Explosives are a raid-exclusive crafting component in RUST used to make the highest-tier tools in the game. They are spawnable via the F1 console.
Getting the explosive blueprint is widely regarded as one of the benchmark achievements for clans and solo players alike. Once achieved, players can create high-damage raiding supplies.
Explosives are at the heart of Rockets, Timed Explosive Charges, and Incendiary Rockets. It is common practice to recycle the latter for a chance to acquire the explosive itself for research purposes.
Explosive crafting becomes one of the more significant time sinks players experience as groups begin making raiding supplies in mass quantities. With the Mixing Table‘s implementation, players can now automate a considerable portion of this burden. Only players that know the blueprint for explosives may create them with the mixing table.
Aside from researching it directly, players can invest a large amount of Scrap into the tier 3 workbench tech tree to learn the blueprint. They may also be acquired directly from locked crates of all types, and very rarely are they dropped by heavy scientists.