Drag seeds into the planter. Plant the centre first and hit Play — then drop neighbours in any time before the centre hits crossbreed stage. Pause whenever you need to think.
The Planter Game is an interactive sandbox version of Rust's planter mechanic. Drag seeds from your inventory into the 3×3 grid, watch the centre plant grow through every stage, and clone it at the right moment to lock in the new genetics. It's the fastest way to learn how crossbreeding feels in-game without burning a real wipe figuring it out.
In Rust, plants pass through five stages: seedling, sapling, sprawling, ripe and dying. Crossbreeding only happens at the crossbreed stage — between sprawling and ripe — and you only have a small window to clone before the plant locks in. The planter game shows this timing exactly, so when you're in-game with limited time before raids you already know what to do.
The plant continues to ripe and dies. You don't lose the seed permanently — but you lose the chance to extract a clone with the crossbred genes. In a real wipe this can mean restarting a 90-minute breeding round, which is why so many farmers use a grow timer alongside the planter.
The point of this tool is to internalise the timing and the layout. Once you've cloned 3-4 god clones in the simulator, the real-game mechanic becomes second nature. Then take the layouts the God Clone Planner generates and execute them in-game without hesitation.