Learn how to be the kingof the server, raid like a champion, and build the compound of your dreams withthese tips, and remember, stay rusty!
Tools First, Weapons Later
In the first few minutes of spawning into a server, you're faced with achoice-- tools, or weapons? Since the majority of your success in the gamecomes with building bases, killing animals, and mining nodes, be sure to maketools a priority. Tools like the Stone Hatchet, which takes 200 wood and 100stone to create, or around ten hits to a node and twenty to a tree, can speedup your progress on getting a base and tools down exponentially.
Keep Your Bow at Your Side
The bow, which is arguably the most important early-game weapon, isinexpensive-- you can craft it with 200 wood and 50 cloth, which is fairly easyto craft. It uses arrows, which can be crafted from 25 wood and 10 stone. Ifyou are one of the first people to get a bow, you have a definite advantageover your spear-armed adversaries.
Important Components
Components, which are a staple of the game, are used to make everythingfrom armor to tools to decorative elements for your base! You can find them incrates, at monuments, and in barrels along the road. The most useful items thatyou can find are springs, gears, and rifle bodies, which you can use to makeguns!
Keep Your Friends Close, andMonuments Closer
Being close to monuments are important for farming components and usingthe recycle at the monuments to get scrap (which you can use to research newitems.) But be warned, having a base close to a monument means that more peoplewill be out and about near your home, which can make it hard to farm in peace!Be sure to weigh the risks and rewards of basing near a monument before placingyour main base.
Footsteps Matter
Like in other survival games (and other games in general,) you canoften hear enemies before you see them. Keep an ear out for animals, otherplayers, and on some modded servers, zombies-- knowing when they are coming canmake a world of difference in your rust experience! Different animals havedifferent footsteps, which are even distinct from other players. These distinctionsmean that you have the edge on the other players on the server!
Early Game Low-Grade
Early game, low-grade is super important-- you need it to power boats,create furnaces, and power lamps and lanterns, if you plan on doing anything atnight. You can get low-grade from animal fat and cloth, both of which you canfarm from animals. Farming animals is fairly easy if you have a ranged weapon,like a bow! Low grade can also be found in mining helmets outside of mines andin red barrels found along the road and at monuments.
Upgrade!
Keep raiders out and your friends safely inside with an upgraded base.Materials like stone, which you can reinforce with stone, sheet metal, whichrequires metal fragments, and armoured, which you can get with metal frags andhigh-quality metal are all harder to raid than wood or twig are. Although thesecan be expensive in the early stages of a wipe, they are worth it in the longrun, as they offer more protection of you and your loot!
Watch Rust Build Videos
Looking to build the compound of your dreams? YouTube content creatorspore tirelessly over their builds, which are constantly updated as new updatesfor the game come out! A new, crafty base build can be the difference betweenan easily raided base and a compound that is virtually unraidable!
Try Battlefield Servers
Want to learn the best way to get better with weapons, without losingthem? Try Battlefield servers! You often spawn (and re-spawn as necessary) witha semi-automatic rifle, AK-47, and Bolt-Action rifle, which are all essentialto learn to succeed at the game! Being able to use these weapons effectivelycan be a huge factor in your success from wipe to wipe.
Combat Tag with Your Friends
Want to 1 v 1 one of your friends to prove that you are better? Trygetting into a combat tag server! You can battle it out in single arenas, orcompete on teams against other players. If you want to see more PvP in yourRust experience, you should definitely check out combat tag servers!
Organize Inventory
Keeping your tools, food, and ammo on your hotbar means that you cansee them at all times, and easily switch to your gun or hatchet as needed.Knowing how much ammo you have on you is very important, especially if you areaway from your base for a long period of time. Running out of ammo in themiddle of battle can be fatal!
Hidden Sashes
Hiding important guns, explosives, or similar loot? Make a stash!Stashes can be made from ten cloth, and can be hidden underground. To find astash after you've hidden it, look at the ground around where youve placed it.To help your remember exactly where you put your stash, take a screenshot ofthe location! You'll have a perfect record of where you hid it!
Blueprints First, ComponentsLater
If you've just started on a server, you'll need blueprints-- which canbe found using research table and scrap, which you can find by recyclingcomponents. Blueprints are essential for creating tools and weapons-- withoutthe blueprint for a gun, you can't make it using the resources that you have!In later wipes, or later in the wipe, you can keep components, but initially,prioritize blueprints.
