Moon Sweepers movement: what low gravity charges per trip

// Dispatch 03 · surface and movement

Gravity is the first thing the game charges for

A Moon Sweepers contract opens with a tool that is too narrow and a body that is too light. The brush is the obvious problem and the one every guide discusses. The body is the quieter one. On a surface with a fraction of Earth gravity, a jump does not end when the player expects it to, and the seconds spent descending are seconds not spent sweeping. The recorded shift here starts with a player resolving to stop jumping entirely, on the grounds that the landing takes far longer than the hop is worth.

That is a movement rule disguised as a preference. Every shortcut across a crater is a trade: distance saved against airtime spent. Early on the trade is bad, because the tool is narrow and the only thing that produces value is contact with the ground. Later, when a vehicle is involved, the same trade becomes good, because the vehicle covers in one pass what a hop was trying to skip.

Gravity boots change the landing, not the distance

The first movement purchase worth naming is a pair of boots that pull the wearer down as hard as Earth does, described in the terminal as low hops, quick landings and sure footing. None of those phrases promises speed. What they promise is predictability: the arc gets shorter, the landing stops being a commitment, and the player can jump again without waiting out a descent.

That matters because of what the surface is made of. Slopes are everywhere, and a long descent on a slope is where control is lost. A shorter arc is easier to place on a gradient, which is why the boots read as a terrain purchase rather than a speed purchase. They do not make the player faster in a straight line. They make the player able to use ground that was previously a trap.

Side slopes will flip a vehicle

The recorded shift contains a clean failure case. A vehicle was driven across a side slope, turned over, and had to be recovered by flipping it back upright with a dedicated key. The lesson recorded immediately afterwards is blunt: no more side hills, stay on ground that is relatively level. That is not a skill issue. It is the vehicle model telling the player where the route has to go.

This is the constraint that shapes base layout more than any other. A route between a working face and a dock is not the shortest line on the map; it is the shortest line that stays off a gradient steep enough to roll a vehicle. A base that ignores this ends up with routes that look efficient on paper and cost a recovery every few trips. A base that respects it ends up with routes that look indirect and run without incident.

The solar window sets the length of a working day

Light is a resource with a schedule. Solar fixtures generate only while the sun is up, and the sun is not up for long: a base that expands late in the day places panels, finds no output, and discovers that the reserve it was counting on has already been spent keeping the existing machines alive. The recorded shift hits exactly this wall, adding panels before sunrise and then watching the stored charge drain instead of climb.

The practical consequence is that construction has a time of day attached to it. Anything that draws power should be built while there is light left to charge it, not at the end of the dark stretch. A player who plans expansion by cost alone will keep building machines that sit idle until the next sunrise, and the idle time is invisible in the price list.

Sleep is a mechanic, and it is short

A lunar day is long enough that a shift spans more than one. Sleeping is possible, and the recorded reaction is surprise at how little of it the game requires: a couple of seconds of lying down, and the player is awake and back to work. That short duration is a design decision worth noticing. The game does not ask the player to manage rest as a resource; it acknowledges that time passes and then hands control back.

What it does create is a rhythm. Coffee is available once per lunar day, and a full dust container can be launched on the same cycle. Those two limits, plus the solar window, are the only clocks the game imposes. Everything else — how long a strip takes, how often a container fills, how far the dock is — is set by the player, which is why the layout decisions above matter more than they first appear to.

Route length is the real upgrade

Put the three constraints together and the shape of a good base falls out. Gravity makes every vertical movement expensive, so routes should stay on the flat. Slopes make side traversal dangerous, so routes should follow contours rather than cut across them. The solar window makes power a scheduled resource, so the machines that draw it should sit inside sixteen metres of a panel that is actually lit when they run.

None of that is a purchase. It is a layout, and it is free. The upgrade that fixes a bad layout is a wider tool or a bigger hopper, and both of those cost money that a good layout would not have needed to spend. The cheapest movement upgrade in the game is deciding where the base goes before the first conveyor is laid.

Basis for this page

These observations come from recorded play on the launch build. Each one is paired with the wording it was drawn from, kept alongside this manual so the claim can be checked rather than taken on trust.

Jumping costs more time in descent than the hop saves.
Low gravity turns every hop into a slow descent, so the surface is walked rather than jumped
Original spoken wording
stop jumping. It takes forever for us to land again. I guess the reason you can
Gravity boots are sold as low hops, quick landings and sure footing.
The boots shorten the arc and make the landing predictable rather than fast
Original spoken wording
Gravity boots. boots to pull you down as hard as earth does. Low hops, quick landings, and sure footing. Okay, so
A vehicle that crosses a side slope rolls and must be flipped upright.
A side slope puts a vehicle on its roof, and recovery is a keypress rather than a repair
Original spoken wording
Back on your feet. Turned over. or hold C to flip. Did that work? Yeah, that seemed to have worked. Okay, no more
Sleeping costs a couple of seconds and returns control.
Rest is acknowledged rather than managed, which keeps the shift uninterrupted
Original spoken wording
moon, you don't need to sleep nearly as much. A couple seconds of doing and get right back to work. Back and forth scrubbing around. At least we got a nice
Panels placed before sunrise drain the reserve instead of charging it.
Construction carries a time of day, because a panel with no light is only a load
Original spoken wording
panels in, but that was before the sun was up. So, they're not really We might have just used up our power reserves and then that was that.
Coffee is limited to one break per lunar day.
The day cycle caps comfort items rather than the work itself
Original spoken wording
get money. Only one coffee break per lunar day. Launch a full dust container