Getting started

Joining the server

1. Launch Rust from Steam. No mods needed: everything happens on the server side.
2. Click Join on the home page, or open the game console with F1 and type the client.connect command shown on the home page.
3. Before you start, read the rules: they fit on one page.

How it works in one minute

• Full PvE: no player can hurt, search, rob or handcuff a player from another group. It’s not an honor rule: the server itself makes it impossible.
• Your group is your in-game team (Rust’s team menu). Every protection is based on it: invite your friends to your team to share your base, your loot and your blueprints.
• Your base is untouchable as soon as it has a Tool Cupboard (TC) placed by your group.
• The danger comes from NPCs: guarded monuments, road patrols, ambushes, convoys, helicopter crashes. They know how to fight.
• x5 gather, x10 stacks, instant crafting: you progress fast.

Your first hours

1. Gather wood and stone: at x5, a few trees and rocks get you going.
2. Place a Tool Cupboard (TC) with your very first build: it’s what makes your base untouchable. Each player can only place a limited number.
3. Choose your spot carefully: you can’t build too close to another group’s base. Good spots go fast at the start of the wipe.
4. Level up your workbench: its level counts everywhere in your building.
5. Go looting: barrels, crates, then monuments. The blueprints you find are always ones your team doesn’t know yet.

Playing as a group

• Create or join a team in the game menu. Your team automatically shares learned blueprints and access to the base, the vehicles and the loot. If you leave it, you lose the blueprints it gave you.
• The maximum team size is the game’s default.
• If you leave a team, you lose your authorization on your former teammates’ cupboards and turrets. They stay authorized on the cupboards you placed: clean up if you split up.

Useful from day one

The full list is in Commands.