Rust Beginner Guide: Everything You Need to Know When Starting

Rust is a game that will not forgive mistakes, you can lose your days of labor in an instant with your only mistake. For example, you opened the outer door while the inner doors of your base were open thoughtlessly, and if another enemy player camping you outside, he can kill you immediately and take over your base completely and all the loot you have obtained. So you'll be left without base and without loot.

This guide will help you avoid such unfortunate mistakes. We will cover topics such as How and where to build a base? What is Tool Cupboard? How to find food and water? How to find weapons? and, How to raid in Rust?

Everything You Need to Know About Bases in Rust

One of the most important matters in Rust is to have a good understanding of Base in general.

In survival games like Rust, building a base is a must. But where you build your base is very important in Rust.

Because you have to be close to the materials or places you need to get in the game, you should also be set up in a place that suits your playing style, for example, if you are a PvP player, you should live in a place that is crowded, or if you are a PvE player (on a server), you should live in a place with less population but still close to the places you need.

To explain this a bit, to survive in Rust we will need materials such as metal and sulfur ore, which are usually abundant in the mountains and snow biomes, we will also need to find weapons and, recycle rust items for getting scrap, for this reasons, we need to be close to both of them.

What Does Tool Cupboard Do in Rust

It would not be wrong to say that the tool cupboard in Rust is the pillar that keeps the base standing.

Literally speaking, Tool Cupboard prevents the base from decaying, slowly repairs your walls if they are somehow low on health, and keeps your entire base at full health as long as you have the necessary materials inside it.

The Tool Cupboard also allows you to claim your space, preventing other players from building within a 25-meter radius.

How Should You Build Your Base in Rust

In Rust, base designs change according to the number of people in your group, but the most used base designs in the game are always 2x1 and 2x2 designs, also called starter bases. Many of the huge bases you see in the game started with 2x1 and 2x2 base designs and then expanded.

2x1 and 2x2 design is like this:

The triangle foundation you see provides airlock security to our door. The airlock is a blessing that is used in every base and should definitely be used. Even if you open your outer door when your inner door is open and if you are caught by surprise and die with your doors open, enemies will not be able to get inside your base. Simply speaking, even if your doors are open, you will have locked doors.

You can fit basic tools such as a sleeping bag, chest, and tool cupboard in both designs, you can check the base design guides to expand your base. Putting a sleeping bag in your base is a must because your sleeping bag will be your new spawn point in the game.

You should build your base in stone as soon as possible and if you have a wooden door you should change it to sheet metal because the wood has a very cheap raid cost and is not safe.

Why You Should Avoid Key Locks in Rust

Another issue is key locks, key locks are made with wood, and they are quite cheap to make. But if you are playing with a friend and not solo, no one can open the door except the person who put the lock. This brings problems, your friend has to have the key to open the door and this is the most dangerous mistake that almost everyone new to the game does.

So if you are not playing solo or you don't want to reveal that you are solo to other players, you should use a metal code lock instead of a wooden key lock, it is much safer.

Everything You Need to Know About Resources in Rust

There are more resources in the game than wood and stone. Wood is already very self-explanatory, there are trees everywhere and you can find them easily.

Metal fragments, low-grade fuel, cloths, and high-quality metal all fall under the category of resources and are used to craft things in the game.

How to Find Ores in Rust

Sulfur and Metal Fragments are found in Sulfur and Metal Ore. To get them we need to mine. We can make a stone pickaxe as a starter by gathering stones and wood with the Rock we have from the spawn point, our tools will improve as we progress in the game.

Once we progress in the game and start researching, we can craft better quality tools like a metal pickaxe or hatchet from the crafting menu, and also craft weapons.

Finding stone ore is slightly easier than others, metal ore and sulfur ore are much rarer. Metal Fragments are found in almost all craft recipes, while Sulfur is a vital ingredient for making gunpowder.

Ores are much more abundant in the snow biome and high mountain tops than elsewhere.

How to Find Lowgrade Fuel

Low-grade fuel is one of the most important resources in Rust. You can use Lowgrade to fuel your vehicles, make Medical Syringes to quickly refill your health in combat, and craft explosives.

Low-grade fuels are found on roadsides in the form of red barrels. Especially under the Dome monument, there are a lot of Oil Barrels.

Oil Barrels contain between 5 and 9 Low-Grade Fuels and between 15-19 Crude Oil.

Crude Oils can be melted down into Low-Grade Fuel with the Small Oil Refinery item. 3 Crude Oil melts into 9 Lowgrade Fuel.

How to Find Cloth in Rust

For a new player in Rust, finding cloth can be a bit difficult, it can be easily overlooked. Cloth is an important item both early and late in the game. In the early game, with some wood, stone, and cloth resources, you can make a hunting bow and protect yourself. By hunting with the hunting bow you make, you also eliminate the need for food and cloth.

You can collect hemp plants from the wild to make cloth or you can start a hemp plants farm.

Everything You Need to Know About Finding Food and Water in Rust

There are several different ways to find food and water in Rust. Eating food is important so we can find them in food boxes in monuments and by hunting.

One thing to be careful about hunting is not to underestimate bears while hunting bears. Because if you shoot from too far away they will run away, if you attack from close they will attack you and bears are very difficult to kill, unlike other survival games.

The best Rust tips for bear hunting are to use the surroundings around you to your advantage and bait bears from high places. If you have some wood and a building plan, you can even kill bears with a spear. Just put a foundation under you and aggro the bear.

As for wolves, wolves are very fast. The Rust tips I give you also can be used on bears. If there is a water source near you, pull the animal towards the water, it will slow them down much slower than the water slows you down, and you can kill them easily.

How to Find Water in Rust

Finding water in Rust is like finding food, again you can find water bottles in food boxes. There are also many juicy foods such as pumpkins, potatoes, mushrooms, and corn to help you stay hydrated.

You can drink as much water as you want from freshwater sources such as rivers or fill your bottles.

You can also put water catchers outside your base and eliminate your thirst completely.

Everything You Need to Know About Base Defense

Rust tips for protecting your base are more important than anything else because all your loot will be in your base. If your base is raided, all your loot and labor will be wasted. That is why it is very vital that you do your base defense well.

To increase your base defense and protectability, you can compound your base, i.e. surround your base with High External Wooden Walls or High External Stone Walls, which will protect you against door campers and increase raid costs because they needed to destroy that walls.

Also, building external TCs will help you prevent intruders from jumping into your compound.

It is important to have a good roof against an online raid or enemies waiting to kill you outside your base. This way you can protect your base more easily in online raids.

You should definitely add honeycombs around your base so that raiders will have a hard time taking over your loot and TC room and will have to spend more gunpowder.

It is very important to set up Shotgun Traps in unexpected places for enemies or Auto Turrets protecting your furnaces.

Shotgun Traps usually hit a maximum of 2 and kill the enemy immediately. However, Shotgun Traps are easy to bait and waste bullets, so it is important to place them in good places, out of sight and out of easy reach of enemies.

In Auto Turrets, you can put any weapon you want and you can determine the range of the turret according to the weapon you put, so they are very flexible in this sense.

Now hop on Rust!

For more articles that will help you on your Rust journey, check our guide on the best Rust server hosting sites, top websites where you can sell and buy Rust skins, and our picks for the best VPN services for Rust.