A Casual Guide to Solo High Quota Runs (v49)

For those who want to get into solo runs but are too intimidated or simply don't know where to start. This guide will cover the basics of what you need to know, as well as more in-depth tech and strategies if you want to delve deeper.

General Overview: What a Solo Run Looks Like

Full disclosure: my personal solo quota PB is 2027, so I am by no means an absolute expert on this, but I've put in enough hours that I feel I can help others give the solo experience a try. This is also intended for casual high quota solo runs and not competitive speedruns, so not everything will be optimized and I will include a recommended mod list that mostly maintains vanilla difficulty. Keep in mind, a lot of this comes down to personal preference and if you have more fun playing solo in a way that's different from my suggestion, you should absolutely do so.

Before we start getting into the nitty-gritty, I thought I'd describe what a solo run is typically going to look like, assuming your goal is to get as high quota as possible. You will be spending the first week on Tier 1 moons with a goal of reaching 690 credits. After that, you'll buy a few essential items and take off to Titan for the rest of the run, trying to get in and out of the facility as fast as possible and taking as few unnecessary risks as possible. And that's about it! From that point on you'll be selling either 700 credits worth of loot each week or however much you need to meet quota, and any excess credits can be used for bonus tools and other strategies.

One last thing I should mention before we really get started is that a couple mechanics change in Lethal Company if you're playing solo:

1. A Snare Flea will not kill you the first time you get grabbed on any given day. He'll stay on your head until you reach critical health and then he'll leave.
   
2. You can stare at Bracken for as long as you want and he will not get mad at you. Note that he will still get mad if you get too close to him.

Week 1: $690 and a Dream

If we could go to Titan week 1 we would, but unfortunately we start off each run with a pittance of 60 credits. If you want to take things slow, you are welcome to land at the company first and buy a pro flashlight and/or shovel to help out, but I personally recommend waiting to buy anything until the end of week 1 so that you don't get tired of resetting. The goal for this week is to make a minimum of 690 credits, although realistically you should be striving for 1000+ credits. The reason we need 690 credits is because that will earn you just enough overtime pay to fly to Titan and still afford what I believe are the basic essential tools for week 2.

So which moon should you go to?

Well, it does come down to personal preference, but generally speaking you should really only be going to either Assurance or Vow. Experimentation won't net you enough loot, Offense is far too dangerous for how poor quality the loot is, and March is simply too large of a map to be efficient for solo play. I would recommend Assurance for 3 reasons:

1. Assurance has the best loot table of the Tier 1 moons
   
2. Forest Keepers are extremely rare on Assurance (0.52% chance)
   
3. There is an excellent shortcut to get to the Assurance fire exit before 8am

Vow isn't a terrible option either since the chance for beehive spawns is significantly higher than Assurance despite Assurance having better loot overall. I tend to avoid it though because Forest Keepers are the most common outdoor enemy and Bracken is the most common indoor enemy, both of which can quickly kill a run if you're not careful. Vow also doesn't have an insane speed strat to get to the fire exit before 8am! If you're interested in learning said strat, check the Other Tech and Strategies section where I've demonstrated it in a video.

Optimal looting patterns for Assurance

Fire exit is incredibly close to the ship on Assurance, so I would recommend starting there especially if you opt to use the speed strat mentioned above. As you bring loot out, you'll want to drop it off of a specific section of the pipeline to make loot ferrying easier, see here. Once you feel you've cleared out most or enough of fire exit, simply ferry your loot back to the ship. If it's after 3pm, I would recommend staying above half stamina just in case an Earth Leviathan spawns.

If you finish looting and ferrying from fire exit before 8pm, it is definitely worth checking main entrance for one or two more full inventories. This decision of course depends on your confidence in dealing with outdoor monsters, but forcing yourself to deal with them is also the best way to improve. If you do choose to loot main entrance, just remember that there will always be 2 dead ends and 1 connection to a deep labyrinth. I would recommend checking only the dead ends unless the labyrinth leads to a very nearby loot or apparatus room. If main entrance spawns near fire exit, I would also recommend bringing all of your loot there instead and ferrying it the same way you did before.

