How Long a Solo Moon Clean Takes

Nobody has shown a solo full-Moon clear in Moon Sweepers, and at the progress rates players have reported so far, cleaning the whole Moon alone would take hundreds to thousands of hours. A Moon Map from one run showed 163,830 sectors in total. Solo players with many hours on record report reaching well under 1% of that. One solo reviewer with 19.2 hours on record had unlocked all economy and vehicle upgrades and bought more than ten J.O.O.N.A.S units, yet had cleaned about 0.6% of the surface.

There is no official completion time, and the developers have not published one. The useful answer is a way to estimate your own time from your own save, plus a realistic picture of how the pace changes as you move from brushes to vehicles to automation.

• Total size: about 163,830 sectors on one player's Moon Map.
• Reported solo pace: a fraction of 1% in the first 8 to 20 hours.
• Full clear: not demonstrated; simple extrapolations from reported pace land somewhere between several hundred and a few thousand hours.
• Biggest solo limit right now: in patch 1.0.3, J.O.O.N.A.S units can stop when players move away, and a solo player can only be in one place.

How Big the Moon Actually Is

The Moon is split into hex-shaped sectors grouped into larger regions. Your local progress and your Moon-wide progress move at completely different speeds. You can finish an entire nearby region and still see the overall percentage barely move.

One Moon Map showed these totals:

The same screen's upper counter showed 127 of 163,830, which does not match the cleaned total, so use the displayed overall percentage to track progress instead of calculating it yourself from either count. Some reviewers quote figures above 160,000 sectors, which is consistent with this map. One reviewer quoted a much higher number, which this page does not use.

What the milestones mean in sectors

The four Moon completion achievements are tied to the overall percentage. Using the 163,830 total, the approximate sector counts are:

Early Steam global achievement stats showed the 1% milestone as one of the rarest unlocks in the game. That tells you most players, solo or in groups, had not reached even the first percent in the launch week.

What Players Have Reported So Far

These are individual reports from the first days after release, not controlled tests. Only the first review below states it was played solo; the others do not say whether they played alone or in a group. "Hours on record" is total playtime, which includes setup, exploring and idle time, not just cleaning.

A solo streamer reached the Mega Vacuum Rover and bought a first J.O.O.N.A.S after roughly eight hours on day one, which shows how quickly you can reach late-game equipment. The equipment arrives fast; the Moon-wide percentage does not.

What a straight-line estimate gives

If you divide playtime by progress and assume nothing changes, you get a rough order of magnitude. These are simple calculations from the reports above, not predictions:

• About 0.6% in 19.2 hours works out to roughly 3,200 hours for 100%.
• About 1% in 18.9 hours works out to roughly 1,890 hours for 100%.
• A guide's example rate of 200 sectors per hour would take roughly 820 hours to cover 163,830 sectors.

Real pace will not be a straight line. Early hours are spent buying tools rather than clearing ground, which makes the opening look slower than later play. On the other hand, the remaining map gets farther from your base, and automation has limits that can make the later stretch slower than expected. One reviewer asked how long the developers took to finish their own first solo clean and suspected they had not.

How the Solo Pace Changes Over Time

Solo progress moves through distinct phases. Each one changes your rate, so an estimate taken in one phase does not hold for the next.

Brushes: fast feedback, almost no Moon progress

You start with a Toothbrush and buy wider brooms within the first hour or two. Each upgrade is a large relative jump, and finishing hexes pays a small bonus, but every sector is cleaned by hand. Several players describe this as the most rewarding stretch, and it barely touches the overall percentage.

Vehicles: the biggest jump in solo speed

Vehicles clear long strips instead of brush-width passes. The Mega Vacuum Rover costs $6,000 with a 4 m intake and a 3,000 kg base tank, and one fully upgraded rover reached 5,700 kg. Higher Suction Control widens the cleaning strip but lowers speed. For a solo player actively cleaning, a well-upgraded vehicle is the fastest way to add sectors while you are at the keyboard.

Upgrade ceiling

Multiple reviewers report that tool and vehicle upgrades top out before 1% of the Moon is clean. After that point, your personal cleaning speed stops improving, and further progress depends on time and automation rather than new equipment.

Automation: J.O.O.N.A.S and the waiting game

J.O.O.N.A.S costs $20,000, cleans the nearest dusty hex one at a time, and fires dust to a Capsule Catcher ($1,500). It is the only cleaner designed to work across the whole Moon, so a solo full clear depends on it. Players disagree on how well it scales:

• One reviewer argued income snowballs as you go from 5 to 10 to 20 units, so purchases speed up over time.
• The solo reviewer at 0.6% described the late game as a waiting simulator, because J.O.O.N.A.S cannot be upgraded the way vehicles can.

For solo players, the open 1.0.3 issue matters most here. The developers list J.O.O.N.A.S units stopping when players move away as a known problem. In a group, players spread across the Moon can be near more units at once. Alone, you cannot, so a solo fleet spread across the map may be partly idle while you work elsewhere.

Measure Your Own Time to 100%

The only reliable estimate comes from your own save. Use the Moon Map at a station console and the overall percentage it displays.

1. Note the cleaned sector count and overall percentage at the start of a session.
2. Play normally for a measured period, for example two hours.
3. Note the new count and percentage.
4. Work out cleaning rate = new sectors cleaned ÷ hours elapsed.
5. Work out estimated hours remaining = sectors not yet cleaned ÷ cleaning rate.

Repeat the measurement after every major change, such as buying a new vehicle, adding J.O.O.N.A.S units, or moving your work to a new region. A rate taken during the Toothbrush phase will badly overstate your remaining time, and a rate taken while J.O.O.N.A.S units are idle will understate what a working fleet can do.

If you want to leave the game running while you are away from the keyboard, measure that separately too. Compare the map before and after an unattended session, and remember that solar-powered processing can stop at night when batteries run low.

Solo Compared With Co-op

Moon Sweepers supports up to 16 players. Since patch 1.0.3, upgrades are shared across the crew through the host's upgrade matrix, so a group no longer has to buy every upgrade separately. More players mean more people clearing ground at the same time and more players near remote J.O.O.N.A.S units.

There is no measured data on how much faster a group finishes. The developer describes crews either spreading out or working the same patch together, and neither approach has been timed. What is clear is that a solo player handles all of the cleaning, delivery, building and processing alone, and that the current J.O.O.N.A.S distance issue costs a solo player more than it costs a group.

Setting Realistic Solo Goals

A full Moon clear alone is not a reasonable short-term target at the current balance. Smaller goals give clearer progress:

• First region: finish a full region near your base for the early region achievement.
• First 1%: roughly 1,638 sectors, which most launch-week players had not reached.
• A working fleet: several J.O.O.N.A.S units near your base, each with a reliable catcher route, cleaning while you drive.
• Your measured rate: check your sectors per hour after each big purchase and see whether 10% is within reach.

The developers say progression balancing is part of their ongoing work. If a future patch adds faster automation or larger machines, re-measure your rate, because any solo estimate made at 1.0.3 assumes the tools you have today.