Hire Crew in Ostranauts

Ostranauts is single-player, but your ship rarely stays single-crew. Hired hands fly nav consoles, wrench salvage, and walk EVA while you sleep — badly, if you ignore contracts, suits, and morale. Blue Bottle Games ties hiring to noir economics: death pay upfront, social friction, and the real possibility someone dies because you vented the wrong compartment.

This guide covers death pay, befriending, roster management, duty assignment, EVA suit policy, and links to autonomous behavior notes.

Death pay and contracts

When you hire through OKLG markets or contacts, expect death pay — a lump sum owed if the worker dies while employed by you. Death pay is not optional flavor; it is a line item that can bankrupt a captain who treats crew as disposable fuel.

Before signing:

• Read base wage, shift length, and death pay multiplier.
• Budget death pay alongside mortgage (six-hour shifts) and salvage permits (~$5000/day).
• Never hire more crew than your life support and suit locker can sustain.

If cash is tight, delay hiring until How to Salvage stabilizes — one expert you cannot pay is worse than solo play.

Befriending and trust

Beyond contracts, befriending raises loyalty and unlocks smoother order compliance. Low-trust crew abandon posts, start fights, or refuse EVA when atmosphere alarms spike.

Practical befriending without role-play excess:

• Pay on time and do not starve shared galley stocks.
• Share safe quarters with working scrubbers — see Manage Atmosphere.
• Do not send green hires on solo cutting jobs without tether discipline.

Social traits from Character Creation modify how fast trust builds. Check starter careers for captains who start with negotiation edges.

Roster, duties, and shifts

Your roster lists active hires, skills, health, and assigned posts. Assign duties explicitly:

• Nav — COMMS hail, undock clearance, clamp alignment assistance during How to Fly and Dock.
• Engineering — reactor watch, conduit repair, scrubber restart.
• EVA — uninstall orders on wrecks, hull patching.
• Domestic — food prep, med application, suit maintenance.

Rotate duties to reduce exhaustion. Exhausted crew mis-click nav commands or skip airlock equalization. The crew AI page documents how autonomous agents prioritize tasks when you issue broad orders.

EVA suits and crew survival

Every crew member who exits the hull needs a fitted EVA suit with adequate bottle pressure. Standard policy:

• One primary suit plus one spare per two active EVA-capable crew.
• Stage suits near the airlock you actually use — not three decks away.
• After salvage runs, inspect suits for micrometeorite cuts before restocking.

Suit failure during a boneyard shift triggers death pay and emotional whiplash. Pair suit checks with the atmosphere checklist before undock.

Micromanagement versus delegation

You can pilot every burn yourself or delegate nav while you cut wrecks. Delegation fails when:

• Nav console lacks powered transponder/antenna — see nav console.
• Crew skill is lower than task demand.
• You issue conflicting orders during clamp alignment.

Start with one hire on a single duty until you observe crew AI behavior in safe OKLG loops before multi-crew salvage marathons.

Crew and ship building

Adding bunks without adding scrubber capacity suffocates overnight crews. Ship Building should plan crew quarters adjacent to life support manifolds, not isolated in unpowered cargo extensions.

Larger crews accelerate How to Salvage hauls but multiply wage and death pay exposure. The Builds hub compares hulls that support four bunks versus solo tubs.

When crew die or quit

Fatalities deduct death pay immediately and may remove skilled labor mid-shift. Quitters leave gaps without compensation but still hurt schedules.

Recovery steps:

1. Stabilize atmosphere and finish dock if mid-crisis — Rescue When Stranded if needed.
2. Reassign duties to remaining roster or captain manually.
3. Rehire only after finances absorb death pay hit.

Related pages

• Getting Started — when to hire your first hand
• Controls and keybinds — order issuance hotkeys
• Systems hub — economy and AI depth
• Map — stations with deeper labor pools
• Updates — hire balance changes after 1.0
• Review — crew simulation reception at launch