Finally, if you come across any beehives, grab them! Don't leave them behind, beehives are some of the most efficient early loot items in the game. In fact, if you choose to run Vow you should be mainly focusing on finding beehives. Here's a video I put together demonstrating what I find to be the safest ways to bring beehives onto your ship on both Assurance and Vow. (If you're interested in speedrunning however, please be aware that beehives are banned in speedruns because of RNG variability.) Note that you should never leave a beehive inside your ship, only on the surrounding catwalk. You can grab beehives and bring them inside the ship to count toward loot total after you've pulled the lever to leave the moon.

Time to make some money

Congrats, you did it! You made it through three days of hard work and managed to scrounge together 690 or more credits, that's awesome. Once you've made it to the company, sell as close to 690 credits worth of loot as you can and return to your ship terminal. Remember, you need to sell at least 690 to earn enough overtime pay, so don't undersell. Next you'll want to buy these four essential items:

1. A Pro-Flashlight for faster facility traversal and an easier time navigating
   
2. A Shovel for murder self defense
   
3. A Stun Grenade just in case a Forest Keeper spawns and you have no other way of escaping
   
4. An Extension Ladder so you can bring loot back to your ship like a professional

And that's the end of week 1. Take off and use your overtime bonus to fly yourself to Titan.
If you're wondering how I was able to figure out the 690 figure, this is the formula for how to calculate overtime pay:

 (AmountSold - Quota)/5 - 15(NumberOfDaysLeft) 

In this case we get:

 (690 - 130)/5 - 15(0) = 97 

97 + 690 + the 60 credits we start with gives us just enough to buy those 4 items and still afford Titan regardless of store prices. Unfortunately I can't calculate the exact amount you need to sell for each week before 700 quota because of random factors, but 690 credits should always get you enough overtime as long as the current quota is 565 or less. After that point you’ll need to sell 700 or meet quota. I realize the 10 credit difference seems minute, but it adds up over time and can be the difference between a good and a great run. That said, if it’s easier for you to just remember to sell 700 each week then go for it!

Titan: Everything is Terrible All the Time

Titan is a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad moon but it's also our best chance at a high quota for a couple reasons. The most obvious reason is that Titan spawns the most loot and the highest quality loot on average out of any of the moons. The other reason, which is why you tend to see Titan more frequently in solo as opposed to the 4-man Rend meta, is the map layout. Titan's tiny outdoor area makes for unbelievably fast looting, which means that solo play isn't a complete nightmare. We'll cover that in a little more detail later on.

The overall strategy for Titan is going to be to check fire exit, then main entrance, grab as much loot as possible without going too deep into the labyrinth, and getting your ship out of there preferably before any outdoor monsters spawn. Indoor Titan is rough, but outdoor Titan is quite literally hell, and we want to avoid letting Eyeless Dogs or Forest Keepers onto the catwalk at just about any cost.

A day in the life of a very sane employee

Let's break down what you're going to be doing each day on Titan, assuming you either get clear or foggy weather.

Firstly, grab your flashlight, shovel/shotgun, stun grenade and ladder and head up to the first large platform on the catwalk leading to the main entrance. You're going to leave your ladder at the top of the stairs facing your ship and take the rest up to the main entrance with you. Leave the stun grenade and the shovel outside the main entrance, you don't want any Hoarding Bugs stealing from you.

Next, take a peek into the fire exit. Grab what loot you can and drop it outside the fire exit as you go, taking as close to full inventories each time as you can. More often than not on Titan, the fire exit will spawn inside or near a packed loot room that you can quickly clear out before moving onto the main entrance. Make sure you're keeping mental note of any monsters or open vents you run into. We'll cover combat in a bit.

Bring all the loot you've taken from fire exit over to the edge of the cliff face opposite main entrance and drop it all down to the big platform where your ladder is. Now head into the main entrance and start checking your dead ends for loot. If it seems wise in the moment, feel free to dig a little bit into the labyrinth, but don't go too far. Titan has the largest interior of any moon in the game and it is very easy to get lost searching for more loot, especially solo. Since we can't risk death like we can in co-op, it's better to trust your instincts and leave when you feel unsafe.

