New player guide

Pick a server and join

Both servers run the same hardcore rules. Hardcore wipes every two weeks; Premium Hardcore gives you a full month, and needs at least $15 spent on Rust DLC or skins to join. Not sure? Compare them.

Click join to launch Rust, or press F1 in game and paste the connect command.

Claim your free perks

Link your Steam and Discord accounts on the free perks page and the perks show up in game. It takes a minute and helps a lot early on.

Find a compass

The map starts covered in fog and only fills in where you’ve been. Without a compass you won’t see your own position on it, so finding one is your first real goal. Until then, use landmarks and remember where you came from.

Place your bags with care

You get five sleeping bags, and each takes fifteen minutes to recharge after you use it. Spread them out between your base and where you farm, and don’t waste a respawn on a risky run.

Loot it, then research it

There’s no tech tree. To learn a blueprint, find the item in the world and research it at a research table with scrap. Every gun and tool you can craft is one you found first. Blueprints stay learned until the wipe.

Level up your skills

You earn XP for almost everything:

• looting crates
• farming
• killing NPCs, Bradley and Patrol Heli

Spend XP on skills. Some make you stronger:

• Gather rate climbs from 0.5x up to 2x.
• Max health goes from 100 up to 125.
• Barrels drop their loot straight into your inventory.

Others you need before you can do certain things at all:

• Military crates and above stay locked until you unlock the looting skill.
• Keycard readers won’t take your card until you unlock swiping.

The fastest early XP comes from quests. The starter quests hand out a chainsaw, a jackhammer, a revolver and more just for setting up, and dailies pay out every day after that. Type /quests in game to open them, or see the list.

Plan your early runs around that: farm, loot regular crates and fight NPCs to level up before heading into the bigger monuments. Too much chat spam? /togglexpnotify turns the XP messages off.

Know when the world ends

Everything wipes at 3pm Central on wipe day.

• Hardcore: every 1st, 3rd and 5th thursday.
• Premium Hardcore: the first Thursday of every month.

On Hardcore, the purge starts at 6pm Central the night before the wipe. Full PvP and raiding are on until the wipe, so spend your stash or defend it. The servers page has live countdowns.

Between wipes, log in at least once every 72 hours. If you don’t, your base becomes raidable. And build on a new TC within 24 hours, or it gets removed. The rest is in the server rules.