PlayRust - Banditry

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Banditry: How to Be the Survivor and Not the Victim

In Rust, one of the biggest threats you can ever come across are other players - they are unpredictable, dangerous, and hard to trust. One player has the potential to ruin everything you’ve been working on in the game, and in the world of Rust, it really is survival of the fittest.

There are certain strategies and tips to take into consideration to ensure that you’re not left standing outside of your own house naked, whilst threatening players blow down your precious house.

Making Friends

Playing safe in Rust requires a few things; firstly, you’re going to need to understand how good base building works, and also how to hide a decent base from plain sight. Secondly, you need to get to grips with the guns in the game, and learn how to keep calm in combat, and thirdly, you need to become a politician.

I’m really not kidding when I say this - in my hours of playing, I’ve learned one very important thing. If you learn to make friends on a server, you can build alliances, track down bandits together, and threaten any hooligans that plan to smash your house down.

Making friends in Rust can be a tricky thing to do, because you can never truly know if other players want to befriend you too, or if they just want to get on your good side to get a good look at your base and home location. The best thing to take into consideration when interacting with other players is that you can never trust anybody. Never let players near your base, no matter how friendly they are, and you should be good.

From here, you can start building relationships with players that could potentially lead to lots of benefits. These benefits include trading opportunities, information related to a bandit’s whereabouts, and even protection and help in PVP situations. You’ll need to think tactically, and learn how much each player will expect from you before you can start seeing benefits in return - if you have to give up 1,000 wood to a player that could potentially be your biggest weapon against other players in the future, it may be worth giving it up.

Keeping Quiet
If you’re not the socialite then you could always keep your head low and not cause any commotion. It’s likely that the bandits on the server you’re playing on already have targets firmly on the heads of any loudmouths on the server, and you could potentially avoid all confrontations just by not mentioning that much to them. If you are hidden well, the only ways you could make your base a target for a raid is either by having a big base worth raiding, or by having enough to say in the chat that could cause people to want to attack you.

And if you are ever worried that someone may be planning to raid your base, you could always try and create a distraction.

Because of the vast open world of Rust, it’s quite easy to place bases in some really interesting places, so if someone is starting to snoop around your base, simply build a new decoy base nearby, and whenever any players are in the area, just drop by your decoy base until they move on. This way, if they do decide to raid you, they’ll most likely find your empty decoy base and will head off home without having any clue where your real base is.

Good Base Protection

If bandits do come across your base, then there is only one thing left between them and all of your loot, and that is good base protection. This is a whole subject on it’s own, and if you want to learn more about base building techniques in Rust, then check out our house design section for this guide.

Good base protection is largely about putting as many doors between raiders and your most valuable loot. A good design would make sure that there aren’t any cheap ways into your base, for example, through a wall on the side of a house, or through an open window. Once this is sorted, you simply need to make as many metal doors as possible, and put your most valuable loot in the hardest spot to get to. You can always risk spreading out your loot - that way raiders will only get a chunk of your loot after each door break, instead of all of it if they manage to slip into your loot room.

Understanding PVP Combat

Bandits won’t just be looking to raid bases, they’ll also be out in the field, ready to shoot down any full looted players that may be unaware of their presence. In Rust, there’s always a chance that you’ll get attacked whilst looting, so let’s first talk about the kind of gear that should be used whilst you are collecting resources.

You want to make sure that you aren’t taking anything you aren’t comfortable to lose, because even if you are wearing full kevlar, it’s very possible that a bandit could sneak up behind you with a shotgun whilst you’re focusing on getting wood or other resources. For this reason, it’s best to only take cloth or leather armor, and a few small medkits or bandages.

If you plan on taking a weapon to kill animals, I’d advise learning how to use a bow - they are cheap to make, the ammo is easy to create, and they can kill animals in fewer shots than an M4.

If you plan to go out and actively fight against another player, the tables will turn. You’ll be more on guard, and you’ll need to rely on better gear to stand a good chance at beating other players in PVP combat. This is where full kevlar could be useful, and an M4 or shotgun can be your best friend. Let’s take a look at the kind of gear that will be best for PVP situations.

The hotbar

Just like Minecraft, Rust has a hotbar system that allows players to quickly access a limited amount of items via the hotbar. If you’re in the middle of a fight, you will not have a chance to fumble around in your inventory for gear, so it’s important to get the right items ready in your hotbar.

Firstly, you’ll want the first slot to be a weapon of some kind - this should be your main weapon, so most likely an M4 or a shotgun. Make sure to store your ammo in your inventory to save hotbar space.

The second hotbar slot should be saved for a secondary weapon - if you run out of ammo, or don’t have the time to reload, you’ll need to rely on this weapon. A shotgun can work quite well, as well as a 9MM pistol or a P250.

This will leave four slots left, and it’s completely up to you how you use these. However, there are a few things that are very important to use. This includes either a small or large medkit, so that you can heal in the middle of combat, and a couple of other things.

Below, you can see the loadout I typically use when going out for PVP reasons-

• Slot 1 - M4, or Shotgun (If I’m going to be in confined spaces, ie. another player’s base, I typically choose the shotgun for a primary.)
• Slot 2 - P250 - the P250 has pretty high damage, so it works great as a backup weapon.
• Slot 3 - Wood barricade - This item is a gift from god. If you’re getting attacked, simply press the hotbar slot, turn to the direction you’re taking damage from, and plonk it down. This provides instant cover. From here, you can heal, reload your weapons, and figure out where you just got shot from.
• Slot 4 - Small Medkit - I always have 5 small medkits lined up in slot 4 - they will get used pretty quickly, and they are mainly there to quickly use when you get shot at.
• Slot 5 - Large Medkit - Large medkits can fill a lot of health, so these are best used sparingly. I have these in the fifth slot so that i’m not tempted to use them sooner.
• Slot 6 - Wood Shelter - PVP can get pretty intense, and wood shelters are great ways to take a breather. I usually place these down, along with a wood door so that I can re-organise my inventory and create more wood barricades or med supplies.

Hopefully these tips will help you to avoid getting caught up with bandits, the best thing I’ve learned is, if you can’t beat them, join them. Check out the rest of our guide here.

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