Most players start their adventure in Rust with a simple rock and some tools that they pick up along the road.
However, as time passes, the other players around them will start evolving and will get fully electrically powered bases with 10 turrets that will kill you just for looking the wrong way.
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Since electricity in Rust is one of the most important parts of the game and also one of the most complicated ones, you will need to learn as much as possible.
In this guide, we will present exactly how electricity works in Rust, how to generate it, what you can use it for, and how to set up a functioning electric power system.
Table of Contents
- How Electricity Works in Rust
- How to Generate Electricity in Rust
- What to Use Electricity For in Rust
- How the Most Important Components of an Electric Power System in Rust Work
How Electricity Works in Rust
When you think of electricity in real life, you probably mostly think of cables. Well, that is true in Rust as well, as most of the time, when working with electricity, you will just be placing cables all over your base.
In theory, you only need three things to use electricity: a power source, a cable, and a power consumer. So, you will need an item that creates power, one that transmits the electricity, and something that uses it.
However, there will usually be other things in-between the generator and the consumer. You will usually have more than one electricity consumer, which means that you will need to split and distribute the power between them.
So, this means that electricity in Rust works exactly the same as it does in the real world. But, there are a few things that you need to know to effectively use this feature. First, let’s see how you generate electricity.
How to Generate Electricity in Rust
There are three power generators that you can build and use in Rust to get electricity:
- Large Solar Panels
- Wind Turbines
- Small Generators
Solar panels are the simplest power generator in the game but also the weakest. At the best position, with full sunlight, the solar panel can bring you 20 power per minute.
However, you will need to place it in a way that faces the sun most of the time and make sure to not put anything in front of it that will block the sun, such as walls. Usually, their best location is on top of your base’s roof.
The small generator is better at producing power than the solar panel, as it can give you 30 per minute, but it needs a constant supply of low grade fuel to function.
What can be advantageous to a generator is the fact that it can always produce electricity, no matter what is happening, as long as you give it low grade fuel.
Even if you rely on solar panels and wind turbines, a generator or two in your base will help in case raiders hurt your other sources of power.
The wind turbine is the best electricity generator in Rust, but it requires a lot of materials to make, a lot of research and will need to be placed in a special way to actually do its job properly.
Wind turbines make power based on wind. The game says that they bring 150 power per minute, but that is a lie. If you place a wind turbine on the ground, you will get something around 50.
The higher you place the wind turbine, the better the power generation. This is why many players place their turbines on top of stone towers made out of wall frames with nettings on them to easily reach the turbine.
What to Use Electricity For in Rust
Electricity will be useful in Rust for quality-of-life items such as ceiling lights and heaters, but it will also be vital for defense against raiders.
At the start of the game, you are most likely to use electricity for lighting. Afterward, you will start using it to automate your work. The igniter, for example, can warm up your furnaces with electricity, ridding you of the constant need to farm wood.
You can also use special items to automatically open doors for you and also create traps within the base for raiders.
However, the most important thing in your Rust base that will require electricity is auto turrets. The auto turrets are the best way to defend your base, and they require a lot of power. Exactly 10 per minute.
So, the main use of electricity, besides automating some of the menial tasks in the base, is for defense against other players.
How the Most Important Components of an Electric Power System in Rust Work
There are a lot of electrical components in Rust that can go between the power generator and the consumers that you will need to learn about.
Wire Tool
To connect the power generator to the consumer, you will need a wire tool. You only need to make one, and it costs 2 high quality metals.
If you approach a power generator with your wire tool equipped, you should see a little white square that should say “Electric Output.” This is where the electricity will come from. You should also see the amount of power the source is producing.
Just right-click the Electric Output, and then you can start dragging the cable to the consumer. You can right-click floors and walls to place the wire and extend it to the consumer or battery.
To connect it to a consumer and actually start using the electricity, you will need to connect the “Electric Output” box to a “Power In” box at your destination.
To remove a wire, just look at one of the wire “boxes” (Electric Output or Power In) and hold the left mouse button.
Try to experiment with a solar panel and a ceiling light first to understand how to place a wire properly.
