The Missile Silo in Rust is the only monument that hides its entire loot table behind a hatch in the ground, and it is the one most players are scared of for the wrong reason. They think the problem is the radiation. It is not. The problem is that the way in is one way, the way out is a button you have to find, and there is nothing at the bottom to help you if the run goes badly.
It is also, quietly, the cheapest red card monument in the game to unlock. Military Tunnel wants all three keycards and a fuse. Launch Site wants a green card, a red card and two fuses. The Nuclear Missile Silo wants one red keycard and nothing else, which is a fact half the guides on the internet still get wrong.
This guide covers exactly what to bring, how to open the hatch, the route through all six levels, every crate and scientist count, the radiation numbers, both exits, the five CCTV camera codes, and whether the whole thing is actually worth your evening.
- What It Is
- What You Need
- Opening the Hatch
- How to Run It
- Floor by Floor
- Loot Table
- Radiation
- How to Get Out
- Camera Codes
- The Warhead
- vs Other Red Rooms
- Is It Worth It?
- Myths & Mistakes
- Pro Tips
- FAQ
What Is the Missile Silo in Rust?
The Nuclear Missile Silo is a medium sized surface monument sitting on top of a very large underground one. From a distance it looks like a low military compound with a tall radio tower, ringed by trailers, a truck building and a hangar bay. In the middle of that compound is a circular blast hatch, and under the hatch is a six level facility built around a live ICBM.
Facepunch added it in the R.U.S.T. update on 4 May 2023, and described it exactly the way you will first experience it: a small military base marked from a distance by a tall radio tower, with a large hatch in the centre that opens onto a network of underground tunnels.
For its first two and a half years it was a blue card monument. That changed on 2 October 2025 with the Meta Shift update, which made it a red keycard monument, added three extra elite crates and put Advanced Blueprint Fragments in its loot pool. If you are reading a silo guide that says “bring a blue card”, it predates that change and everything else in it is suspect too.
The monument sits inside a no build zone of roughly 90,792 square metres, so nobody can wall it off, and it is not a safe zone. It has no train tunnel entrance and no Chinook drop point, but the Patrol Helicopter can crash there, which occasionally turns the surface into a very good day for whoever is nearby.
What You Need to Enter the Missile Silo
Here is the short version, because this is the single most misreported thing about the monument: one Red Keycard, no Electric Fuse. The hatch is powered already. There is no fuse box to feed.
| Item | How Many | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Red Keycard Required | 1 | Swiped at the reader beside the hatch. Stacks to 1 and despawns in an hour, so carry it in a fresh slot. |
| Electric Fuse Not needed | 0 | The silo puzzle is a card swipe plus a button. No fuse box, no power puzzle. |
| Hazmat Suit Required | 1 | 50% radiation protection. The monument runs a median of 26 rads and peaks at 81. |
| Anti-Radiation Pills | 2 or more | Each clears 75 radiation over 5 seconds for 5 hydration. The Level 5 cavern needs them. |
| Close range gun | 1 | Every fight down there is a corridor or a stairwell. An MP5, a Thompson or a pump shotgun beats a bolt action. |
| Meds and food | Plenty | 27 scientists, and the only free healing is sitting on one of the toilets. |
| Spare backpack space | All of it | There is no recycler on site. Everything you loot goes home raw. |
How to Open the Missile Silo
The hatch is not the first thing you interact with. The card reader is, and it sits in a small building next to the comms tower on the edge of the compound, guarded by regular scientists.
- Clear the surface first. Four blue scientists patrol the outer ring. Kill them before you commit to the card, because you do not want anyone shooting you in the back while you stand at a reader.
- Swipe the Red Keycard at the reader in the tower building. The card survives the swipe. It is the fuse that gets destroyed at other monuments, not the card.
- Press the red button next to the reader. That is what actually drives the hatch.
- Get to the hatch and jump in. The blast door opens and begins closing again shortly afterwards. There is no second press without a second run to the reader.
Once you are through, that is it. The hatch is a one way trip. It does not reopen from below, and there is no ladder back up the shaft. From that moment your only route out is the exit blast doors on Level 1, which is covered further down.
How to Run the Missile Silo, Step by Step
This is the route that wastes the least time. It assumes you want the elite crates and the fragments and you are not trying to clear every single container in one visit, because the surface crates will have reset by the time you climb back out anyway.
- Find the radio tower. The compound is low and easy to miss but the comms tower is visible from several grid squares away.
- Loot the surface. Propane trailers, the red truck building and the hangar bay all hold containers, and clearing them first means fewer scientists behind you.
- Swipe and press. Card reader in the tower building, then the red button beside it.
