Quarries and survey charges (every dig site)

Quarries are Rust's "set it and forget it" resource generators. Feed them low grade fuel, and they spit stone, sulfur, metal ore, or high-quality metal ore on a tick. They are loud, immobile, visible from a long way off, and they advertise to every roaming roof-camper that there is loot worth taking. Used right, a quarry pays your upkeep and stocks your sulfur bin while you sleep. Used wrong, it is a beacon that says "raid me."

This page covers the three categories you will actually encounter in 2026: the craftable Mining Quarry, the craftable Pump Jack (oil — full breakdown in 31_Pumpjack), and the Monument quarries (Stone, Sulfur, HQM) you fight scientists for.

The three quarry types

The craftable Mining Quarry is a single deployable. The monument variants are fixed map structures that you power up and defend in place — you cannot pick them up.

Mining Quarry — placement and recipe

Recipe (craftable when researched / on most modded servers, admin-spawn only on some vanilla rotations historically — Facepunch has flipped this several times):

• 25 metal fragments
• 1 metal blade
• 1 sheet metal

Placement rules that bite people:

1. The quarry needs a flat dirt or sand patch large enough for the rig and its diesel engine. It will refuse to deploy on rock, foundations, or steep slopes.
2. The game runs a resource sample of the terrain underneath at placement time. That sample decides whether the quarry outputs stone, sulfur, or metal ore — and at what ratio. You cannot change the output after placement; pick it up and re-survey if the yield is garbage.
3. Biome matters less than the local sample. Two quarries 50 meters apart can produce wildly different mixes. Always survey before you spend the metal.
4. Quarries occupy a roughly 6×6 foundation footprint plus the engine. Plan your walls around that before you drop it.

Footprint, decay, and re-survey economics

A craftable Mining Quarry is not a small deployable. Plan compound space before you ever throw a charge.

• Real footprint: the rig plus its diesel engine occupies roughly a 6×6 foundation patch of usable flat ground. The engine sits offset from the dig head — wall planning that ignores the engine ends with a quarry you cannot fully enclose.
• Decay clock: like any deployable on terrain, a quarry without a Tool Cupboard in range begins decaying. Expect total loss inside 24–48 hours of an un-TC'd compound. The engine and hopper decay on the same timer.
• Re-survey is free-ish: output is locked at the instant of placement. If the yield disappoints, pick the quarry back up (you recover it as an item), move two or three foundations over, and re-survey. The only cost is the new survey charge — the 25 frags / blade / sheet metal are returned with the pickup.
• Slope tolerance: the deploy ghost turns red on anything but near-flat ground. Dirt and sand accept it; rock, ice sheets, and any building block reject it. A patch that looks flat by eye can still fail — nudge the placement a meter at a time.

Survey Charge — the placement test

A Survey Charge is a thrown ground-tester. It detonates, kicks up a small dust cloud, and ejects sample resources onto the ground showing exactly what a quarry placed here would yield.

Recipe (5 cloth, 10 metal fragments, 20 low grade fuel, 30 gunpowder per the current wiki entry — your userPrompt lists an older 50/10/1 variant; the in-game crafting cost has shifted across patches, but the cloth/frag/GP/LGF composition is consistent).

How it works:

• Throw it like a beancan at flat ground (not rock, not foundations).
• After detonation, 0 to 5 of each of Stone, Metal ore, Sulfur ore, and occasionally HQM ore pop out of the dirt.
• The number and mix of ejected resources is your forecast: a charge that vomits 5 sulfur and 3 metal ore is signaling a sulfur-leaning spot. A charge that produces nothing means "do not place a quarry here, ever."
• The radius is roughly 2.5–3.5 foundations. Quarries are placement-sensitive, so survey on the exact spot you intend to deploy, not "near it."

Spam survey charges. They are cheap compared to a misplaced quarry's opportunity cost.

How to read a survey result like a pro

The puck count is a forecast, not a guarantee — but the patterns are reliable enough to bet metal on.

Two practical rules. First, the survey samples a column of terrain — surveying "near" your intended tile is worthless; throw it on the exact spot. Second, surveys are cheap relative to what a misplaced quarry costs you in opportunity and frags, so throw three or four charges across a candidate patch and place on the best result. Veterans carry a stack of 10+ charges on any quarry-hunting trip.

