Knowing what a base costs to raid is half of Rust — both for planning your own raid and for building something not worth raiding. This guide breaks down raid economics: soft side vs hard side, the cost of each wall and door tier, every raiding tool ranked, and how to use honeycomb to price attackers out.
Soft side vs hard side
Every wall and door has a soft side (cheaper to destroy) and a hard side (more expensive). On a wall, the soft side faces into the room — which is why raiders try to reach an interior-facing wall, and why builders use honeycomb to ensure attackers only ever hit hard sides. The same explosive can take far more walls from the soft side than the hard side, so which side you hit is as important as the tool you use.
Building tiers, cheapest to toughest
- Twig — breaks to almost anything, even melee or fire. Never leave twig up; it’s an open door.
- Wood — cheap to break with fire arrows, satchels or a couple of explosives. Fine for hour one, not for holding loot.
- Stone — the wipe-day standard. A stone wall takes roughly 2 C4 from the hard side (or the equivalent in rockets or satchels). Good protection for the cost.
- Sheet Metal — noticeably tougher than stone; reserve it for your core and key doors.
- Armoured — the most expensive tier to raid in the game. A deeply honeycombed armoured core is the gold standard for protecting loot.
Raiding tools, ranked
- C4 (Timed Explosive Charge) — the most reliable and predictable raiding tool. Expensive in sulfur, but it doesn’t dud and the cost is known. The benchmark everything else is measured against.
- Rockets — flexible and strong; most raiders mix incendiary and high-velocity rockets for efficiency against different tiers.
- Satchel Charges — the cheap early-wipe option, but they can dud (fail to detonate), so you need extras and patience.
- Explosive Ammo (5.56) — excellent against sheet metal doors and for online raids, but heavy on sulfur.
- Eoka / fire / melee — early-game raiding against twig and wood only.
Doors matter as much as walls
Don’t forget doors. A sheet metal or armoured door is a serious obstacle, and garage doors and the armoured door are common raid targets because the loot is right behind them. Pricing your doors correctly — and double-door airlocks so a single blown door doesn’t expose your loot — is core defensive design.
Honeycomb: the real defence
The whole point of upgrade tiers and honeycomb is to make raiding you cost more than your loot is worth. Honeycomb (extra empty wall layers around your core) forces raiders to blow through multiple hard-side walls to reach anything, multiplying the explosive cost. Add honeycomb until the math doesn’t favour the raider.
Get exact raid costs
Exact amounts depend on the wall tier, the side, and whether you mix tools — so run the numbers rather than memorise a chart. Our free Rust Raid Calculator shows precisely how much C4, rockets or satchels (and the sulfur to craft them) each part of a base costs. Then check your farm against it with the sulfur & gunpowder guide.
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