Survival guide
Chapter 01
You wake inside the walls, where nobody can hurt you. Use the time.
New players, and anyone without a bed, arrive in the Hearth facing the generator tower in the plaza. The city is a Rust safe zone: nobody can hurt you there, and nobody builds.
There is no menu button. Press E on anyone. They answer word by word, and you never get more than three answers: what they do for you (the Quartermaster's store, the Engineer's research, the Captain's work, the Steward's laws, a trader's wares) and two questions about them. Nearly two hundred people live in the city and out on the ice, each with a story of their own.
E on any of the four furnaces at the tower's foot. Wood counts 1, coal and charcoal 3. Every 100 units pay a Heat Credit (more when coal is dear), and the Hearth remembers who kept it warm.
The city's own money, top right of your screen. Spend them at the Quartermaster's: radiators, stoves, Hot Tea, coal, an Arctic Suit, a snowmobile.
E on a free home's door in the city: 150 scrap for 3 days, one home a team. The door opens only for your team, the bed is yours, the box keeps your things across restarts.
Captain Sorensen in the Expedition Office: "What work is there today?" Three jobs a day, paid in Heat Credits and supplies. Then walk out of the gate.
Chapter 02
Rust's own temperature, bent: colder every day, much colder at night, worst in a storm.
Heat rings and heaters warm the air where you stand; your body counts that, your clothes and how wet you are. The strip top left shows the day, the weather and what the cold is doing to you. /exposure opens SHELTER: your air and body temperature, and how warm a heater would be right there.
Day one is −20 °C at noon, every day 2° colder until −45. Nights run from 19:00 to 06:00, 15° colder and twice as slow: a day is about 65 real minutes, 40 of them dark.
From day 3, a 25% chance every real hour, at least an hour apart. A ship's horn and a 3-minute warning, then 12 minutes of storm, 25° colder. Wind eats a heater's warmth.
Once a wipe, the storm that will not pass. It grows 25° colder over two real hours and never ends on its own. Only the Furnace in Overdrive holds it. The cold stops at −90 °C.
Body under 5 °C: frostbite, 10% slower and 20% less gathered. Under −10 °C: hypothermia, 25% slower and 40% less. Leaving a stage takes 1° more warmth.
Two minutes in hypothermia bring frostfever: 20% less health for 10 minutes. Hot Tea (50 wood, 5 cloth at the workshop) cures it and warms you +12 °C for 3 minutes. A cooked meal is +8 °C for 5. They stack.
A Steam Radiator is +35 °C over 8 m on 3 power from a heat pipe to the road poles. A Steam Hub warms 25 m, full heat on 15 power. An Iron Stove is +30 °C over 10 m on wood. Rust's own fires never warm you past 15 °C.
Walls within 6 m set a heater's strength: twig 60%, wood 85%, stone 100%, sheet metal 110%, armored 120%. High open ground halves it, no roof halves it again; a sheltered Tundra valley keeps it all. /exposure tells you where you stand.
Chapter 03
One furnace, the whole server feeds it. It never goes dark; how far its warmth reaches is up to you.
The city's own workers add 20 fuel a minute, exactly what Stage I burns, so the Hearth is never dark. Everything you give goes into the reserve, and the reserve sets the stage.
2,000 in reserve lights Stage II, 6,000 Stage III, 15,000 Overdrive, but Overdrive only during storms. Each stage burns more: 20, 50, then 100 a minute over what the workers bring. It drops a stage when the reserve falls 10% below the line.
Running hot builds pressure: +1 a minute at Stage III, +4 in Overdrive, −3 below. At 75% everyone is warned; at 100% it breaks down and burns at Stage I until someone repairs it with 50 refined metal and a Steam Core.
VENT at the tower, within 12 m: 30 pressure off, 10% of the reserve lost. It needs 30 pressure or more, once a minute for the city and once in 30 minutes for you. Below 75 only those who may vote can vent; above it, anyone.
The heavy fuses of the old world. A Steam Core repairs the Furnace, funds research and frostbreaking, and fed by the Council gives 30 minutes of Overdrive outside a storm. The Quartermaster sells one for 200 Heat Credits.