Fuel rates and output

Quarries (and Pump Jacks) run on Low Grade Fuel loaded into the diesel engine attached to the rig.

• Burn rate: ~1 LGF every ~3 seconds of runtime (roughly 30 seconds per 10 LGF, or ~360 LGF per hour of continuous mining).
• Engine tank capacity: roughly 140–180 LGF per full load, giving ~25–30 minutes of uninterrupted operation per top-up.
• Output per tick: the quarry deposits resources into its hopper roughly every ~3–5 seconds while running. Output values (per Rust devblog 171 baseline still cited by community guides): about 90–150 stone per minute, ~11 sulfur per minute at a sulfur node, 12–20 metal ore per minute at a metal node, or ~1–2 HQM per minute at the rare HQM-leaning craftable spot.
• Monument benchmarks for comparison: Stone Quarry yields ~2,500 stone + 375 metal ore per 100 LGF; Sulfur Quarry yields ~1,000 sulfur per diesel fuel canister; HQM Quarry yields ~50 HQM per diesel fuel canister (each canister ≈ 2 min 10 sec run).

To start mining, switch the diesel engine ON. To stop, switch it OFF — fuel does not drain while idle. Always pull fuel out before logging off if you don't trust your wall thickness.

Auto-emptying and industrial pipes

The Industrial update lets you automate resource flow between containers, but the craftable Mining Quarry has a real limitation worth knowing before you build.

• The vanilla catch: the craftable Mining Quarry's hopper exposes output slots but not the storage-adapter sockets that ordinary boxes have. On most vanilla rotations you cannot run an industrial pipe directly into or out of a player-placed quarry hopper — you still loot the hopper by hand.
• Monument quarries differ by server: some modded and community servers patch the monument quarry output to accept pipe connections so a conveyor can drain it into a base box. Vanilla does not. Check your server before planning a fully automated quarry farm.
• The workable pattern: hand-empty the hopper into an adjacent storage box, then let industrial pipes and a conveyor carry ore from that box into furnaces or a base stockpile. The quarry-to-box step stays manual; everything downstream automates cleanly.
• Conveyor filters: set the conveyor to move only ore types, leaving the box free for other loot. A splitter can fan stone to upkeep storage and metal ore to a smelting array in one pass.

Common mistakes that cost wipes

1. Placing without surveying. The single most expensive new-player error — a quarry on a dead sample produces almost nothing and the frags are effectively burned.
2. Leaving the diesel engine unlocked. Any roamer can flip your switch, drain fuel, and empty the hopper with zero raid cost.
3. No Tool Cupboard. The whole compound decays out inside two days.
4. Quarry inside the main base TC bubble. A loud quarry draws raiders; if breaching it also breaches your loot room, one raid takes everything.
5. Logging off with a full hopper and a fuelled engine. The noise and the loot together make you the top raid target on the grid.
6. Running a quarry on a low-yield spot "because it's close." Distance is cheaper than a wasted quarry — survey wide.

Quarry defense — do not skip this

A running quarry is audible across multiple grids and visible on the skyline. Treat it as a base.

• Tool cupboard: put one inside the quarry compound. Without TC, decay eats the whole compound in 24–48 hours.
• Code lock the engine. This is the single biggest mistake new players make. An un-locked diesel engine lets any passing roamer flip your switch off, drain your hopper, and steal your fuel — no raid required.
• Auto-turrets: at least one with overlap coverage on the engine and the hopper. Authorize your team manually — turrets do not read TC auth, they have their own list.
• Walls: stone minimum, sheet-metal preferred. The quarry itself counts as a soft side — bullets and explosives go through its frame; do not rely on the rig as a wall.
• Hopper-empty discipline: loot the output bin every time you visit. A full hopper is a raid invitation; an empty one is just noise.

Critical pro tip: never place a quarry inside the TC bubble of your main base unless you accept that breaching the quarry compound = breaching your TC and your loot room. Many players run a separate, small TC-bubble for the quarry, walled off and physically disconnected from the main base. That way a successful quarry raid costs you ore and fuel, not your kits.

Monument quarries (Stone / Sulfur / HQM)

These are small, fixed monuments that appear on most procedural maps. They are not large monuments — no green/blue/red puzzle, no elite crates, no fuse needed in most rotations. They are micro-fights.

• Layout: wooden platform in a rocky depression, ladders, walkways, fencing, and a diesel engine you fuel up. No recycler at the quarry itself on most map seeds (a recycler may spawn at the neighboring outpost/road junction).
• Scientist count: typically 1–3 NPC scientists roaming the platform. Easy with any rifle or even a bow at range; do not facetank with bows.
• Loot: there is no crate-based loot table at quarries. The "loot" is the resource output you produce by feeding the engine. The scientists drop standard scientist loot (a few rounds, maybe a syringe).
• Sulfur Quarry — the prize: 1,000 sulfur per diesel canister with no farming overhead is the single best sulfur-per-minute rate in the game outside of mining ore nodes. Every server has groups that camp it.
• HQM Quarry — the bottleneck breaker: 50 HQM per canister is a meaningful chunk of late-wipe progression. Always check it on Tuesdays/Wednesdays — by mid-wipe it is usually held by a clan.
• Stone Quarry — the upkeep solution: 2,500 stone + 375 metal ore per 100 LGF means a single canister can fund a day of upkeep on a medium base.

You cannot place a craftable quarry on top of a monument quarry's terrain — the monument terrain is flagged. The monument engine is the only way to operate it.

Working a monument quarry start to finish

Monument quarries are free infrastructure — no keycard, no radiation, no puzzle. The whole barrier is logistics and territory.

1. Scout first. Approach quietly; 1–3 scientists patrol the platform. Clear them at range with a rifle or bow before exposing yourself on the walkways.
2. Bring fuel, not tools. The monument engine is the only way to operate it — you cannot drop your own rig on the flagged terrain. Carry Diesel Fuel (monument quarries run on diesel canisters, ~2 min 10 sec per canister).
3. Load and switch on. Fuel the diesel engine, flip it on, and the platform's quarry begins ticking ore into its bin.
4. Hold or hit-and-run. Sulfur and HQM quarries are contested all wipe. Either fortify the approach with deployables and a turret, or run short fuel loads and collect often so a lost fight never costs a full hopper.
5. Mid-wipe reality. By Tuesday/Wednesday on a weekly server the Sulfur and HQM quarries are usually clan-held. Off-hours raids on the holding group, or early-wipe rushes, are the realistic windows for solos and small teams.

Yield reference: the Sulfur Quarry produces ~1,000 sulfur ore per diesel canister; the HQM Quarry ~50 HQM ore per canister; the Stone Quarry roughly 2,500 stone plus 375 metal ore per 100 fuel — enough to fund a day of medium-base upkeep from one visit.

Pump Jack overlap

The Pump Jack uses the same diesel engine, the same LGF burn pattern, and the same defensive concerns as the Mining Quarry. The only difference is the output: low-grade and crude oil instead of ore. Full recipe, output rate, and refinery loop are in 31_Pumpjack. If you can defend one, you can defend the other — do not bother running both inside the same TC bubble.

Quick pro tips

1. Always survey before placing. A 30-gunpowder charge is cheaper than a misplaced 25-frag/sheet-metal quarry.
2. Code lock the engine. Always. Yes, even on PvE.
3. Run a separate TC-bubble for the quarry compound. Raid containment is everything.
4. Pull fuel and empty the hopper before bed. Logged-off quarries with full hoppers are the #1 raid target on most servers.
5. Monument > Craftable for sulfur. If you can hold a Sulfur Quarry monument, do that instead of building one.
6. One turret minimum, two if you can spare the parts. Cross-fire coverage on the engine.

Sources

• Mining Quarry — Rust Labs / RustClash Wiki
• Mining Quarry — Rust Fandom Wiki
• RUST Quarry & Pump Jack Reference Guide — Corrosion Hour
• Survey Charge — Facepunch Wiki
• Survey Charge — Rust Fandom Wiki
• Quarries Guide — Falcon Rust
• Quarry Monument — EIP Gaming
• HQM Quarry — Rust Help
• Sulfur Quarry — Rust Help
• Auto Turret — Rust Labs

Want more? Industrial Crafters · Pumpjack