rust raid calculator: Clone & Crossbreeding Calculator

Rust Tools Guide: Cloning, Crossbreeding & Raid Planning

If you've ever lost a raid because you ran out of C4 halfway through a stone wall, or watched a teammate plant random seeds while your farm produced a handful of cloth per hour, you already know why Rust rewards players who plan ahead. The three tools on this page handle the math so you can focus on the fun part: actually breaking into bases and growing enough hemp to keep your team in meds.

Let's walk through how each system works, what the numbers actually mean, and how to squeeze every bit of value out of your sulfur and your seeds.

How Rust Plant Genetics Work

Every plant in Rust—hemp, berries, pumpkins, corn—has exactly six gene slots. Each slot holds one of five genes. Three are good, two are bad. That's the entire system, and once you understand it, you'll never look at a wild seed the same way again.

The Five Genes Explained

• G (Growth): Speeds up every stage of the plant's life cycle. More G means faster harvests. A plant with six G genes grows absurdly quickly, but you sacrifice yield to get there.
• Y (Yield): Directly increases how much cloth, berries, or food you get per harvest. This is the gene that turns a small farm into an industrial operation.
• H (Hardiness): Reduces environmental stress damage and water consumption. Useful in snow biomes where plants take temperature damage, but largely wasted in a climate-controlled farm base.
• W (Water): A red gene. Increases water consumption. Large farms with many W genes drink your sprinkler system dry and dry out planters constantly.
• X (Empty): A dead slot. It does nothing. Every X in your gene string is a wasted opportunity to have a useful gene instead.

The target most farmers aim for is GGGYYY—three Growth and three Yield. That's the classic "God Clone" setup. It grows fast and produces well. Some players prefer GGYYYY (four Yield, two Growth) when they're farming for cloth to sell and don't mind slightly slower growth. The order of the letters doesn't matter—GYGYGY is the same as GGGYYY.

Clone vs. Seed: What's the Difference?

Seeds are random. You loot them, plant them, and get whatever genes the game rolls. Most wild seeds are terrible. Their only purpose is to show you what genes are available, and if you spot something useful, you clone it.

Cloning is how you lock in a genotype. When a plant reaches the Crossbreed or Mature stage, you can use the Clone action instead of harvesting. That gives you a physical clone item—an exact genetic copy of the parent. Plant that clone and it grows with the same six genes, every single time. One good clone is all you need to fill an entire farm base, because you can clone each plant you grow and multiply your stock.

Crossbreeding Mechanics: The Slot-by-Slot System

Crossbreeding happens at one specific moment: when a plant transitions from the Sapling stage to the Crossbreed stage. At that instant, the game looks at the plant's neighbors—the plants growing in adjacent planter slots—and recalculates the genes, slot by slot.

Each of the six slots is resolved independently. For Slot 1, the game adds up the weight of every donor's Slot 1 gene, plus the center plant's Slot 1 gene. The gene with the highest total weight wins that slot. Then it moves to Slot 2 and does the same thing, completely ignoring what happened in Slot 1.

The Weight System

The community has reverse-engineered the exact weights the game uses:

• G, Y, H: weight 0.6 each
• W, X: weight 1.0 each

Bad genes are heavier. That's the core challenge. One X (weight 1.0) beats one G (weight 0.6). To overwrite a red gene with a green one, you need at least two donors carrying the same green gene—0.6 + 0.6 = 1.2, which beats 1.0.

The Strict-Greater Rule

Here's where most players mess up. The donor genes have to beat the center gene's weight strictly. If the donor total equals the center's weight, the center wins and keeps its gene. Ties go to the center.

Example: Center has X in Slot 1 (weight 1.0). Two donors have G (0.6 + 0.6 = 1.2). The donors win, and Slot 1 becomes G. But if only one donor has G (0.6) and another has W (1.0), the donor total is 1.0—a tie. The center X stays.

When two donor genes tie for the highest weight, the game rolls a 50/50 chance between them. If you have ties in multiple slots, those probabilities multiply. Two slot ties give you a 25% chance of the exact outcome you want.

Rust Raid Costs: Sulfur, Explosives & Efficiency

Raiding in Rust is a math problem disguised as a PvP encounter. Every wall, door, and deployable has a fixed HP value. Every explosive deals a fixed damage value. The only variables are which explosive you choose and whether you're hitting the soft side or the hard side.

Structure HP Values

• Wood Wall: 250 HP
• Stone Wall: 500 HP
• Sheet Metal Wall: 1,000 HP
• Armored Wall: 2,000 HP
• Wooden Door: 200 HP
• Sheet Metal Door: 250 HP
• Garage Door: 600 HP
• Armored Door: 800 HP
• Ladder Hatch: 250 HP
• Tool Cupboard: 250 HP
• Auto Turret: 600 HP
• High External Stone Wall: 500 HP
• High External Wooden Wall: 250 HP

Explosive Damage & Sulfur Costs

• C4: 275 damage per charge. Costs 2,200 sulfur. Crafted with 20 Explosives, 5 Cloth, and 2 Tech Trash.
• Rocket: 137 damage per rocket. Costs 1,400 sulfur. Crafted with 10 Explosives and 150 Gunpowder.
• Satchel Charge: 60–70 damage per satchel (variable). Costs 480 sulfur. Crafted with 4 Beancan Grenades, 1 Small Stash, and 1 Rope.
• Explosive 5.56 Ammo: ~5 damage per round to structures. Costs 25 sulfur per round. Crafted with 5 Gunpowder, 3 Metal Fragments, and 2 Lead.
• Beancan Grenade: ~35 damage. Costs 120 sulfur. Crafted with 60 Gunpowder and 20 Metal Fragments.

Soft Side vs. Hard Side

Every building block has a soft side and a hard side. The soft side is the exterior face—the one with the support frame visible. The hard side is the interior. Hitting the soft side deals significantly more damage. A stone wall on the soft side can be broken with melee tools; on the hard side, it takes C4 or rockets.

Doors don't have this mechanic—you always hit the door itself, which has fixed HP. But for walls and foundations, always aim for the soft side if you can get to it. It can cut your sulfur cost in half.

Cheapest vs. Fastest

For a Stone Wall (500 HP, hard side):

• 2 C4 (4,400 sulfur) — fastest
• 4 Rockets (5,600 sulfur) — popular but pricier
• 10 Satchels (4,800 sulfur) — cheaper but slower and risky
• 185 Explosive 5.56 rounds (4,625 sulfur) — cheapest sulfur, but requires a rifle and sustained fire

Explosive ammo often wins on raw sulfur efficiency, but it's impractical for online raids where defenders are shooting back. C4 and rockets are the practical choices when speed matters. Satchels are the budget option for early-wipe raids against wooden or sheet metal doors.

FAQ: Rust Cloning, Crossbreeding & Raiding

Wrapping Up

Rust doesn't hand you anything. Whether you're trying to grow a perfect hemp farm or punch through an armored wall, the game expects you to do the math. These three tools exist so you don't have to do it in your head while someone's shooting at you.

Use the Clone Calculator to check what you've got. Use the Crossbreeding Calculator to plan your breeding chain. Use the Raid Calculator before you leave base so you don't show up to a raid with half the sulfur you need. Bookmark this page—it'll save you more wipes than you can count.