Once you think you've gotten all the loot out that you can, grab your tools and make your way down to the large platform below. Leave your shovel and stun grenade in the middle of the platform in case you need them before the day is over. Grab a full inventory, walk over to your ladder and use it to drop everything off right onto your ship. Once everything is transported, grab your leftover tools, get inside your ship, and start transferring all the loot inside with you. Keep in mind that if you're haunted, the Ghost Girl won't pursue you unless you've looked at her 3 times, so usually you can continue looting even when she's around. Dying will essentially end the run though, so if too many monsters spawn outdoors and you just can't get all the loot, that's okay. Cut your losses and move on, even if you're inches away from grabbing the loot safely. Reaching that high quota is largely a game of calculated risks and knowing when to play it safe.

That's about it, but the looting pattern is actually pretty particular, so to help out with that I've recorded myself moving loot from the top of Titan all the way down to my ship, like so. Follow this looting pattern and you should be breezing through Titan runs like it's no problem at all.

When is it okay to commit murder?

I won't go into detail on how to fight every monster in this game, but for quick reference here are all the monsters you can kill with a shovel or shotgun:

• Snare Flea
  
• Bunker Spider
  
• Hoarding Bug
  
• Bracken
  
• Thumper
  
• Nutcracker
  
• Masked
  
• Eyeless Dog
  
• Baboon Hawk

As I noted much earlier, we want to take as few risks as possible, which ideally means avoiding combat altogether. That said, I would generally only recommend fighting Hoarding Bugs, Nutcrackers and Masked with a shovel (and Snare Fleas as needed, but usually you can run around them). Hoarding Bugs are very easy to kill (2 swings) and doing so will allow you to take the loot you desperately need. Nutcrackers aren't terribly difficult to kill (5 swings) once you practice it enough, and they drop shotguns which are possibly the most valuable tool in the game. Masked will continue to pursue you if you don't deal with them, so I find it better to take them out and guarantee your safety, plus they're pretty easy to kill (4 swings). If you have a shotgun, I would only use it on Nutcrackers for more shotguns, Thumpers for safety, Brackens for safety, and the occasional Eyeless Dog if you absolutely need to. Any other enemy isn't really worth wasting a shell on. (Note that Eyeless Dogs take 2 shotgun blasts to kill.)

It's worth noting as well that Brackens, Thumpers and Bunker Spiders all have a power level of 3, meaning they take up 3 enemy slots while they're alive. For this reason I would recommend trying to avoid webs instead of killing Bunker Spiders, but Brackens and Thumpers are still dangerous enough that killing is advisable with a shotgun. If you're confident in your shovel skills you could go for Bracken and Thumper kills pre-shotgun, but even then I would advise against doing so as it is very easy to die and end a run from a simple mistake.

How to enjoy lightning strike ASMR

While foggy weather is essentially a non-problem on Titan, stormy and eclipsed weather will throw you into even deeper circles of hell. I'm gonna be real with you, there is no workaround with eclipsed weather. If you have enough loot on board, you might be able to skip the occasional eclipsed day entirely by simply taking off the moment you land, but this is of course antithetical to the high quota goal. Again, dealing with eclipsed weather is a calculated risk, you must simply trust your instinct and learn to be a dog person.

Stormy weather on the other hand, while still difficult, is something we can absolutely deal with, and even benefit from on occasion! I would recommend trying to keep at least 3 metal objects on your ship at a time that you can use as lightning rods on stormy days. Once you start making more money than you know what to do with, just start stockpiling tools including shovels, even if you have a shotgun. You can save up shovels to throw away as lightning rods without having to retrieve them at the end of the day. Earlier on you may have to use keys or scrap. Here's a list of all the tools and less obvious loot in the game that conduct electricity:

• Shovel
  
• Extension Ladder
  
• Jetpack
  
• TZP-Inhalant
  
• Radar-Booster
  
• Zap Gun
  
• Beehives
  
• Apparatus
  
• Clown Horn
  
• Fancy Lamp
  
• Flask
  
• Red Soda
  
• Whoopie-Cushion

Thankfully shotguns do not conduct electricity, but this unfortunately means that looting is going to be extra difficult on stormy days. At the very beginning of the day, before you take your tools up to the main entrance, you should leave 3-4 lightning rods out in the snow around your ship. These will help speed up looting and might net you some Eyeless Dog and Forest Keeper kills, particularly if you use Whoopie-Cushions. Sadly we can't do anything about the random lightning strikes, but they seem to be incredibly rare causes of death in my experience.

