Survival games like Rust are often very complicated and challenging to navigate with resource gathering that can have you pulling out your hair with the continuous grind. Rust is no different, with a high focus on ensuring you have the materials required for any creation. Enter the ultimate high-quality metal collection guide to ensure that you can get back to the building instead of searching.
The best method for high-quality metal foraging in Rust is using the recycler as much as possible. The ability to collect other items and convert them into valuable resources is one of the most powerful mechanics in the game.
Even though the recycling methods are great for efficiency, there are plenty of other options that are also very effective for collecting high-quality metal in Rust. Having the proper knowledge of all of your options will allow you to craft your play experience in any way that you desire.
Whether you prefer to have a tranquil resource gathering experience or battle it out for king of the hill supremacy as you collect massive rewards, Rust gives you options. Some options are better than others, though, so we will cover the best solutions and mechanics you will need to know so you can break out of the Stone Age and start building your army of terminators.
Basic Farming Mechanics
We will cover the importance of tools a bit further along but on its surface, finding resources in Rust is self-explanatory. You can use three primary varieties of pick axes to farm the three basic varieties of nodes that you will find around the map.
These pickaxes scale from stone to metal to salvage pickaxes. Which rise from good to better to best. The three types of nodes you can find are sulfur ore, stone ore, and metal ore. The most basic form of high-quality metal farming will be searching out the metal ores and tapping on them with your ax of choice.
Many players will use this method of tapping the ores till they grab a high-quality metal and then move on to the next. This isn’t recommended, though, because it isn’t very efficient and hurts the players looking for entire ores instead of just the single high-quality metal that can come from a few taps.
Method 1: Barrel Farming
Funnily enough, our first option is only distantly related to the actual metal you will be collecting. Despite being made of the same type of metal every time, the barrels you can find in Rust are open to a cavalcade of possibilities. Not only do they guarantee two pieces of scrap whenever you find and break open a barrel, but they can also be relied upon for finding other random mysterious resources which often can be recycled to create even more high-quality metal.
Since barrels are such a terrific way to diversify your collection of both resources and components simultaneously, you can expect some decent competition from other players on the server. The biggest issue with barrel hunting is they don’t spawn that often, and you might have to wade into hot zones to grab them. The simple solution for this is tracking down a boat that will allow you to hunt down barrels on the water, making for a much more peaceful resource gathering experience.
Method 2: The Dome
As one of the many monuments in Rust, the Dome is a valuable place for farming, especially for newer groups. Military crates are a great source of various resources, and this monument helps you collect them relatively quickly and efficiently. A moderately skilled player should use this monument to collect four military crates in the right around 5 minutes of play.
If you happen to have a mini-copter, you can get through the Dome in only one minute for maximum efficiency. The minimum requirements for the Dome will be grabbing at least ten percent radiation resistance to avoid taking environmental damage as you traverse to the top.
Groups love to rush this area on a new map as along with the nice assortment of materials you are likely to grab, the blueprints you can find here as well are also pretty nuts.
Method 3: Using the Right Tools
This one is a bit different as it carries over too many aspects of the game beyond just farming for your high-quality metals. Simply farming nodes will always be a reliable way to collect resources that you can turn to whenever these other methods are too troubling. Just casually walking up to every node and swinging at it with a pickaxe isn’t the most efficient way to farm, though.
You will want to spend some time to max out your harvesting materials to increase your overall efficiency. Using a stone pickaxe will get you just over 75% of the resources from any node on your farm while using a metal pickaxe or above will open you up to 100% of the resources.
The best tools you will be able to use for farming quickly will be the salvaged pickaxes and the jackhammer, which both can be a bit difficult to come across. Your best bet for finding one of these will be to focus on the jackhammer, as it can be found in weapon crates, as well as crates even on the side of the road.
Method 4: Head to the Outpost Monument
While you may be using resources to gain resources heading over to the outpost monument is also a terrific way to increase your stores of high-quality metals. You can find one of the few safe zones in the game where players can interact without violence and procure a variety of resources.
As one of the best places for buying low-grade fuel along with stone, wood, and metal, the outpost is a valuable destination for grabbing a lot of things that will help round out your gameplay experience. You can even figure out ways to fly mini copters into the outpost to collect materials quickly without being bothered by other players after enough practice.
A mini copter should be able to hold enough of what you need to keep you moving without having to worry about other players who might be camping nearby the outpost looking for easy prey.
Method 5: Cargo Ships and Oil Rigs
These will be some of the most highly contested areas in some of the first few weeks of a map, but that is because they are excellent for all of the opportunities they provide. Aside from being one of the more entertaining gameplay environments in the game, the cargo ships and oil rigs are insane for resource gathering.
A single trip to an oil rig could have you leaving with over 100 high-quality metals along with the many other valuable things you will find there. However, this is on the high end as most returns will be around 50 to 100 high-quality metals. The competition that these areas invite is one of the best and worse things about using this method. It is more recommended for seasoned players to enjoy the match while reaping the rewards over newer players who might just get wiped out.
Method 6: Bandit Town Gambling
Any player who has had a chance to explore the bandit town will know that it is full of exciting things to keep you busy. One of these is the giant roulette wheel found on the second floor of the building, with cranelike metal structures reaching either side.
