Farm Planner

How farming works in Rust, in numbers

The RustPotato Farm Planner is a Rust farming calculator for planter boxes. A hemp clone ripens in 2 hours 53 minutes for 30 cloth (270 per large planter of 9), or 1 hour 58 minutes for 40 cloth with fertilizer. RustPotato reads every stage, yield and water rule from the game files and ticks once a minute like the server.

Why a plant grows slower than its stages say

A Rust plant grows at the speed of its worst condition: light, water, ground and temperature are each scored, and only the lowest one counts. In a planter box the ground scores 0.6 and fertilizer adds 0.4, so an unfertilized hemp plant grows at 67% however warm and well watered it is. A planter never reads colder than 15 °C (59 °F), but that is not warm: at 15 °C hemp grows at 53%.

What each gene changes on a farm

A Rust plant carries six genes, each a G, Y, H, W or X, and the Farm Planner counts every one of them in its harvest, grow time and water. G, Y and H each help a plant in one way, while W only makes it drink more.

• G: 25% more growth speed per G, on every stage that depends on conditions
• Y: 25% more on the yield a plant builds while fruiting, and one more clone per two Y
• W: 10% more water a minute per W, rounded up, with nothing in return
• H: 0.05 more on the temperature score per H, and 0.2 more on the ground score for a plant in the soil, never in a planter
• G also raises the harvest of a slow plant: unfertilized hemp gives 30 cloth, 40 with two G, because its yield runs out before fruiting ends

When to take clones, and how many

A Rust plant can be cloned from its Sapling stage on: a hemp clone in a planter box gets there 13 minutes after planting with fertilizer, 18 without. Every later stage gives the same count except Crossbreed, which gives none while it lasts, and taking the clones kills the plant. A plant gives 2 clones, an orchid 1, plus one for every two Y genes: six Y make 5. Cloned at Sapling, before Crossbreed, the clones keep the genes you planted.

Gross and net: a farm that runs 24/7

A Rust plant is either picked or cloned, never both. Once picked, hemp, pumpkin, rose, sunflower and orchid are gone and the other 9 turn to their Dying stage, which gives no clone. So a farm that replants itself has to spend whole plantings on clones, and the Farm Planner counts its net the way a farm runs 24/7.

At each visit one thing is done to every planter: a clone planting, cloned at Sapling, then harvest plantings until only the clones for the next clone planting are left in the box. Ten large planters of GGGYYY hemp with fertilizer hold 90 plants: a clone planting of 7 minutes gives 270 clones, enough for 2 harvests of 1 hour 8 minutes each, 11,700 cloth every 2 hours 23 minutes. That is 4,909 cloth an hour, 95% of the 5,162 an hour the same planters give when every planting is harvested from clones brought in.

How much water a Rust farm needs

In Rust, a hemp plant drinks 5 water a minute from its planter, whatever its speed. A large planter holds 9,000 water and a small one 3,000, but full is too wet: hemp keeps full water quality between 4,591 and 6,750 in a large planter.

A sprinkler draws 120 water a minute from its tank and sprays 180 into the planters within reach until they are full, which overwaters them. Under a clear sky a Large Water Catcher collects about 28 water a minute and a small one 10, a Water Pump 510, and a Water Barrel stores 20,000. Rain is what fills catchers: a downpour fills a large one in about 4 minutes, but on a vanilla server rain or a storm is only about 1 weather in 11, so a farm runs on pumps and lets the catchers hold what the rain brings.

A pump standing in the sea pumps salt water, and salt water empties a planter's soil: a Powered Water Purifier keeps 1 water for 2 salt while it has power, a Water Purifier over a lit campfire 1 for 4.

Farming on an x2, x3 or x10 server

Rust itself has no gather rate for plants: a vanilla server hands over exactly what the plant built, 30 cloth for a hemp clone in a planter box. Servers sold as x2, x3, x5 or x10 change that with a harvest plugin, which as a rule multiplies what you pick and rounds down, 60 cloth for the same plant at 2x. The growing time, the clones you take and the water stay the game's. Pick the rate in the Server gather rate box above the farm.

Why the planner counts planters only

Rust lets you plant a clone straight in the soil, but it is a gamble. There it drinks nothing from you, yet it scores 0.3 on water in a temperate biome and at most 0.6 on ground, and every minute it has a 0.5% chance to die: a hemp plant lives to ripe 18% of the time. A planter takes the luck out of it, so the Farm Planner counts planters only.

A worked farm: two large planters of hemp

In the Rust Farm Planner, two Large Planter Boxes of hemp clones with no genes hold 18 plants and drink 90 water a minute. Unfertilized, the two planters give 540 cloth every 2 hours 53 minutes; fed 18 Fertilizer, they give 720 cloth every 1 hour 58 minutes.

Questions about farming in Rust