Luna: The Long Night

Luna: The Long Night

Your lunar mission was going by the book until disaster struck: an explosion on board. You had to get out fast. You packed an emergency crate with what you could grab in the few minutes you had and jumped into the escape capsule just before your ship exploded.

You land safely on the Moon with your supply crate, knowing that if you do not work fast, you will never survive the long night ahead. Luckily, you landed just before lunar dawn. This gives you one lunar day—roughly 15 Earth days—to get set up before 15 days of darkness.

You have one long day to prepare for the long night to survive.

Requires

This mod requires the following mods to support the day cycle changes: install BepInEx with the StationeersLaunchPad plugin first, then subscribe to Stationeers Expanded World Configs.

Luna: The Long Night is a survival-focused Moon world built around the Moon's approximately 29.5-Earth-day solar cycle. The cycle is compressed into a playable session without turning it back into Stationeers' normal rapid day/night loop.

You land shortly before dawn. Once the Sun clears the horizon, you have approximately five real hours of daylight to establish shelter, agriculture, steel production, and durable energy storage. Sunset begins another approximately five real hours of darkness. If your base is not ready, the night may finish the expedition for you.

The challenge

- Begin shortly before lunar sunrise - Use the long daylight period to build a self-sustaining base - Develop agriculture to produce charcoal and unlock early steel - Store enough power to survive the night - Adapt to sparse surface resources and the complete absence of mineable ice and coal

A more lifelike lunar cycle

The world uses the Moon's tidal locking and a world-specific orbital time scale. A complete sunrise-to-sunrise cycle lasts approximately 35,436 real seconds—about 9 hours 50 minutes—with roughly 4 hours 55 minutes of daylight and 4 hours 55 minutes of darkness.

This timing applies automatically when a new world is created. Plant growth and light/dark requirements retain their normal real-time behavior, so extending the visible lunar day does not multiply plant growth times.

Realism and gameplay compromises

The goal is to make the experience feel as lifelike as Stationeers reasonably allows, but this is not intended to be a scientifically exact simulation.

The real lunar surface does not contain exposed, hand-mineable metal ore deposits. A completely realistic interpretation would therefore make normal Stationeers progression impossible. This world retains a sparse selection of surface ore as a deliberate gameplay compromise, while shifting more resources below the surface and removing convenient sources that undermine the survival premise.

- Surface hand mining is limited to iron, copper, gold, and silicon at reduced density - Other ordinary ores remain in buried hand-mineable deposits - Coal is removed from hand mining and is available only through deep mining - All mineable ice is removed; there is no local ice supply

Starting conditions

Every start includes a breathing-gas package and an Emergency Supplies crate. Community variants provide a complete crate for every player.

This world is intended to be a survival challenge. Even the Easy start may be extremely difficult for new players.

Easy - Four spare breathing-gas canisters - Powered mining drill and pickaxe - Angle grinder with a charged battery instead of the handheld ore detector - Filled Spacepack propellant canister - Equipped Sensor Lenses with a charged battery and Ore Scanner processing unit

Standard — the intended experience - Three spare breathing-gas canisters - Powered mining drill and pickaxe - No angle grinder

Brutal - Two spare breathing-gas canisters - Pickaxe only; no powered mining drill - No angle grinder

For the intended survival experience, this world is best played with the No Traders mod enabled. Traders can bypass much of the resource pressure that defines the challenge.

Ironman respawns

Human and Zrilian characters respawn with only a jumpsuit—no pressure suit, helmet, Spacepack, or equipment. Robots respawn without a battery. The world may technically allow a respawn, but it is not intended to provide a practical recovery from death.