Other Tech and Strategies

Basic looting strategy

Everyone has their own looting habits that work for them, but I wanted to mention three in particular. First is one that you've probably heard a thousand times, but it's still worth bringing up just for how incredibly helpful it is, which is the left or right wall strat. If you're entering a labyrinth, simply stick to either the left wall or right wall until you loop around or find loot to bring back. When it's time to go, turn around and simply follow the opposite wall until you magically make it back outside.
The other thing I like to do when I'm looting in labyrinths is to leave individual pieces of loot in high-visibility spots like lit up doorways or cross sections so that I have a trail of crumbs to follow back and forth as I'm looting. Also, wait to bring loot outside until you've hit a point where you don't want to explore any deeper, that way you can use previously found loot to guide you back, and you won't waste as much time running back and forth from the fire exit or main entrance.
Lastly, if you're struggling to find loot and a Hoarding Bug spawns, just follow him around. There's a good chance he'll lead you directly to a huge stockpile, and if you've got a shovel then congrats, it's your stockpile now!

Turret and Bracken my beloved

I've found that the two things I die to the most in solo runs are turrets and Brackens. The really bad news about turrets is that they are very common on both Assurance and Titan, and sometimes so many will spawn on Titan that you literally can't loot anything and have to skip a day. If you do have to deal with turrets, just remember that they have a 180° firing angle and infinite firing range. If one sees you, you have 3 ways to avoid death:

1. Run behind a nearby wall or closed door. Keep in mind that sight lines can be weird and sometimes the turret will shoot you when it looks like it shouldn't be able to. Also note that bookcases count as walls, but most objects/furniture will not block bullets
   
2. Run around to the other side of the turret before it starts firing, if and only if you know where its firing angle ends
   
3. Jump on top of the turret. This is your safest option, it will drop aggro if you're directly on top of it. Note however that a turret can shoot upward through a catwalk if you're on a floor above it

The only safe way to deal with Brackens pre-shotguns is to constantly flick your camera to look behind you, so get used to doing that. Frequently remind yourself, it's easy to forget. Unfortunately this also increases your chance/rate of being haunted by the Ghost Girl, but she is much safer to deal with than a Bracken.

All my homies hate clowns

Running into a Jester sucks a lot but it's not the end of the world. You should of course try to avoid being spotted, but you still have a decent chunk of time to run around before he starts winding up. When this does eventually happen though, try to bait him away from whichever area you know has more loot to grab. If there's a stockpile at fire exit, bait him post-pop to the main entrance and leave before he eats you. If you haven't finished exploring main, do the opposite.

And then there are Coilheads

The most dreaded bastards in the game. If you run into a Coilhead, don't panic, but do immediately start making your way out of the facility. It's so easy to die to these ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in solo it's just not worth even trying to get past them, especially if they combo with other enemies like Brackens or Nutcrackers. Note that they have a patrol phase, so if you see one stumbling around and it doesn't notice you, you might be able to loot a little bit before it goes berserk, but keep your ears open. When they lock onto you, just keep walking backwards and bait them into a corner or wall next to your exit, and move to a position where you can see both them and the exit. You can get out no problem. Sadly this can often end a day early, but that's a risk you'll have to calculate yourself.

Crouch sprinting

If you sprint while spamming the crouch button, you can effectively run silently. I try not to use this strategy too often personally just because it feels cheesy, but if you're stuck running from a Forest Keeper or an Earth Leviathan and there's an Eyeless Dog nearby, this tech can absolutely save a run, so it's worth knowing how to do it.

Assurance fire exit speed strat

Here's a quick video I put together demonstrating how you can make it to the fire exit on Assurance before 8am. The only downside to this strat is that you take a lot of damage, which means you have to be a little more careful indoors. In particular, keep in mind that a Snare Flea will be able to kill you no matter what if you are already at low health.

