The RUST Raiding Guide

It’s time to get serious about raiding in RUST.

Nothing screams anxiety in the RUST community like an online or offline raid. That is why so much of the latter happens compared to the former. Alternately, nothing screams relief within a team like hearing “TC open, clearing auth” resonating over Discord from your breach team leader.

There is no greater feeling or satisfaction than spending days preparing to take on an adversary and clutching victory over them. Taking everything that they’ve spent weeks accumulating and moving it back home. If you were looking for a RUST Raiding Guide to do just that, you’ve come to the right place.

Moving forward with this guide, we’ll start by stating that the following assumptions are made:

1. Component farming for the boom isn’t an issue
2. Workbenches and blueprints are already farmed for
3. You aren’t saving up to raid a 2×2
4. You have friends

With this being prefaced, get ready to dive right into raiding in RUST, start to finish.

Table of Contents

• Motive
• Rousing the Troops
• Locating the Target
• Assessing the Enemy
• Resource Acquirement
• Making (or Collecting) Munitions
• Prudent Redundancies Check
• Role Allocation
• Plan of Attack
• Moving to Site (Execution)
• Breaching – Point of No Return
• Overwatch
• Securing the Raid
• Exfiltration

Motive

Reasoning and rationality in RUST are fleeting, often far less important than the outcome of their intended ambition. While we don’t need to tell the RUST community that no reason is required to raid a neighbor, it has been apparent that some of us do need the go-ahead to plot against another team.

That said, players are encouraged to reference our 10 Ways to Avoid (or Incite) a Raid in RUST guide for a full write-up on how to pick a raid target or get picked by someone else. While this isn’t a completely comprehensive list (impossible, based on player imagination), it is a step in the right direction if any raid is desired.

Warning: Doing the things listed in the guide doesn’t guarantee that your enemies will choose to online raid you. Offline raid risk increases dramatically.

Rousing the Troops

There is no shame in removing self-deception and recognizing that your ‘A team’ is an ‘E team’ at best. While you should never be afraid to push your assumed boundaries, there is little to be gained by throwing your team into a conflict you aren’t ready for.

That is why during the Rousing of the Troops phase, there are a few considerations you should mull over on your own before you present a raid target opportunity to your colleagues.

Knowing Limitations

No one knows your team as it knows itself. If you struggle with basic RUST activities, like roaming, small base raids, or running monuments, perhaps you should consider spending time on Raid Simulation servers before risking hours and days of your effort only to have it stripped away by a counter-raiding team or even worse, the base owner.

Setting Expectations

Perhaps you recognize that the team tormenting you is well beyond your boom budget or skill level. Tempering expectations early on so that a more realistic degree of satisfaction is obtainable goes a long way, both in sending a message and boosting your team’s morale. Don’t be afraid to take a shot, knowing that you can’t completely succeed if you’re alright with that as an outcome.

Hope for the Best

It might seem old-fashioned but hope in RUST does more than give people warmth and fuzzies. It can also present you with opportunities that you otherwise might not be present to grasp. Consider the common YouTube clickbait video title, “Turning a lucky bush DB into gains,” or something similar.

These titles and videos depict scenarios when being in the right place at the right time, often through persistence or the belief that a play could be made, can turn a wipe completely around. What is going out and making a play, if not hoping for the best?

Plan for the Worst

Conversely, something must be said for taking that DB home and learning it before you go back out. While making the big play is adrenaline-pumping good fun, there is great satisfaction and comfort in knowing that “Even If” scenarios are a possibility. Those that plan for the worst can take the chances and make those plays, knowing that because of prior planning, “Even If” the worst should come to pass and I die in that bush, I can spawn back at base and try again. Take heed of the advice in this RUST Raiding Guide, and you’ll have your bases covered.

Locating the Target

Let’s lead with this—it happens. Even the best of us put in the work, track down ‘our target,’ completely gut the enemy base, only to find Farmer Fred sleeping near empty boxes and a lackluster Tool Cupboard. Wrong guy, wrong base; it feels bad, man.

So how can we avoid making ourselves look stupid and appear to be the bully of the Roleplaying community? Well, the answer might come off as a bit scummy.

If you’re at the point in your wipe where you are actively scheming against someone because of something they did, nothing (within reason and the bounds of the Terms of Service) should be off the table. Suspect you’ve found your nemesis’ base? Grab yourself a double barrel, a few shells, and some beef jerky; it’s time to admire their door for a while.