The CITY page funds breaking the ice round the city, three levels, each +10% heat ring: wood, coal and fragments first, then Steam Cores and refined metal. 10, 15 and 20 minutes of work.
The Furnace drives Rust's power grid: as it climbs, every roadside pole carries more, from 5 to 50 power. Wire a Heat Pipe Kit from a pole to your base; nobody's building privilege is needed.
The FURNACE page lists the Keepers of the Flame. The wipe's top three feed-givers sit on the Council: their votes count twice, and only they feed Steam Cores.
Chapter 04
The Hearth: a walled city 280 metres across, round one Furnace.
The safe zone reaches 30 m past the wall, so the way to each gate is covered. Sentries stand on the gate pillars and the roofs. Draw a gun and you are hostile: the Watch turns you back at the gate with the minutes left, and no bed in the city takes you.
Four buildings face the plaza: the Council Hall (north, Steward Ilse, laws), the Institute of Steam (east, Chief Engineer Brandt, research), the Quartermaster's Store (west, the shop) and the Expedition Office (south, Captain Sorensen, work). Further out: the Clinic, the Market Hall and the Watch Barracks.
75 homes line the ring streets. A rent is 150 scrap for 3 real days, one home a team; /home shows your days left. When it runs out it renews from scrap left in the box; with too little there the door locks and your things come back to you.
Twelve projects in three tiers, started and funded at any workbench of their tier (the Research Desk serves all three). One at a time, funded by the whole server, kept for the wipe. Once funded the engineers need 5 to 12 minutes, 15% faster for each stage above I.
Laws are voted on paper in the Council Hall: take a blank ballot from the tray on the Steward's table, stamp YES or NO alone in the booth, drop it in the box. A vote runs a whole in-game day. Three fifths must say yes, and a fifth of the day's players must vote.
Each trades one hardship for another. Extended Shift: 20% more gathered, 3 °C colder everywhere. Heated Streets: a heat ring 15% wider, a Furnace that burns 15% more. Night Curfew: no PvP at night, gathering 20% slower then. Five can be in force at once.
Every scrap price moves with the city, 5% a minute at most: ×1.3 at Stage I, ×0.9 in Overdrive, ×1.25 more when it breaks down, ×1.15 in a storm, coal ×1.4 when the reserve is low. When coal is dear, feeding pays up to 40% more.
The Hearth eats food (one a meal), wears out tools (every worker with a pickaxe or an axe) and uses medicine (the ill). Short of food, people go hungry and fall ill in half the time; with no tools the mine brings half. GIVE SUPPLIES at the Quartermaster's: Heat Credits, and the Hearth's thanks.
Two guards at each gate, patrols on the ring street, along the wall and down every street, out all night. At night the gate guards hold a lit torch and call out to whoever comes within 9 m. Draw a weapon in the Hearth's peace and two patrols come to watch you.
Search lights under the light towers, lamps in every building, fire barrels down every street and torches by every door: by night the Hearth is a bright plaza with chains of fire down its streets, dark by the wall. Citizens go home to bed.
Chapter 05
Nobody here stands waiting for you. They work, eat, sleep, fall ill, die, and someone new takes up their work.
Each citizen's own clock moves this by up to half an hour, and a worker has one day in seven off.
Each citizen keeps their own hours: up between about 6 and half past 7, at work from 7:30 to 19:00 give or take half an hour, a meal at noon and one in the evening, in bed between about 21 and half past 23. A worker takes one day in seven off.
Coal haulers dig at the mine by the south wall and carry crates to the Furnace (while they work, the mine sends it 10 fuel a minute); stokers, smiths, carpenters, woodcutters, porters and market traders; a radio operator at the mast behind the Institute; a clerk; a medic at the Clinic.
Four citizens stay up at the fires. The night stoker feeds the generator from 22:00 to 05:00. The places out on the ice sleep too: their people go to a bed or a bedroll, and one stoker keeps each fire.
Twenty minutes in the cold (below −2 °C where they stand, or a storm) and a citizen falls ill, to a Clinic bed if one is free. Fifteen minutes warm and they are well, twice as fast with medicine from the stores. Thirty more in the cold and they die.
A death is told in chat, and the city gathers at the plaza to mourn the next fair day. Twenty minutes later someone new comes to the gate and takes up the work. Kill one of a place's people and a newcomer takes their place, with a name and a story of their own.
Couples, families and friends walk together, eat side by side and talk when they get there. When one dies, those close to them, and the two nearest at that place, stop work for 30 minutes and grieve at the fire.
Broken down, or a storm while it is at Stage I: people gather at the fires and the generator, point and talk of it. In the cold they huddle. When the Furnace climbs a stage, everyone free gathers at the plaza and cheers.
Ask anyone in the city. They tell the freshest thing you haven't heard from them, and when: a storm, a death, a caravan robbed, a newcomer. An event still on goes on your map. Nothing new: who fed the Furnace most today.
Chapter 06
Every place keeps its own account of you, from −100 to 100, for the whole wipe. The Hearth keeps one too. It only moves by what you do.
0Stranger
Standing 0, Stranger. Their traders ask the usual price.
Feeding a place's fire: a point for every 150 fuel, up to 4 a gift. A job handed in: +6 where you hand it in. Buying from a trader: +0.5. Walking with the caravan: +5 with the Hearth. GIVE SUPPLIES: up to +6 with the Hearth.
At 10 you are known: they greet you by name, and their traders ask 5% less. At 35 you are liked: 15% less. Two jobs handed in at a place and they know you; six and they like you.
The first blow costs 10 with that place and 3 with the Hearth. Everyone of that place within 45 m turns on you and your team for five minutes and Rust's AI fights. While they are angry nobody there talks to you.
40 off with that place, 10 with the Hearth: from a clean start, that place shuns you at once. Their body holds a little scrap (a trader's: what they had left to sell); someone new comes in 15 minutes (a trader in 25) and those close to the dead grieve.
Under −10 their traders ask 15% more. At −40 they turn away: "Not after what you did." In the Hearth, one of the Watch falls in a few steps behind you. The Quartermaster, the Engineer, the Captain and the Steward still serve everyone.
A killing, 1,500 fuel in a day, a job done: deeds are known where they happened at once, and in the Hearth a day later. For seven in-game days people bring them up when you talk to them.
Standing never fades on its own: it lasts the wipe. Only deeds move it back. A settlement's fire can always be fed, and the caravan's company counts (+3 with the place it reaches); where nobody will talk to you, a killing can stand until the wipe.
Drawing a weapon in the Hearth's peace makes you hostile, Rust's own rule: two patrols come and watch you, the gate won't let you in and no city bed takes you until it wears off. Standing is what they remember after.
Chapter 07
The Hearth pays for work in Heat Credits, scrap and supplies, and every job done is remembered where it was done.
Three jobs a day, the same board for everyone, paid 20 to 50 Heat Credits and supplies. Take one in the talk ("I'll take it"), come back and say "It's done. Pay me." One job in hand at a time, each once a day; drop it whenever you like.
Raids, holds, finds, digs and rescues make a place of their own, 220 to 480 m from whoever gave them, marked on your map and named by its bearing. Five scavengers means five. A hold is 30 seconds within 25 m. A find's box opens only for you and your team.
Woodcutting, mining, hunting, medicine, fishing, scavenging and cooking. Their masters (the city's woodcutters and coal haulers, the Clinic's doctor, the Barracks' huntmaster, the Market Hall's factor, and one at many places) ask "Got any work for me?": three jobs a day each.
Every job done for a trade counts, for the wipe. Apprentice to start, Journeyman after 5 jobs (15% more pay), Master after 15 (30% more), with a toast and a bell.
Each day four citizens without a job have a favour to ask: oil for a lamp, a patch for a coat, a wolf that follows them home. "Has a favour to ask" under their name. 8 to 12 Heat Credits and a little scrap, handed back to them.
Every job handed in is +6 with the place where you hand it in, and the deed is talked about there at once and in the Hearth a day later. Two jobs and they know your name; six and their traders ask 15% less. Ranks raise the pay as well.
GIVE SUPPLIES at the Quartermaster's takes a share of what you carry: up to 20 things to eat, 3 tools, 5 of medicine and 500 metal fragments (the smiths make a tool of every 25). Food pays 0.5 Heat Credits a unit, tools 2, medicine 1.5.
Hurt them and they fight back. Kill them and the porter's body holds the load (low grade fuel, beans, cloth, scrap), the city hears the caravan was robbed, and the Hearth won't forget: a killing costs 50 with it.
Chapter 08
Everything outside the city is Rust: PvP, raids, and the cold on top. Every place out there has its own story.
PvP everywhere but the city and the safe stops: 30 m round a settlement's heater, Rust's safe monuments (the ranch, the barn, the fishing villages, each with a fire that warms 12 m) and the Den. The Night Curfew law ends PvP at night while it stands.
A tent town behind sandbags: eight shop tents round a bonfire (guns, ammunition, furs, medicine, food, tools, coal, rarities), the Rusty Kettle where Mirela serves tea, and Vasko, who sells the keycards he lifted. Black-market prices: an AK for 1,200 scrap.
A roadside diner where Dorota cooks and sells hot food at the hatch, a bunkhouse, a fuel stall (100 low grade fuel for 30 scrap), a recycler. Safe, with sentries.
The Den's and the Waystation's heaters warm 35 m by 20 °C and burn 8 a minute. Feed them from E on the heater. Tend one with your team and it burns 20% less; only its tenders can put it out. A lit Den makes the workshop 10% cheaper, a lit Waystation the Furnace burn 5% less.
Each builds its own upgrades from what players give at the heater (UPGRADES): A Bigger Fire, an Insulated Fuel Store, a Watch Post with two more guards, a Market Row with new traders, and the Great Hearth.
Up to eight stops along the roads, each its own house and crew: Edvard's Stop, the Widow's Fire, Hunters' Rest, the Sick House, the Last Fire Before the Pass. Their fire never goes out. Not safe: hurt them and they fight back.
At the pits, the scrap fields, the Steamworks, the harbours, the watchtower and more, someone sells what the place has, for scrap, in the talk. They carry what they sell. Hurt one and they fight; killed, their pack is yours, and someone new comes 25 minutes later.
Rust's missile silo, its launch hall sealed. Pull the switch up top and the doors open for 5 minutes; sirens turn and everyone near sees the alarm. In the hall a crate always holds a Steam Core, back 45 minutes after it is taken.
Every place has a red no-build zone, as Rust's monuments do: 20 m past its farthest piece, or 60 m round it. Nobody builds within 7 m of any heater. Build out in the Frostlands, and heat it.
Every 30 to 50 minutes something turns up at least 150 m outside the rings, for 20 minutes: a Frozen Cache (thaws after 3 minutes, three scavengers), a Lost Expedition camp with Expedition Records (each saves 3 minutes of research), a Coal Seam, a coal shipment by air.
Green circles where nobody can hurt you, red ones where scavengers guard. Events, the job you took, the caravan, the city's buildings and their people each have a named pin.
Summer things are taken out of every crate and barrel and warm ones put in: snow jackets, beanies, Hot Tea, coal in the basic crates; ice masks and Arctic Suits in the elite ones.
Chapter 09
The city is everyone's. Steering it takes more than a handful of wood.
Voting takes 2 hours of play and 300 fuel given this wipe, 50 of it in the last day. Proposing a law takes 6 hours, 1,500 fuel (100 lately) and 12 hours since you first came. Idle time doesn't count.
Votes are cast in the hall only. One team counts three votes at most. Proposals are 45 minutes apart, three a player a day; a law voted down waits 6 hours, one just passed 12 before a repeal.
Venting is done at the tower. Below the danger line only those who may vote can vent; above it anyone can. Only the Council feeds Steam Cores.
Starting a project takes 800 fuel given this wipe, one start a player every 3 hours. A project less than a tenth funded after 30 minutes is dropped.
Inside the lit heat rings a player and their team get one tool cupboard, so a few teams can't claim all the warm ground.
Only the team tending a settlement can put its heater out. An untended one burns until its fuel runs out.
Ready?
You wake inside the walls. Feed the fire, find a bed, learn a few names, then go out and take what the ice is hiding.