How to Play Rust

Rust is a multiplayer survival game where players must gather resources, craft items, build bases, and fend off both environmental dangers and hostile players. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to play Rust:

1. Starting Out
   • Objective: Your main goal is to survive. You spawn randomly on the island with nothing but a rock and a torch.
   • Gathering resources: Use your rock to gather wood from trees and stones from ore nodes. You will need these materials to craft essential items.
2. Gathering & Crafting
   • Essential materials: Focus on collecting wood, stone, metal ore, sulfur, and cloth. These materials are the foundation of most crafted items.
   • Craft tools: The first tools you should craft are a stone hatchet (for wood) and a stone pickaxe (for ore).
   • Craft weapons: Early weapons include spears and bows. They help defend against wildlife and other players.
   • Clothing and armor: Craft basic clothing to protect yourself from the cold, and armor to reduce damage in fights.
3. Building a Base
   • Base building: Start by crafting a building plan and hammer. Use the building plan to create structures like walls, floors, and doors. Your first base should be simple—a small, hidden 1×1 or 2×2 structure is enough for starters.
   • Tool Cupboard (TC): The TC is crucial. It gives you building privilege in an area and prevents others from building nearby. Always protect it well.
   • Doors and locks: Use metal doors and code locks as soon as possible to protect against raiders.
4. Progression
   • Upgrading base: Use stone or metal to upgrade your base. This makes it harder for other players to raid you.
   • Furnaces: Craft a furnace to smelt metal ore and sulfur for crafting more advanced weapons like guns and explosives.
   • Blueprints: To craft advanced items, you need to unlock blueprints by finding them in barrels, crates, or purchasing them from NPCs in outpost monuments.
   • Raiding: As you progress, you can craft explosives like satchel charges or C4 to raid other players’ bases and steal their loot.
5. Combat & PvP
   • Weapons: In the early game, you’ll use primitive weapons like bows and spears. As you progress, you can craft firearms like revolvers, shotguns, and assault rifles.
   • Teamwork: Joining a clan or playing with friends can greatly increase your chances of survival. Teams can share resources and protect each other during raids.
   • PvP strategies: Learn how to efficiently navigate combat situations, whether defending your base, countering raids, or ambushing others.
6. Surviving Environment & NPCs
   • Hunger & thirst: Keep an eye on your hunger and hydration levels by eating food (such as pumpkins, corn, or meat) and drinking water.
   • Wildlife: Wolves and bears can attack you. Use weapons like bows or melee weapons to defend yourself and harvest meat and animal fat.
   • Radiation: Some areas, like monuments, are radioactive. Make sure to wear protective clothing when exploring these zones.
   • Monuments: These are special areas with loot and puzzles. They are often high-risk areas for PvP, but they provide valuable resources.
7. Advanced Strategies
   • Raiding: As you gather more resources, raiding becomes a key part of the game. You’ll need to craft explosives to breach other players’ bases. Use rockets or C4 for heavily fortified structures.
   • Electricity: Advanced players can use electrical components to automate base defenses (e.g., turrets) or set up alarms and traps to protect their loot.
8. Staying Alive
   • Avoid raids: Build your base in a secluded or hard-to-spot location to reduce the chances of being raided.
   • Airlocks: Always build airlocks (double doors) to prevent raiders from quickly gaining access if they breach your first door.
   • Online raiding: Be aware that most raids happen when players are offline. Try to log off in a well-protected base or at odd times to reduce your chances of being targeted.
9. Blueprint Wipes
   • Wipes: Rust servers typically wipe at regular intervals (weekly or monthly). These wipes reset the world, including all player-built structures and gear, but sometimes blueprints are retained, allowing you to re-craft items immediately on the next wipe.

By following these steps, you’ll be better prepared to survive in the harsh and competitive world of Rust. Whether you’re playing solo or with a group, mastering resource gathering, crafting, and combat is key to thriving.