Medical & Food Guide

Rust provides a range of healing items, each with different speeds, amounts, and use cases. Understanding when to use each item is critical for survival and PvP.

Bandage: - Heals 5 HP instantly plus 10 HP over time (regeneration). - Crafting cost: 4 Cloth. Extremely cheap. - Use case: General healing between fights, supplementary healing during combat. - Stacks to 3. Apply multiple bandages for faster regeneration. - Stops bleeding (critical -- bleeding damage from projectile wounds drains HP continuously until bandaged).

Medical Syringe: - Heals 15 HP instantly plus 20 HP over time. - Found in monument loot, crafted at Workbench Level 1 (10 Cloth, 10 Metal Fragments, 5 Low Grade Fuel). - Use case: Primary combat healing. Pop syringes between peeks in PvP fights. - The heal-over-time STACKS with multiple syringes. Using 3 syringes in quick succession provides 45 instant HP plus 60 HP regeneration. - Most important healing item in the game. Always carry 5-10 during any combat activity.

Large Medkit: - Heals 100 HP over 6 seconds. - Found in elite crates and monument loot. Crafted at Workbench Level 2. - Use case: Full heal after a fight or when safe. Too slow for mid-combat use. - Cannot move while applying (channels for 6 seconds). Use only in secure positions.

Medical Supplies (component): - Not a healing item itself. Used to craft Medical Syringes and Large Medkits. - Recycles for 1 Syringe. Always keep these.

Healing priority in PvP: 1. Syringe for instant HP between peeks. 2. Bandage to stop bleeding and supplement syringe healing. 3. Large Medkit only when completely safe and need a full heal. 4. Cooked food for slow passive healing during downtime.

Food in Rust provides calories (energy) and sometimes hydration. Running out of calories causes starvation damage; running out of hydration causes dehydration damage. Both debuffs drain your HP until corrected.

Raw foods (must be cooked): - Raw Chicken Breast: Found from killing chickens. Cook to avoid food poisoning. - Raw Pork: Found from killing boars. Cook before eating. - Raw Deer Meat: Found from killing deer. Cook before eating. - Raw Bear Meat: Found from killing bears. Cook before eating. - Eating raw meat has a chance to cause food poisoning (vomiting, HP loss). Always cook meat first.

Cooked foods (safe to eat): - Cooked Chicken: 40 calories, 3 hydration. Quick to cook (5 seconds on campfire). - Cooked Pork: 60 calories, 5 hydration. Best cooked meat for calorie density. - Cooked Bear Meat: 60 calories, 3 hydration. Equivalent to cooked pork. - Cooked Deer Meat: 50 calories, 3 hydration.

Farmed foods: - Pumpkin: 40 calories, 30 hydration. Excellent hydration source. Grows in planters. - Corn: 60 calories, 10 hydration. Best calorie-per-plant ratio. Grows in planters. - Potato: 50 calories, 5 hydration. Moderate all-around food.

Canned and processed foods (found in loot): - Can of Tuna: 40 calories, 5 hydration. Common in food crates. - Can of Beans: 60 calories, 5 hydration. Best canned food for calories. - Chocolate Bar: 80 calories, 0 hydration. Highest calorie density of any common food. - Granola Bar: 60 calories, 5 hydration.

Hydration sources: - Water Jug: Holds 500ml of water. Found in loot or crafted. - Water Bottle: Holds 250ml. Craftable from metal fragments. - Bota Bag: Holds 500ml. Craftable from cloth. Lightweight hydration option. - Rivers and lakes: Standing in water slowly restores hydration. - Pumpkins: The best farmable hydration source (30 hydration per pumpkin).

Cooking converts raw food into safe, nourishing meals. Composting recycles organic waste into fertilizer for farming.

Cooking mechanics: - Camp Fire: The basic cooking station. Place raw food in the cooking slots and add wood as fuel. Each piece of meat takes approximately 15 seconds to cook. The campfire also provides warmth and light. - Furnace: Can also cook food in addition to smelting ore. Less convenient than a campfire but useful if your furnace is already running. - BBQ (Barbeque): An upgraded cooking station that cooks multiple items simultaneously and faster than a campfire. Found in monuments or craftable. - Mixing Table: Used for crafting teas from berries, not for cooking food.

Cooking tips: 1. Always cook food before eating it. Raw meat causes food poisoning approximately 30% of the time. 2. Do not over-cook food. Leaving food on the fire too long burns it, making it less nutritious. 3. Cook in bulk. When returning from a hunt with 20+ raw meat, cook everything at once to have a ready food supply. 4. Place a campfire or BBQ near your base exit. Before leaving, eat cooked food to top off calories and hydration.