Don't Trust ANYONE
There's a reason that the Rust community has such a big reputation, andthe reason is this-- in Rust, you should assume that everyone is out to getyou-- because most of the time, they are. Whether you've just spawned on thebeach, are out farming, or have everything you could ever need, look out forother players, and be sure to run or shoot at the hint of danger.
Silent Raid
Want to raid without the big, attention-drawing booms? Try asemi-automatic rifle, explosive ammunition, and a silencer. This combination,known as a silent raid, allows you to gain access and take over other basesquietly and more efficiently, which is great for mid- or late-game players whoaren't interested in the PvP aspect of the game. Since one sheet metal doorrequires 65 shots with explosive ammunition, bring a whole stack or two alongper raid in case things go wrong!
Satchel Raiding
If you're really into booms, but don't have the resources for C4explosives, try satchel raiding! Four satchels are required to blow through asheet metal door, and more if satchels turn out to be duds (which happens atrandom! The chance of one turning out to be a dud is currently unknown.)
Revolvers
Revolvers are the perfect early to mid-game weapon. They areinexpensive, easy to use, and scarily accurate. A few well placed revolvershots can get you new, better gear off of an unsuspecting player. They takebasic pistol ammo, and are perfect in the early game!
Biome-Based Bases
Want to have a base that is left alone? Build in the snow! Deserts aregreat for nodes, which are essential to the game, and forests are full oftrees, cloth, and mushrooms. Decide what you want out of your base, and runwith it! They do come with risks, though-- you need more cloth for clothing inthe snow, deserts can get hot during the day, and forests are full of hidingplaces for your enemies to hold against you.
Islands and Sandbars
Want to use the boats that Facepunch recently added to the game? Trybuilding on an island or sandbar! Although these builds can be hard to farmfor, they are easy to defend and maintain. Component farming is easy, too, withthe floats and scuba-diving sites present in the game.
Play with Friends
Rust is best played with friends! Rust is an intense game, and one thatrequires lots of time farming, playing, and building. Having friends to playwith makes the game easier and more fun, and allows you to get closer to yourhomies!
Solo Only ServersDon’t feel like playing with your friends on this one? Try a solo-only server!If you are just starting out and trying to learn the game, solo-only serversare great-- you get single players out to raid or fight you, instead of wholegroups of people. Solo-only servers are also a great way to make friends and tobuild your community, if you’d love to play with friends later on!
Bolt-Action Rifle for BaseDefense
A bolt-action rifle, or bolty as it is colloquially known, is easy todefend your base with if you are under attack. It is scarily accurate, and witha 4x scope, which you can make with high-quality metal, you can snipe enemiesfrom over 100 meters away! It can generally be found in airdrops, made, or boughtfrom other players, and is not a common item. However, the combined punch ofdamage and range on this weapon makes it worth it!
Don't Hoard Weapons
Scared of losing your weapons? Don’t be. It is better to have foughtand lost than have never fought at all, and weapons can fairly easily beremade! Going out to fight with your weapons is a great way to get experiencein the game, learn the mechanics of each gun, and build up your confidence inyour abilities!
Collect Cards
The puzzles at the outpost have some tasty loot, and the keycards forthem are fairly easy to find! If you’ve played Skyrim (which you should, if youhaven’t,) you’ll easily understand the mechanics of the puzzles, which combinetiered keycards with fuse boxes to open doors. Behind the third, best tier ofdoors, you’ll find everything you could ever need-- guns, rad suits forprotection at the monuments, components, and in some cases, armour andmedicine!
Collect Wood
Wood is essential! You'll need wood to build a base, craft simpleweapons and once you reach higher tiers of equipment, you'll need wood to cooksulfur, metal fragments and high-quality metal. Wood will always be used, whetheryou're building a wood two by two or you're cooking sulfur to go on a C4 raid,you will always need wood.
Keep Up with Upkeep
Upkeep is a somewhat new mechanic that the devs at Facepunchintroduced. In a simple way, it’s kind of like rent you have to pay, butinstead of cash, you pay with the resources your base if made out of, if youhave wood walls, floors, foundations or etc, you’re upkeep will be based offhow many you have, if you upgrade to stone, you will now be required to pay astone upkeep. Farming up to pay your upkeep makes sure your base doesn’t decayand wither away and it’s always a good idea to have enough upkeep to last youuntil the next time you log on to keep your base at it’s best.
