when the quota is out of reach.
- How to make money fast — rebuilding the numbers after a loss.