Monuments Guide

Monuments Guide

Last updated: July 16, 2026 (Common Ground update — Apartment Complex added)

Every monument in Rust has a loot profile, a difficulty rating, and a set of requirements (keycards, fuses , puzzle steps). This file is a per-monument reference. Use it to pick which monument to run when and what to bring.

Difficulty ratings

• Low: no scientists, no radiation worth fearing. Safe pickup loot.
• Medium: some scientists or radiation. Bring meds and a gun.
• High: hostile scientists, significant radiation, frequent PvP contestation.
• Extreme: highest-tier scientists, Bradley APC or other event hazards, server-population PvP magnet.

Keycards and puzzle requirements

Puzzles gate the best loot. Three keycards exist (Green, Blue, Red), each one requiring the previous to access. Plus fuses to power doors. The progression at a typical puzzle monument:

1. Green Card found on dead scientists, in basic crates, or in Lighthouse/Supermarket/Oxum's loot. Not sold at Outpost (Outpost only stocks Blue Cards, 100 scrap)
2. Fuse (Electric Fuse ), found in basic crates and monument loot (not craftable)
3. Blue Card behind a green-card door + fuse -powered terminal
4. Red Card behind a blue-card door + fuse -powered terminal

Always travel with at least 2 green cards, 1 blue, and 2 fuses . You'll burn through them at the bigger monuments.

The one exception (July 2026): the Apartment Complex has no keycards or fuses at all — access there is economic. You rent a room with scrap , or break into someone else's with the 1,000-scrap master key. See Apartment Complex and the deep dive.

Player-Maintained Monuments (August 2026 — "Power Trip")

The August 6, 2026 update turned the map's monuments into a shared, player-run power grid. Feed Heavy Fuses into the Power Plant and its restored power switches on perks all over the island — climbable roadside power poles, a Dome crude-oil pipeline, map-wide water, faster airdrops, a Chinook call, better recycling, and a brand-new satellite-crash event. This is the full walkthrough. Every value here is from Facepunch's official Power Trip devblog and changelist 4044. A handful of specific numbers (exact fuse counts per tier, transformer port output, water/crude volumes) come from the pre-release staging preview and are not in the official devblog — those are marked (staging — unconfirmed) and shouldn't be treated as canon until the wiki or a live server confirms them.

This is a co-op objective, not a solo run. On grouped servers the Power Plant becomes contested territory — whoever keeps it fed controls the island's power perks.

How the grid works

1. Find Heavy Fuses as loot (they're separate from normal Electric Fuses).
2. Insert them into the special fuse boxes at the Power Plant. More fuses restore more of the grid. Each feature needs a different amount of power before it comes online, so early fuses light up the basics and later ones unlock the endgame perks.
3. As power rises, the roadside poles carry more electricity and monument perks switch on — roughly in the order below.

(The fuse-count thresholds are community-reported from the staging build — the devblog confirms the perks and the "more fuses unlock more" progression, but not the exact counts.)

Roadside powerline poles (free base power)

Once the Power Plant is running, the powerline poles with transformers — the white cylinder units strung along the island's roads — start carrying electricity you can tap for your own base. Two things changed:

• They're climbable now. No ladder needed — walk up to the pole and jump, and you climb it.
• They output power scaled to how powered the Power Plant is. Wire off a pole with the Wire Tool and run the cable home. Normal Building Privilege rules apply, so keep the pole inside or adjacent to your TC coverage.

A pole next to your base is effectively free grid power — no fuel, no solar. Expect pole-adjacent spots to get built on fast. (Staging described 6 output ports per pole at 12 / 18 / 24 / 30 rW by tier — unconfirmed.) Full wiring notes are in 03 — Electricity.

Power Plant — the hub

• Fuse boxes: the special boxes that take Heavy Fuses. Feeding them powers everything else.
• New red recycler (75% efficiency): a single special recycler that only runs at maximum power — the best recycle rate in the game when the grid is fully fed. (Meanwhile every green recycler outside safe zones was nerfed to 50% baseline, restoring to 60% with Power Plant power, and gains a 5 s → 4.5 s speed buff at max power. Safe-zone recyclers are unchanged — see 22 — Recycler Yields.)
• Extra loot room: a new room that only opens with sufficient power.

Guarding the Power Plant is now a defensive objective in its own right — the whole map's perks depend on it staying fed.

Oxum's Gas Station — car garage

With the grid live or the backup generator on the side of the building running, Oxum's garage powers up: a switch on the outer wall opens/closes the garage door (needs power), the interior car lift becomes operable (lower it, drive a car on, use it like any car lift), and raising the lift again drops you into the cave below for a chance at higher-quality car-part spawns.

Abandoned Supermarket — freezer

A new freezer inside the Supermarket dispenses a steady stream of chilled food while it's receiving power from the grid, and occasionally drops a larger food cache. A reliable early-wipe food source once someone's fed the plant.

Airfield — control tower terminals

The refreshed control tower has two terminals on the second floor, each charged from grid-connected fuse boxes:

• Smaller terminal → faster airdrops. Charging it increases the rate airdrops fall across the whole map.
• Larger terminal → Chinook resupply. Charging it calls in a Chinook resupply crate to drop near the airfield tarmac.

Both terminals slowly lose charge after use, then become available again. (Staging's 240/240 charge bar, "2× airdrops for one hour," and ~3-hour Chinook reset are community-reported.)

Oil Rigs → the Dome (crude-oil pipeline)

The standout logistics loop. Once the Power Plant is running:

• A switch on the Large Oil Rig starts pumping crude oil to the Dome for 20 minutes.
• A switch on the Small Oil Rig pumps at half the rate. Run both and you get 1.5× the crude.
• You can't scoop the crude by hand. Attach a Tanker vehicle module to drain the oil at the Dome, then drive it to a car lift and use the lift to extract the crude into your inventory.

