Rust can be a very unforgiving game for beginners and players that haven’t opened it up in a while. As the game constantly evolves, you will need to learn new things every day.
New mechanics are coming in every day, but you will usually have to do the same thing every time a server gets wiped.
Recommended Read: How to Invite People to Team in Rust
The start of the game, when you spawn on the beach, can be one of the most important moments in your playthrough. This will decide if you continue playing until the wipe or if you change the server.
There are many things that you should do first when starting a game on Rust, but the most important thing is setting up a base.
Table of Contents
What Should You Do First in Rust
Here is a list of things that you should try to do every time you start a new Rust playthrough:
- Plan where to build a base
- Get food and water
- Make and place a sleeping bag
- Craft the basic tools and a weapon
- Build a starter base
- Get metal doors
- Get resources for your tool cupboard
Where to Build a Base in Rust
The first thing you should do when starting a new game in Rust is to open the map. You need to check where everything is and start planning where you want to put down your base.
The worst place you can set up a base is on one of the starter beaches. Get as far away as you can from those places. There are two things to consider when placing down a base:
- Safety
- Distance to Monuments
If safety is your highest priority, then head over to the cold mountains and place your base on top of one. These locations are relatively annoying to get to, and new players won’t come there due to the cold.
However, if you want quick access to most resources, it might be best to set up a base relatively close to a monument (named location). But you should never start building right next to one.
Try to be at least 2 or 3 squares on the map away from the monument. Otherwise, players will easily find your base and will raid you every time they head to the named location.
Some of the best locations at the start to set up your base next to in Rust are:
- Abandoned Supermarket
- Fishing Village
- Mining Outpost
- Oxum’s Gas Station
These locations are safe from radiation and NPCs and usually hold really good loot. The Fishing Village is more of a safe spot where you can fish forever, and nobody can bother you, which makes it great at the start when you need food.
The supermarket and gas station will give you a lot of food for free that you can pick up in crates and boxes. The Mining Outpost is a good place to find random, useful items.
How to Get Food and Water in Rust
Your next task will be getting to your future Rust base location. However, you will need food and water to survive. You can do two things.
Either look around trees for mushrooms and pick as many as you can up or head toward a river, which you should easily see on the map, and loot a lot of corn and pumpkin.
A river should be really useful since you can also drink and fill up your water meter, which will last a really long time.
If an Abandoned Supermarket is also in the way, it would be a good idea to quickly ransack it to get enough food and water for the way.
Getting fresh food on the way and eating it will also reward you with seeds, which you can use once you set up your base. Farms can be really useful, and all you need to do is water the plants occasionally.
In general, it is a good idea to pick up everything you see along the way, such as tree stumps or rocks to get some wood and stone before getting to your future base location.
Set Up Respawn Points
Now that you have food, water, and a destination, you will need to set up one or two respawn points that are closer to your Rust base than the spawn beach.
With 30 cloth, which you can get by looting hemp on the way, you can craft a sleeping bag from the Crafting menu (press Q to access it).
Place them in relatively hidden locations along the map as you run toward your future base, just to make sure you have a place to return if someone or something kills you.
Craft a Stone Pickaxe, Stone Hatchet, and Stone Spear
Now, if you have collected some good wood and stone along the way, you can also start passively crafting a stone pickaxe and hatchet. These are the first tools you will be able to craft in Rust, and they will be extremely useful.
If you are near your destination, then you should start getting some real wood and stone. However, players can barely get any resources with a giant stone.
This is why the stone pickaxe and hatchet will come in handy. In case you will get attacked by players or animals, make sure to also craft a wooden spear and then upgrade it to a stone spear.
Building Your First Base
At the start, your main goal in Rust is making a base good enough to survive while you’re offline. So this means that you don’t need to be extravagant.
Make a blueprint and start making a 1 by 1 or 2 by 1 base. This means a one or two-floor tile base. You will need to make all the walls and floors at least stone level before logging off.
Also, put down a tool cupboard to keep your Rust base safe from people that will try to bring it down. Be careful where you place it since you won’t be able to move it afterward.
Players should also always make an airlock. This is a special room that only exists to keep you safe when you exit your base.
At the location where you want to make your base’s exit, place a triangle floor tile and then wall it off, leaving only one door out of the base. This triangle room you have made exists so that you can close the real door to your leaving.
If someone kills you while you leave your base, they can’t enter since there will be another door closed waiting for them. However, don’t respawn in the base just to open the second door for them. Run back naked to close the outer door, and then you can respawn inside.
Also, don’t forget to place locks on your doors and tool cupboard, as you can easily lose everything for forgetting this basic task!
Metal Doors to Keep Raiders Out
Unfortunately, wooden doors won’t keep anyone out. Before you log out, make sure that at least the inner door to your base is made out of metal.
You will need to either use a furnace or run around to get some metal fragments to make this vital base piece. Luckily, you can buy some for scrap at the Outpost.
So, once you pick up your old door and place the new one, you should be safe for a while.
Maintain the TC
Now, all that is left before logging out and leaving to come back another day is to make sure that you have everything you need inside your tool cupboard.
If you check your TC, you should be able to see exactly what kinds of resources you need to leave to keep your base from decaying.
Players can leave their TC without anything in it, but their walls will slowly degrade and break down, leaving them with nothing in the end.
Since you are placing a metal door and stone walls, you will need quite a few extra stones and metal fragments to keep everything going. You should be able to see how long the resources you have provided will keep everything safe.
That’s everything you need to know about what you should do first in Rust!
Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.
