Moon Sweepers starts you with a toothbrush and a whole Moon to clean. The fastest way out of that grind, according to the Steam community, is simple: sweep and deliver dust until you can afford more brooms, save about $700 for the garage, then buy the push vacuum and move to vehicles and conveyor belts. This Moon Sweepers beginner guide covers that order, how the money loop works, which buildings pay off, and what the 1.0.3 patch changed for co-op crews.
Moon Sweepers is a $8.99 co-op cleanup game from DragDrop Games, a two-person studio. It launched on Steam on October 23, 2026, supports online lobbies of up to 16 players and was the #19 Steam top seller on October 25. Everything below is drawn from the official Steam page, the developer’s patch notes and player reports on the Steam forums. It is not based on our own play time.
Table of Contents
Quick answer: Moon Sweepers beginner guide
- The loop: sweep lunar dust, fill your tool’s storage, deliver it to a depot, launch the shipment, and spend the money on tools and carrying capacity.
- Upgrade order players recommend: toothbrush, then brooms (one player bought three), then about $700 for the garage, then the push vacuum (“pushvac”) as soon as you can afford it.
- Automate selling: a conveyor belt connected to the base’s intake valves (the windows with orange rings) sells whatever arrives on it.
- Refine for more money: per one forum calculation, dust sells for $1.28, sand $3.84 and stone $17.92 with a 28% market bonus included.
- In co-op the crew now shares the host’s upgrades (patch 1.0.3), and every player must be on the same version.
Vehicles take over from hand tools once you have a garage. Image: DragDrop Games
How to make money in Moon Sweepers
The store page describes the core loop plainly: fill your storage with lunar dust, deliver it to a depot and launch shipments to get paid. You then spend the money on cleaning tools and on more carrying capacity, so you can take bigger loads between deliveries. Two details make the early game less tedious.
Capsules and the Q key
When a tool’s container is full, its dust gets packed into capsules (canisters). On the Steam forums, players say a quick tap of Q puts a tool’s contents onto a belt, while holding Q throws the canister instead. One player notes that the in-game tooltip says F, which is misleading. Another tip from the same thread is to carry several tools and move dust between them with capsules, so you are not walking back to the depot after every fill.
Selling without walking
You don’t need to hand-deliver forever. Per a reply in the “auto selling?” thread, any conveyor belt hooked to the base’s intake valves sells items automatically, and a Packager is optional (it just unloads tools faster). Patch 1.0.3 also fixed the deposit intake so it pays exactly what its screen shows, with dust and stone paid as they arrive by belt.
One warning from the same thread: selling a building only refunds 75% of its cost, and another player calls the penalty for moving machines “severe”. Place depots and machines close to where you work from the start.
What to buy first: tools, garage and vehicles
The developer hasn’t published a full price list, so the table below combines what players report. Treat the numbers as community figures from launch weekend.
| Stage | Item | What players report |
|---|---|---|
| Start | Toothbrush | Your starting tool; “start slow with the toothbrush and grind your cash up” |
| Early | Brooms | An upgraded broom holds roughly 100-120 kg; width upgrades widen its sweep |
| Early | Garage (about $700) | Stores, calls back and upgrades vehicles; players say unloading at a garage auto-packs dust |
| Early-mid | Push vacuum | Recommended “asap” after the garage |
| Mid | Robot vacuums (Mk1, Mk2) | Clean a set work area by themselves; Mk2’s advantage is clearing four hex layers around it |
| Mid-late | Mega Vacuum Rover | Suction levels ECO, NORMAL, HIGH, MAX and FULL on the mouse wheel; a fully upgraded rover holds about 5,700 kg, per one player |
Players disagree on how much tool upgrades matter. In the “Vehicles versus tools” thread, one player says tools are meant for the early game and vehicles take over later. Another player argues that you will have money for everything well before the Moon is 1% clean. The practical takeaway is that early cash should go into whatever raises dust per minute (more brooms, then the garage and vehicles) rather than maxing a single tool. The Auto-Packer upgrade packs a capsule at your feet when a container is full. One player calls it pointless because the garage already does this.
Vehicles got a cleanup in 1.0.3. Any garage can now call back, store and upgrade your vehicles. Demolishing a garage no longer deletes the vehicles parked there, and you won’t be offered a vehicle you already own.
Conveyor belts into the base's intake valves sell dust automatically. Image: DragDrop Games
Pressure chamber vs stone press: is refining worth it?
Once belts are running, refining is the main money multiplier. The most active strategy thread on the forums, “Is Stone Press Worth it?” (21 replies), lays out the numbers:
| Machine | Cost | Power | Input to output | Cycle |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pressure Chamber | $500 | 20 kW | 5 kg dust to 5 kg sand | 12 s |
| Stone Press | $1,000 (needs a chamber feeding it) | 28 kW | 1 kg dust + 1 kg sand to 2 kg stone | 6 s |
The thread’s original poster first concluded that two pressure chambers beat one chamber plus a press. After testing, they reversed that: one chamber can feed several stone presses through splitters (they mention up to eight) and stone becomes far more profitable. A second player measured one chamber at 25 sand per minute against 10 sand per minute consumed by each press, so one chamber comfortably feeds two presses. Keep in mind:
- The stone press has separate dust and sand inputs. They are not interchangeable, which is the most common reason players report it “not working”.