General game knowledge

For more info on how to understand and improve at Lethal Company in general, I would highly recommend checking out Wurps over on YouTube. I have learned so much from his videos, a lot of which has helped me in learning solo play and writing this guide. In particular I would recommend his Moons Tier List, Creature Guide and Navigation Guide videos. Thanks for all your work, Wurps!
I would also like to throw in a shoutout to Thalonius whose long-form solo Lethal Company videos have contributed so much to the knowledge base I needed to write this guide. You're awesome, Thalonius! I love putting your videos on in the background while I'm working.

Recommended Mods for Quality of Life

Like I said at the beginning of this guide, everything you read here is intended for casual high quota solo runs, and as such doesn't need to go by any no-modding rules. If you want to speedrun this game I encourage you to do so, but make sure you run the game totally vanilla otherwise your runs will be disqualified. All of the mods I'm going to list below don't really make the run any easier in my opinion, save for one caveat. These are simply meant to make your solo experience more enjoyable and streamlined, because it can become extremely tedious at times if you run full vanilla. All that said, if you prefer to run vanilla or you feel like you're somehow cheating by using these mods that's totally okay, just please don't judge others for choosing to use them. All of these mods of course require BepInExPack [thunderstore.io]by BepInEx.

Bug fixes and optimization

• Pathfinding Lag Fix[thunderstore.io] by Zaggy1024
  
• Fix Centipede Lag[thunderstore.io] by MassiveNewCoilers
  
• Jetpack Fall Fix[thunderstore.io] by Hamunii

Quality of life improvements

• More Items[thunderstore.io] by Drakorle
  
• Ship Loot[thunderstore.io] by tinyhoot
  
• Always Pickup[thunderstore.io] by NutNutty
  
• Hold Scan Button[thunderstore.io] by FutureSavior
  
• Hide Chat[thunderstore.io] by Monkeytype
  
• Company Building Enhancements (CBE)[thunderstore.io] by Dreamweave
  
• Sell From Terminal[thunderstore.io] by stormytuna
  (note that if you run this alongside CBE you may run into compatibility issues or need to adjust the mod configs)

The problem child

• Faster Item Dropship[thunderstore.io] by FlipMods

I included this last mod because it makes buying tools much, much quicker when you're at the company building. That said, this also affects your dropship timing while on the different moons, so if you ever use the dropship strat to distract Eyeless Dogs, this mod could alter difficulty as you don't have to wait as long for the strat to take effect, but you also get less time to make use of it, depending of course on your config settings. I personally use the dropship strat very rarely and I hate waiting for the dropship to arrive, so I prefer to use it when I do solo runs, but you should decide for yourself whether you want to use it.

Conclusion and Why I Wrote This

I love playing this game solo. At first I thought it would suck all the fun out of the game, as Lethal Company really shines when you're goofing around with friends or deliberating tasks among colleagues, but I've come to really enjoy the solo experience as something that helps me improve at the game and constantly have a new goal to work toward. Plus, I can play whenever I want without having to coordinate a large group!

But good lord it was hard to get started. Everything I included in this guide is either random knowledge I picked up from watching numerous streamers/youtubers or little improvements I've discovered across my own solo runs through trial and error (a lot of deaths). While I enjoyed all of that, it also meant it took me a really long time to figure out how to even begin reaching higher quotas solo, and I wanted to help make that easier for people to learn so they could jump right in and start having as much fun as possible. I think a lot of folk are put off by the idea of playing Lethal Company by themselves, but I really encourage you to try it out and stick through at least one good run to see if you enjoy it. It can be incredibly fun and rewarding, and then you can show off how much you've improved next time you play with your friends! Just be sure not to metagame too hard or tell other people they're playing the game wrong, the goal is always to have fun and there's no incorrect way to do so.

If you have any suggestions or critiques please say so in the comments section, I recognize that this guide is likely very flawed but I wanted to put something together and this is the best I could do with the knowledge I have. If anything in this guide is just outright wrong, I will make corrections as soon as I can.

Thanks for reading! Go feed the squid.

[BattleRover]

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[dugizem]

yeah i just started to play solo and i got to titan and... i got stuck
so this really helps me ty

[bladee glazer]

thank you for bringing this infomation to me and i really think that this will be able to bring me to a high derpy blud derpy blud derp sunddee kid bruh "onu rool" thanks! :steam_salty:

[Axel]

nice guide for solo run! wow!

[yannickfrei11]

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