Rust Basic Electricity and Solar Panels Guide

Electronics are some of the hardest things to wrap your head around in Rust. Many Rust players will spend thousands of hours in playtime without even touching a wire tool. Using electricity from the start of a wipe will give you an extreme advantage as electricity and modernizing your base with Solar Panels will make anyone 100 times more efficient.

Where Does Electricity Come From in Rust?

There are many ways to get energy in Rust, but the simplest is through solar power. By harnessing the sun, players can charge batteries and feed electric furnaces, turrets, or any item that requires electricity. Solar Panels, like real life, can only gain energy throughout the day, so it’s essential to collect power and store it in batteries.

How Do You Acquire The Necessary Electronics?

Shockingly, many of Rust’s electronic components can be found roadside in boxes and crates. Solar Panels and all the electrical components needed can be found in just the basic crate roadside! If you want to speed up the process and not rely on luck, the tech tree is another fantastic way to find all the complicated parts needed.

What Is Needed For A Basic Electrical Setup?

The most basic setups require three panels, one battery (large, medium, or small), a root combiner, an electrical branch, and, most importantly, a wire tool. The battery choice is up to you as the three different battery types are similar but hold various amounts of electricity. If you plan on powering more than two electronics with this battery, you should have a medium battery at minimum. For this guide, we will use a small battery to display the easiest way to set up a panel.

Solar Panel Placement

Contrary to some speculation within the community, the best placement is to have your solar panels facing north. Using the compass at the top of the Rust HUD, align your panels directly north. In most cases, the installation should be on a player’s roof, but panels can be placed elsewhere if needed. Solar panels must be placed in sunlight and not blocked by walls, deployables, or other items.

Basic Circuit

The picture provided is an example of an extremely basic circuit. Of course, in a real game scenario, the battery should be placed inside your base, not externally. Everything can be placed externally, but generally, other than the solar panels, electric panels should be placed indoors. This basic circuit has an electric output of about 60. A small battery can hold about 400 power, but if you need more, the medium is the best middle-ground battery. You can utilize root combiners to combine all the Solar Panels into one central line. Root combiners combine multiple outputs into a singular output, which can then be connected to the battery input.

How To Connect An Electrical Item To A Battery

Say, for example, you want to produce a ton of cooked metal, but you do not want to farm. The perfect answer is the use of an excellent electrical furnace. First, you will grab your wiring tool and connect one end to the battery’s output connector, then walk over to your electric furnace, for example, and put the wire into the input connector. Now you have it! Wiring is as simple as output to input!

Connecting Multiple Items To One Battery

Some items have the option to have a “passthrough” cord. The passthrough option allows the power to go straight from one item to the next without needing an electrical branch. If you have two items with no passthrough option, the electrical branch can split the battery’s output into two outputs by plugging the wire into the electrical branch’s input. As you can see in the image provided, the two furnaces can be powered by a single battery using an electrical branch.