- Power matters. The chamber and press together draw 48 kW. Players also ask how much battery the large solar panels need to get through the lunar night, so plan storage before scaling up.
- Splitters and mergers: players report that mergers favour the fuller belt and splitters the emptier one. Since 1.0.3 they snap port to port, and ones built by crewmates now work.
Belts are slow, and there’s no conveyor speed upgrade, according to forum replies. Several players have asked for one. If you need more throughput, run more lines in parallel rather than one long belt.
J.O.O.N.A.S robots: use them carefully
The J.O.O.N.A.S units can carry and process material for you, and one player uses them to take garage output back to base. Right now they are the weakest part of automation. The developers’ October 24 message lists “J.O.O.N.A.S units stopping when players move away” as a top priority for the next patch, which they aim to release “within the next few days”. Players also report a $5,000 penalty for picking one up. Until that fix lands, build around belts and garages, and don’t count on robots while you’re exploring far from base.
Refining machines draw power, so build solar and storage before scaling up. Image: DragDrop Games
Moon Sweepers co-op tips (up to 16 players)
- Upgrades are shared. Since patch 1.0.3 the whole crew uses the host’s upgrade matrix, and anyone’s purchase upgrades everyone. Older saves keep the highest level anyone had bought.
- Same version for everyone. All crewmates must be on 1.0.3 (or whatever patch is current) to play together.
- Host controls: the ESC menu’s Your Crew list lets the host kick or ban players. Banned players can’t rejoin that save until the host unbans them.
- Split the work: the store page suggests spreading out to cover more ground or working one area together. A sensible split is a sweeping team plus one or two players building belts and refining, so the dust has somewhere to go.
Solo play is supported, but players in the “Constructive feedback” thread say it feels slow given the Moon’s size. One player reports about 1% of the Moon cleaned after 12 hours. If you play alone, prioritise robot vacuums and refining early.
Launch-week problems and the 1.0.3 patch
DragDrop Games acknowledged crashes, performance issues, multiplayer bugs and progression balance in its October 24 post. Patch 1.0.3 (also October 24) made these changes:
- Saves: heavily cleaned bases that looked corrupted load again, and damaged saves are now repaired automatically from a backup or snapshot.
- Performance: up to about 20% higher frame rates on big bases, per the developer’s tests, plus smoother driving and fewer stutters.
- Building: machines can span several foundations, so pressure chambers, stone presses and garages fit on square foundations.
If a big world failed to load before October 24, try it again on 1.0.3 before starting over.
How far players get: achievement stats
Steam’s global achievement percentages, checked October 25, 2026 at 19:00 UTC, show where the playerbase is two days after launch. They also show that the Moon is effectively endless for now.
| Milestone (from Steam achievement data) | Share of players |
|---|---|
| Collect 100 kg of dust | 87.8% |
| Build a first conveyor to a depot | 75.3% |
| Collect 1,000 kg of dust | 62.1% |
| Get a first vehicle | 57.9% |
| Play with a friend | 50.1% |
| Earn 10,000 | 28.4% |
| Earn 100,000 | 8.5% |
| First Moon-clean milestone | 5.0% |
| Earn 1,000,000 | 0.4% |
The takeaway: if you have a vehicle and a belt to the depot, you’re already ahead of about 40% of players.
If you like co-op games built around a simple loop, see our Peak console release guide and our list of the best cozy co-op games on Steam, Switch and PS5. For other new Steam games, try the Over the Hill beginner guide or our Star Wars Galactic Racer tips.
FAQ
Is Moon Sweepers on PS5 or Xbox?
No. As of October 25, 2026, Moon Sweepers is a Windows PC game on Steam only. DragDrop Games hasn’t announced PS5, Xbox or Mac versions in its Steam announcements. It has full controller support on PC, including DualShock and DualSense.
How many players can play Moon Sweepers?
Up to 16 in online co-op lobbies, according to the Steam page. It can also be played solo.
How much does Moon Sweepers cost?
The regular price is $8.99. When we checked on October 25, 2026, Steam showed a 15% launch discount to $7.64.
What are the Moon Sweepers system requirements?
Minimum: Windows 10, Intel Core i5-8400 or Ryzen 5 2600, 8 GB RAM, GTX 1650 or RX 570, 2 GB storage. Recommended: Windows 11, i5-10400 or Ryzen 5 3600, 16 GB RAM, GTX 1660 Super or RX 5600 XT, 4 GB storage.
Sources: Moon Sweepers on Steam (price, features, requirements); DragDrop Games Steam announcements (1.0.3 patch notes and October 24 developer message); Steam Community discussions (stone press, auto selling, constructive feedback, vehicles vs tools); Steam global achievement statistics, checked October 25, 2026, 19:00 UTC.
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