How to heal and get first aid items in Void Bastards

Knowing how to heal in Void Bastards is going to mean the difference between escaping a ship with all your collected loot and losing it all. At the start of the game, healing isn’t super clear, nor is learning about first aid items. While your healing options are limited, there are some ways to help keep your client alive.

How to heal

There are two ways to heal in Void Bastards: resting and using health stations. Health stations are extremely rare and only found on specific XONNOX-style ships. These ships typically have medical theatres with health stations. Because they are so rare, it’s best to assume you can’t heal yourself while aboard a vessel.

Outside of resting, the only way to regain health in Void Bastards is to use a med booth, which are only on specific ships.

The primary way you will be healing your client is by resting or traveling. Whenever you choose to rest, you will consume 1 food and you will heal a certain amount of health. You will also heal each time you jump to a new location in the nebula, provided you have food. The reason you might want to rest instead of jump is so that you can heal-up before docking with a ship.

You can actually improve the effectiveness of food by crafting the Colon Cleanser. This tool allows you to recover 50% more health each day. Whether flying from node to node or choosing the “rest” option, the Colon Cleanser will take effect.

Because resting and traveling is the only way to consume food, and thus heal yourself, it’s incredibly important you know where to find food in Void Bastards.

First Aid Items

As mentioned above, the only first aid items in Void Bastards are health stations located on XONNOX ships. These ships typically contain hospital theatres and areas designed for surgery. When on these ships, look for rooms with a healing station. When you first encounter them, they offer a single heal for free. Once the free heal is used, you will need to use merits if you wish to use it again.

Though not technically a healing item, the Heart Starter will bring you back to life at full health, so, kind of a healing item?

Unfortunately, there are no other first aid items that you can activate from your inventory. What this means is that death can sometimes be inevitable. In saying this, there is a device you can unlock that will bring your client back to life. This is known as a Heart Starter.

Heart Starters are a single-use item that each client receives in their care package, provided you have the Heart Starter tool crafted. You can upgrade the Heart Starter so that more charges can be carried at once. This ensures you can use the same client for longer, allowing you to keep your hard-earned merits or to help you with any particularly challenging boss fights on a ship.

Increasing your health

The body armor can be upgraded four times to the Steel Carapace, adding 2000 health to the base amount.

While not technically healing, you can increase the hitpoints of your client through upgrades. The Padded Jacket adds a couple of hundred points of health and every upgrade after it adds more. This is a great way to improve your survivability.

The challenge of Void Bastards isn’t just in exploring the randomly generated ships, it’s in keeping your clients alive. While there is no way to heal your character while on a ship (except for rare healing stations), you can heal by resting or jumping, provided you have food. For more Void Bastard guides, keep it locked to Shacknews.