Black Box Audio Log

A dead crewmate leaves a black box cassette containing their final transmitted microphone audio. Recover it, sell it, or listen to what happened.

Version 0.1.0 is an early playtest build. Every player, including the host, needs this mod and its dependencies.

Use

• Death creates a cassette near the player's last observed location, worth $30–$50 by default.
• Pick up the cassette and press LMB to play or stop it. Start playback, then drop it on the ship's table to listen together.
• The default recording is the final 20 seconds, with a mechanical click, leading hiss, band-limited voice, and a terminal noise burst.
• Playback comes from the cassette in 3D space and emits noise detectable by hearing-sensitive enemies.
• Playback, tape value, and spawning are controlled by the host. Audio is transferred in bounded chunks. Clients request missing recordings, including after joining a lobby.

Install with a mod manager

Install BepInExPack and LethalLib in your Lethal Company profile. Use the manager's local-mod import feature if available and select BlackBoxAudioLog-0.1.0.zip. If your manager does not expose local-mod import, open the profile folder and copy BepInEx/plugins/BlackBoxAudioLog/BlackBoxAudioLog.dll from the archive into the same folder in the profile. Launch Modded.

Do this for every player. Do not install into the game's Managed folder. This archive is a mod package, not a profile export or profile code. Once publicly published, it can be installed from the manager's online mod list.

Recording and settings

The first modded launch creates BepInEx/config/blackbox.audiolog.cfg.

• Recording.Enabled: records microphone audio in memory and shares the final buffer with the lobby upon death. Disable for static-only death tapes.
• Recording.Seconds: 5–30 seconds, default 20; restart after changing.
• Host.MinimumValue / Host.MaximumValue: default 30 / 50.
• Host.MaximumTapes: default 16; prevents unbounded recording memory. Sell or lose tapes to free capacity.
• Host.AttractEnemies: default true.
• Playback.Volume: local volume, default 0.8.

Only the local game's transmitted microphone channel is recorded. Muting or releasing push-to-talk inserts silence. The game audio mix is not captured. Environmental sounds appear only if the microphone itself picks them up and the game's voice processing preserves them. No audio files are written to disk by the mod. Recordings stay available across rounds in the current lobby; after quitting, saved physical tapes play static only. Lobby participants receive recordings and may independently record playback.

Current limitations and validation

Built against installed Steam build 22825947 (v81), Unity 2022.3.62, and LethalLib 1.2.0. See the included TESTING.md for the exact runtime evidence and open checks. This release needs a real two-player microphone playtest before public release. No guarantee is made for arbitrary late-join, resurrection, or enemy mods.

A disconnected player's missing recording becomes static after 15 seconds. Fatal pits can leave tapes unrecoverable. Only 16 live tapes are tracked by default. When the limit is reached, additional deaths do not spawn tapes. Physical saved tapes count toward the limit.

Remove

Disable or uninstall BlackBoxAudioLog in the profile. Sell stored cassettes before removing an item-adding mod from a save.

Build

From the workspace root: pwsh -File BlackBoxAudioLog/tools/build.ps1. The build uses the existing workspace-local .NET 8 SDK and dependency references in the sibling RiseOfTheMarionette project, plus installed game assemblies. None of those dependency DLLs are redistributed.