What extraction actually costs you
Getting out means feeding the elevator coins and riding it up. Nothing you are carrying counts until you do.
The developers' pinned Launch FAQ states the stakes:
"If the entire crew is lost before extracting, anything that had not yet been brought back to the Outpost is lost. Progress and resources already secured during previous successful runs remain safe."
So a wipe costs you this run only. Everything banked in previous runs is safe.
Pay the elevator before the enemies arrive
This is the single best habit in the game, and it comes from a player describing their routine:
"I repair the roulette thing and feed the elevator the required coins to return to the surface BEFORE the mobs spawn. Typically 40-100 gold."
⚠️ Note the range. The commonly quoted figure is 40 coins — that comes from the fuse thread, "shove in 40 coins and leave." This player says 40-100. Nobody has published what the cost scales with, so budget for the high end rather than the low one.
An elevator that is already paid is an exit you can run to. An elevator you still owe coins to is a wall.
Extraction camping is real
It has its own thread — "Why is extraction camping a thing in this game?":
"The AI literally camps your extraction and runs into the elevator with you out of nowhere in the last second. Happened multiple times."
A reply confirms it is not bad luck:
"some of the mobs do camp the elevator or areas around you. Other mobs like the crawler can track you no matter what. I even try to lure them off but they just reset to lurking the elevator when they lose sight of you."
Breaking line of sight does not shake them. They return to the elevator.
Three counters players actually use
From the same thread, in escalating order of effort:
- Wall the door off. "I break like 3 tables and a few chairs and then use the scrap to build a bookshelf to block the elevator door when I'm extracting." You already carry the means — see constructs for what blocks well and what explodes
- Bait them into the Grinder. "kill them by baiting them into grinders" — the Grinder kills enemies, not just loot
- Split the job. "Have someone bait them out and then build something to hold them off so you can leave"
The fourth option that player listed was "Option 3: Violence", which is honest about how often the first three fail.
⚠️ The trap: a small body cannot pick up a fuse
This one ends runs, and almost nothing else documents it.
From "how do you get a fuse when little guy":
"game will not let us extract as our big body's our gone and the little guys cant lift stuff"
And a second player confirming the consequence:
"We've had the whole group go down as the remaining little bot body couldn't pick up a fuse. We had the money and everything else sorted."
So on a Fuse run, losing every full-size vessel is a soft run-ender even with the coins paid — the small bodies you are relying on to get back into the action cannot carry the fuse to the slot.
Practical consequence: on a Fuse run, install the fuse early, while somebody is still in a full-size vessel. Do not save it for the way out.
What comes home
"anything loaded on the elevator comes home with you, even loose gear, furniture, constructs. It doesn't have to be possessed to come home, just on the elevator when you ascend."
Which is also why players stash spare mallets and spare bodies in the elevator between runs — the stock persists.
What is not confirmed
- What the elevator fee scales with. 40 coins is widely quoted; one player says 40-100
- Which enemies camp and which do not. The crawler is named; the rest are not
- Whether blocking the door reliably works, or how long a built object holds
- Whether small bodies are blocked from other extraction-critical items, or only the fuse
- Whether extraction camping is intended behaviour or a tuning problem — no developer statement