Of course, there are other ways of determining base ownership. You can cross reference door skins with player inventories if you’re feeling, especially Inspector Gadget, and check around with neighbors. For more clues, pay attention to signs or Vending Machines that advertise ‘Chucks Farm’ or ‘Pookie Clan on Top.’ It is better to be sure the first time than explain to your team why they have to re-farm 30 more rockets.

Assessing the Enemy

A great many considerations go into choosing which raid target to take on. Sure, the size, construction, and entity composition go into the base, but outside factors often overlooked greatly tip the outcome scales in one direction or the other.

Within a Square

It is best to look at raid targets objectively first and subjectively after the fact. Objectivity allows you to see what anyone else would see.

While the base in question looks detached from the other three smaller bases around it, it is important to note that all have a door skin in common.

While subjectivity allows you to speculate about assumptions, this small observation allows you to presume that there is probably a link between the three buildings, which could become relevant if built to act as flank spawns during an online raid. While not always correct, planning for this contingency before things go sideways is better.

Things to “Count” On

Even if you don’t select the biggest, baddest base to raid, chances are that you might encounter their owners nonetheless. Larger groups are statistically more likely to counter smaller raids like yours. To these groups, these low-risk, high-reward PVP conflicts could net them valuable raiding materials to use towards their own ends later in the wipe. Take note of bases of all shapes and sizes within roughly 3-4 squares of your target, and plan to monitor those directions when the time comes.

Who’s Afraid of the Dark?

For those experienced in Winter or Desert RUST combat, you can skip this bit, and for the rest of you Temperate Zone warriors, you might want to pay attention.

It seems like a small enough obstacle to overcome—we will swap out our Metal Chest Plates for a Jacket, and away we go. And during the day, raiding a base in the snow really could be that simple. At night, however, when the sun isn’t there to warm you, and the snow starts blowing, the combination of cold and wet will quickly have you retreating to your raid base and give your Winter-Loving enemy the full 15-minute night window to recover and repair their base as you huddle by a fire.

In addition to weather survival, you might consider checking out our Arctic, Desert, and Temperate gear skin guides to add considerable stealth to your raiding adventure. While not absolutely necessary, there is no doubting their helpfulness.

Procedurally Generated Obstacles

Often overlooked, an enemy base is built as close to a monument or safe zone as space allows. While not the end of the world, bases built in this way greatly limit your options as a raiding party to set up a raiding base and secure multiple exit strategies if things go wrong. Just something to consider as you begin laying plans later. Mark the enemy base on your map and then take a good hard look at things that might make your job getting a raid base down harder. Some of these might take the form of:

• Other bases / TCs you aren’t authed on nearby
• Cliffsides, mountains, or unlevel terrain
• Water or thick tree cover could make movement slower or visibility lesser
• Caves with giant no-build above-ground zones
• Safe zones within range that will shoot at you once you become hostile through raiding
• Radiation zones, especially around Launch Site, that while not build blocked make getting back to your body after death much harder

Pondering How to Raid

Before continuing with the guide, you need-need-NEED to have a game plan for how you will breach the base and what defenses you will need to neutralize before you can do that. Before any boom is crafted, before any farming is done, before anything else, all of the following considerations must be viewed and determined with a degree of stealth and silence.

Visible Electricity

If no external power sources are apparent, it is fairly safe to assume that turrets or SAM Site defense systems are going to be limited. If there are turbines or solar panels exposed, look for the following weak points:

• Exposed splitters, electrical branches, switches, or root combiners
• These components are fairly easy to shoot out and could disable defenses entirely
• Exposed batteries
• Breaking these from a distance can sever the connection between the power source and protective devices
• Laser visibility
• Especially at night time, the absence of lasers within a compound or surrounding a base is a good indicator of no turrets
• Wire pathing
• Where there is smoke, there is fire. Wires stand out, especially against a stone base or when wired poorly. Use these as indicators of defenses or light sources

High Walls

We see them everywhere but often give them a second glance in passing. High external walls and gates serve as a physical obstruction to deter door campers, block roof campers, and safeguard outside furnaces. Unfortunately for raiders, they can also work to hide other defensive systems that will immediately target and fire on them as soon as the walls are down.

