Jumping into a Rust match, especially after a recent wipe, can be a scramble for survival. Veteran players and survival aficionados will prey on newer players and it can be very easy to find yourself quickly overrun by an enemy that is far more advanced in terms of gear, weapons, and shelter. Rust is just as much about advancing and growing technology as it is staying hydrated and satiated. Those who don't unlock access to furnaces will find themselves quickly falling behind.
Because of this, players will want to locate Stone as quickly as possible. Not only is stone needed for the production of stone tools, but it's also required to build a Furnace, which is vitally important to survival in Rust's harsh open-world. This guide will help players better understand where to find Stone, what it's for, and how to effectively farm for it.
Where To Gather Stone
- Find and mine Stone Nodes.
- Gather loose stones from the ground.
Stone can be gathered in two ways, either from a node or by scavenging small rocks. Because a pickaxe is required to mine Stone from nodes, your first interaction with stone after a wipe is to grab it from the ground. These gatherable items look like oblong, oval-shaped grey objects and can be found almost anywhere (sometimes even hidden in tall grass). The smartest way to obtain loose Stone is by patrolling the beaches, as it's much easier to spot in the flat sand. Picking up Stone will give players 50 Stone as a resource.
Once players have gathered enough Stone to make a Stone Pickaxe (which requires 200 wood, and 100 stones), they can begin gathering Stone from nodes found sprinkled around the map. Mining Stone from nodes is a much faster process than picking it up off the ground because it rewards players with a much larger amount (700+ Stone).
How To Farm Stone Using A Mining Quarry
Farming Stone can be as simple as running to each node and hacking away with a pickaxe but savvy Rust players will attempt to snag one of the Mining Quarry monuments on the map to generate resources for them. The newest iteration of Rust has ditched the ability to craft Mining Quarries and has instead placed them as monuments in specific areas. These quarries are free to use by anyone but many players will attempt to defend them in order to hoard the materials. The basic Mining Quarry is capable of producing a whopping 9000 stone per hour (as well as 1350 metal) passively, so it's easy to understand why players may want to covet this monument for themselves.
Operating A Mining Quarry
Once you gain access to one, operating the Mining Quarry is actually quite simple:
- Fill the blue barrels with low-grade fuel.
- Climb to the top of the quarry.
- Access the control panel.
Each mining quarry will have a set of large, easily identifiable blue barrels that sit near the base of the machine (usually near the ladder). Players can fill these barrels with low-grade fuel, and any Mining Quarry that runs out of gas will stop functioning. It takes approximately 360 low-grade fuel per hour to operate the machinery. Once the barrels are filled with fuel, players can climb up the nearby ladder and access a control panel atop the machine to start the engines. Once started, the Mining Quarry will passively collect stone and deposit it into an easily accessible holding container located on the ground underneath the scooping mechanism.
Defending A Mining Quarry
Using a Mining Quarry is a relatively painless process but defending the spoils it collects isn't. Anyone on the map can gain access to a Mining Quarry's holding tank. Players who fill a Mining Quarry with fuel and leave the area may come back later to find all of their mined materials missing. In order to avoid losing all that precious stone, it's important to have some form of defense against others players.
Defending can be as easy as posting up somewhere and simply watching the Mining Quarry as it operates but this puts players in danger of having their goods (and self) poached by a stronger player with better gear. The smarter alternative is to simply build walls (and even a base) around the Mining Quarry itself. It's fairly easy to build around the Stone Mining Quarry and the resources produced are well-worth the effort of collecting enough wood to build a base and defenses.
Keep in mind that this works both ways. Other players may gain access to the Stone Mining Quarry first and players will need to be prepared with adequate gear and weapons if they want to attempt storming another player's defenses and taking the quarry for themselves.
What Is Stone Used For?
Stone isn't just important early in a wipe, it's also pivotal to creating better technologies and it makes for much stronger walls and gates (than wood). Once players have access to a steady supply of stone, they can make:
- Furnace
- Large Furnace
- Rock (Weapon)
- Stone Pickaxe
- Stone Axe
- Stone Spear
- Wooden Arrow
- High Velocity Arrow
- Handmade Shell
- Sandbag Barricade
- Concrete Barricade
- Stone Barricade
- High External Stone Wall
- High External Stone Gate