Moon Sweepers Solo Play: Starting and Keeping Progress

Starting

Start a solo world

1. 01

   Pick a save slot

   The game has five save slots, one Moon each. Start a new world in an empty slot unless you intend to continue the same Moon.

2. 02

   Play without a crew

   You do not need to host a lobby to clean. Leave the session single-player and work from North Station. A crew session is a separate hosted Moon, not a merge of your solo world.

3. 03

   Use hold-R to return to base

   The back-to-base control is a 0.6-second hold on R on keyboard. It is faster than walking back when you are testing a new area or need to sell a small load.

4. 04

   Build a repeatable loop

   Start with a wider brush or container, then add a Packager and belt, then processing and robots. The first-shift guide covers the opening, and the automation guide covers the factory step.

Solo scale

What solo changes

The core objective is the same solo or in a crew: clean regions, sell material and grow the operation. The 1.0.4 data lists 163,842 regions. A region is done at 1% remaining dust, so the map is much larger than a single session.

Player reports from the first week give a sense of scale, not a reliable average: one player had 837 of 163,830 sectors after 13 hours; another reported about 1% after 12 hours in a two-person run; a third had 0.3% after 11 hours with the upgrade tree filled. Their definitions and automation differ, so the numbers cannot be averaged.

Saves

Keep the save safe

The game keeps five full backups per save slot: one a minute into a session, then one every 30 minutes. They are stored outside Steam Cloud at %USERPROFILE%AppDataLocalLowDragDropGamesMoonSweepersBackups. A damaged save is checked and repaired from a backup when the world loads.

• Do not overwrite the only backup after a bad demolition or a failed experiment.
• A 1.0.4 save cannot be opened by an older version. Back up before changing builds or mods.
• Steam Cloud is not the same as the local backup folder. Keep both if you care about the world.
• The game also lists five save slots; use one for a test world and another for the main run.

If the question is whether solo works without an internet connection, that is a separate check: see offline and save limits. Single-player support does not by itself prove that Steam Offline Mode works.

Practical solo tips

Make solo feel less like a walking simulator

• Put a Packager near a distant work area instead of carrying every load back to North Station.
• Use the map's waypoints and station teleport when the route becomes long; the teleport costs money from the crew wallet.
• Automate the repetitive part before expanding the map. A robot vacuum or a J.O.O.N.A.S. can clean while you build.
• Do not judge solo progress by a crew-sized hour count. The map is the same size, but the number of hands is not.
• Keep a second save for risky builds; a 75% refund on a large machine is still a loss.