You can use this strategy for gambling many different types of materials in the game, and as long as you follow these guidelines, you should consistently profit. The wheel has 25 other options with which you can bet on a certain number to double your profit exponentially based on the number you choose and the odds it has.
For this strategy, we will use the number one as they occur the most on the wheel, and you have a 48% chance of rolling a number one. While the number one will only double your resource, the high stakes make this strategy 100% profitable. The strength of the system is reliant on you having a decent base of materials to start with.
Sixteen materials should keep you safe, but 32 will for sure as we rely on the statistics of probability. The strategy is simple; in this example, we will be trying to get another high-quality material starting with 16.
First, you would gamble for one, and if you didn’t spin a 1, you increase your gamble to 2. If this fails, you once again double your bet to 4. By this time, with the 48% chance, you will likely have spun a one and increased your profit by one by now, but if not, you will double to 8 and spin again. It is highly improbable that you will fail consecutively enough to run out of materials. If you limit your profit margins, you can relatively safely gamble infinite high-quality metals or anything else with this method.
This is best for materials like scrap, though, where you can quickly establish a base of around 500 to grab 20 or so highly effectively with this method.
Method 7: The Quarry
As another monument on the landscape, you will want to approach any quarry with caution. There are three types of quarries for each resource which can be found on your map. Once you have scoped out the location to make sure it’s safe, you can approach as long as you have the resources to get started.
All you need is some fuel to get the quarry started with as little as 50 to get it started. Place the power in the two blue barrels at the bottom and climb up to the top to press the button and get the machine started. You will then want to watch your way down the ladder and find a safe outpost to hang out with while the machine does its work.
The issues with farming the quarry come down to the safety you need to be combined by the time it takes to create your high-quality metals. With 50 fuel, you should make 12 high-quality metals in about 8 minutes, while 100 energy should grant you about 25 high-quality metals in 16 minutes. It could be hard to fortify the area long enough to grab your resources, and you might find better gains for your time with other methods.
However, if you can lock down a quarry for a significant amount of time, it can be very profitable. The high-quality metal quarry makes about 2 per minute to a total of 90 per hour. With a cost of 360 fuel to keep it running, quarries are an excellent option for larger crews who can dedicate resources to keeping them active.
Method 8: The Recycler
As a common occurrence at pretty much every outpost on the map, recyclers are one of the best ways in the game to procure materials for the random objects that you will find while traveling around Rust. You can bring nearly anything you see at a recycler and have it broken down into high-quality metals and other materials that you can use to build something new.
We have the average return you will find on every component in the game. You can exchange for high-quality metals so you can know just the right amount of serotonin to pump when you come across them in the wilderness. These numbers will adjust depending on the server and give you an accurate picture of their relative rarity.
- One metal pipe will give you about two high-quality metals on average and standard material for making guns.
- One metal spring will give you about two high-quality metals on average and is also helpful for making guns later in the game.
- Any road sign is always great to see along the road, especially when no one needs directions, and you can break them down for a metal pipe and a road sign. These will give you about 1.5 high-quality metals on average.
- Sheet metal will give you about three high-quality metals on average.
- Tech trash will give you about five high-quality metals on average.
- One semi-automatic body will give you about five high-quality metals on average.
- 1 SMG body will give you about seven high-quality metals on average.
- One rifle body will give you about ten high-quality metals on average.
Because of the reconstructive nature of Rust, the many recyclers around the game are always lovely for making use of anything you don’t need.
Method 9: Smelting
Another way to increase your resources in exchange for time and other resources is smelting. It takes a thousand wood to smelt a hundred high-quality metals. You don’t have to worry about breaking your stacks of wood up in the refinery because they will never break a single pile of metal. It is rare to have enough HQM that smelting will be necessary, but 11 minutes and 330 wood will net 99 HQM while 33 minutes will create 216.
Finding Materials for Recycling
With recycling being one of the best methods for gaining high-quality metals, the most challenging part is finding materials to recycle. Just knowing what to look for can save you a lot of time and have you quickly building out your base so you can get to fortifying those quarries and start living the easy life.
Weapon crates will always be unique for finding resources as they are often loaded with gun bodies and simple materials. You can search for weapon crates at harbors and monuments or pretty much any named structure on the map. Heading up to the top of the Dome is often the best way to go.
When farming the Dome, most servers will have the respawn every 30 minutes or so. If you are lucky at the top of the Dome, you might find as many as 5-gun bodies.
Wrapping Up
There are many different ways to increase your resources while trekking around Rust. With all of the other options, the most important thing to remember is to stay alive in the first place. It is often best to slow down and fill up your resources and alliances before pushing for the more profitable options available.
Collecting adequate radiation gear is always an excellent place to start, as running the Dome is a fantastic way to increase your supplies quickly. The utility of recycling should also be kept in mind to make full use of the game’s fluid creation system.
The end game of high-quality metal gathering has to be fortifying quarries and heading out to take cargo ships and oil rigs. However, thanks to the nature of the game, these can be done relatively well depending on your server and how good you are at leading raids. So don’t fret too much about farming high-quality metals and instead worry more about building up your base, allies, and tools, and the options will continue to open up.