JONAS Automation Guide

How JONAS works

A JONAS costs $20,000 and is placed with the Building Tool. It scrubs one hex at a time with six arms, then walks to the nearest hex that still has dust and repeats — forever, anywhere on the moon. When its tank fills it launches a capsule rocket (about 20 kg) at the emptiest of the nearest Capsule Catchers. No catcher, or only full catchers, and it stands still waiting.

Hexes it finishes count toward the moon percentage and pay their region bonus to you. Hexes it finishes while you are nearby also count toward your personal "help clean" achievements, which is why driving around dropping robots is so effective.

Your first JONAS

1. Build a Capsule Catcher and connect it to your production line.
2. Build a second catcher that is not connected — it sells everything that lands in it and acts as overflow.
3. Place the JONAS on unclean ground. Watch it work for a minute: you will see the capsule rocket arc back toward the base.
4. Keep driving the Mega Vacuum Rover to fund the next one. Every new JONAS speeds up everything.

Capsule Catchers and throughput

Each catcher holds around 1,100 kg and accepts one capsule roughly every 9 seconds. That is the hard cap per catcher, so a large fleet needs many catchers, not just a bigger factory. A full catcher is the most common reason robots stop working.

• Connected catcher → feeds your sand and stone lines.
• Unconnected catcher → sells automatically. Build several next to the station as permanent overflow.
• Overflow lines → if all connected catchers back up, a splitter to a Packager keeps them draining.

How many robots?

Late game, the money comes in faster than you can place robots. Do not hoard it — every JONAS is both a cleaner and an earner.

Where to place them

• On the frontier. Robots always pick the nearest dusty hex, so many robots in one spot fight over the same area before spreading out.
• While driving. Drop one every few hundred metres from the Mega Rover across untouched ground.
• On mountains. Slopes are miserable to sweep by hand; robots do not care.
• Around the station first if you want room for more factory blocks.

AFK nights

Before leaving the game running: dump a full vehicle load into the factory queue, confirm every catcher can drain (overflow catchers exist), add solar if batteries were low last night, and place every robot you can afford. Our first AFK night took us from 394 to 490 hexes cleared by hand and robots before bed, and from $20k to $272k by morning. The second night, with 100+ JONAS, cleared about a third of the moon.

Stuck hexes, lag and other issues

• Hexes stuck at 0% that look clean. In early builds, many hexes did not register after robots cleaned them. Patches fixed most cases. If you still see one, place a JONAS on it or sweep the remaining specks yourself.
• Robots idle in the field. They are waiting for a catcher. Add catchers or overflow.
• Robots far away stop working. An early bug; JONAS now work anywhere on the moon.
• Lag with hundreds of robots. Large fleets plus many capsules in flight are heavy. Add robots in batches and let them finish rather than spamming hundreds at once.
• A hex left at 98%. The robot pattern is fixed rather than dust-aware. Use the moon map heat map to find these and finish them with a broom.

JONAS vs. robot vacuums