Throughout the lifespan of Lethal Company, community members have devised (in)formal roles you can play in your eternal hunt for Scrap. In this article, we’ll talk about the Ship Duty role, where you are stationed on the ship, which has many advantages and some disadvantages.
How to Play the Terminal Ship Duty Role in Lethal Company
You probably won’t be leaving the ship much if you decide to take on the Ship Role on the Terminal (not until the very end of the run, at least, in most cases). It’s actually a pretty relaxed role where you won’t be dealing with various atrocities outside the ship… most of the time.
If you get spotted by a Ghost Girl once (or you hear her snickering laugh), you’ll probably want to return to the ship and never look back.
Here are the things you will be doing most of the time if you decide to take the Ship Duty role:
Monitoring the Situation in the Facility and Neutralizing Problems for Crewmates
On Terminal, you need to type in "view monitor" so that you can see the monitor while watching the Terminal, instead of hopping between the Terminal and the Monitor.
Now that you can see your fellow crewmates, a command called "switch" changes views cyclically between all crewmates, and "switch playername" switches to a player directly.
If you see a green letter followed by a number around a crewmate, it could be either a:
- Turret (you will be able to see where it’s conducting its scan)
- Landmine (you will see a dot)
- Door
If you type in the code for a Turret or a Landmine, you will temporarily disable it. You will be able to track the progress bar which signals when these will come back online. You can only disable a Turret or a Landmine once it’s fully online, so timing it correctly and consistently may provide safe passage to your crew. Remember, if a crewmate steps on the landmine but doesn’t get off, you can still save them.
If you type in the code for the door, you will permanently open or close it. This is good to allow your crew to explore additional corridors and rooms for more scrap loot or to seal off an annoying enemy, such as Coil-Head, Hygrodere, etc…
Removing the Apparatus is like removing a fuse from the electric box. You will have limited influence on what you can do.
Reporting the Whereabouts of Scrap Loot and Enemies by Looking at the Red Dots
Triangles show loot. If a crewmate is running together with a Triangle, you know they’re holding a two-handed item. If you have a Signal Translator on board, you can use short 9-character messages to relay information to your crew if you do not have walkie-talkies (let’s face it, most of the time, you won’t do that because that inventory spot is valuable. However, you can designate one crewmate to have the walkie-talkie on them).
Red Dots show enemies. As you play this role, you will understand certain dot movement behavior patterns, such as:
- A slow-moving dot is a Hygrodere.
- A dot moving very fast, but only when nobody is looking at it is a Coil-Head.
- A dot moving and retreating after somebody looks at it is a Bracken.
- A dot moving with a triangle and/or moving past crewmates, ignoring them, is probably a Hoarding Bug.
- A dot standing still is either a Snare Flea or a Bunker Spider.
If your team is split up, you can inform the rest of the team of the spotted enemies through the Signal Translator or Walkie-Talkie. You can also tell them about Forest Giants, Eyeless Dogs, or Worms that lurk outside so that they know how to deal with the situation better.
Saving Crewmates From the Facility
If you have a teleporter, or you are brave enough to be a cleanup crew and go there personally, you could save teammates from the Facility in these cases:
- If they are hard-stuck by the likes of Coil-Head and can’t get out without your help.
- If they are killed (be careful not to teleport a Masked home).
Teleporting a crewmate with a full inventory of scrap and items leaves that stuff behind, so many experienced crews would rather wait for a crewmate to actually die (just not to get fined as hard at the end of the day) before teleporting them.
Wrapping up the day
When the team decides it’s enough, you can either help them haul the loot back to the ship (if there’s too much to carry) or you can help them deal with the outside enemies. Loud Horn and Whoopie Cushion (if you conveniently plant it outside the ship so they can keep triggering it) are two methods to keep the Eyeless Dogs away from the ship’s entrance, but be very careful, because agitating them raises the threat (aggressiveness) level. You’re better off if they never hear you existing. Remember, only one crewmate needs to survive so that all scrap doesn’t get lost.
Disadvantages of Taking a Ship Duty Role
With all the positives listed (which increase the more your team is versed and coordinated while playing in such a setup), the downside of being on ship duty is that you won’t be there physically from your team to help them fight monsters, explore the place, and carry scrap. So, make the 25% manpower loss count!
Also, if you have an Inverse Teleporter, you can speed up the entry of your crewmates dramatically. You can immediately teleport them back if they’re in a bad situation since they started with zero items anyway.
