Beginner's Guide

You sign a contract, get handed a toothbrush and are told to clean the moon. This guide gets you from that first fifty-cent deposit to a self-running sand factory in roughly two hours, without the detours that cost most players their first evening.

Last verified: November 2026 · Steam release build

How the game works

The loop is simple. You sweep dust into your tool's container, carry it to the depot inside the station, deposit it and press Sell Dust. The container launches into space and you get paid — roughly $1 per kilogram at the start. Money buys bigger tools, upgrades in the Upgrade Matrix, and eventually buildings that collect and refine dust for you.

The surface is divided into 163,841 hexagonal sectors. Every hex you clean past 99% pays a one-off bonus, and the moon percentage only goes up as hexes are finished. Your shift — according to the contract — ends when the moon is clean.

Inside North Station: the supply wall (tools), the dust depot, the upgrade terminal and the break room.

The first hour, step by step

1
Grab the toothbrush and sweep straight lines
Take the toothbrush from the supply wall. It holds 0.5 kg, so do not try to clean neatly — run through untouched dust so every stroke is full, then deposit. Each load is about 50 cents.
2
Buy the Nail Brush ($5)
Your first purchase. It is a little wider and pays about 75 cents per trip. Skip the toothbrush container upgrade.
3
Buy the Hand Brush ($10) and its container upgrade ($10)
The Hand Brush holds 1 kg; the upgrade doubles it to 2 kg. Ten trips with the upgrade earn $20 instead of $10, so it pays for itself immediately.
4
Buy the Household Broom ($25) and upgrade it ($30)
Almost twice as wide and 3 kg base, 6 kg after the upgrade. This is where you should start finishing whole hexes for the $10 region bonus.
5
Buy Tool Belt Slot 2 ($15)
Keep your old Hand Brush or Household Broom on the belt as a second container. Fill the main broom, switch, fill the spare, go home with both full.
6
Wide Broom ($75) → Extra Wide Broom ($150)
Upgrade each once. The Extra Wide Broom with its $60 upgrade holds 24 kg and is the tool you will use for the next several hours.
7
Region Bounty I & II ($200, $600)
Economy tab. Each finished hex now pays $40 instead of $10. With a wide broom you finish a hex every couple of minutes, so this is the best money in the early game.

Tip

Lock the broom's rotation with L so it stays sideways, then run straight back and forth. It is the widest strip your tool can clear and much less tiring than swinging it around. See Sweeping Techniques.

Sectors and the region bonus

The HUD shows the current sector number and how clean it is in the top right. Press G to draw the sector borders on the ground so you can see exactly where one hex ends. Once a hex passes 99% the game counts it as finished and pays the bonus — you do not need to chase every last speck.

In the first hour the hex bonus is worth more than the dust itself. Twenty dollars of bonuses from two hexes can be more than everything you sold in the same time. So instead of sweeping random lines everywhere, work one hex at a time. If a hex is nearly done when you are about to buy a Region Bounty upgrade, leave it unfinished and come back after the purchase to collect the bigger bonus.

First automation

The Building Tool costs $50 and opens the build menu. Two early buildings matter:

Packager ($100) — build it next to where you are sweeping and run a conveyor ($0.50/m) to the station. Load a full broom with one click; capsules ride the belt home and sell. No more walking back to the depot.
Robot Vacuum Mk1 ($250) — cleans 19 hexes around its dock and sends the dust down a belt. It is slow and takes a while to pay for itself, but it earns while you work elsewhere.

A Packager next to the sweeping area, belted back to the station intake.

The $800 upgrade that triples income

The single biggest jump in the early game is the Pressure Chamber ($500) plus a Large Solar Tracker ($300). The chamber turns dust into sand, which sells for three times as much. Route your Packager or robot belts through it before they reach the station.

Build the solar tracker first and give it time to charge — the chamber needs 10 kW, and at night it runs on the panel's battery. Watch which side of the chamber is the input before placing it; the arrow is easy to miss and the input side is fixed.

Note

Next comes the Stone Press (≈ $1,000): one kilo of dust plus one kilo of sand becomes two kilos of stone worth about seven times raw dust. That is covered in Factory Layouts.

Beginner mistakes

Throwing one kilo at a time. Check the bottom-left container readout. A capsule only holds what your tool holds.
Overthrowing capsules. Moon gravity sends them flying. Walk them in or place them, do not lob them at the door.
Buying vehicles too early. The Push Sweeper is barely better than a good broom. Put that money into sand first.
Building machines facing the wrong way. Lay the belt first, then snap the machine on.
No power at night. Lunar nights are long. One tracker per chamber is not enough for the whole night — use two.
Forgetting to sell. Depositing is not selling. Press the sell button at the depot terminal.
Staying at home. Flags pay $100+ each and survey sites $250. A short walk in the first hour pays for several tools.

What to do next

Once sand is flowing, follow the full walkthrough: buy the economy upgrades (Market Contracts, Luna Exchange), add Stone Presses, save for the Mega Vacuum Rover and finally your first JONAS robot.