Rust Wipe Prep Checklist — First Day Farming Priorities

First 30 minutes: seed gathering

Your first 30 minutes set the entire wipe's farming trajectory. The goal is to collect at least 8-10 wild seeds with as many G and Y genes as possible. Wild plants are everywhere on wipe day:

• Hemp grows along forest edges and river banks.
• Berries grow on hillsides — red, blue, yellow, green, white.
• Pumpkins grow near rivers and roads.

Don't sort or grade yet. Pick up every seed, regardless of genome — you'll filter later with the Seed Grader.

Hour 1-2: build sealed farm room

Your farm needs to be inside your base, sealed, and with a sleeping bag/spawn point inside. Specifications:

• 4 walls + roof minimum, stone or sheet metal. Twig is too easily destroyed.
• One door, ideally inside an airlock. No external windows.
• 3×3 grid of floor (9 tiles) — fits 4 large planters comfortably.
• External wall connection point for water sources outside.

Skip the workbenches and crafting stations for the farm room — those go elsewhere in the base. The farm room is single-purpose.

Not sure what your full base should look like? Browse curated Rust base designs by group size — most builds include a dedicated farm room slot in their footprint.

Hour 2-3: place planters

Drop 4 large planter boxes (one per floor tile). Put a water source outside or in an attached room — large catchers are easiest on wipe day, but a Water Pump near a lake is better long-term.

Plant your best 4 wild seeds, one per planter. Don't worry about clones yet — these are placeholder plants while you set up the breeding round.

Place at least 2 sprinklers, throttled to ~50% via Electrical Branches if you have power. Otherwise hand-water until power is up.

Hour 3-6: Gen 1 crossbreed

Once you have 8+ seeds, paste them into the God Clone Planner. It'll output a 3×3 layout — plant exactly that.

Don't deviate from the layout. The planner has already calculated which seed needs to go in each position to maximise the centre plant's odds of becoming a god clone.

While the round runs (45-90 minutes depending on conditions), set up your power and lighting. The crossbreed stage is when the magic happens — be ready with a hatchet to clone immediately.

Hour 6-8: clone and scale

When the centre plant enters the crossbreed stage (crosshair icon visible), clone it immediately. Hold E on the plant with a hatchet.

Verify the clone's genome — it should be GGGYYY (or close). If it is, you have your god clone. Plant it in 4 planters and let it grow + harvest. Each harvest yields 4 more clones, doubling your farm every cycle.

If the Gen 1 didn't hit GGGYYY, the planner will have already shown you the Gen 2 route. Run the second round with your new Gen 1 clone in the centre.

Day 2: scale and tea

By day 2 you should have 8-12 god clones harvesting on staggered cycles. At this point:

• Plant 1-2 planters with red/yellow berries to start brewing Max Health Tea for combat.
• If you raid: brew Pure Ore Tea — 4 yellow + 4 blue berries per pure.
• Start trading surplus clones to neighbours for sulfur or scrap.

Common mistakes

• Building the farm room too late. By day 2 your base is full of workbenches and mid-priority infrastructure; you'll struggle to fit a sealed 3×3 room.
• Skipping the Seed Grader step and breeding random seeds. You'll need 2-3 extra Gen rounds to recover from a mid-grade Gen 1.
• Placing the farm next to an external wall. Raiders C4 the wall, find the farm full of clones, take everything.
• Not running power on day one. Without lights, your god clone takes 30% longer to reach harvest — those hours compound across a wipe.