Rust Beginner's Guide: Your First Hour, Sleeping Bags and a Base with a Tool Cupboard

Rust 🎮 Game page →

1. Pick the right server For a first game choose a lower-population, freshly wiped server with a team limit. The server list shows the last wipe date and player count. On busy servers weeks past wipe, everyone is far ahead and the first hours are brutal.
2. Gather wood and stone with your rock You spawn on the beach with a Rock and a Torch. Hit trees and rocks to collect wood and stone. Striking the glowing marker on a tree or node speeds up gathering.
3. Craft a Stone Hatchet and Stone Pickaxe Open crafting with Q and make a Stone Hatchet and Stone Pickaxe. They gather far faster than the rock. Crafting is queued and takes a few seconds, and you can move meanwhile.
4. Collect hemp, craft a Sleeping Bag Hemp plants in grassy areas give Cloth. Use it to craft a Sleeping Bag and place it where you plan to build. When you die you respawn at the bag instead of the beach; this is the foundation of survival in Rust.
5. Move somewhere quieter Beaches and the areas around monuments are busy. Head inland to a spot with water and trees but away from main roads. Open the map with G to see rivers and monuments.
6. Make a Building Plan and a Hammer The Building Plan places foundations, walls, doorways and ceilings; right-click to choose the piece. Everything starts as Twig and is very weak. Look at pieces with the Hammer to upgrade them to wood, then stone.
7. Build a small base and lock the door Two foundations are enough for a first base. Put a wooden door in the doorway and add a lock. A Key Lock is cheap, a Code Lock is safer; an unlocked door opens for anyone.
8. Place a Tool Cupboard immediately The Tool Cupboard (TC) creates Building Privilege around your base, so unauthorized players cannot build onto your structure. The official Rust wiki lists its cost as 1,000 wood. Place it inside, behind a locked door, and press E to authorize yourself.
9. Stock the cupboard for upkeep Wood, stone and metal placed in the TC pay your base's upkeep. With an empty cupboard, structures start decaying immediately. Make sure it is stocked before logging off.
10. Collect scrap and work toward a Workbench Barrels and crates along roads give Scrap and components. Scrap builds a Workbench and unlocks new blueprints there. Components can be turned into scrap at Recyclers.

• Watch hunger, thirst and temperatureHealth, hydration and food gauges sit in the bottom right. You get cold at night and in snowy areas and need clothing or a fire. River and lake water is drinkable; seawater is not.
• Place more than one bagSeveral sleeping bags give you several respawn options. If your only bag is found and broken, you are back on the beach. Hide bags out of sight.
• Your character stays when you log offWhen you leave the server your character sleeps in the world, and others can kill it and loot you. Before logging off, get inside, close doors and put valuables in boxes.
• Never log off in TwigTwig pieces break easily, even for a lone player. Upgrade at least outer walls and doorways to wood, ideally stone, before you log off.
• Check behind you at the doorA classic loss is someone following you in the moment you open the door. Check your surroundings first; later, a two-door airlock entrance reduces the risk.
• Use the safe zonesOutpost and Bandit Camp are safe zones where automatic turrets respond to hostile players. They are the best places for new players to trade, recycle and buy items.
• Mind the radiationSome monuments are irradiated and drain your health without protection. If a radiation warning appears, back off, and do not enter without suitable clothing such as a Hazmat Suit.
• Do not carry your valuables aroundWhen you die everything you carry stays on your body for anyone to take. Travel with what you need and leave the rest in boxes at base.
• Upkeep grows with your baseAccording to the official wiki only structural pieces like walls, foundations, doors and windows add upkeep cost, and with an empty cupboard pieces decay at different rates by material. A bigger base than you need means constant gathering to keep the TC full.
• Progress by learning blueprintsYou must know an item's blueprint to craft it. Learn blueprints with scrap from the Tech Tree at a Workbench, or by researching items you find. Whether blueprints reset depends on the server's rules.

• Wandering without a sleeping bag: every death sends you back to the beach, usually far from your base.
• Skipping the Tool Cupboard or leaving it empty: other players can build onto your base and lock you in, and an empty cupboard lets the base decay.
• Logging off with structures still in Twig: they break in a few hits.
• Using doors without locks: anyone can walk in and your loot disappears quickly.
• Approaching well-equipped players in the early days: avoiding fights at first is the safest path for a newcomer.

This guide was written for version: This guide reflects the live version as of September 2026. Rust updates monthly, so recipe costs and some mechanics may change; keys are default bindings and can be changed under Controls in settings.

Rust 🎮 Game page →

All game guides →