Guide to All Popular Rust Bunkers 2024

Worried about offline raiders? Discover the best Rust bunkers to fortify your base and protect your loot! In this comprehensive guide, we’ll rank the best Rust bunkers from S-tier to F-tier, considering factors like ease of construction, security, and simplicity. Plus, we'll throw in some recommendations of the top Rust bunker bases for 2024. Whether you’re a seasoned builder or a newbie, these bunker designs will help you sleep well knowing your base is secure.

---

What is a Bunker in Rust and Why Should You Implement One?

In Rust, a bunker is a sealed section of your base, designed to secure your most valuable items, like your Tool Cupboard (TC), loot, and external TC. These bunkers utilize building mechanics or exploits to create a secure environment that can only be accessed by players with building privileges or those with respawn points inside the bunker. By strategically placing or destroying twig or wooden building blocks, you can open or seal the bunker, ensuring that only authorized players can access its contents. Bunkers are strategically built to increase the raid cost for potential raiders, making it more difficult and expensive for them to raid you. Implementing a bunker in your base design is crucial for several reasons:

1. Higher Raid Cost: Bunkers provide an additional layer of protection, making it harder for raiders to access your loot.
2. Efficient: For a relatively low material cost, bunkers significantly raise the raid cost, deterring potential attackers.
3. Offline Protection: Knowing that your valuable items are well-protected allows you to log off with confidence, reducing the risk of losing everything to offline raids.
4. Spread Out Loot: Properly designed bunkers can store hidden loot and distribute it across various sections of your base, making it challenging for raiders to find and loot everything.

By incorporating bunkers into your base design, you maximize your base's durability and security, ensuring that your hard-earned loot remains safe even when you’re offline.

---

Tier list of Rust bunkers

Lets’s start with what everyone wants to see: the S-tier bunkers:

S-tier:

Vending Machine TC Bunker

The Vending Machine TC Bunker is one of the most practical, affordable, and easy-to-build bunkers in Rust. It integrates seamlessly into almost any base design, providing versatile protection. Not only does it secure your Tool Cupboard (TC), but it also effectively conceals lockers and large batteries. This bunker is my go-to choice for all my bases, as it significantly increases the raid cost of the TC with minimal material investment. It's a no-brainer for anyone looking to enhance their base security. The Atlas V2 is a base design which utilizes this bunker design to add up it's raid cost to TC significantly.

Pros:

• Easy to build.
• Hard to raid and cheap price to build.
• Can be implemented into almost any build.

Cons:

• TC can be destroyed if not placed correctly.
• Vending machine can be soft-sided.

How to build the Vending Machine TC Bunker:

---

Vending Roof Bunker

The Vending Roof Bunker is particularly useful as a Rust shop for selling your excess loot. It can be built almost anywhere around your base, though most designs place it on the roof. Personally, I always set up one of these on my base's roof before logging off, so I wake up to a lot of sold items and some juicy sulfur or scrap profits. The Atlas V2 uses these Roof Bunkers on it's roof to be able to sell items secure.

Pros:

• Only drop 50 % of loot if vending machine gets destroyed.
• Super simple to build.
• Can be built anywhere.
• Cheap to build.

Cons:

• Can be eco-raided.

How to build the Vending Roof Bunker:

---

Freehand Bunker

The Freehand Bunker is the best external TC bunker design available. It's affordable, secures your external TCs, and even allows you to store loot in them. Additionally, it can be disconnected if you need to replace your main TC. The only drawback is that it's somewhat challenging to build, especially for new base builders. I'm still mastering this design, but once I perfect it, I use it every wipe. It's incredibly effective for distributing your loot across external TCs before logging off, forcing pesky offline raiders to raid each external TC to get your loot, significantly increasing the total raid cost. The Saint uses Freehand Bunkers to add a lot of raid cost to their external TC:s.

Pros:

• Can be used as external TC and therefore for almost any build.
• Easy to open bunker.

Cons:

• Can be a bit tricky to build.

How to build the Freehand bunker:

---

A-tier:

Multi TC Bunker

There are many variations of this Multi-TC-Bunker and can be used in a lot of different footprints. It’s also easy to open and close the bunker. It’s used in a lot of builds to store hidden loot in the bunker high up in the bases to spread out the loot around the base. The Saint uses Multi TC Bunker for additional loot rooms to be able to spread out the loot in secure bunkers.

