Ostranauts Tools & Checklists

Ostranauts punishes improvisation. A financed hull deducts mortgage payments every six-hour shift whether you are docked at OKLG or halfway through a botched EVA. Atmosphere failures rarely announce themselves with a cinematic explosion — they arrive as a quiet pressure drop, a CO2 climb, or a suit alarm you ignored because you were juggling nav COMMS. Salvage permits cost real credits, and hauling the wrong wreck can leave you broke before you reach a vendor.

This hub collects practical tools you can keep open on a second monitor, print for a notebook, or skim on a phone while you play. They are not substitutes for the full guides; they are the last-minute sanity checks experienced captains run before clamps release.

Mortgage and shift planning

Debt is the metronome of the campaign. If you own a mortgaged ship, every shift tick pulls cash whether you slept through a bar scene or burned fuel on a long intercept. The mortgage shift planner breaks the six-hour rhythm into a table you can fill with expected income, fixed costs, and buffer credits. Pair it with the ship mortgage guide when you compare starter packages or refinance, and with the salvage economy overview when you estimate what a derelict haul might actually sell for after repair costs.

Use the planner when:

• You are about to take a long flight and are unsure whether you will land before the next deduction
• You hired crew and need to account for wages plus death-pay exposure
• You bought permits or fuel in bulk and want to see whether one more salvage day fits before broke status

Atmosphere and undock safety

Life support is the silent fail state. Before you request undock clearance, walk the hull with the atmosphere checklist: batteries or reactor headroom, O2 and N2 targets near 20 kPa, scrubber cart routing, alarm thresholds, and EVA suit placement. The detailed loop — pumps, conduits, airtight zoning — lives in Manage Atmosphere. The checklist catches the mistakes guides assume you already learned once.

Run the atmosphere checklist when:

• You added a room, moved a door, or rerouted conduits since your last flight
• Crew are sleeping in a compartment you rarely enter
• You are leaving OKLG for more than a short boneyard hop

Salvage run packing

Salvage is a logistics job wearing a space suit. Permits, uninstall tools, suit integrity, haul capacity, and repair-before-sell math all need to align before you clamp onto a derelict. The salvage run checklist walks permit purchase, tool loadout, EVA prep, cargo planning, and vendor timing. For narrative depth on surveying wrecks and uninstall order, read How to Salvage.

Use the salvage checklist when:

• It is a new in-game day and you need to rebuy permits
• You upgraded the hull and are unsure whether your old haul plan still fits
• You are returning after a break and do not remember which tools live in which locker

Steam Workshop and mods

Steam Workshop arrived at 1.0 with 40+ community mods — hull variants, QoL tweaks, part packs. The Steam Workshop page covers the in-game MODS menu, loading_order.json, local Ostranauts_Data/Mods/ layout, SampleMod.zip, and save backup workflow before subscribing. Legitimate modding only — not cheat scripts.

Use the Workshop page when:

• You want community hulls after mastering vanilla Getting Started
• You need load-order help when two mods conflict
• You sync saves between PC and Steam Deck with different mod lists

How these tools relate to guides

Guides on the Guides hub teach workflows step by step. Tools compress those workflows into repeatable lists for captains who already understand the systems but want zero surprises at undock. Controls references such as keybinds and the nav console stay separate — open them when you forget which key toggles RCS, not when you forget whether scrubbers are online.

After the 1.0 launch

Blue Bottle Games shipped Ostranauts 1.0 on Steam in August 2026 after years in Early Access. Fire in the Hold-era systems — ship combat around Ceres, asteroid mining gear, expanded station maps — mean older muscle memory may not match your current save. If you are returning from a long break, read Version 1.0 Launch and Fire in the Hold on the Updates hub before you trust an old checklist from memory.

Steam Workshop mods extend vanilla with community hulls and QoL packs — subscribe via the in-game MODS menu; backup saves first. Read Steam Workshop before modding a main career.

For broader impressions of the release build, see the Review page. When a patch changes permit pricing, shift timing, or life-support defaults, we update these tools in the same pass as the guides they reference.