Composting: - Composters convert organic matter into Fertilizer. - Feed the composter with: plant fiber, spoiled food, raw/cooked food, animal fat, horse dung. - One composter cycle (approximately 30 minutes) produces 5-10 Fertilizer. - Fertilizer accelerates plant growth by 50% when added to planter boxes.

Food preservation: Food left in your inventory or storage slowly degrades over time. Cooked food lasts longer than raw food. Store food in refrigerators (if you have electricity) to extend shelf life significantly. Without refrigeration, cook only what you need for the next few hours and keep raw ingredients in storage for cooking later.

Teas are crafted consumables that provide powerful temporary buffs. They are one of the most impactful craftable items in Rust for improving efficiency.

Tea crafting: Mix 4 berries of the same color in a Mixing Table. Berry quality (basic, advanced, pure) determines tea quality.

Tea types and effects:

Ore Tea (Blue berries): - Basic: +10% ore yield for 5 minutes. - Advanced: +20% ore yield for 10 minutes. - Pure: +50% ore yield for 30 minutes. - Use before mining runs. Pure Ore Tea is the most valuable tea for resource accumulation.

Scrap Tea (Yellow berries): - Basic: +10% scrap yield from barrels for 5 minutes. - Advanced: +20% scrap yield for 10 minutes. - Pure: +50% scrap yield for 30 minutes. - Use before road runs and monument farming. Pure Scrap Tea turns barrels from 2 scrap to 3 scrap each.

Wood Tea (White berries): - Basic: +10% wood yield for 5 minutes. - Advanced: +20% wood yield for 10 minutes. - Pure: +50% wood yield for 30 minutes. - Use before wood farming sessions. Less universally valuable than Ore Tea but excellent for base building phases.

Max Health Tea (Red berries): - Basic: +5 max HP for 5 minutes. - Advanced: +12 max HP for 10 minutes. - Pure: +20 max HP for 30 minutes. - Use before PvP encounters or monument runs. The extra HP provides a meaningful advantage in gunfights.

Anti-Rad Tea (Green berries): - Basic: +6 rad resistance for 5 minutes. - Advanced: +12 rad resistance for 10 minutes. - Pure: +25 rad resistance for 30 minutes. - Use before entering high-radiation monuments (Launch Site, Power Plant). Stacks with Hazmat suit protection.

Tea stacking: You cannot stack two teas of the same type. Drinking a second Ore Tea while one is active replaces the first. You can, however, use different teas simultaneously (Ore Tea + Max Health Tea + Anti-Rad Tea at the same time).

Radiation is a persistent hazard at most monuments in Rust. Understanding radiation mechanics and protection methods keeps you alive in high-value loot zones.

Radiation mechanics: - Radiation zones emit rads per second (rads/s). Low radiation zones emit 1-5 rads/s, moderate zones 5-15 rads/s, and high zones 15-30+ rads/s. - Radiation accumulates in your body over time. Your radiation level is shown on the HUD as a bar. - When radiation exceeds your protection threshold, you start taking damage. Low radiation causes slow HP drain; high radiation causes rapid HP drain (5-10 HP per second). - Leaving a radiation zone causes your accumulated radiation to slowly decrease over time.

Radiation protection items:

Hazmat Suit: - Provides 30% radiation protection. - Covers the entire body in a single item. - The standard choice for monument running. - Available at Outpost for 40 scrap or found in loot. - Sufficient for all monuments except the highest-radiation areas of Launch Site.

Radiation Pills (Anti-Radiation Pills): - Instantly removes 25 rads from your accumulated radiation. - Found in medical crates and monument loot. - Use when your radiation bar gets too high inside a monument. - Carry 3-5 pills for any high-radiation monument run.

Anti-Rad Tea: - Provides passive radiation resistance for its duration. - Stacks with Hazmat suit protection. - Pure Anti-Rad Tea + Hazmat Suit provides enough protection for comfortable exploration of even Launch Site's highest-radiation zones.

Clothing radiation values: - Different clothing items provide varying amounts of radiation protection. - Hazmat Suit: 30% (best single item). - Wooden Armor, Road Sign Armor, Metal Armor: Provide small amounts of rad protection. - Stacking multiple clothing items with rad protection can substitute for a Hazmat suit in low-radiation zones.

Radiation zone map: - No radiation: Tier 0 monuments (Gas Station, Supermarket). - Low radiation: Tier 1 monuments (Sewer Branch, Lighthouse). - Moderate radiation: Tier 2 monuments (Airfield, Water Treatment, Power Plant). - High radiation: Tier 3 monuments (Launch Site, Military Tunnels). - Extreme radiation: Nuclear waste areas, specific rooms at Launch Site.

Survival tip: If you accumulate too much radiation and start taking damage, leave the zone immediately. Pop radiation pills, eat food for passive HP regeneration, and use bandages or syringes to stay alive until your radiation level drops. Death to radiation wastes your entire monument run investment.