You can also change the color of the wires to keep better track of them by holding down “R” while holding the wire tool.
Most electronics, such as ceiling lights, also have a “Passthrough” box, which just means that electricity can pass through that object.
So, if you have electricity coming into a ceiling light and then get a wire from the “Passthrough” box to the Power In (input) of another ceiling light, then the new light will also receive power.
Batteries
If you are using solar panels, then you won’t get a constant supply of power throughout the day. This means that if your whole base is powered by solar panels, then it just dies at night.
To fix this, you will have to use batteries. There are three types of batteries in Rust:
- Small Rechargeable Battery
- Medium Rechargeable Battery
- Large Rechargeable Battery
The difference between the batteries is their maximum capacity and power output. In general, you should only use small batteries at the start of the game and jump straight to large batteries.
Batteries only hold 80% of the power they get. So, if they receive 20 power per minute from a solar panel, they only deposit 16 power per minute.
Also, a battery cannot deposit more than 4 times its output. For example, a small battery with 10 power output can only deposit 40 power per minute.
In general, you should make sure that some of the power, if not all, from the power generators comes into the batteries in case they get destroyed during a raid or there are some problems with them.
Since batteries can store a large amount of energy, you should be able to keep your base going even if you lose all your power generators.
Switches – Normal, AND, OR, and XOR
Normally, you should want to control if your power is going to the consumers constantly or not. With the help of a simple switch, players can control when power actually goes to their lights or other electronics.
So, instead of sending the wire from the generator or battery to the consumer, you first get it into the switch and then combine the switch with the consumer.
Now, if you interact with the switch, you can control when the power goes through. This can be helpful if you want to stop the lights in the morning or activate an igniter.
There are four types of switches in Rust. The normal one, where you just need to press the switch to turn it on or off, is the most common one. It has a simple input and output box. This is the only switch that you can interact with. The others work automatically.
The AND switch has two input boxes and works if both inputs receive electricity. If only one of them does, the switch will turn off.
The OR switch has two input boxes and works if one of them receives electricity. If both receive electricity, it will still work.
The XOR switch has two input boxes and works if only one of them receives electricity. If both receive electricity, the switch will turn off.
Root Combiner
One problem you will have if you have in Rust, for example, two power generators, is that you will have to wire them separately in the system.
However, a root combiner allows two power sources to combine into one single output. This means that you can use this object to combine two power systems.
You might wonder why you need this. Well, if you want to connect all of your power generators to a battery, and the battery only has one “Power In” box, then you need to unite the electricity somewhere on the way.
The root combiner is where you do that. So, connect two solar panels, for example, to a root combiner, and then wire the root combiner to the battery to get the best of both worlds, rather than build a separate battery for each solar panel.
The only problem with the root combiner, and with most of the wire objects that you can place to improve your power system, is that it uses 1 power per minute. So, you will use 1 power in the system with every root combiner that you place.
Electrical Branches and Splitters
So, we discovered what you could use to connect two power outputs. But you will also need objects that split power and allow you to send more wires from the same power source.
The electrical branch and the splitter will do just that. The splitter is the easier choice to understand, as what it does is split the power from one wire into 3 outputs.
These outputs will split the power equally. So, if you only use one output, that one gets all the power, but if you use two or three, they split the power that comes in equally.
The electrical branch has only two outputs and one input, but you can choose the exact amount of power that goes into the outputs.
If you are making a simple electric power system in Rust, the splitter is the better choice. However, if you are trying to make something more complicated, the electrical branch is the superior one.
Blockers
A weird power system piece that you will sometimes need in Rust is the blockers. These are simple passthrough objects that have one input, one output, and one “Block Passthrough” box.
So, as long as electricity doesn’t go through the “Block Passthrough” input, the power simply goes from the normal input to the output.
However, if electricity comes into the “block” input, the output will suddenly stop working. This can be useful if you are setting up a system that lights up your base during the night, for example.
If you use solar panels for electricity and set up power from them to go into the “block” input of the blocker and power from your batteries to go through the normal input, then you can create an automatic system that stops the lights when electricity from the solar panels comes in.
That’s everything you need to know about electricity in Rust!
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