- Drop through the hatch without touching the door.
- Level 0. You land on steel mesh platforms and start taking fire almost immediately from a night vision scientist in the passage ahead. Radiation begins here.
- Level 1. Office, lobby, storage rooms and restrooms. Roughly five containers, a toilet worth sitting on to heal, and the elevator down.
- Level 2, the gauntlet. Around 11 scientists across an open admin floor, two small jumps across the missile shaft and a pass through lobby. This is where most silo runs end. Take it slowly and use the pillars.
- Elevator straight to Level 5. From Level 2 an elevator skips the middle floors. Level 3 is living quarters with four crates and almost no resistance, and Level 4 is a computer room with a single crate. Both are optional.
- Loot the cavern. The end room holds an elite crate in the back of a pickup truck, three diesel barrels, and the warhead itself. Standing near the warhead stacks radiation fast, so grab and step back.
- Ride back up to Level 1 and head for the exit doors.
Inside the Missile Silo, Floor by Floor
Six levels, numbered 0 through 5, connected by a mix of stairs and three separate elevators. The elevators matter more than the stairs, because two of them are shortcuts that exist specifically so you are not walking the whole facility twice.
| Level | What Is There | Resistance | Worth Stopping? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surface | Radio tower, card reader, trailers, truck building, hangar bay, blast hatch | 4 blue scientists | Yes, and it resets while you are underground |
| Level 0 | Steel mesh landing platforms, conical passage, Office 1 with one crate | 1 night vision scientist | Briefly. Radiation starts here |
| Level 1 | Lobby, storage room, restricted area, restrooms, elevator down | Light patrol | Yes. Around 5 crates and a toilet to heal on |
| Level 2 Danger | Admin office, missile shaft jumps, pass through lobby, pantry, restroom | Around 11 scientists | Yes, but this is the fight |
| Level 3 | Living quarters lobby and two dorm rooms | 2 night vision scientists | Optional. 4 crates, no comfort |
| Level 4 | Computer room | Quiet | Barely. One crate |
| Level 5 Payday | Garage bay, cavern with the warhead, elite crate in a pickup, 3 diesel barrels, countdown laptop | Around 3 scientists | Yes. This is what you came for |
| Missile base | The bottom of the shaft, a dead end side room | None | No loot. Pure sightseeing |
The three elevators run Level 1 to Level 2, Level 2 to Level 5 and Level 5 back to Level 2, with a further car that takes you from Level 2 up to Level 1 next to the exit doors. In practice that means you can skip Levels 3 and 4 entirely on the way down and never see them again on the way out.
Missile Silo Loot: What Is Actually Down There
Around 35 containers in total, weighted heavily towards military crates rather than normal ones, plus four elite crates and a pair of guaranteed Advanced Blueprint Fragments.
| What | How Many | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Elite crates | 4 | Three of these arrived with the October 2025 red card promotion. One sits in the pickup truck in the Level 5 cavern. |
| Military leaning crates | 21 | Split as 12 that roll 70% military and 9 that roll 80% military. |
| Normal leaning crates | 10 | These roll 80% normal, 20% military. |
| Advanced Blueprint Fragments | 2 | Guaranteed collectables. Five Advanced Fragments buys a Workbench Level 3. |
| Diesel Fuel | 3 | Collectable barrels in the Level 5 cavern. Excavator and quarry fuel. |
| Scientists | 27 | 23 underground, 4 on the surface. The underground ones carry night vision goggles. |
| Recyclers | 0 | No recycler, no repair bench, no research table, no vendors, no drone market, no hackable crate. |
Those two Advanced Blueprint Fragments are the reason the monument matters more now than it did in 2024. Since the Meta Shift update, Workbench Level 3 costs 5 Advanced Blueprint Fragments, and they are only guaranteed in hackable crates and here. A single silo run is 40% of a Tier 3 bench, which is a serious number for a group that cannot contest Oil Rig.
Radiation and How Much Protection You Need
The silo runs a median radiation of 26 with peaks of 81 in the worst spots. That median is the highest of any procedural monument, which is what makes it feel worse than Launch Site even though Launch Site has hotter individual rooms.
A Hazmat Suit gives 50% radiation protection and is the entry ticket. It is a full body suit, so no armour layers over the top of it, and that trade is worth making here because nothing down there is going to be a long range fight where armour would save you anyway.
What the suit does not cover is the warhead itself. Standing next to it in the Level 5 cavern stacks radiation very quickly, which is where Anti-Radiation Pills earn their slot: 75 radiation removed over 5 seconds, at a cost of 5 hydration. They are loot only and cannot be crafted, so grab every bottle you find in the weeks before you plan a silo run.