Pros:

• There are many variations of how this bunker can be built.
• Can fit in many footprints.
• The bunker is easy to open/close.

Cons:

• Requires external TC.
• The bunker sometimes needs softsideable walls to cover gaps.
• Can shoot rockets through gaps.

How to build the Multi TC Bunker:

---

B-tier:

Roof Foundation Bunker

The Roof Foundation Bunker is a superior alternative to the Floorstacked Core Bunker due to its simplicity. Unlike the Floorstacked Core Bunker, which requires meticulous setup and alignment, the Roof Foundation Bunker can be built quickly and efficiently.

Pros:

• Easy to build.
• Cheap to build.

Cons:

• Takes up lots of space and only fits in larger footprints.
• High cost to seal.
• Needs to be protected by walls to prevent splashing with rockets.

How to build the Roof Foundation Bunker:

---

Terrain Bunker

The Terrain bunker utilizes the terrain to hide the twig that is used to seal the bunker. Unlike a lot of the other bunker designs this one is used to bunker off the entrance to the base. It got no softsidable spots and is strong and cheap to build but you need a specific spot in the terrain to built it. When I find a good spot to implement this bunker, I always go for it.

Pros:

• No softsideable spots.
• Strong and cheap.
• Easy to open.

Cons:

• Need to build on specific spot to work.

How to build the Terrain Bunker:

---

C-tier:

Stairs Bunker

More of a blocker than a bunker. Very good early game and not completely useless. It has risen in popularity and a lot of newer bases uses it because it’s very easy to build and implement in a lot of base designs. I have played in a lot of bases that uses this design and I think it is a very decent bunker. The Saint utilizes multiple Stairs Bunkers in it's base design to add up to the raid cost significantly.

Pros:

• Easy to build.
• Fits into many builds.

Cons:

• Depending on the orientation of the railing, can fire rockets through it to destroy bags in core so that base owners can no longer open it.
• If twig triangle isn’t attached to a wall it can be splashed with mollies or explosive ammo, opening the bunker.

How to build the Stairs Bunker:

---

Raised Foundation Bunker

This is a stability Rust bunker which is the oldest bunker in Rust. This bunker was the first one I learned to build in Rust. I think it is the easiest to build but sadly it got it’s downsides by being softsideable and hard to build a base design out of it. But I still go for it when I need a good duo base. A base design that uses Raised Foundation Bunker to secure it's core is The Altas V2.

Pros:

• Simple and easy to build.
• Easy to open.
• Cheap to seal.

Cons:

• Hard to make a decent base out of it because the bunker is so large.
• High foundations can be softsided, need ladder to get out if you protect from being softsided.
• Can be splashed through walls if honeycombed wrong.

How to build the Terrain Bunker:

---

Triplet Bunker

The triplet bunker is a new bunker design for 2024 that not many players know off. It’s kind of bulky to build but it can be made into some designs as a way to protect your core or used as a hidden loot room for your base. The other downside is that it can be softsided.

Pros:

• Can be used to protect core or hide loot in your base.

Cons:

• Can be softsided.

How to build the Triplet Bunker:

---

D-tier:

Floorstacked Bunker

The floorstacked bunker is a Rust bunker made to protect your core. Impractical because you need a lot of pre-work even before you build your started by doing floor stack. It’s also vulnerable to soft-side raiding if floor is not covered by a ramp.

Pros:

• -

Cons:

• Difficult to build and implement in base designs.
• If floor that is sticking out of the bunker gets broken, the bunker opens up. But can be converted from softside to hardside by placing a ramp on top of it.
• Need perfect floor stack to be able to make it and must be done before building the starter of the base.

How to build the Floorstacked Bunker:

---

Suicide Bunker

This Rust bunker is just a sealed off part of your base which you can only access by using F1 kill and respawning inside it. It utilizes either a big box that goes through the wall or a drop boxes to transfer loot between the inside and outside of the bunker.

Pros:

• Simple and easy to build.

Cons:

• Impractical because it takes time to [F1] kill and re-spawn to transfer loot.
• Drop boxes or large box can be destroyed and remove your access to your loot.

How to build the Suicide Bunker:

---

F-tier:

These Rust bunkers are F-tier because they are patched. They are shown here so that people know about them and gets to know that they are patched.

Offset Bunker

---

God Bunker

---

Roden Bunker

---

Pixel Gap Bunker

---

Credit

The pictures and tier-list is based off @CrowRust on YouTube from the following video: