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Upkeep Calculator

The Rust Upkeep Calculator splits Tool Cupboard slots across Wood, Stone, Metal Fragments, and HQM so your base lasts longest.

Stack size multiplier

Vanilla Rust is x1, and that is what this starts on. A modded server fits more in one slot: set the multiplier your server uses and every figure here follows it.

Max slots

A vanilla cupboard holds 24 slots. Change it if your server gives you more.

Players on the TC

Put in Now how many players the cupboard counts when you copy its costs, because the figures on its screen already include their tax. Planned follows Now until you change it to see what a bigger or smaller group pays. Hover the upkeep cost in the cupboard to see the tax it is charging: +2% is 5 players, +12% is 10, and every 4% above that is one more.

Now Planned No group tax: a cupboard charges nothing extra for its first 4 players.

Upkeep per day

Wood

Stones

Metal Fragments

High Quality Metal

Duration

How long you want the cupboard to keep paying for the base before it runs dry. Leave it at the top and the plan fills every slot; slide it down when you do not need that long, and the slots it frees stay yours for anything else. The three boxes take an exact figure when the slider is too coarse.

3 days

Days Hours Minutes

What to put in each slot, how long each resource lasts on its own, and what is left when the cupboard stops paying. The plan assumes the base stays as it is. Upkeep is charged on what is standing, so anything you build or upgrade raises the daily cost and shortens what it says, and the cupboard charges again every 24 hours.
	Wood	Stones	Metal Fragments	High Quality Metal
Slots	2	3	0	0
Load	1,500	2,250	0	0
Lasts	3d	3d	-	-
Left	0	0	0	0

Working out your own numbers needs JavaScript. Everything else is already here: a worked plan in the grid, five more daily costs packed the same way, and the bands, stack sizes and decay windows behind all of them.

Copy filter for an industrial conveyor

An industrial conveyor moves items between two containers on its own, so one running from a box into the cupboard keeps the cupboard stocked while you are offline. Its filter is what decides how much of each thing it pushes: this is that filter, already set to the amounts in the plan above, so the conveyor tops the cupboard up to them and then stops. You need a pipe tool to run the pipes.

Current items 2

Wood

Max: 1,500
Buffer: -
Min: -

Stones

Max: 2,250
Buffer: -
Min: -

Copy it, then hold Shift and click Paste (JSON) in the conveyor, in game.

Show what gets copied

[
  {
    "TargetCategory": null,
    "MaxAmountInOutput": 1500,
    "BufferAmount": 0,
    "MinAmountInInput": 0,
    "IsBlueprint": false,
    "TargetItemName": "wood"
  },
  {
    "TargetCategory": null,
    "MaxAmountInOutput": 2250,
    "BufferAmount": 0,
    "MinAmountInInput": 0,
    "IsBlueprint": false,
    "TargetItemName": "stones"
  }
]

What an industrial conveyor costs to make

How the Rust Upkeep Calculator packs Tool Cupboard slots and block grades

The RustPotato Upkeep Calculator divides all 24 main Tool Cupboard storage slots (plus 4 upper tool slots) in Rust across Wood, Stones, Metal Fragments, and High Quality Metal so every required material runs dry at the same hour, maximizing total decay protection across every 24-hour billing cycle.

Read from the Rust server bracket convars, every connected foundation, wall, floor, and roof shares one weighted average rate, so attaching outer honeycomb raises each twenty-five-HQM Armored wall from 2.5 HQM per day at 15 pieces to 5.4 HQM per day at 250 pieces; compare grade health on Building Blocks and breach costs on the Raid Calculator.

Marginal wall upkeep range: a Stone Wall (300 Stones) costs 30 Stones/day in the 10% starter bracket up to 100 Stones/day in the 33.3% clan bracket, while Twig costs zero upkeep.
Worked 24-slot duration benchmark: a base spending 300 Wood, 1,000 Stones, 1,500 Metal Fragments, and 50 High Quality Metal per day lasts 6 days 16 hours on 24 balanced slots (2 Wood, 7 Stone, 11 Metal, and 4 HQM slots), limited by Wood.
Uniform cross-material bracket scaling: the effective piece-count rate applies simultaneously to every Wood, Stone, Metal, and Armored block sharing the same building ID, so cheap exterior Stone honeycomb raises the percentage tax on your inner Armored core.
Modded server stack multipliers: switching the bench from vanilla x1 stacks to x2, x5, or x10 recalculates slot allocation and total autonomous days whenever a modded server increases Wood, Stone, Metal, and High Quality Metal stack caps.

Splitting multi-TC compounds vs one connected core in Rust

Disconnecting outer shooting floors, gatehouses, and compound walls onto external Tool Cupboards in Rust multi-TC base designs keeps each separate sub-structure inside the lower piece-count brackets (13.75% effective daily rate at 60 pieces) instead of pushing the central core past the 190-piece threshold.

Splitting a 240-piece clan compound into four disconnected 60-piece Tool Cupboards lowers total daily block-equivalents from 50.65 to 33.00 (-34.8% daily Stone, Metal, and HQM consumption) while quadrupling total cupboard storage to ninety-six slots:

Single-TC vs Multi-TC daily upkeep comparison (computed from vanilla piece-count brackets):
Base Layout	Connected Pieces	Daily Block-Equivalents	Effective Tax Rate	HQM / Day per Armored Wall	Total TC Slots
Starter / Solo-Duo Core (1 TC)	60 pieces	8.25 blocks	13.75%	3.44 HQM	24 slots
Connected Clan Compound (1 TC)	240 pieces	50.65 blocks	21.10%	5.28 HQM	24 slots
Split Clan Compound (4 × 60 TCs)	240 pieces (4 × 60)	33.00 blocks (-34.8%)	13.75%	3.44 HQM (-34.8%)	96 slots (4×)

Automating Rust Tool Cupboard refills and solo vs clan upkeep strategy

Wiring an Industrial Conveyor from a reserve box to a Tool Cupboard storage adaptor in Rust keeps all 24 slots topped up overnight when you paste the MaxAmountInOutput JSON cap exported here alongside the Open Core Manager and Conveyor Manager so abundant Wood or Stones never crowd out High Quality Metal.

Solo and duo builders should keep their main core under 65 structural pieces (13.8% average rate) and upgrade only the inner vault to Armored, whereas clans building past 190 pieces should split outer honeycomb and gatehouses onto external Tool Cupboards before upgrading to Sheet Metal or Armored.

Common questions about Rust upkeep

What is upkeep in Rust?

Connected foundations, walls, floors, stairs, and roofs count toward Rust Tool Cupboard upkeep every 24 hours, while doors, boxes, turrets, and workbenches add 0 pieces when decay.use_door_upkeep_brackets is False. High External Wooden and Stone Walls never consume cupboard stock, staying decay-free anywhere inside privilege.

How much upkeep does a Rust base cost per day?

A Rust base pays between 10% and 33.3% of its structural construction materials per day across four progressive piece-count brackets read from the server files. For example, a one-hundred-piece Stone base (30,000 Stones build cost) pays a 16% effective rate, spending 4,800 Stones per day.

Does the number of players on a tool cupboard change upkeep in Rust?

Past four players, a Rust Tool Cupboard charges a group tax of +2% per extra member across the first band and four percent per member after that up to triple upkeep. On vanilla settings, 6 players pay 4% more and 12 players pay 20% more, counting authorizations, recent deauthorizations, and shared code locks.

How long does a full tool cupboard last in Rust?

Filling all twenty-four storage slots in a vanilla Rust Tool Cupboard sustains a 300-Wood starter cabin for 80 days (24,000 Wood stored) or a 1,500-HQM clan core for 38.4 hours. Wiring an Industrial Conveyor from external storage boxes refills depleted slots automatically past that cap.

What happens if upkeep runs out in Rust?

When a required resource empties in a Rust Tool Cupboard, exposed outer building shells begin losing health immediately with zero grace delay, crumbling from full health to zero over 1 hour for Twig up to 12 hours for Armored while enclosed interior rooms decay 10 times slower.

Why does High Quality Metal take up so many cupboard slots?

Because High Quality Metal stacks to 100 units per Rust Tool Cupboard slot instead of 1,000 (10 times smaller), upgrading even one Armored doorway or bunker roof claims a full cupboard slot. Keeping HQM on a separate external cupboard or conveyor buffer preserves main Stone and Metal capacity.

Does upkeep still cost resources while you are offline in Rust?

Yes, a Rust Tool Cupboard deducts stored upkeep continuously on the dedicated server clock across every 24-hour billing cycle whether your team is online or logged out. If one material stack hits 0 overnight while others remain full, only blocks of that depleted grade begin decaying.

Does a Rust base decay while the tool cupboard still has resources in it?

No, destroying a Rust Tool Cupboard during a raid triggers a 24-hour anti-grief protection window by consuming up to 24 hours of stored upkeep materials inside the destroyed cupboard. Locked doors and structural walls take 0 decay damage until that prepaid protection timer expires.

Compare raw material stack limits in Every resource on this page has its own entry in the RustPotato resource list, per-shape construction costs on Building Blocks, explosive breach totals in the Raid Calculator, and automated loot-room piping in the Open Core Manager.