Skins = Wins, Kinda?
This is a highly debated topic in a majority of games, but in Rust,skins actually have a use. In combat scenarios, it’s easier to identify who’s afoe and who’s a friend or ally with skins. Skins are a nice way to support skincreators and the devs back at Facepunch. If you would like to customize yourbase or your loadout this is most likely a skin out there for your liking. Butdon’t worry if you have concerns with this almost pay to win system, the devsare in the works on a team system that replaces the need of uniforms for themost part.
Modded Experience
There are two main types of servers you will find on Rust in itscurrent state-- modded and vanilla. Vanilla servers can be found under officialand community under the servers section and modded have their own section. Moddedservers introduce more control to the admins of the server allowing them tochange features part of rust such as the gather rate, respawn locations andetc. Modded servers can be a great place for a new player to start up theirendeavors in Rust due to a majority of modded survival servers giving theirplayers kits and higher gather rates allowing the player to learn the gamemechanics with less hassle.
Use Voice Chat
Voice chat is one of the two ways to communicate in Rust, one being inthe chat and the other in voice. Unlike chat where your messages arebroadcasted to the whole server, voice chat is only to players in yourproximity, this can be used to trade goods with other players, tradeinformation, ask them to buddy up with you or discuss the crazed lunatic withthe AK-47 who killed you in your previous life for your rock and torch.
Try Befriending Your Neighbors
Picking your base location can be challenging, especially when you haveto account for your closest threat or your closest ally-- your neighbor. Whenfirst starting Rust, the less threats to you the better, so if you can trymaking friends with your neighbors, the better for you, everyone in Rust isquite psychotic so maybe offering them resources they need to turn forprotection for when you’re first starting off may benefit you, just be carefulfor how much they ask for and if you’re willing and able to make the cost. Ifyou’re lucky, you can persuade them for no cost if they’re friendly andunderstand the challenges it can be to be new to Rust. Just be wary, forbetrayal comes from the ones closest to us.
Run!
In your beginning days of Rust, try not resorting to player vs playerscenarios. When you hear gunshots in the near distance, you should run to yournearest safe location, whether this is in the opposite direction of thegunshots or into your base, you’re going to want to avoid combat. Don’t takethis wrong and play Rust completely avoiding combat your entire playthrough,but for your beginner days you’re going to want to avoid combat until you havea good sense of how the game works, then after, you’re going to want to engagein combat to better your skill.
Farming Minigames
When gathering wood from trees or stone, sulfur or metal from nodes, aminigame will appear. For trees a red “X” will appear on the tree after yourfirst hit, after the “X” appears if you hit it, your gather rate increaseslightly and you will begin gathering more and more each hit on an “X’ untilyou reach the cap gather rate of the tool you’re using. This will help you farmfaster making farming quicking and reducing the time you’re left vulnerable toother players.
Having Multiple Sleeping Bags
If you can having multiple sleeping bags can come to a good use. If youhave two in your base and you happen to be raided and they don’t reach yoursecond bag, you won’t have to venture back out to your base to salvage what’sleft, or if you die during the raid and they destroy your first bag, you canspawn on the second and try again to fend off the attackers. If you’re far fromhome, it’s safe to place a sleeping back in the vicinity of the area you’rearound just in case you die, when we all first started out that one wolf orbear that killed us and made us lose all our loot because we were to far awayfrom base to get back in time before another player loots our dead body couldbe avoided if we placed a bag closed to where we were. This bag would give usbetter control on where can spawn on the map. Also, if we’re to go out raidingor going out on a fight, having a bag near the battle or raid could grant us afaster time of returning and possible fighting for a second time if out lootwasn’t taken or maybe you could get loot from a different body to return backinto the fight as fast as possible.
Airlocks
Knowing how to build a strong base is very important. To make sure forwhen you open door and you meet your demise to a shotgun having an airlock canbecome extremely useful. The airlock will prevent an intruder from gettingstraight into your loot and causes raiders to go through more in order to getyour loot, costing a raider more resources and giving you more time. An airlockis as simple as having a triangle or square coming off the door of your base,covering it with walls and loving one door way with a door. It acts as a bufferzone between the outside and the inside, just make sure you close your doorsbehind you to make sure no one can get through your base for free, even with anairlock it’s dangerous to leave doors open.
