Surface Boats
Motorized boats are bought from the Boat Vendor at Small or Large Fishing Village monuments and run on Low Grade Fuel. The three you'll see most:
- Motorized Rowboat -- 125 scrap, seats 4, 400 HP, holds 500 low grade (≈1 fuel per map grid) plus a small storage box. The cheap workhorse for shore-hopping and reaching Oil Rig.
- RHIB -- 300 scrap, seats 6, faster and tankier than the rowboat with a bulletproof windshield and much bigger storage. Also spawns as the Cargo Ship escape boat. The standard Oil Rig / open-water boat.
- Kayak -- the primitive option, craftable from cloth + wood + metal frags, seats 2, only 200 HP, paddle-powered and slow. Silent and cheap when you have no scrap.
All boats spawn with 50 low grade in the tank. When a boat is destroyed the fuel is lost, but stored loot pops out as a floating lootable box.
The Tugboat
The Tugboat is the biggest drivable vessel in Rust -- a mobile base. By default it seats one driver, but many players can stand on the deck without being pushed off.
The killer feature: you can authorise to BUILD at the steering wheel (like a tool cupboard), so the Tug acts like a floating foundation. It has three doorways an authorised player can fit doors and locks onto -- two onto the bridge, one to the downstairs storage room -- and downstairs you can place boxes, furnaces, lockers, sleeping bags, and workbenches.
When destroyed it slowly sinks to the sea floor and stays there about two hours before despawning; deployed doors keep working (and can be raided) during that window.
Submarines
Two submarines let you travel and fight underwater, both bought from the Fishing Village vendor and running on low grade:
- Solo sub -- 200 scrap, 500 HP, nimbler and a bit faster, no instrument cluster; fuel is filled from the red tank on the outside.
- Duo sub -- 300 scrap, 700 HP, two seats with seat-swapping, and a full instrument cluster (fuel, speed, sonar, depth, torpedo storage, ammo). The passenger refuels from inside.
Both hold up to 500 low grade and burn 3-4 per map block. Driving adds vertical control: SHIFT to surface, CTRL to dive; hold F for headlights, left-click to fire torpedoes. Subs are the way into Underwater Labs -- a top-tier loot run.
Oxygen, Depth & Torpedoes
Submerging starts a ~10-minute air timer above your health bar -- the hull's oxygen supply. Resurface to refill it; if it runs out you switch to a worn Oxygen Tank if you brought one, otherwise you suffocate. In a pinch, equipping an oxygen tank inside the sub lets you breathe from it.
The duo's depth gauge matters because pressure damages a sub past a certain depth -- watch it (solo pilots have no readout, so don't push deep blind).
Torpedoes: buy 2 for 75 scrap at the fishing village or research and craft them; a sub holds up to 100 of ONE type. Each torpedo does ~450 damage to vessels, so two hits kill most boats -- but they're useless for base raiding (only a couple of points to a building block). Great for sinking enemy boats and subs, not walls.
Decay & Repair
Like all vehicles, boats and subs decay when left unused. Rough timers:
- A boat outside a base despawns after ~3 hours; inside a base, ~6 hours.
- Submarines get a 45-minute grace period before decay starts.
Repair everything with a Hammer + Metal Fragments (subs cost ~5 frags per hit, with a 30-second cooldown after the last time the sub took damage). Pull boats and subs into a base or onto a powered structure where you can to slow decay, and never leave a fuelled boat bobbing in open water near a monument -- it's free loot for the next player who finds it.