Walls & Doors

The age-old question. A base is only as good as its design, and the design is only as good as the quality behind its parts. It is best to guess the base’s layout when possible, with entrances lending ideas about the base’s paths and where the Tool Cupboard is. As far as whether to take doors or walls, let the material of each guide you.

• If the walls are made of sheet metal or high quality metal without honeycombing, an argument could be made that walls could be cheaper.
• If those same walls do have honeycombing, it might be cheaper to take the doors out.
• If all doors are wood or sheet metal in construction, it might be cheaper to take them out.
• If you see garage doors through every crack and window, or even worse Armored Doors, taking the walls out could save on resources considerably.
• Every situation is different. On larger double-door frames, check for the frame construction itself for possible cheaper routes. People forget to upgrade these all the time.

External Tool Cupboard

Be mindful of External Tool Cupboards used for base defense. They can potentially complicate sealing and loot transfers down the road. Consider the possibility of using an External Tool Cupboard offensively, maybe even as the foundation for your raid base.

Planning for their Plans

If there are excessive turrets or traps, this needs to be worked into the boom resource plan. Average 3-4 High Velocity Rockets per Turret; ensure you bring enough. Little is worse than being pinned down by the definition of Aimbot.

Be sure not to tip your hand while ascertaining this information. Nothing makes a raid harder than advertising that it’s coming.

Resource Acquirement

Only after you’ve completed all of the above should you begin actively working towards the raid. There is little to no point in farming a box of Rockets all day only to discover that you don’t have the support, capacity, or cunning to pull off the raid. Let’s get right into it once all of this is in hand, and the decision is made.

Farming

The three primary components go into the manufacturing of Gun Powder, the primary ingredient needed to craft all things Kaboom in RUST; Sulfur Ore, Charcoal, and not getting raided with the goods before you’ve had a chance to use them. While there is no absolutely certain way of having the last one, the first two are a bit more manageable.

• Sulfur
  • Node Farming – A process as old as the game itself, sometimes the best way to acquire resources for a raid is to put your head down, gear up, and get out there and farm your way to revenge.
    • Biome Preference – The Arctic used to be an absolute favorite biome for sulfur farming, but recent changes to the game have improved both the Desert and Temperate zone regarding node spawns. Use resources such as RustMaps and their Heat Node function to see where resources can spawn relative to your base.
    • Necessary Equipment – There is no replacement for the Jackhammer.  Ensure you’re also properly defended, kitting yourself with food, meds, bandages, and bullets before heading out. Use Teas to boost output further.
  • Coaling Tower Event
    • While this guide won’t go into all the wonderful things added to this event, check out our Coaling Tower Event guide to see how train-hopping can speed up your revenge story.  Just picture magical train cars loaded down with everything you need.
  • Sulfur Quarry
    • Just like the coaling tower guide, be sure to read up on output levels and methods of acquiring fuel here. 
  • Quick, Small Raids
    • Although counterintuitive to hoarding and saving up for a raid, sometimes small raid targets, especially those with Wooden Doors, can open up a whole world of possibilities.  Many solo players stockpile things like sulfur ore and charcoal in their boxes because they don’t yet have a use for them. Check out our Molotov Cocktail Raiding guide for fast gains!
  • Giant Excavator
    • A bit higher profile than the Sulfur Quarry, pending your group size, the server population that you’re playing with, and the time of day that you’d run it, Giant Excavator could be a fast source of Sulfur.
  • Mutual Enemies (Teaming)
    • While a bit risky, sometimes it pays to check around.  If you plan to strike back at the local roof camper that has been terrorizing your otherwise serene little valley, sometimes just knocking on a neighbor’s door and getting their input can lead to unexpected, positive fellowships.
• Charcoal / Wood
  • Tree Farming – Charcoal is what I refer to as a ‘bottleneck’ resource.  While you can certainly run short on components, sulfur, or fuel, charcoal is much harder to go out and ‘find.’  By and large, it has to be crafted through the burning of Wood.
    • Equipment – Chainsaws are clutch but dangerous methods of chopping trees in a hurry.  The Salvaged Axe is a fan-favorite, although your rate of collection is diminished.
  • Gathering – You can gather charcoal en-masse in a most unlikely way, touched on in the Coaling Tower event. Trainloads at a time are up for grabs, map features pending.
  • Burning – Any method is the proper method, though Small Oil Refineries have the fastest burn time resulting in the most charcoal per hour.
• Raid Base Materials – This might seem odd, but it has happened numerous times. Coming up short on raid base supplies, including turrets, embrasures, beds, or what-have-you, is embarrassing and potentially costly. All of these things should be anticipated (and possibly built ahead of time on a build server) before you ever leave your base.  

