Your first hour: from spawn to wooden shelter
You've spawned on a beach with a rock and a torch. Now what? This guide walks you through the first 60 minutes — gathering enough materials to craft real tools and put up a basic shelter before night turns dangerous.
Leaving the beach
The beach is the most dangerous place in Rust. Every new spawn lands here, and that includes the people who died in their base five minutes ago and want to take it out on someone smaller than them.
Do not loiter. Pick a direction inland and start jogging. As you move, swing your rock 
at any tree you pass and any stone 
node you see. You'll get a tiny bit of wood 
and stone with every hit. Keep moving.
Watch for hemp 
plants (small green leafy bushes) and berry 
bushes — pick them as you pass. Hemp gives you cloth 
, which you'll need for a sleeping bag 
soon. Berries are food.
Crafting your first real tools
Once you've got enough resources, you can craft something better than a rock . Open your inventory with TAB and look at the crafting menu on the right side. The first two things you want are:
- Stone Hatchet
— chops wood much faster than the rock - Stone Pickaxe
— mines stone , metal ore, and sulfur 
ore
Neither of these needs a workbench. You can craft them anywhere, right from your inventory.
Hitting your gathering targets
For a basic 1x1 wooden shelter, you're aiming for roughly:
- 500 wood — covers the foundation, walls, doorway frame, roof, and a wooden door
for a basic wood shelter - 200 stone — enough for a furnace
to smelt metal and sulfur later. Stone -tier wall upgrades cost 150 stone each (covered in the Upgrade Walls guide), so plan for more later
Stone nodes come in three colors:
- Grey nodes — give stone (most common, what you want)
- Metal nodes — look gray with a shiny metallic split/seam (often described as silver-streaked). Give metal ore. Save these for later.
- Gray nodes with bright yellow veins of dust — give sulfur ore (sulfur and metal nodes look similar; check the dust color when you swing). Ignore sulfur for now — it's for explosives, which comes later
Putting up your first shelter
When you're close to your targets, find a spot away from the coast and away from any monuments. Trees and rocks nearby are good. Open ground is bad.
For now, place a basic wood shelter just to survive the night. The very minimum: a foundation, a few walls, a doorway, a wooden door , and a sleeping bag inside so you can respawn here if you die.
Lock the door with a key lock 
for now — without a lock, anyone can walk in. Upgrade to a code lock 
the moment you can craft one (the next file covers that).
Why you don't fight other players yet
This is the most important rule of your first hour: do not engage other players. Not even with a bow.
You have nothing. They probably have more. If you swing at someone and lose, you drop everything you've gathered for the last 30 minutes.
Quick recap
- Get off the beach immediately. Move inland while gathering with your rock .
- Craft a stone hatchet and stone pickaxe — no workbench needed.
- Target around 500 wood and 200 stone for a starter wood shelter plus a furnace .
- Pick hemp for cloth and berries for food as you pass them.
- Don't fight anyone. Run, hide, or wave.
Next: Tools, gathering, and what they do Want more detail? Wipe Day Playbook