Water Treatment Plant — map-wide water

Roadside water pipes now spawn around the map but start empty. To make them flow:

1. Get the Power Plant grid live.
2. At Water Treatment, find the two gearboxes. Drop a Gear into a gearbox (it's consumed and can't be pulled back out) and interact to start the valve wheel spinning.
3. Keep the wheel turning until the central tank reaches full pressure — then the blades spin, clear the blockages, and water flows to the roadside dispensers across the map.
4. Come back periodically to keep the pressure up; after the first cold start it's much easier to maintain.

(Staging said each dispenser holds ~15,000 water like a Large Water Catcher — community-reported.)

Launch Site — satellite crash (new event)

The biggest new event. At the Launch Site control room:

1. Power up the new Satellite Control Computer with Tech Trash + an aiming module.
2. Use the thruster buttons to steer a satellite toward a crash site of your choosing. There's no manual — you work out which thruster does what before you commit.
3. Lock in the target. The satellite's descent is visible to every player on the server.
4. After it impacts, it spills satellite loot crates. They start hot — wait for them to cool down, then loot. The whole server saw the crash, so expect company.

Doing it as a group

• Fuse runs: rotate who farms Heavy Fuses so the plant stays fed through the wipe.
• Hold the Power Plant: on grouped servers it's worth defending — every perk here dies if the plant goes dark.
• Pole real estate: claim a base spot next to a powerline pole for free grid power.
• Crude convoy: the Dome loop needs a driver with a tanker module and a car lift at home — set that up before you flip the rig switch, because the pump only runs 20 minutes.

Per-monument breakdown

Lighthouse

• Difficulty: Low
• Recycler: No
• Radiation: None
• Scientists: None
• Keycard: None
• Loot: 2–3 basic crates, ~4 barrels, occasional food crate. Sometimes a corpse.
• Avg scrap : 50–80
• Run time: 5 min
• Wipe day: Great for first 1–2 hours. Multiple lighthouses on most maps.
• Map: Coast — multi-biome, rocky headland. Multiple per map.

Pro tip: lighthouses spawn around the coast. Run 2–3 in a row right at spawn for free scrap and starting components.

Fishing Village (small / large)

• Difficulty: Safe Zone (NPC-protected, no PvP)
• Recycler: Yes (standard-rate recycler)
• Loot: shop, not lootable. Sells fishing rod, boats , bait, etc.
• Run time: 5 min
• Wipe day: secondary stop after Lighthouse to buy a rod and start fishing.
• Map: Coast — calm shore. 3 per map (2 small, 1 large).

Bandit Camp (safe zone)

• Difficulty: Safe Zone
• Recycler: Yes (Safe Zone recycler, 40% yield)
• Loot: shop (Scope arbitrage works here, see 07_Scrap_Farming.md)
• Notable: Wheel of Misfortune gambling table, fertilizer /scrap shop, Air Wolf (helicopter shop)
• Wipe day: visit when you have scrap to spend and want to buy basic gear or run the scope cycle.
• Map: Forest/swamp — inland, often near river or wetland.

Outpost (safe zone)

• Difficulty: Safe Zone
• Recycler: Yes (Safe Zone recycler, 40% yield)
• Loot: shop with basic-to-mid weapons, attachments, food, vehicle parts
• Notable: large open area, sometimes hosts roaming patrol scientists outside walls
• Wipe day: gas mask + radsuit purchase if you can afford. Workbench Level 1 available for use.
• Map: Multi-biome — typically near map center.

Apartment Complex

• Difficulty: Low (social hub — but combat inside rented rooms is allowed by default, so treat it as NOT a full safe zone)
• Recycler: Not yet documented by Facepunch
• Radiation: Not yet documented
• Scientists: None hostile published — a receptionist in the lobby, a security NPC selling the master key, and a guard in the basement who tips you off about which rooms are worth robbing
• Keycard: None — access is economic. Rent a room with scrap , or break in with the 1,000-scrap master key
• Loot: other players' possessions — rented rooms and player-run marketplace shops; no crate table published
• Avg scrap : — (you spend scrap here; rent and the marketplace make it a scrap sink)
• Run time: n/a — it's housing and commerce, not a loot circuit
• Wipe day: rent a room in hour 0–2 as instant lockable storage while you farm your real base. Rooms move you in with 4 hours of rent credit.
• Map: added in the July 2, 2026 "Common Ground" update; spawn rules not yet published.

Pro tip: the room is only as safe as your rent balance. Rent runs on real time whether you're online or not — top the door slot up before logging off, because after it runs dry the 24-hour eviction clock starts, and eviction seizes everything inside. Full mechanics, burglary rules, and the shop-takeover math: the Apartment Complex deep dive below.

Junkyard

• Difficulty: Medium
• Recycler: Yes (baseline)
• Radiation: Low
• Scientists: A magnet crane drops barrels and crates that spawn scientists nearby
• Keycard: Green Card + 1 fuse (green-card puzzle; rewards a Blue Card)
• Loot: ~6–8 basic crates + barrels via crane drops + scientist drops
• Avg scrap : 100–150
• Run time: 15 min
• Wipe day: hour 4+ once you have hazmat suit .
• Map: Desert/temperate — inland, near road. Look for car wrecks + crusher tower.

Sewer Branch

• Difficulty: Medium
• Recycler: Yes (baseline)
• Radiation: Low-Medium
• Scientists: 2-4 patrol scientists
• Keycard: Green Card + 1 fuse. Reward is a Blue Card (Sewer Branch is a green-card puzzle that pays out a blue)
• Loot: 2–3 elite crates (in puzzle area) + military crates + barrels
• Avg scrap : 100–200
• Run time: 10 min (no puzzle) or 20 min (with puzzle)
• Wipe day: hour 6+ once you have green cards.
• Map: Forest — inland. Small footprint, concrete drainage entry.

Loot table (crate counts corroborated across multiple community sources; exact drop rates unverified):

Harbor (small)

• Difficulty: Medium
• Recycler: Yes
• Radiation: Low
• Scientists: 6–10
• Keycard: Green Card for some side rooms
• Loot: military crates on the ships + crates around the dock
• Avg scrap : 150–250
• Run time: 10–15 min
• Wipe day: hour 4+.
• Map: Coast — small dock with single crane.

Harbor (large)

• Difficulty: High
• Recycler: Yes
• Scientists: 10–15
• Keycard: Green + Blue for puzzle area
• Loot: 2 elite crates inside ship + military spread + 3+ basic crates
• Avg scrap : 250–400
• Run time: 20 min
• Wipe day: hour 8+ with friends or stealth.
• Map: Coast — large crane and shipping containers visible from sea.

Satellite Dish

• Difficulty: Medium
• Recycler: Yes
• Radiation: Medium (red zone in center, manageable with gear)
• Scientists: 4–6
• Keycard: Green Card + 1 fuse (green-card puzzle; rewards a Blue Card)
• Loot: scrap + elite crate accessible on the dish via ladder (sometimes contested)
• Avg scrap : 100–200
• Run time: 10 min
• Wipe day: hour 3+.
• Map: Forest — inland, often elevated (hill/plateau). Three dish arrays.

Power Plant

• Difficulty: High
• Recycler: Yes
• Radiation: High in core area
• Scientists: 8–12
• Keycard: Green + Blue for puzzle (one of the highest-value blue card monuments)
• Loot: elite crates × 2–3 in puzzle, plus ~6 military, plus barrels
• Avg scrap : 300–500
• Run time: 25–30 min
• Wipe day: hour 8+ with hazmat and decent guns. Multiple cards needed.
• Map: Forest — coast or inland. Twin cooling towers are the cue.

Loot table (crate counts corroborated across multiple community sources; exact drop rates unverified):

Water Treatment Plant

• Difficulty: High
• Recycler: Yes
• Radiation: High
• Scientists: 6–10
• Keycard: Blue Card + 1 fuse (Blue only; rewards a Red Card)
• Loot: elite crates + military crates
• Avg scrap : 200–400
• Run time: 20 min
• Wipe day: hour 8+.
• Map: Forest — coast or inland. Circular settling tanks.

Loot table (crate counts corroborated across multiple community sources; exact drop rates unverified):

Train Yard

• Difficulty: Very High
• Recycler: Yes
• Radiation: Low–Medium
• Scientists: 8–15 (high-tier loadouts)
• Keycard: Blue Card + 1 fuse for the central puzzle (rewards a Red Card)
• Loot: 2–3 elite crates + many military + the parked train cars sometimes loaded
• Avg scrap : 250–400 base + train if loaded
• Run time: 25 min
• Wipe day: hour 10+, ideally with team. Trains arriving at the yard add another loot layer.
• Map: Forest — inland/central. Tall water tower and locomotive cars.

Loot table (crate counts corroborated across multiple community sources; exact drop rates unverified):

Military Tunnels

• Difficulty: Very High
• Recycler: Yes
• Radiation: High
• Scientists: ~15 (high-tier, accurate, M249s drop here)
• Keycard: Red Card at the puzzle door (you obtain Red elsewhere; Mil Tunnels itself is a red-card-only puzzle)
• Loot: 4+ elite crates + tons of military + M249 drops from the M249-wielding heavy scientists here
• Avg scrap : 300–500
• Run time: 25 min
• Wipe day: hour 12+ with team. Tight corridors make it a PvP funhouse.
• Map: Multi-biome (desert/forest border) — inland, built into hillside.

Loot table (crate counts corroborated across multiple community sources; exact drop rates unverified):

Airfield

• Difficulty: Very High
• Recycler: Yes (standard-rate recycler)
• Radiation: Low
• Scientists: 8–12 around hangars and tower
• Keycard: Green + Blue for some buildings
• Loot: 3–4 elite crates + many military + the locked crate respawn
• Avg scrap : 400–700
• Run time: 25–30 min
• Wipe day: hour 12+. Open field PvP is brutal.
• Map: Desert — inland. Flat plateau, hangar + control tower.

Loot table (crate counts corroborated across multiple community sources; exact drop rates unverified):

Arctic Research Base

• Difficulty: High
• Recycler: Yes (standard-rate recycler)
• Radiation: Low
• Scientists: heavily armed and in cold-weather gear, more accurate, hit harder
• Keycard: Blue Card at the puzzle door. The reward IS a Red Card (no Green or Red needed to enter)
• Loot: elite crates + the chinook crate spawn here
• Avg scrap : 300–600
• Run time: 25 min
• Wipe day: hour 12+ with cold-weather gear. The on-site recycler makes loot conversion convenient.
• Map: Snow biome interior — orange/red prefab buildings, helipad.

Abandoned Supermarket

• Difficulty: Medium
• Recycler: Yes (standard-rate recycler)
• Radiation: None
• Scientists: None
• Keycard: None
• Loot: 2–3 basic crates + food crates + scrap pile
• Avg scrap : 50–100 raw, but the on-site recycler is the real prize
• Run time: 5 min
• Wipe day: any time. Easy stop for recycling without PvP risk.
• Map: Multi-biome — roadside. Single building with red SUPERMARKET sign.

Abandoned Cabins

• Difficulty: Low
• Recycler: No
• Scientists: None
• Loot: 4–6 basic crates spread across cabins
• Avg scrap : 30–60
• Run time: 5–10 min
• Wipe day: hour 1–4 easy farm.
• Map: Forest — inland, often near road. Wooden cabins scattered.

Stables

• Difficulty: Safe-ish (no scientists, occasional bandits)
• Recycler: No
• Loot: shop selling horse -related gear + horses
• Wipe day: when you want to buy a horse (75 scrap typical).
• Map: Multi-biome — roadside. Wooden corral + barn roof.

Ranch

• Difficulty: Low
• Recycler: No
• Loot: basic crates + farming-themed loot
• Avg scrap : 30–50
• Run time: 5 min
• Map: Multi-biome — inland. Large red barn on open ground.

Mining Outpost

• Difficulty: Safe Zone
• Recycler: Yes (standard-rate recycler)
• Loot: shop + 1 recycler
• Wipe day: emergency recycler stop. Convenient on most maps.
• Map: Multi-biome — inland. Wooden lookout tower + single shed.

Oxum's Gas Station

• Difficulty: Low
• Recycler: No
• Scientists: None
• Loot: basic crates + food + sometimes higher-tier in the back room
• Avg scrap : 40–80
• Run time: 5 min
• Wipe day: hour 1–6. Drive-by stop.
• Map: Multi-biome — directly on the ring road. Orange Oxum's sign.

Underwater Labs (multiple per map)

• Difficulty: High (radiation + scientists + PvP at top)
• Recycler: Yes (baseline)
• Radiation: High
• Scientists: 4–8 per lab
• Keycard: Green + Blue for some areas, sometimes Red for the top-tier card room
• Loot: 5–15 crates per lab (mix of basic, military, elite)
• Avg scrap : 400–600 per lab visit
• Run time: 20 min
• Wipe day: hour 10+ with boat , hazmat, decent gear. The respawn timer (~30 min) lets you cycle through 3–4 labs in an hour.
• Map: Seabed — offshore, accessed via moonpools. Requires submarine.

Cargo Ship (event)

• Difficulty: Extreme
• Recycler: Yes (on deck)
• Spawn: random, every 1–2 hours, sails for 50 min
• Loot: ~5 elite + ~10 military + ~10 basic + 3 hackable locked crates (15-min hack timer at end of voyage)
• Avg scrap : ~1,293 per successful run
• Run time: full event 50 min
• Wipe day: any time once you have a boat . PvP magnet.
• Map: Event — appears on schedule, sails offshore on a looping route.

Loot table (crate counts corroborated across multiple community sources; exact drop rates unverified):

Patrol Helicopter (event)

• Difficulty: Extreme
• Spawn: random, multiple per wipe day
• Loot: 3–4 burning heli crates at crash site. No locked crates — locked crates come from Chinook, not Heli.
• Avg scrap : 500–1,200
• Cost to kill: ~10,000 effective HP. 8–20 rockets, or focus the tail (~500 HP) with ~25 AK headshots to crash it.
• Wipe day: only worth engaging if you have rockets stockpiled.
• Map: Event — airborne, no fixed location, flies over monuments.

Loot table (crate counts corroborated across multiple community sources; exact drop rates unverified):

Bradley APC (at Launch Site)

• Difficulty: Extreme
• Spawn: Launch Site, respawns 60 min after kill
• Loot: 2–4 high-tier crates + named gear from APC
• Cost to kill: 7 HV rockets, or 3 Timed Explosive Charges, or ~50 F1 grenades. (Patrol Heli has armor zones; Bradley does not — pure HP pool.)
• Avg scrap : 200–400 from crates
• Wipe day: once you have rockets .
• Map: Permanent patrol at Launch Site + event spawns at Arctic Base.

Launch Site

• Difficulty: Extreme
• Recycler: Yes
• Radiation: Very High (rad suit mandatory)
• Scientists: 10–20, high-tier
• Keycard: Red Card required for end loot
• Loot: 6+ elite + military + the locked crate at the silo + Bradley APC roaming
• Avg scrap : 600–1,200+
• Run time: 45 min
• Wipe day: hour 18+ with team. The PvP magnet of the wipe.
• Map: Desert — inland/central. Massive flat plain with rocket gantry.

Loot table (crate counts corroborated across multiple community sources; exact drop rates unverified):

Train Tunnels (underground network)

• Difficulty: Medium–High depending on which junction
• Recycler: Yes at several stations
• Radiation: Medium in deeper tunnels
• Scientists: 6–10 at junctions
• Keycard: green/blue at puzzle stations
• Loot: crates at stations + barrels + work cart loot
• Avg scrap : 100–300 per junction
• Run time: variable, can loop for hours
• Wipe day: mid-wipe, when you have a workcart fuel supply.
• Map: Underground — accessible via subway entrances at multiple monuments.

Nuclear Missile Silo

• Difficulty: Extreme
• Recycler: Yes (in the surface building)
• Radiation: Very High (~25 surface, ~50+ underground — full hazmat hood required)
• Scientists: 4 surface + 23 underground NVG scientists (150–300 HP) = 27 total
• Keycard: Red + Blue (Red for the silo hatch + button, Blue for internal doors), 1 fuse
• Loot: ~30 normal/military crates + 4 elite crates + 1 locked crate + 3 diesel barrels + advanced BP fragment + red keycard spawn
• Avg scrap: 800–1,500+
• Run time: 40 min
• Wipe day: hour 18+ with a full team. Strap weapon flashlights — NVG scientists laser you in pitch-black corridors.
• Map: Multi-biome — inland. Small surface footprint with fenced silo door.

Loot table (crate counts corroborated across multiple community sources; exact drop rates unverified):

Oil Rig — Small

• Difficulty: Hard
• Recycler: Yes (on deck)
• Radiation: None (cold exposure instead — coast gets chilly)
• Scientists: ~15 standard blue + ~6 heavy on the locked-crate event
• Keycard: None directly — Heavy Scientists spawn when you start the timed locked-crate hack
• Loot: blue card crates + military crates + named heavy-scientist drops + 1 locked crate (15-min hack)
• Avg scrap: 400–800
• Run time: 25 min (15 min if you skip the heavy event)
• Wipe day: hour 12+ once you have a boat or RHIB. Easier than Large Oil; ideal duo target.
• Map: Ocean — offshore deep water. Three-leg platform, no helipad tower.

Oil Rig — Large

• Difficulty: Extreme
• Recycler: Yes (2 on deck)
• Radiation: None
• Scientists: ~24 standard blue + ~10 heavy on the locked-crate event
• Keycard: None directly — heavies spawn on hack trigger
• Loot: 2× blue card crates + 8+ military crates + heavy scientist drops + 1 locked crate (15-min hack)
• Avg scrap: 800–1,500
• Run time: 30–40 min
• Wipe day: hour 18+ with a duo/trio. The big elevator chokepoint defines the engagement — clear the bottom floors before triggering hack.
• Map: Ocean — offshore deeper water. Multi-level with helipad.

Cargo Plane (Airdrop)

• Difficulty: Variable — easy if you reach the drop alone, extreme if it lands in a contested area
• Recycler: N/A (event drop)
• Spawn: random across server cycle (~1–2 hours), flies a single pass, drops 1 supply crate
• Loot: 1 supply crate — high tier guaranteed (often: explosives, components, named weapon, ~200 scrap, 1–2 rockets)
• Avg scrap: 200–400 from crate + items
• Cost to engage: spot the plane, sprint to projected landing zone, fight off contestants
• Wipe day: any time after you have a rifle. Listen for the plane drone — it announces drops 30 sec before drop.
• Map: Event — airborne flyover, drops a single supply crate at random spot.

Chinook (CH47) Locked Crate Drop

• Difficulty: Extreme (delivers locked crate to a monument; whoever holds the monument wins)
• Recycler: N/A
• Spawn: random across server cycle, drops a hackable locked crate at a randomly chosen monument
• Loot: 1 locked crate — 15-min hack timer (elite tier loot, ~5 elite + several military items)
• Avg scrap: 200–500
• Cost to engage: defend the monument the Chinook drops onto for 15 minutes through the hack
• Wipe day: hour 12+. Listen for the dual-rotor sound; the drop monument is announced in chat.
• Map: Event — drops hackable locked crate at a random monument.

The Dome

• Difficulty: Easy
• Recycler: No (only major monument without one)
• Radiation: ~9 rads
• Scientists: None
• Keycard: None — no puzzle
• Loot: 3 military crates on top deck + ~6 basic crates on internal catwalks + heavy barrel cluster underneath
• Avg scrap: 80–150
• Run time: 8 min
• Wipe day: hour 2–6. Parkour the inner spiral catwalks rather than the outer struts — much harder to be sniped.
• Map: Forest — inland. Spherical white storage tank, visible across map.

Radtown

• Difficulty: Medium
• Recycler: Yes (in the recycler room, sheet-metal building)
• Radiation: 10+ rads inside buildings; 0 on the road area (hazmat suit required for full clear)
• Scientists: None
• Keycard: Blue Card + Green Card + 2 fuses (full puzzle chain inside the main building)
• Loot: solid mid-tier crates + military crates + radioactive water barrels + red keycard in desk after blue puzzle
• Avg scrap: 200–400
• Run time: 15 min
• Wipe day: any time — best solo red-card farm in the game (no scientists, just rads + possible PvP). Best on fresh wipes before squads gear up.
• Map: Forest — coast/inland. Small industrial yard with stacked containers.

Quarry (HQM / Sulfur / Stone)

• Difficulty: Low (PvE) / High (PvP — open terrain, fixed location)
• Recycler: No (none on-site)
• Radiation: None
• Scientists: None — player-defended only
• Keycard: None — requires Diesel Fuel (20 scrap at Outpost or looted)
• Loot: No crates. Output is ore (HQM Quarry: 50 HQM ore/Diesel; Sulfur: 1,000 sulfur ore/Diesel; Stone: ~10,000 stone/Diesel)
• Avg scrap: ~0 directly, but a Diesel of HQM ≈ 150–200 scrap equivalent
• Run time: 2 min 10 sec per Diesel cycle; ~23 HQM ore/min when fueled
• Wipe day: day 2–5 once you have a Diesel pipeline. Set a TC nearby — quarries run while you're offline but raiders can loot them.
• Map: Biome hints resource (snow=HQM, desert=sulfur). Small mining pits.

Giant Excavator Pit

• Difficulty: Medium-High
• Recycler: Yes (inside control building, standard rates)
• Radiation: Minimal (~5 in dump areas, none at controls)
• Scientists: None on-site by default
• Keycard: None to operate — costs 1 Diesel per engine start + 2 Low Grade for the requester terminal
• Loot: Output is the mined resource (HQM, sulfur ore, metal frags, or stones — pick one). A 20-Diesel run yields ~10,000 sulfur ore OR ~500 HQM ore OR ~30,000 stones OR ~25,000 metal frags
• Avg scrap: indirect — 20 Diesel of sulfur ≈ enough sulfur for ~25 rockets
• Run time: 1 Diesel ≈ 1 min 56 sec; full 40-min cycle on 20 Diesel
• Wipe day: day 2–3 sweet spot. Pick sulfur over HQM — better scrap-per-Diesel ratio.
• Map: Desert/inland — central. Massive bucket-wheel excavator visible from afar.

Ferry Terminal

• Difficulty: Low-Medium
• Recycler: Yes (on the external dock area, near a public modular car lift)
• Radiation: None
• Scientists: None in vanilla; some modded servers add 2–3 patrol NPCs
• Keycard: Green Card for the departures-lobby puzzle room (community-documented; verify in-game)
• Loot: 12 crates + 22 barrels across warehouse, loading dock, alleyway, and rooftop. Puzzle room adds 2 basic + 1 military crate
• Avg scrap: 100–180 per full clear
• Run time: 4–6 min solo; 2–3 min duo splitting routes
• Wipe day: Day 1 priority — recycler + car lift + no rads = best early-game value monument.
• Map: Coast — flat shoreline. Loading ramp + ticket building (2026 monument).

Listening Station (Hapis / custom maps)

• Difficulty: Low
• Recycler: No on most variants
• Radiation: None to minimal (~5 inside the comms shack)
• Scientists: None
• Keycard: None
• Loot: ~4–6 barrels + 2–3 basic crates around the dish/antenna and the small comms shack
• Avg scrap: 20–40 per run
• Run time: 1–2 min
• Wipe day: day 1 transit stop. Note: not on vanilla procedural maps — only appears on Hapis Island and custom maps. Skip if your server uses a procedural map.
• Map: Hapis Island/custom maps only — not on procedural maps.

Abandoned Military Base

• Difficulty: Medium
• Recycler: Yes (inside the central administrative tent area)
• Radiation: Low (~10–25 inside loot rooms; hazmat optional)
• Scientists: Up to 8 standard scientists patrolling with LR-300s and MP5A4s
• Keycard: None — no keycard rooms, just clear and loot. Cargo Plane drops crates near it (trail restored Nov 2025 console patch)
• Loot: ~6 military crates + ~4 basic crates + 1 elite crate in inner vault + ~15 barrels around perimeter. Consistent component drops + weapon attachments + occasional T2 BP fragments
• Avg scrap: 250–400 per full clear
• Run time: 6–10 min if clearing scientists; 3–4 min smash-and-grab
• Wipe day: day 2–4 optimal — by then you have a bolty/SAR + meds to handle 8 scientists.

Monument run priority by wipe time

Hour 0–2: Lighthouse, Abandoned Cabins, Oxum's Gas Station. Easy crates to bootstrap. Since July 2026: an Apartment Complex room (moves you in with 4 hours of rent credit) doubles as instant lockable storage while you scout a base spot.

Hour 2–6: Junkyard, Sewer Branch , Satellite Dish, Harbor (small). Mid-tier with green card.

Hour 6–12: Power Plant, Water Treatment, Harbor (large), Train Yard. Need green+blue, rad gear.

Hour 12+: Military Tunnels, Airfield, Underwater Labs, Arctic Research. Need red card, full kit, often team.

Hour 18+: Launch Site, Patrol Heli, Cargo Ship. End-game scrap -to-time ratios.

Cards I recommend always carrying

• 2× Green Card (loot from Lighthouse/Supermarket/Oxum's — NOT sold at Outpost)
• 1× Blue Card (drop from blue-card puzzles)
• 1× Red Card (drop from red-card puzzles)
• 3× Fuse (not craftable; loot from crates and barrels at monuments)
• Bonus: 1× Mining Hat with light (for tunnels)

Common monument mistakes

1. Running Launch Site at hour 4 without rad suit. You'll die to radiation alone.
2. Skipping the on-site recycler. Always recycle on-site before leaving. Components weigh down inventory.
3. Solo-running a contested monument at peak hours. Move at off-peak (early morning server time) for less PvP.
4. Bringing your best gear. Run monuments in mid-tier gear. If you die, you didn't lose the wipe.
5. Hoarding green cards in your inventory. Stockpile at base, only bring 2.
6. Looting clockwise habit. Loot order matters because crates have respawn timers . Hit highest-tier first.

Pro tips

• Map memorization is the biggest skill upgrade. Spend 30 minutes wandering each monument early-wipe to learn the crate locations.
• Backpack early in your gear loadout. A few hours of scrap farming requires hauling capacity. Tactical or LR300-tier pack worth getting.
• Pair monument runs with travel. Don't go to Lighthouse → home → Junkyard. Go Lighthouse → Junkyard → Recycler → home. Save the travel time.
• Time of day matters. Monuments at server-night have fewer PvP players but more difficult vision. Server-morning is the sweet spot.
• Some monuments share spawns with NPCs. Bandit Camp scientist roamers can wander into nearby roads. Don't get pulled into PvE while you're trying to PvP rotate.

The puzzle system explained end to end

Most mid- and high-tier monuments are gated behind a puzzle — a sequence of keycard swipes, fuse placements and switch flips that opens the loot rooms. Understanding the puzzle system as a whole, rather than memorising one route at a time, lets you walk into any monument and reason out the path.

The puzzle toolkit has three components:

• Keycards come in three tiers — green, blue and red. Green cards are cheap and found at low-tier monuments; blue cards are bought with scrap or found behind green puzzles; red cards are the prize at the end of blue puzzles inside the hardest monuments. You consume nothing by swiping — a card is reusable until you lose it on death.
• Fuses (Electrical Fuses) are consumable. They are slotted into a fuse box to power a section of the monument, and they burn out after use, so every fuse-gated monument costs you one fuse per run. Buy a stack from Outpost or loot them from crates and barrels.
• Switches are free but order-dependent. A puzzle is essentially a flowchart: power on with a fuse, flip switches in sequence, swipe the card the switches unlocked, repeat at the next tier.

The card hierarchy creates a natural progression loop: use a green card to run green-tier monuments, which reward blue cards; use blue cards to run blue puzzles, which reward red cards; use red cards to open the most valuable loot rooms at the top-tier monuments. A wipe's monument progression is really a card-collection ladder.

Puzzle routes — the big three land monuments

Three monuments form the backbone of mid-wipe scrap and component farming. Their routes share a common shape — flip switches, swipe up a tier, claim the red card — so learning them together is efficient.

The general route logic: enter near the recycler or main switch, place a fuse to power the section, flip the switch sequence, swipe your green card to open the green door, then progress inward and swipe blue to reach the final loot room which contains the red card. Airfield demands two fuses because it has two separately-powered sections; budget accordingly. The strategic point: run a green-card monument first to bank a blue card, then run blue monuments to bank red cards, and you arrive at the top-tier monuments already equipped instead of farming scrap to buy in.

Elite monuments and the heavy-scientist threat

The most rewarding monuments — the Oil Rigs, Cargo Ship, and the locked-crate events — are guarded by scientist NPCs, and the highest-value loot is locked behind a timer that summons reinforcements.

