Beginner Progression and Upgrade Priorities
If dust capsules are queuing at the depot while your crew keeps sweeping, a bigger brush buys you a longer queue. Lunar management may call that growth. In Moon Sweepers, spend your next payout on the step holding up the job: cleaning, carrying, or delivery.
After your first paid shipment, make another short cleaning trip. Watch your tool’s storage readout and notice what interrupts you first. Are you still brushing the same patch, already full, or spending most of the trip taking dust back? Use that answer to choose your next purchase.
Match the purchase to the problem
| What slows you down? | Purchase to consider | What changes next trip? | When to spend elsewhere |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cleaning takes ages, but storage still has room. | A wider handheld tool, such as the Household Broom, or the Upgrade Matrix’s Wide Heads improvement. | A wider sweep clears more ground with each stroke. | If storage fills almost at once, compare capacity before adding more cleaning width. |
| Your container fills before you finish a useful pass. | The Upgrade Matrix’s container upgrade for the tool you use. | You can collect more dust before stopping to empty it. | If filling the container is slow, a better cleaning tool may help more. If unloading is the long wait, check delivery. |
| Walking back or depositing dust takes most of the trip. | Servo Stride for movement or Rapid Transfer for depositing, both in the Upgrade Matrix. For a belt route, consider the Building Tool and the equipment needed to connect collection to intake. | Movement and transfer upgrades shorten different parts of a manual delivery. A working belt route changes how dust reaches the depot. | If the receiving line is already backed up, fix its flow before feeding it faster. |
Equipment and matrix upgrades are separate purchases
The Supply Wall at a station sells handheld tools and gear. The Upgrade Matrix is the station terminal for improvements such as tool capacity, cleaning width, movement, and transfer speed. Buying a new broom and enlarging a broom’s container are different decisions. Check that a container upgrade names the tool you plan to keep using.
Vehicles and their improvements belong at the Garage. Do not assume a handheld-tool upgrade improves a vehicle. In co-op, the connected crew uses the host Upgrade Matrix and anyone can buy its upgrades. That rule does not establish shared ownership of every tool or vehicle.
Already running a factory? Follow the dust before buying more
A toothbrush assignment becoming a working lunar factory is the good part. Keep that factory useful by checking the whole route: collection → transport → processing → sale. Processing only needs checking if your route uses it.
- Collection: Check where your tools or J.O.O.N.A.S. cleaning robots send their dust. Look for capsules gathering before they enter transport.
- Transport: Follow the catcher and belt route. Check each connection, especially where a moving line meets a stopped one.
- Processing: Read the machine’s status. Check its required inputs, power, and room for output before buying another machine.
- Sale: Check that the final belt reaches the depot intake. Belted dust and stone pay on intake; they do not need the manual shipment sequence.
If you are stuck, pause your own sweeping and watch the backed-up part of the route. Does the queue shrink, stay put, or keep growing? Fix a missing connection or the cause shown by a machine’s status, then watch again. Check that the downstream queue clears before adding more robots or collection equipment. Once deliveries flow, take another cleaning trip and reassess. Buy for the wait you still have.
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