Safe and Secure Key Locks
There’s two types of locks in rocks a simple key lock and a code lock.A key lock requires a key to open so if someone else was to get access to thekey, they could open your door and take all your goodies, with a new update theperson who crafted the first key to the lock doesn’t need a key, so aftercrafting a key lock and crafting a key, throwing away the key and letting itdespawn in your base will let you have a door that only you can access, butwith friends this can bring up an issue with getting in and out of the base, soif you’re planning of playing with friends we suggest getting to a code lock asfast as possible. Just remember to always make sure your locks are locked andnot unlocked. For code locks you have to cook metal and craft one with 100 metalfragments, after placing it on a door you can put in a four number pin, thispin number shouldn’t be told to anyone accept people you’re going to base with.Do not right this down any where in Rust, access to this code to anuntrustworthy player can mean an end to your base.
Eat Up, Buttercup
Before venturing out, you’ll have to tend to your basic needs in Rust,hunger and thirst. Water is quite easy to access as long as you’re near a cleanwater source that isn’t salt water, this will mostly be rivers or small bodiesof shallow water that aren’t connected to the ocean. While we’re on the topicof rivers, they supply food from the crops that grow near the river naturally,you’ll find pumpkins and corn in large quantity as long as no one else hastaken from the river, the food near the river will with no doubt supply youwith enough food to go a long while without having to harvest anymore. Afterpicking a spawned crop we get a seed and for eating a crop we get more seeds,these seeds can be used to grow more crops to keep a supply of food. Anotherway to find food is small baskets of food found near monuments in smallmonuments such as the supermarket. Monuments are the marked places on your mapyou can see by hitting the default key “G” and going to these monuments canhelp the player gain resources other than food. Another way to get food is bycrafting fishing traps, these traps are very simple and cost cloth and wood.After crafting the trap, we have to place it near a body of water. By puttingany food besides canned food into the trap you have a chance to catch minnowsor a trout. Trout can be cut apart and provide raw fish, bones and animal fat.Minnows on the other hand are smaller and grant less food than trouts but comein larger quantity than trout. Sadly, in the current state of Rust, minnowscan’t be used as bait to catch trout. Another way to get food is by hunting, onthe island of Rust, we can find bears, wolfs, horses and deers. All of thesegrant a food correlating to the animal, hide or cloth, bones, low animal fatand only for the wolf, you can get a wolf skull to craft a wolf headdress. Anda more cruel and looked down upon way of getting food in Rust in cannibalism,if you are to kill a player you can chop them up for food, bones and animalfat. Cooking this food will allow you to eat a fellow player, but eating humanmeat cost thirty hydration, so make sure if youre last choice is to eat humanmeat, is you have water on the side to quench your thirst. Cooking these meatsor putting them in fish traps can be used to feed the player and grant a smallamount of hydration. Another way to get water to by wells spawned around themap, the wells supply water, but in turn cost a little of your calories or insimpler way to understand takes a little bit out of your hunger to pump thewell. Stocking up on food and bottles of water is a good way to make sure youdon’t die to natural cause.
Understanding Monuments
Monuments are locations spawned around the map, they come in tiers 1-3.One being the lowest tier and 3 being the highest. In lower tiers, you’llcommon loot. In higher tier monuments you have a higher chances to find morerare and more sought after materials. When first spawning off, you’ll spawnaround tier 1 monuments and depending where you go to on the map and where youend of basing will determine your access to the resources found in thesemonuments. Each monument has a unique style to it and some have challenges thatcome along, some have key card locks and fuses and some have challengingparkour to reach a reward.
Hide Your Base
Building your base in an unpopular location may be useful fornewcomers-- avoiding populated areas full of combat is a safe way to build yourbase and avoid being raided. Some nice spots to hide your base is in caves inthe designed plots, side of some cliffs, areas that are far from hotspots suchas monuments, and other low profile areas.
Find Your Spawn
When spawning it, maybe you want to be in a different area, maybe thespawn you have seems to be filled with players, looted or is on the wrong sideof the map you want to be on, by hitting “F1” you can open up the console-- bytyping kill, you character will die and you can try again to spawn somewhereelse. Just a heads up, though, there’s a cooldown of one minute on the command.
Be Sneaky Beaky
Crouching is a perfect way to add a layer of security to your roaming.You don’t have footsteps for others to hear, and can get closer to animals andother players without them being aware!
High External Protection
High external walls are great to have on your person late-game! Ifyou’re getting shot at, all you have to do is pop up a wall between you andyour attacker! With wood high-externals costing only 300 wood, there is noreason that you shouldn’t have these with you if you are running with expensiveguns and armor!
Be Sure to Log Out Safely
When logging out, make sure to log out in a safe area, inside your baseis best, and no this doesn’t mean inside your front door, try sleeping in themost secured area in your base to increase your chances of waking alive anduntouched.
Come Prepared To Raid
Raiding is a very expensive and challenging part of Rust, this comes inmany forms of raiding, whether you’re using a flamethrower to burnt through awooden surface or wooden door, using satchels, C4, explosive 5.56 ammo or maybea rocket launcher to tell your target how you truly feel about them. Or maybethey made a mistake building and you’re able to pickaxe one of their walls downor maybe they have one door and you are going to go deep into their loot room.
Making sure you have enough resources to get through with a raid toimportant, make sure to have enough ammo, medical supplies, strong enough armorand good guns. Having these doesn’t guarantee a raid, it’s the skill behindthese that make it successful or not, so with practice you can up your chances.
Be aware and don’t get tunneled vision, players around the map willhear the raid if you’re using satchels, C4 or rockets and if you’re usingexplosive 5.56, try you best to have a suppressor on. And just because you’reraiding using a quite technique doesn’t mean you’re safe, roaming players orallies of the your target could come and ruin the raid and the people insidethe base, if online, can be another hassle to get over.4
Radiation Treatment
When going through some monuments, you’ll encounter radiation, this cancome in low doses based on your position of if you go to deep, you can be givendeadly doses of radiation. Now, how de we prevent this radiation? By wearingclothing we up our radiation protection, this allows us to go deeper to getloot in some monuments with high raditions. Or we can get a radiation suit outof a crate randomly or off a player, which gives the best protection againstradiation and only has an issue in some spots in tier 3 monuments. If we haverads and want to remove them instantly, we can radiation pills which willremove a decent amount of radiation we have built up for the cost of some ofour hydration.
Zig-Zag
Dodging and weaving are the best ways to avoid being hit by bullets,eaten by wolves, killed by bears,or being smacked by players with spears.Running randomly is a great way to keep yourself as safe as possible in thewild wild world of rust
Waterpipe OP
The waterpipe, which is a simple, easy to make and use shotgun, iseasily one of the most frustrating ways to die, but one of the best ways to gettools off of other players. Hiding around a corner with a waterpipe is a sneakyway to get loot, and quick! OEarly Morning Trappin
Looking to get an edge up on your competition and don’t mind waking upearly? Try getting up early to get online when the server population is at itslowest! Generally, 6 a.m seems to be the sweet spot. Without other playersaround, you are free to roam, farm, or go for airdrops with limitedinterference!
Lock Your Tool Cupboard
Locking your tool cupboard is very strong way to secure your base, itwill cost your raiders more resources to get control to building access to yourbase, and if they don’t have enough to break it, locking it can possible keepthe materials in your base safe and giving you building permissions to rebuildyour base. This is important early game if someone is to get deep into yourbase so they can’t take it over or greif your base.
Ladders Are Important Raid andBuild Tools
You can get into and out of tight spots with a ladder! Ladders are aneasy way to make a raid safer, easier, and more efficient, or climb up to aloft in your base!
Safe Houses
If you have resources to spare, placing small bases, equipped withsleeping bags and tools, are a great way to stop you from losing everything inone raid, as well as keep yourself safer when out roaming. Small one-by-onebases, especially those with airlocks, are great for this. se9.
Pick Up Resources When RunningAround
Each small stone, tree stump, or hemp plant can add up. If you are outfarming, roaming, or even raiding, make it a habit to pick up these smallresources, as they can be extremely helpful later on (and also in the earlygame!)
Keep Kits on Hand
In the event of a raid, lost gunfight, or death by radiation, bears, orwolves, you’ll want to be able to head back out there to retrieve any lostitems. By keeping a spare set of clothes, armour, and a gun or two somewheresafe in your base, you can reduce the amount of time you have to spend grindingbetween each death!
Read More Rust Tips and Tricks Here: http://www.gamersdecide.com/articles/rust-guide-top-50-tips-and-tricks
