How to Find Caves in RUST

Master the techniques for locating caves in RUST

Caves are notable underground points of interest scattered randomly across the island of RUST. Caves undergo procedural generation with each new map generation (except for custom and static maps), meaning that no two maps will have the same cave location configuration. Since this is the case with all procedural maps, it is vital to understand how to find caves in RUST.

Caves can be challenging to spot on the map but are easily recognizable in person by their large rocky and sometimes wooden braced entrances. The inability to place any building blocks or deployables nearby is a potential sign of a nearby cave. Running with your building plan out can act as a low-tech cave-detection system if you have a general idea that a cave is nearby.

There are three different ‘main’ variants of caves; small, medium, and large. Each variant can have three levels of difficulty: easy, medium, and hard, consisting of varying combinations of traps, jump puzzles, and rooms with building access. Players can identify spaces that support player-building with small pieces of wood on the floor. Another good indicator includes the presence of pathways to different rooms or a corridor. 

If you’re looking for more tips around caves, be sure to check out our guide on How to Build a Cave Base in RUST.

Here are 5 tips for finding caves in RUST

1. Look around for small stone monuments, separated from other complex stone structures. They will have an opening, sometimes just rocks. Other times there will be wooden or steel frames.
2. Keep an eye out for random barrels, and minecart spawns. These will appear near the front of mine entrances. In particular, minecarts are a sure sign of a mine nearby.
3. Look carefully on the map. Press the G key and look at the topology of the landscape. While caves are not explicitly marked, small circular shadows or divots on the map indicate a concave area.
4. If you think you’ve found one but can’t find the entrance, pull out a building plan to see if you are building blocked. If you are blocked, there’s a good chance you’ve found a cave or possibly a small monument, so keep looking for the stone or wood structures that support the cave’s opening.
5. Use third-party sites, such as playrust.io, to display a specific server’s map, along with other prominent points of interest, in a web browser and quickly identify cave locations.

Wrapping it up

It can be tricky to find caves in RUST, but it’s not impossible to master. Remember to look for the signs of nearby caves if the terrain is hilly or full of trees. Caves can appear in various RUST biomes, including temperate, desert, and arctic.

Be sure to examine your in-game or out-of-game map closely, keep your eyes peeled, and before long, you’ll be an expert at sniffing out caves in RUST. You can bet that your competition is!