There aren’t a lot of high-level locations that you can loot for a lot of incredible equipment in Rust. However, the Cargo Ship will always give you the best loot in the game, and you just have to learn how and when it appears.
The Cargo Ship might seem like it spawns randomly as you spend your days and night waiting for it. Though you might think there is no way to predict when the ship appears, it is actually relatively consistent in its apparitions.
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Once you understand when the Cargo Ship spawns, you can easily be the first person to get on it before everyone else comes running for that tier 3 loot. You will just have to be ready for some Radiation!
The Cargo Ship in Rust spawns every 2 in-game days, which translates to 2 hours in official server times. This will happen forever, and the Cargo Ship never stops spawning.
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How Often Does the Cargo Ship Spawn in Rust
The Cargo Ship spawns every 2 hours on official Rust servers that don’t change any of the settings. Since a day lasts 1 hour, this means that it takes two in-game days for the Cargo Ship to spawn.
The Cargo Ship will then move around the coast of the island for around 50 minutes, during which you will have three chances to open up the Locked Crates.
It takes 15 minutes to open up one of the Locked Crates, and it takes around 10 minutes for them to respawn.
The exact time when it spawns should be around dawn, exactly when the sun starts rising. Otherwise, it can also depend on what server you are playing on.
Once the Cargo Ship starts leaving the map, you will get serious Radiation damage. Even with a Hazmat Suit, after a few minutes, you will start getting Radiation Poisoning.
If you did the math, you would realize that there isn’t really enough time to open the same Locked Crate three times, even though you are allowed to.
This is done because you can start opening the third one and then wait for it to open while the Cargo Ship starts leaving the map.
You will have around 10 minutes until the Radiation Poisoning will get to a really high level. Ambitious players might risk it and try to get the Locked Crate while they are surrounded by Radiation.
There are also around 9 normal crates that spawn on top of the Cargo Ship and around 17 crates inside the ship.
That’s everything you need to know about how often the Cargo Ship spawns in Rust!
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