Rust Base Building – What You Need to Know

Rust feat
Image credit: Facepunch

If you are a newbie Rust player, you are probably getting raided on a daily basis. Truth be told, every other player went through that same nightmare. Losing everything you worked for just because others are constantly raiding your base is a mood. If this is the case, you are doing something wrong and it is time to put an end to it! Stay tuned and find out everything you need to know about Rust base building and how to build a base properly.

Rust Base Building: the Basics

Let’s first start with the basics. A base is like your home. It is a place where you bring and store all the goods you work for during the day. Therefore, your base has to be sustainable to keep your items safe.

Of course, it is important to prevent other players from building anywhere near your base so you will need to claim some land for yourself and activate the building privilege.

Building Privilege

The building privilege is activated via the craftable item called Tool cupboard. It costs 1000 wood to craft and disables anyone to build anything in a 25-meter radius which is around eight foundation blocks.

On the other hand, it only protects two blocks in height so you would need one additional cupboard for every two floors. Install it to stop raiders from building outside and prevent your building from decaying at the same time. Also, don’t forget to put it somewhere safe and place a code lock on it so no one else can authorize it.

Building Decay and Upkeep

Rust base 1
Image credit: u/MadMaxGamer via Reddit

Buildings decay over time and your walls are slowly losing HP. It happens because you don’t have enough materials in your Tool cupboard to upkeep your base. The upkeep system is very simple. It requires you to put a small percentage of the resources your base is made of into your Tool cupboard. For example, a wood base will need wood, a stone base – stone and so on. If your base is built with multiple materials you need to have them all in your Tool cupboard.

The upkeep tax percentage depends on the size of your base. For a small base, it will be around 10% of the materials used to build it. In other words, the small stone base that cost 2000 stone to create will consume 200 stone per 24 hours for upkeep. After you expand your base and add more structures the tax will begin to rise up to 30% of the total cost of the base. So, don’t expand too much and keep in mind that big bases are only for clans.

If you end up running out of materials your base will start to decay and it will begin with walls farther away from the Tool cupboard. Each building tear decays differently. Twig wall will decay after 1 hour, wood wall 3 hours, stone wall 5 hours, metal wall 8 hours, and armored wall 12 hours.

Selecting a Rust Base Location

Rust map
The Rust map. (Image credit: Facepunch)

With everything mentioned above in mind, it is time to start building your first base. After you gather enough resources and craft all the tools you need, you will also need to find a suitable location to build your base.

Open the map and try to find a location close to the outpost where you can get valuable items. On the other side, don’t build it too close to avoid getting raided because outpost is a hot spot on the map and a lot of players will go there.

Building a Rust Base

The biggest mistake you can make is to build a base without a plan. Check out some popular base designs on YouTube or use the additional software FORTIFY to create your own designs. It is important to always keep your chests and Tool cupboard on a safe spot.

Don’t place it near outside walls on obvious spots. Speaking about outside walls, there is also one additional thing you need to keep in mind. Every wall has a hard and soft side. Hard sides should be always placed facing outside because they are harder to destroy and have more HP. You can rotate them if placed incorrectly but only for a short amount of time after placing them down.

Upgrading Your Rust Base

It is always good to build more walls and upgrade your base with better materials. You can even build additional Tool cupboards to claim more land and prevent enemies from building nearby.

No matter how big your base is, keep in mind that all valuable items should always be in the middle of it. Place them on hard to reach spots that will require a large number of explosives to get to it.

We hope this tutorial will help you get started in Rust. Stay with EarlyGame for more tutorials and gaming news and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel!