For many players, the first day or so of a wipe is the best Rust experience you can immerse yourself with.
No rifle-wielding chad clan players to worry about. Just a bunch of low geared players mindlessly killing each other.
In these situations, a lot of new players find it best to run inland and try to get a base up. They might be successful but by the time they’ve upgraded the walls to stone and doors to metal, all other players are out roaming with strong weapons.
To keep yourself safe in these kind of situations, a keen knowledge of the best early game weapons is mandatory.
I’ll be going through these weapons, giving you tips on how best to use them and how hard they are to obtain!
This list only includes weapons that are unlocked by default, no blueprints needed!
Damage is based on hits to the chest, arm/leg damage is reduced by 20% and headshot damage is doubled.
10) Rocks
Crafting Materials: 10 Stone
Damage: 10
Range: 1.25m
By far the worst weapon in the game but if you’ve literally just started out, you don’t have a choice.
Plus, you’ll be really surprised just how lucky you can get by randomly attacking someone.
Naked rock fights on the beach are one of the most prominent Rust features, particularly early on in a wipe.
Getting used to the rock’s low melee range can mean a great deal when it comes to dominating the early stages of a wipe as you’re the one to progress into the next stages.
9) Bone Club
Crafting Materials: 20 Bone Fragments
Damage: 12
Range: 1.5 m
If there’s a severe lack of floor resources, crafting a Bone Club is a great idea to get started. It doubles up as a melee bludgeon and a tool for obtaining stone and wood.
Low crafting material requirements allow you to craft a Bone Club as soon as you find, or kill, an enemy naked player.
It’ll serve you well until you can craft a better weapon or tool, found further down this list.
8) Stone Hatchet
Crafting Materials: 200 Wood & 50 Stone
Damage: 15
Range: 1.5m
Stone Hatchet is the first tool you should build when you get some stone, as it’ll be used to collect wood to build a base.
It’ll also deter naked players. Several rock-wielding maniacs can pose a real threat at this stage of your adventure but thankfully the Stone Hatchet’s fast attack speed offers plenty of damage output.
Even if you’ve obtained a ranged weapon, keeping this tool handy can prove a lifesaver in close range engagements.
7) Bone Knife
Crafting Materials: 30 Bone Fragments
Damage: 17
Range: 1.5m
One of the most useful and readily available melee weapons in the entire game, Bone Knives are great for cutting up dead animals (and humans) for their resources.
Despite its model being clearly shorter than other melee weapons, the bone knife actually has the same melee attack range.
Decent damage and super fast attack range add up to one of the best early weapons you can get your hands on.
6) Machete
Crafting Materials: 100 Wood & 40 Metal Fragments
Damage: 35
Range: 1.5m
We’ve all had those starts where you find plenty of barrels to farm but little stone to actually craft a tool. Recycle the earned components to get enough resources to craft a Machete for early dominating melee power.
It can also be used to gather wood, although it harvests half the amount as a Stone Hatchet.
35 damage is huge early on, allowing you to two-shot barrels, harvest resources from flesh faster and take on almost anyone else in melee fights!
5) Nailgun
Crafting Materials: 75 Metal Fragments & 15 Scrap
Damage: 18
Range: Short
Fast firing short-range weapon to dominate early close-quarters fights, easily obtained by recycling a few components and acquiring a level 1 workbench.
Firing nails that cost 8 metal fragments per 5 shots, it’s best to bring it while you’re doing recycling runs as you really don’t want to waste too many nails firing against enemies who throw spears or bring ranged weapons.
While the Nailgun is amazing in niche situations, the expensive pricing (for early game) and Workbench requirement mean it isn’t as good as other options.
4) Crossbow
Crafting Materials: 200 Wood, 75 Metal Fragments & 2 Rope
Damage: 60
Range: Medium
My personal favorite weapon in the entire game. Having playing over a thousand hours as a solo player, I can say the Crossbow is absolutely amazing.
It does require a tier 1 Workbench to craft, though, as well as rope. Cloth is in scarce supply early on and rope recycles for a lot of it so it’s a trade-off to consider.
That being said, you should aim to craft a Crossbow as soon as you can. Just two headshots will downed even mid-geared players for easy gearsets.
3) Hunting Bow
Crafting Materials: 200 Wood & 50 Cloth
Damage: 50
Range: Short
Bow fights are commonplace after a wipe with players needing to find just 4 wood piles and 2 hemp plants to craft one. Either that or recycle a few barrels worth of components.
It’s definitely a good weapon that has its uses all the way up to the mid-game but you need experience to get the most out of it, as the arrow drop rate is quite steep.
Would recommend hopping onto 5x servers that spawn you with a bow as standard. You can also connect to modded training servers as they usually have primitive practice battles with bows. 🙂
2) Eoka Pistol
Crafting Materials: 75 Wood & 30 Metal Fragments
Damage: 180
Range: Short
Honestly, the Eoka Pistol is what sets Rust apart from any other survival game in existence. It can one-shot through literally any armor in the entire game and is super cheap to craft.
I’ve personally acquired many of the best guns in the game by bringing out an Eoka and carefully hunting geared targets.
The Eoka fails to shoot after 12 attempts more than half the time but for every 9 deaths, you get that sweet epic kill you’ve been searching for.
1) Wooden Spear
Crafting Materials: 300 Wood
Damage: 25
Range: 2.2m
Don’t craft just the one, get your hotbar full of spears. Upon witnessing an enemy dare to come within a few metres of your presence, unleash an unholy barrage of javelins on them.
Save the one spear to poke them down as they attempt to run to safety.
It’s worth practicing throwing spears as they can be a massive advantage in the early game. Camping bases, recyclers and monument entrances make for some easy loot!