Making (or Collecting) Munitions

• Estimated Need – This directly links back to your initial Assessment of the Enemy base. It is a good rule of thumb to take whatever you estimate is needed and add 10% across the board. If you believe the raided base will take 10 Rockets, make 11. Never under-craft; this can cost you much more in the long run if the base owner is online.
• Save Time – Utilize Mixing Tables whenever possible to save on precious crafting time that could otherwise be spent farming more sulfur.
• Air Drops – Pursue and challenge Airdrops falling around the map or other events like Oil Rig or Cargoship to collect premade explosives.
• SAM Sites – For targets without considerable SAM Site defense elements in place, the use of the MLRS system cannot be overstated.
• Water Bases – If the base you’re raiding happens to be oceanfront property, consider a less conventional raiding approach to save a bundle in Gun Powder with Submarine Raiding.

Prudent Redundancies Check

No good plan is complete without self-reminders. Go over everything one last time, and make sure that you have all of the following supplies planned for and ready

• Boom – Do we have enough to overcome the base’s defenses?
• Kits – In case of a teammate’s death during the struggle, do we have fallback equipment to retake the field?
• Meds / Ammo / Food – The fight could take hours, depending on the target size. Can we win through attrition?
• Sealing / Repairing Resources – It’d be foolish during an online raid to expect the base owner not to move provisions to higher floors away from the TC. Do we have the materials required to take control on our own?
• Team – Are we all here and ready? The last thing you want is no wingman when the rockets start flying.
• Extras – Ladders! Why do we always forget the ladders?!

Role Allocation

People perform best when they can use their natural strengths; this is one of the most important things to remember in this RUST Raiding Guide. Some people are better builders, some are better snipers, and some are better door kickers. Below are a few roles that can be doled out beforehand so that little is left to think about when the raid starts.

• Moving Out Phase
  • Who has What – Everyone should be assigned particular things to bring, such as raiding equipment, building materials, and extra kits
  • Driver / Pilot (optional) – If you’re not running to the raid, know who is responsible for getting everyone there and back in advance. You don’t want to sit prone on a helicopter or boat for too long.
• Set Up (Who Does What)
  • On-Site Eyes (Naked Scout) – Larger groups especially use this type of role to maintain eyes on the target base and the comings and goings as they are on their way to the raid. These persons can communicate what to expect through Discord or other voice coms and prevent a possible massacre.
  • Builder – One person should be in charge of building the raid base and may delegate others to follow behind upgrading or deploying entities, such as turrets.
  • Overwatch – This is most often the breach team until the raid base is established, and most often, the building team swaps to become overwatch once their duties are complete. The breach team then goes to the Knocking phase.
• Knocking
  • Breach Team (ground)
    • This team is responsible for boots-on-the-ground movements, usually composed of a Leader calling the shots, firing the rockets, and a small group protecting him or following his lead. His voice should have priority over all others, except if overwatch has eyes on an imminent threat.
  • Overwatch (base)
    • With the raid base presumably finished, those builders and others designated should now be on a shooting floor recently constructed, watching over and providing intel to the breach team.

Plan of Attack

Before the Move Out phase commences and the raid starts, everyone (now assigned their role) should have a good idea of the itinerary of events to expect over the next few minutes.  Some considerations to go over with your team are as follows;

• Breach Direction / Raid Base location
  • Have primary and secondary raid base locations scouted ahead of time.
  • The builder should know at this point what they are building and use the primary or secondary build spot depending on the situation on the ground
• Fallback / On-Timer positions
  • Everyone ahead of time should visit the site and place down external Sleeping Bags and Stashes with disposable hazzy kits and backup weapons in the event that things go south.
• Exfiltration Plan
  • If the raid succeeds, everyone should know the primary means of moving loot and escaping.
  • If the raid is unwinnable, whether by running out of resources or being overwhelmed, a secondary escape route should be established. This should be the call of the persons leading the raid, not determined on a person-by-person basis.

Moving to Site (Execution)

This is it. Final checks should now be made.  

• Double-check all plans before moving out.
• Answer any questions before the raid starts, including the call of nature. Some raids can last hours. The last thing you want is bathroom breaks mid-raid.
• Stealth needs to be considered, as it is much easier to get set up for the raid when you aren’t immediately fired on. Keep communication channels relatively clear and hold fire when possible.  Silencers can be super handy in this scenario.
• On-Site Checklist – Once on site, use the following to keep things running linearly and provide the newer raiders of your team with a sense of calm
  • Perimeter Control
    • Set up Raid Base as a first priority, maintaining Roles designated beforehand
    • Discretionary, prudent enemy callouts are a must, as everyone talking over each other only lends to hurt your team
    • Quickly have every team member authorize to the Tool Cupboard and place their beds in the correct spot, then return to their tasks
    • Turret authorizations can be done remotely by the person setting it up, so use this option when available
    • If your plan is what we call two-tier, meaning one part of the team brought materials for the raid base and a second is bringing the explosives, the secondary team should be moving to the raid base as soon as the word is relayed that the location is secure
    • A raid base has been established, external control secured, and the breach team should be positioned and ready to move. Overwatch should now be in position

Breaching: The Point of No Return

• Breach Leader – It is imperative that the breach leader, being the primary holder of explosives, is always defended and abided by. Leaving this person alone is a very bad idea and will quickly end your ambitions of enemy loot.  That being said, they also have responsibilities, as follows;
  • Fires the first rocket or explosive round; secondary (optional) breachers should then follow
  • Makes all impromptu decisions relating to comings, goings, or fallbacks
  • Communicate directly with Overwatch
  • Be the primary deployer of explosives, especially once the walls are breached and the doors become the obstacle. They should be intimately familiar with how much it takes of which explosives to destroy specific entities.
  • Responsible for establishing & communicating benchmark finds such as  Loot / Workbench / Bags / TC
  • Usually in charge of securing the raid after TC is captured and cleared or destroyed
• Breach Team Members
  • Secure the area around the Breach Leader and facilitate their job responsibilities
  • Facilitate transfer of boom to or loot from breach site
  • Infrequent callouts to Overwatch for eyes on close targets
  • Priority is always the protection of Breach Leader & each other

Overwatch

• Cohesive Response Unit – As important as gaining entry to the enemy base, ensuring the path to and from that base is prudent. Responsibilities of this team include;
  • Supporting the breach team, both by engaging targets on the enemy roof or shooting floor, as well as outside the path between the target base and raid base
  • Provides real-time threat neutralization from their perch
  • Reports enemy movements to breach team as necessary
  • May be asked to join the breach team once the raid is secured intermittently but should never make a choice to leave their post on their own

Securing the Raid

All roles should maintain their positions and duties until the Breach Leader confirms that TC is secured and base owners have been neutralized. Until this happens, the raid is not secured. TC privilege allows for fortifications to be made on the part of the raiding party. Once the surrounding area is cleared of other players, counterers, and grubs alike, loot transfer can be started in accordance with the original exfiltration plan.

If all the proper planning found in this RUST Raiding Guide was implemented, as it should have been, this section and the one after should be as simple as riding off into the sunset. Should counters persist, sometimes it is advised to secure the raid, lock the doors, and return at a later time when things have cooled down.

Exfiltration

When an order is established, loot is ruffled through by all involved, and everything is collected and ready for transport, the breach leader or someone of equal importance should determine how many trips the full team will facilitate to move loot. 

Sometimes, newer raiding team members want to pick up or collect the weirdest things, and it shouldn’t be the whole team’s responsibility to make sure that ‘These cool bear rug skins!’ make it back to base. No one has time for that mess, Megan.

Once the loot is moved back to base and all ends are tied off, congratulations are in order. You’ve just successfully spent 36 hours of your lives revenging 5 minutes of door camping!

Final thoughts on the RUST raiding guide

No matter how carefully the plans are laid, not every raid story like this will have a happy ending.  Sometimes, things go to crap, and you can do nothing about it. But don’t be discouraged. Get out there and take what is yours.

If there is a specific topic or subtopic in this article that you would like more elaboration or illumination on, don’t hesitate to contact us via our Discord; we would be honored to expand on it. Be good to each other, always.