The Timed Explosive Charge (most often referred to as C4) is one of the most potent raiding tools available in RUST. Its focus is on destroying doors and deployable items. Unlike other explosives with a large damage radius, the C4 has a small concentrated blast.
You can find timed explosive charges only in high-level crates that require you to combat difficult NPC scientists and other players. They rarely appear on the player market as most players are unwilling to share the Blueprint for the game’s most effective raiding tool.
The Bradley APC Crate has the highest chance of containing a timed explosive charge at a rate of 25 percent. Almost all sources for the C4 include a scientist assault and PvP defense phase.
Once you have a C4, you will need to get the item, Explosives to craft a charge. If you’ve been lucky enough to pick up more than one timed explosive charge, you can recycle it to get the necessary explosives.
Unlike Rockets, explosive ammunition, and grenades, the C4 will only damage the deployable, not the surrounding surfaces. Therefore, there is no splash damage to connected walls and objects.
As such, it’s crucial when tossing the C4 that your aim is on point. Deploying the timed explosive charge will throw the charges directly ahead of you, beep for ten seconds, then explode.
It won’t bounce and sticks to whatever object it hits first in its thrown arc. Therefore, getting the C4 attached to something unintentionally is very easy. Make sure to throw the charge clear of other items, as its hit-box can be uncertain.
RF Capability
In March of 2023, Remote Frequency (RF) detonation was added as an optional feature for C4. Simply put, when in your inventory screen, click on the (stack) C4 that you wish to change from the standard toss and 10 seconds to detonation to the RF system. In the item panel, an RF toggle will appear. Select On. Set Frequency to any value that you wish.
C4 with RF turned on will display a small overlay RF icon that non-RF will not have. To detonate, throw the C4 as you would any other. The beeping noise will still occur, but the C4 will not detonate after 10 seconds. Instead, an RF Transmitter (handheld) or RF Broadcaster (deployed), set to the same frequency as the C4, are instead used to detonate. Unlike the thrown method, using one of these broadcasting functions will immediately detonate all C4 matching the input frequency. C4 using the RF system CAN be picked up by anyone that finds it deployed.
While it is undoubtedly the most efficient raiding tool in direct point damage and Sulfur production cost, timed explosive charges to perform best when paired with other raiding tools that can finish off smaller amounts of damage.