How to Get Out of the Missile Silo
This is the most searched question about the monument, and there is a reason for that: the hatch you came in through does not open from the inside, and nothing in game tells you that before you jump.
Facepunch described the mechanic plainly when the monument shipped: to exit, you find a security room containing a button that temporarily lets you out. In practice there are two doors.
| Exit | Where | How It Works |
|---|---|---|
| Quick Exit Blast Doors Main | Level 1, past the control room and the security checkpoint | A red button in the security checkpoint opens them for a few seconds. Press it and move. |
| Blue exit only blast door Backup | Level 1, reached by the elevator up from Level 2 | One way. It lets you out and does not let anyone in behind you. |
The full exit route from the bottom is: elevator from Level 5 to Level 2, elevator from Level 2 to Level 1, then through the continued lobby where three more night vision scientists wait beside a fire, past the control room, into the security checkpoint, press the red button, and out.
Missile Silo CCTV Camera Codes
The silo has five fixed CCTV cameras, and their codes never change between wipes or between servers. You can read them off the terminal in the security checkpoint on your way out, or just take them from here.
| Code | What It Watches |
|---|---|
SILOTOWER | The comms tower and the card reader building on the surface |
SILOEXIT1 | One of the two Level 1 exit doors |
SILOEXIT2 | The other exit door |
SILOSHIPPING | The shipping and storage area |
SILOMISSILE | The missile shaft itself |
Codes are case sensitive and a Computer Station holds 15 of them at a time. The two exit cameras are the genuinely useful ones: if you are the group camping the monument, they tell you when someone is about to come out. If you are the group inside, a teammate on a station at home can tell you whether the door is clear.
The Warhead and the Countdown Laptop
At the bottom of the facility, in a cavern the game marks as a hard hat area, sits the nuclear warhead. Next to it is a laptop with a black and red screen showing a countdown, which Facepunch introduced simply as an ominous countdown and never explained further.
It has never triggered a launch event. The widely held reading in the community, and the one Corrosion Hour’s monument guide takes, is that it tracks the server’s wipe cycle rather than any in game explosion. Treat it as atmosphere with a useful side effect: it is a clock you can read from inside a monument.
The practical version of that is simpler. If the wipe is close, a silo run is a poor use of an evening, because the Advanced Fragments you carry out are worthless the moment the map resets.
Not sure how long is left? Check the force wipe clock before you burn a red keycard on a monument that takes an hour to clear properly.
Force Wipe CountdownMissile Silo vs the Other Red Card Monuments
There are five red card rooms worth running in procedural Rust. The silo is the cheapest one to open and by some distance the most hostile once you are inside.
| Monument | Bring | Fuses | Scientists | Recyclers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nuclear Missile Silo Tier 3 | 1 red card | 0 | 27, night vision | None |
| Launch Site Tier 3 | 1 green, 1 red | 2 | 8 plus the Bradley | 1 |
| Military Tunnel Tier 3 | Green, blue and red | 1 | 33, aggressive | 1 |
| Power Plant Tier 3 | Green, blue and red | 1 | Roaming only | 3 |
| Airfield Tier 2 | Green, blue, then red for the last door | 2 | 3 | 2 |
Read that table as a shopping decision rather than a difficulty ranking. If you only own one red card and you want it to go furthest, Launch Site pays more raw loot and lets you recycle it on the spot. If what you need is Advanced Blueprint Fragments and elite crates without a Bradley shooting at you, the silo is the better door.
Either way the chain starts in the same place, with a green keycard and a cheap puzzle room, because every red card in the game was a blue card first.
Is the Missile Silo Worth Running?
Yes, but not at every stage of a wipe, and not for the reason most people think.
Early wipe it is a trap. You will not have a red card, and if you somehow do, you would be better off spending it at Launch Site where the loot volume is four times higher and there is a recycler. The silo asks for a hazmat, pills, a decent gun and an hour, and pays out in items you cannot use yet.
Mid wipe it is one of the best runs in the game. Four elite crates and two guaranteed Advanced Fragments, with no Bradley, no heavy scientists and no hackable crate siren announcing you to the server. If you are stuck below Workbench 3, this is the quietest way to fix that.
Late wipe it is a farming loop. Everything resets in about 30 minutes, and because the surface repopulates while you are underground, a single lap of the compound plus the underground run puts you back at the hatch roughly when the reader is worth using again. Bring enough red cards.
Missile Silo Myths and Mistakes
| What People Say | What Is Actually True |
|---|---|
| “Bring a fuse for the elevator” | No fuse is needed anywhere at this monument. The puzzle is a red card swipe and a button press. Several popular guides list a fuse and they are wrong. |
| “It is a blue card monument” | It was until 2 October 2025. The Meta Shift update promoted it to a red card monument and added three elite crates at the same time. |
| “There is a recycler down there” | There is not. No recycler, no repair bench, no research table. Templated monument pages on some sites claim otherwise about almost every monument. |
| “You can climb back out of the hatch” | The hatch is one way. You leave through the blast doors on Level 1 by pressing the red button in the security checkpoint. |
| “The countdown launches the nuke” | It has never triggered a launch. It is atmosphere, generally read as tracking the server wipe cycle. |
| “A hazmat is enough” | A hazmat gets you through the corridors. The warhead cavern still stacks radiation on you through it, which is what the pills are for. |
| “Night is safer” | The underground scientists wear night vision goggles. Darkness helps them, not you. |
Pro Tips for the Missile Silo
- Clear the surface before you swipe. It resets while you are underground, so you get it twice for free, and it means nobody shoots you at the reader.
- Take the Level 2 fight from the stairwell. Pulling eleven scientists into a doorway is a completely different fight to walking into the middle of an open admin floor.
- Sit on a toilet. The restrooms on Levels 1 and 2 have comfort, which regenerates health for free. There are nine toilets in the facility and most players never use one.
- Skip Levels 3 and 4 on a timed run. Five crates between them is not worth the walk when the elevator from Level 2 drops you straight at the cavern.
- Grab the diesel. Three barrels is enough to make a Giant Excavator trip worthwhile, and diesel is one of the few things at the silo that has no substitute.
- Put the exit cameras on a Computer Station at home.
SILOEXIT1andSILOEXIT2turn a blind exit into an informed one. - Fly in. The silo sits inland on most maps and a minicopter turns a fifteen minute run into a two minute one, with a fast escape once you are back on the surface.
- Carry the card in an empty slot. A red keycard stacks to 1 and despawns in an hour. Losing it to a full inventory at the reader is a genuinely common way to waste a trip.
Missile Silo Rust FAQ
What keycard do you need for the Missile Silo in Rust?
Do you need a fuse for the Missile Silo in Rust?
How do you get out of the Missile Silo in Rust?
How much radiation protection do you need for the Missile Silo?
Does the Missile Silo have a recycler in Rust?
How many scientists are in the Missile Silo?
What loot is in the Missile Silo in Rust?
How long does the Missile Silo take to reset in Rust?
Where do you get a red keycard for the Missile Silo?
What are the Missile Silo CCTV codes in Rust?
Can you launch the nuke at the Missile Silo in Rust?
Is the Missile Silo worth doing in Rust?
When was the Missile Silo added to Rust?
Can you build at the Missile Silo in Rust?
Final Thoughts
The Missile Silo rewards preparation more than skill. Nothing inside it is mechanically hard: the scientists are the same scientists as everywhere else, the radiation is survivable in a suit, and the route is linear enough that you cannot really get lost. What catches people is arriving without pills, without spare bag space, or without knowing that the hatch is a one way door.
Sort those three things out and it becomes one of the best value runs in the game. One red keycard, no fuse, four elite crates and two Advanced Blueprint Fragments, and no Bradley or siren telling the whole server where you are.
Get the blue card puzzle done first, take the red card straight to the silo, and check the wipe clock before you commit the evening.
Sources
- Monument release, the surface radio tower, the hatch, the warhead and the countdown laptop, and the security room exit button: Facepunch, R.U.S.T. update, 4 May 2023
- Promotion from blue card to red card, the three additional elite crates, Advanced Blueprint Fragments appearing at the silo, and the Workbench 2 and 3 fragment costs: Facepunch, Meta Shift update, 2 October 2025
- Puzzle requirements (Red Keycard x1, Button x1, no Electric Fuse), radiation median and max, container and elite crate counts, scientist counts, Advanced Fragment and diesel collectables, no build area, reset timer and the absence of a recycler: RustHelp, Missile Silo
- Comparison of a monument that does need a fuse, confirming RustHelp lists fuse requirements where they exist: RustHelp, Water Treatment Plant
- Full floor by floor walkthrough, the card reader and button sequence, the instantly lethal blast door, per level scientist and crate counts, the elevators, the elite crate in the pickup, and both exit doors: Corrosion Hour, RUST Nuclear Missile Silo Monument Guide
- The five fixed CCTV camera codes: RustHelp, CCTV Codes
- Red Keycard stack size, despawn time and the fact that it cannot be crafted or recycled: Facepunch Wiki, Red Keycard
- Fuse and keycard requirements at the other red card monuments: Rustafied, Monument Puzzles Advanced Red Solutions
- The game itself: Facepunch Studios

