Rust beginner’s guide: your first hours and what not to do

Rust drops you on the map naked, holding nothing but a rock and a torch. This guide covers your first hours in the PC version of Rust: what to craft first, how sleeping bags work, how to build a first base with a Tool Cupboard, why you want an airlock, where to play Tutorial Island and which server to pick. At the end you will find the mistakes that cost new players the most. Everything here reflects the game as of 20 October 2026.

What you start with and what to craft first

After you spawn you hold a rock and a torch. Hit trees with the rock for wood and boulders for stone. On a boulder, aim at the shiny spot, it gives you more.

Use your first wood and stone to craft a stone hatchet and a stone pickaxe. Gathering gets faster, so you spend less time out in the open where anyone can kill you. Tab opens your inventory and crafting, and E is how you interact with objects and people in the world.

Rust has no campaign and no offline single-player mode. Steam lists it as a multiplayer game, and you always play on servers alongside other people.

Sleeping bags: your respawn point

A sleeping bag is your own respawn point. Crafting one takes cloth, which you get from hemp. Put one down as soon as you can, ideally inside your first base.

Your first base and the Tool Cupboard

Keep your first base small. You place pieces with the Building Plan and upgrade them with the Hammer, first from twig to wood and later to stone. Put a door with a lock on the entrance.

The most important piece of furniture is the Tool Cupboard (TC). It costs 1,000 wood and does two jobs: it stops your base from decaying and it prevents other players from building around it. Place it inside, lock it and authorise yourself with E. The TC holds the resources used for upkeep. Once they run out, your base starts to decay:

Building material	Decays without upkeep after
Twig	1 hour
Wood	3 hours
Stone	5 hours
Metal	8 hours
Armored	12 hours

According to the official Facepunch wiki, the timers start once the TC runs out of resources.

Airlock: two doors instead of one

An airlock is simply two doors in a row. While you open the outer door, the inner one stays shut, so nobody can push past you into your base.

Where to start: Tutorial Island and choosing a server

Tutorial Island is the official training island. New players are offered the tutorial on a compatible server; once you have more than 50 deaths, you start it manually from Options. It teaches movement, crafting, building and upgrading a base, respawning, combat, looting, cooking, the furnace, the workbench and driving a vehicle. Experienced FPS players finish it in under 30 minutes, everyone else in about an hour. It gives you no in-game advantage, only confidence with the controls.

The tutorial only runs on servers that switch it on. In the server browser look for the Tutorial tag; the default server setting is off.

Official Facepunch servers run vanilla settings and attract experienced players. For your first hours, look for servers with a lower population that are friendly to newcomers. Facepunch also runs premium servers, open only to players whose Rust inventory on Steam is worth at least 15 USD; according to Facepunch you run into cheaters there about four times less often. Our servers guide explains the differences.

Safe zones, recyclers and monuments

Outpost and Bandit Camp are safe zones with shops. Outpost is guarded by sentry turrets and you trade there through vending machines.

Monuments, the points of interest on the map, have recyclers. They turn components and items you find back into resources. Scrap is what you spend in the tech tree and on research to unlock blueprints. Since November 2025 research costs 15 scrap for Common, 30 for Uncommon, 60 for Rare and 120 for Very Rare items.

Monuments are also PvP hotspots, and the large ones have radiation. Do not go there without protective gear.

Play as a team

You create a team with the “create team” button in the bottom left of your inventory. To invite someone, stand next to them and press E. In chat, Tab switches between global and team chat.

What not to do in your first hours

• Do not visit large monuments without protection. Radiation and the players waiting there will send you back to respawn quickly.
• Do not let your TC run empty. Once upkeep runs out, your whole base starts to decay, twig within an hour.
• Do not place the TC outside or leave it unlocked. Anyone authorised on your TC can build at your base.
• Do not start on a full official server. It is mostly experienced players, you will learn more on a smaller server.
• Do not rely on a single door without an airlock. One locked door is not enough when someone is right behind you.

The console, opened with F1, makes a lot of things easier. Our guide to console commands lists the ones worth knowing.

Wipes: why your base will not last

Everything you build has a limited lifespan. Rust servers are wiped regularly and the default monthly forced wipe on PC is the first Thursday of the month at 19:00 London time. A wipe deletes the map and all buildings, but a regular wipe does not delete the blueprints you have learned. The exact dates and how community servers differ are covered in our wipe schedule guide.

Join our Discord to find teammates and people who can help with your first base: GamersTogether Discord.

How players and critics rate Rust and whether it is worth it for you is covered in our Rust review (8/10).

FAQ

Information verified on 20 October 2026. More Rust guides are waiting in our Rust guides section.