• The Locked Crate timer. On the Oil Rigs, activating the locked crate starts a roughly 15-minute timer and triggers yellow sirens. Partway through, a Chinook flies in and drops heavy scientists onto the helipad. You must survive them and hold the rig until the timer completes to claim the crate.
• Heavy scientists are not regular NPCs. They wear far more armour — surviving multiple body hits and demanding several headshots to kill — and carry powerful weapons including the M249. Treat them like kitted players: take cover, fight from angles, and prioritise headshots.
• Their drops are worth it. Heavy scientists can drop genuinely rare items — rocket launchers, night-vision goggles, high-tier medical and weapon loot — which is the real reason to contest the rigs beyond the crate itself.

The Large Oil Rig holds 13 possible military and elite crate spawns across its upper levels plus the locked crate, guarded by up to roughly 16 scientists total — making it one of the densest loot sources in the game and, predictably, one of the most contested. Never run a rig without a plan for the heavy-scientist wave and for the rival players the sirens advertise your presence to.

Monument PvP — turning loot runs into map control

Every monument is a PvP magnet. The loot draws players, which means a monument run is never purely PvE — it is a contested objective. Meta players treat monuments as positions to be controlled, not just boxes to be opened.

• Hold the high ground and the exits. Most monuments have a dominant elevated position and a small number of entrances. Controlling them lets you loot in peace and ambush anyone who arrives to contest you.
• Time your runs. Server-morning is the sweet spot — fewer players awake than peak hours, but better vision than server-night. Early-wipe monuments are loot-rich and lightly defended; late-wipe they are camped by geared groups.
• Chain monuments by geography. Plan a loop — for example Lighthouse, then a nearby Harbor, then a roadside recycler — so travel time doubles as a farm route instead of dead backtracking.
• Read the noise. Gunfire, the locked-crate sirens, and the Patrol Helicopter all advertise activity. If you hear a monument being fought over, you can third-party the winner — or avoid the area entirely if you are carrying loot.

The deeper meta point: monuments are where the map's wealth concentrates, so they are where the map's conflict concentrates. A group that consistently controls two or three nearby monuments controls the component and scrap economy of that region of the map, which funds everything else — better guns, faster bench progression, and the explosives to raid the groups who could not.

Recyclers and the component economy

Monuments are not only about crates — they are about recyclers. The recycler converts components and unwanted items into raw materials and scrap, and it quietly underpins the entire progression economy.

• Components into scrap and parts. Tech trash, gears, springs, sheet metal and other components recycle into scrap, metal fragments, high quality metal and more — turning monument trash into bench-progression fuel.
• Scrap is the universal currency. It buys keycards and items at Outpost and Bandit Camp, and it pays for blueprint research and workbench experiments. A monument run that fills a backpack with components is really a run that fills your scrap reserve.
• Recycle on-site, not at home. Most monuments have a recycler; using it before you leave means you haul lightweight scrap and raw materials home instead of bulky components, and you are not carrying a juicy component backpack through PvP.
• The full loop. Loot crates and barrels, recycle the components into scrap and metal on-site, spend scrap on keycards and blueprints, use the keycards to run higher-tier monuments for better loot. Every step feeds the next — this loop, run efficiently, is the fastest legitimate path from a stone-age base to a fully-kitted raiding group.

Monument puzzle solutions

The keycard, fuse and switch system is explained in full under “The puzzle system explained end to end” above — this section gives the concrete per-monument routes. One number worth carrying with you: Green and Blue cards survive 4 swipes each, but a Red card lasts only 2 swipes, so plan Red-card runs carefully.

Green card monuments

Green readers are the entry tier and are found at low-radiation monuments. They generally need 1 fuse and a Green keycard, and reward Blue keycards plus mid-tier loot.

• Supermarket / Oxum's Gas Station / Mining Outpost: no card readers here. These are basic loot stops, and their crates are among the most reliable places to find a Green card.
• Sewer Branch: place a fuse in the box by the entrance ramp, flip the switch, drop down and swipe the Green reader. Light radiation — bring boots and a hazmat piece or two. Scientists patrol the lower level.
• Satellite Dish / Junkyard: single fuse, one or two switches, Green swipe. Useful early-wipe Blue-card farms with manageable scientist counts.

Blue card monuments

Blue readers gate the Red keycard. Carry a Green and a Blue card (a Green reader almost always sits on the route), the listed fuses, and decent radiation protection.

• Water Treatment: the cheapest Red farm if you already hold a Blue card — 1 fuse and a Blue card only. Place the fuse in the office building, flip the switch, swipe Blue, grab the Red card from the room behind. Light-to-moderate radiation.
• Train Yard: needs a Blue card and 1 fuse. Climb the tower and flip its switch, place the fuse in the main warehouse, flip the warehouse switches, swipe the Blue reader and loot the Red-card room. Moderate radiation, heavy scientist presence.
• Power Plant: needs a Green card, Blue card and 1 fuse. Flip the three exterior switches to route power, swipe the Green reader, throw the final switch inside the main building, then go upstairs and swipe Blue for the Red card. Heavy radiation — full hazmat strongly advised.
• Airfield: needs a Green card, Blue card and 2 fuses. Start at the recycler switch, head underground and swipe Green, place the second fuse to power the inner circuit, then swipe Blue for the final room. Moderate radiation in the tunnels.

Red card monuments

Red readers protect the best non-event loot in the game. Bring a full hazmat suit, a Red keycard, and remember the card only survives 2 swipes.

• Launch Site: the flagship Red puzzle. Place fuses across the multi-box circuit, work the switch sequence through the warehouse and control building, then swipe the Red reader for elite crates and the military crate room. Heavy radiation throughout; Bradley APC patrols the central road — clear or avoid it before committing.
• Military Tunnels: needs a Red card and 1 fuse. Place the fuse, flip the switch, and swipe Red. Extremely dangerous — heavily armed scientists (including a chance of an NVG/Heavy scientist) and tight corridors. Bring a full kit, not just a hazmat.
• Excavator: not a card puzzle — it is fuel-and-switch operated, but treat it as a Red-tier risk monument because of its open sightlines and frequent contested traffic.

Puzzle run checklist

1. Confirm the card tier and fuse count for the target monument before you leave base.
2. Carry a spare fuse — a misfired switch order can waste one, and fuses are cheap insurance.
3. Bring radiation protection scaled to the monument: a few hazmat pieces for Green tier, full hazmat for Blue and Red tier.
4. Clear scientists first where possible; a swipe animation locks you in place and makes you an easy target.
5. Loot the card room fast — other players watch puzzle monuments specifically to third-party the swipe.

The Apartment Complex — renting, burglary, and the player marketplace (July 2026)

The "Common Ground" update (July 2, 2026) added Rust's first landlord: a monument where fresh spawns rent a real room, shopkeepers rent real storefronts, and burglars buy a very real skeleton key. Everything below is from the official post plus defaults verified on a live server running the July build — community servers can tune all of it.

Renting a room

Talk to the receptionist in the lobby to rent. Rooms run from basement to penthouse, and different room types carry different perks — more storage, furnaces, and more (Facepunch hasn't published the full perk table). Rent is scrap , paid by feeding the slot next to your door. You move in with 4 hours of rent credit, so you won't see an eviction warning the moment you get the key. When the balance hits zero a 24-hour grace period starts; if you still haven't paid, you're evicted and everything in the room is seized. Rent burns real-world hours, online or not — top up before you log. A rent-scaling system (rent that grows with the value of what you store) exists in the build but ships off by default.

The master key — burglary as a mechanic

Facepunch's post teases the master key as "available somewhere on the island." Here's the verified answer: the apartment security NPC sells it for 1,000 scrap . With key in hand you hold the break-in interaction on an occupied door for 30 seconds, then get 5 minutes of access to that room — and the same trick works on the marketplace shops. Not sure which door hides the good stuff? A guard in the basement sells hints about which rooms are worth burgling. Two defensive notes: an invisible blocker keeps non-tenants out of rooms they don't have access to, and combat inside apartment rooms is allowed by default even outside break-ins — the complex is a social hub, not a safe zone. Don't treat your room like a vault for the whole wipe's loot.

The marketplace — player-run shops

The complex includes a marketplace of shops any player can rent and run — sell to residents face-to-face rather than through a lonely roadside vending machine. Opening one costs a non-refundable upfront scrap fee plus a per-hour (real-time) scrap rent, and you need at least 12 hours of rent banked to open. The twist is hostile takeovers: once a shop has been open 6 hours, anyone can seize it by paying 2x the upfront cost and 2x the hourly rent — and each subsequent takeover escalates to 3x, 4x, and beyond. If your shop closes or transfers, you have 24 hours to retrieve stored items before they're gone. Shops can't be reached by drone, the sign above each shop is editable, the new Metal Shopfront is Workshop-skinnable — and yes, the master key opens shops too, so don't warehouse your life savings behind the counter.

Server settings worth knowing

All of the numbers above are the build's defaults, confirmed on a live July-build server — owners can retune them. The knobs: free move-in hours (default 4), the eviction grace period (default 24 h), the master key's price (default 1,000 scrap), the break-in hold (default 30 s), the intruder-access window (default 5 min), and rent scaling by stored-item value (default off, with a server-queryable list of taxed items). If a community server feels different from this guide, one of those dials moved.

Bradley APC & Patrol Helicopter takedowns

The Bradley APC and the Patrol Helicopter are the two roaming monument bosses. Both reward Elite crates — the highest non-locked loot tier — but they punish bad positioning instantly. Below are current 2026 health values, explosive counts, and the positioning that keeps you alive.

Bradley APC

The Bradley APC patrols Launch Site — in vanilla it spawns nowhere else. It has 1,000 HP and will self-heal if it takes no damage for 5 minutes, regaining full health over about 60 seconds — so commit fully or not at all. It respawns 60 minutes after death.

Weak spot: the APC takes full damage anywhere on the hull — there is no armor multiplier — but its turret has a limited traverse and cannot depress fully. The reliable counter is a rooftop or elevated ledge directly above or behind it: the turret cannot elevate high enough to hit you, and you get a clean downward angle for rockets. From ground level, hug its rear blind spot — the turret tracks slowly, so move with it and stay off its forward arc.

Crate timer: on death the Bradley drops 3 crates (a mix of Bradley/Elite crates) inside a burning wreck. The fire must die down before you can loot — about 3 minutes. Expect other players to contest the burn; hold the high ground you killed it from rather than rushing the fire.

Group tactics: two players on opposite rooftops split the turret's attention — it can only track one target at a time. One fires while the other reloads, alternating HV volleys so damage never stops long enough to trigger the 5-minute heal.

Patrol Helicopter

The Patrol Helicopter is an event that spawns periodically and patrols monuments, strafing players and buildings. It has 10,000 HP on the main body, but you almost never need to chew through that whole pool — it has two destructible rotors that act as weak points.

Destroying the main rotor downs the helicopter outright, ignoring its remaining body health — the tail rotor is an optional softening target, not required for the kill. The fastest takedown is to focus the tail rotor (lowest HP), then the main rotor. An Assault Rifle or LR-300 with full-auto fire works, but the most ammo-efficient kill is rockets/explosive ammo onto the rotors.

Positioning & blind spots: unlike the Bradley, the helicopter can see and hit targets anywhere in its range — there is no true blind spot. It fires its guns in bursts with roughly a 3-second gap between them. Use that rhythm: take cover or break line of sight during the burst, then lean out and fire your shots in the pause. Fight from a building with a hard roof so its rockets cannot collapse your cover, and never stand in open ground — a single rocket burst is a one-shot kill.

Crate timer: the downed heli leaves a wreck with multiple crates engulfed in a fuel fire. Once the heli is dead and the crates have stopped burning it takes about 5 minutes before you can salvage the gibs with a tool. As with Bradley, expect contested loot — hold the high ground.

Group tactics: a group splits fire across both rotors simultaneously so each drops faster, and posts one player as a spotter calling the burst timing. Spreading out also prevents the heli's rocket strafe from catching the whole team in one pass.